Ukraine claimed that its forces destroyed nearly 50 Russian tanks in one day, as Russia tried to capture Avdiivka, a small city in the east of the country.
The Ukrainian General Staff said that in one day of fighting, nearly 900 Russians were killed and 100 units of their armored equipment were also destroyed.
A video shared by Ukraine’s military on Friday appeared to show Russian tanks and armor being destroyed as they headed towards the eastern Ukrainian city.
By the looks of the videos I’ve seen, the Ukrainians have turned small drone warfare into an artform.
They use them to find the Russians from up high and either send artillery or other drones, and seem to have designed a sport like “from how high can you drop a grenade into an open hatch?”. I believe that any high, whirring sounds on the front will make Russians nervous in the future.
There was one account here on Lemmy saying that the drones cannot be heard due to ubiquitous tinnitus and the low range of high pitched noises.
That’s why those soldiers never react to drones flying overhead.
Even with good hearing you can fly consumer drones high enough that no one on the ground can hear them.
That high makes them pretty difficult to see as well.
You could probably use this as a tactic to cause mayhem on the front lines.
If there’s a line you are having difficulty pushing through just fly like 2 dozen cheap drones over head and soldiers may start to run just because they hear the whirring, the drones don’t even have to have grenades equipped, or maybe just a few so they hear some explosions.
There is footage on Ukraine channel of a drone flying through a dense forest and making several passes over trenches through there before finding a soldier and doing a suicide run into him.
I wonder if they have so many drones that a single soldier is worth it?
It’s more than the cost of a human life versus the cost of a drone. That footage is now propaganda. Imagine you’re a Russian soldier who knows fairly little about technology. Now imagine that clip makes its way to you. Ukranians are willing to take out even a single soldier. How safe are you?
Also, that single soldier could have been a scout with some useful information. Secrets are the most expensive weapon in any war.
Human beings are expensive - munitions are relatively cheap. A suicide drone is probably around 20k - 20k for an enemy casualty is a bargain in modern wars.
And that’s exactly why Ukraine is kicking ass. Paying $20k or $30k for a single enemy casualty is a pretty good deal in warfare. But these drones aren’t going through some huge defense contractor, they’re being 3D printed and assembled from off-the-shelf parts. Basically a little army of logistics people building hobby drones out of consumer level equipment, just with an improvised explosive like a grenade or some similar impact explosive strapped to the bottom.
They aren’t even paying $20k for a casualty, they are paying $1-2k for a hobby drone and a grenade and many of them create multiple casualties.
The more expensive ones cost more, but those are the ones you see that are reusable and can drop several grenades in one flight. Those are more like $5k-$20k. Still an insane bargain even if each one only creates one casualty before it is destroyed.
The suicide FPV drones they are using are a few hundred to a thousand dollars. The recon/grenade-dropping drones, depending on model, get that expensive.
Yes, they create those FPV drones themselves and then stick a premade explosive like a 40mm HE or and RPG warhead on them. The drones are alao mostly 3D-printed.
https://euromaidanpress.com/2023/08/17/ukraine-develops-autonomous-fpv-drones-photos/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2023/04/11/the-new-company-mass-producing-attack-drones-for-ukraine/
Two recent examples, but they cost about a few hundred to a thousand dollars each.
It’s worth it to force the other soldiers to take cover and slow their advance, it’s worth it to control their pace.
It’s also about terror, it’s about sending a message.
From the clips I’ve seen, if this ever becomes an Olympic sport the rest of us have 0 chance.