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But artillery only has a short range, less than 50-60km. Ukraina is bombing trucks with FPV drones at that range now. So you'd need serious anti-drone capabili

But artillery only has a short range, less than 50-60km. Ukraina is bombing trucks with FPV drones at that range now. So you'd need serious anti-drone capabilities to get the artillery close enough, and good luck if you have it sitting around deployed for any lenghth of time.

jyounker 6mo ago
Modern artillery doesn't sit in fixed emplacements. It fires a few shells, and then moves. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archer_artillery_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archer_artillery_system
- magicalhippo 6mo ago
  Sure, but when they're moving they're not shooting, so those few shells better count. Both shooting and moving is very detrimental to staying hidden. And with FPV drones moving doesn't do you much good unless you move out of drone range, which as mentioned is or very nearly is 2x the effective range of such artillery systems. The attack drones don't have to be big, just big enough to score a mobility kill and the artillery is pretty much f'd in the a...
lopsotronic 6mo ago
I pushed a somewhat over lengthy reply above, but short version for this context is that GPS/FPV in current EW/EMI regime has unacceptable loss rates in UA (see also many many grounded / "spared" US origin "precision" weapons because GWOT era crap has totally vanilla gps), which means fiber, which means the range is back to within 20-40km. Unless the target is low risk/value, or on the move AND low value, or (most likely) you have truly bananas amount of drone magazine to burn through. Laser mesh networks I think are also being tried, but again, that's a bunch of drones. Another downside of fiber is the same downside as laser sighting - there is an arrow painted on the ground back to your position. The fiber is no viz to your eyeball, but not to dynamic filters on your drone's EOIR. That will get back to counterbatteries or enemy fiber drone - and if their first arty shot is a guided arty (tube or rocket) you don't get the warning of ranging "framing" shots. The WW2 experience mindset couldn't be a worse metaphor here.

jyounker 6mo ago

Modern artillery doesn't sit in fixed emplacements. It fires a few shells, and then moves. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archer_artillery_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archer_artillery_system

magicalhippo 6mo ago
Sure, but when they're moving they're not shooting, so those few shells better count. Both shooting and moving is very detrimental to staying hidden. And with FPV drones moving doesn't do you much good unless you move out of drone range, which as mentioned is or very nearly is 2x the effective range of such artillery systems. The attack drones don't have to be big, just big enough to score a mobility kill and the artillery is pretty much f'd in the a...

lopsotronic 6mo ago

I pushed a somewhat over lengthy reply above, but short version for this context is that GPS/FPV in current EW/EMI regime has unacceptable loss rates in UA (see also many many grounded / "spared" US origin "precision" weapons because GWOT era crap has totally vanilla gps), which means fiber, which means the range is back to within 20-40km. Unless the target is low risk/value, or on the move AND low value, or (most likely) you have truly bananas amount of drone magazine to burn through. Laser mesh networks I think are also being tried, but again, that's a bunch of drones. Another downside of fiber is the same downside as laser sighting - there is an arrow painted on the ground back to your position. The fiber is no viz to your eyeball, but not to dynamic filters on your drone's EOIR. That will get back to counterbatteries or enemy fiber drone - and if their first arty shot is a guided arty (tube or rocket) you don't get the warning of ranging "framing" shots. The WW2 experience mindset couldn't be a worse metaphor here.