The Russians seem to still have a lot of ground radars in occupied Ukraine. Also very interesting the use of airburst munitions in FPVs. I remember seeing Russian rosgvardia moving aimlessly in Kharkiv during the start of the 2022 invasion and wondering if drones would be used for such. Glad its now happening and being used.
As yet, I don't have a good handle of how many radars Russia has. As with other categories of Russian equipment, despite their losses, they often have a lot more that are still functioning.
I´m asking myself: every other day I read of the immense availability of drones from the russian sides (just read they are going to produce 300000 drones and train 5200 drone controllers per month)... how comes all videos I see are practically one sided? How comes there are no reports of high vehicle losses or at least high personnel losses? Am I biased and the russian channels are full of these or what?
Sidenote for Mr. Cooper since I cannot write on his FB profile: was the F-5A/E a good fighter-bomber? I recall videos with napalm canisters but were they good for other A2G missions at all given their tiny size?
There are a couple reasons for that on my end. One is that Russian videos have a higher chance of being misleading. They'll show the impact but not the aftermath of the explosion, even if the video is from a second observation drone. They'll show the same impact from four different angles and call it four different kills. They'll repost videos from the past and call it current. Ukraine's posts tend to be more honest and show the complete attack if there's an observation drone. On the other hand, they tend just to show the successful attacks, with a few exceptions. A while ago, a Ukrainian drone operator said it took about five drones to kill one vehicle. (Losses to jamming and shootdowns, misses and ineffective hits account for 4/5 of the drone attacks).
Another reason is that Russians post a ton of stuff on Telegram and I can only view maybe 10% of those videos because the "media is too big".
On top of that, I posted that Andrew Perpetua collected data that someone analyzed and showed that for all the Russian drones in the air, his sample showed that Ukraine had a slight edge on drone attacks on infantry and greatly outnumbers Russia on drone attacks on vehicles. Andrew does regularly view Telegram, so he has access to that source, and there's still the caveat that these are limited by the videos Andrew was able to see. But it's still a significant trend that indicates for all the drones that are out there, Ukrainian drones seem to be siginficantly more effective.
Thanks, sounds reasonable. So now my question is: is it a consolidated situation or in time russia will exploit in the future the battlefield with its production?
On the other end I read from other sources that actually the Ukrainians actually need 10 drones per destroyed/disabled vehicle but this is even more surpising if we take for granted that the russians have the edge in EW... much more effective with a lot less drones...
Ukraine's goal is to build a million drones this year. (Goals are not the same as accomplishments). How many drones Ukraine and its allies produce compared to how many drones Russia, Iran, North Korea and China produces (some of which is sold to Ukraine) will determine the raw power in that category. Utilization and EW will multiply or divide that power.
A year ago Russia had a strong EW advantage. They were able to largely shut down access to Ukrainian drones in the Kupiansk and Bakhmut area that were spotting for Ukrainian artillery and destroying Russian artillery. That isn't true anymore. Ukraine seized the EW advantage in the Kherson region, particularly around Krynky, it wavered for a little bit with parity, and then it seems as if Ukraine regained their EW advantage. Two weeks ago, Ukraine reported that it downed 20 of 24 Russian drones it encountered in one day due to jamming. Russia started with an EW advantage at Avdiivka and then lost it. A Ukrainian said that EW superiority seems to last about two months before it is countered, and with time the counter is countered.
Artillery still causes 70% of all casualties, down from 90%. Part of the reason it has been reduced is that ammo for both sides has been reduced. They're simply not firing as many shells. I don't know how much of that other 30% is caused by drones, but while drones play a very important role, including in causing artillery casualties, drones by themselves have a long way to go before they surpass artillery.
I read an interview that stated that Ukrainian volunteers that provide FPV drones to the soldiers require the drone operators to save videos of their successful attacks as a proof of the operator's skill. This is necessary as there is deficit of drones, thus the volunteers must choose the best operators to make sure the provided drones are used efficiently.
It is likely that some of those saved videos reach the Internet.
I read the same thing. If a military unit didn't provide them with videos then they didn't get any more drones.
The Ukraine army also has a drone school and if you don't pass the standards you don't get certified. That said, some units create their own drone operators on top of what is authorized and give them the official titles of cooks and drivers.
Some units are better at PR than others and that helps them generate donations. For instance, the fighting around Kupiansk has have been fighting hard for 15 months now but only last month did I see regular videos of fighting. Magyar is really good at raising money for drones, EW jamming devices, rubber boats with motors and wheeled stretchers that can be used to pull wounded soldiers a couple of miles. You need to show positive results to generate new donations and Magyar's birds show a lot of positive results. They're an effective unit that is deployed in tough situations, like Bakhmut and Krynky. But they don't show when their drones miss.
The Russians seem to still have a lot of ground radars in occupied Ukraine. Also very interesting the use of airburst munitions in FPVs. I remember seeing Russian rosgvardia moving aimlessly in Kharkiv during the start of the 2022 invasion and wondering if drones would be used for such. Glad its now happening and being used.
As yet, I don't have a good handle of how many radars Russia has. As with other categories of Russian equipment, despite their losses, they often have a lot more that are still functioning.
I´m asking myself: every other day I read of the immense availability of drones from the russian sides (just read they are going to produce 300000 drones and train 5200 drone controllers per month)... how comes all videos I see are practically one sided? How comes there are no reports of high vehicle losses or at least high personnel losses? Am I biased and the russian channels are full of these or what?
Sidenote for Mr. Cooper since I cannot write on his FB profile: was the F-5A/E a good fighter-bomber? I recall videos with napalm canisters but were they good for other A2G missions at all given their tiny size?
There are a couple reasons for that on my end. One is that Russian videos have a higher chance of being misleading. They'll show the impact but not the aftermath of the explosion, even if the video is from a second observation drone. They'll show the same impact from four different angles and call it four different kills. They'll repost videos from the past and call it current. Ukraine's posts tend to be more honest and show the complete attack if there's an observation drone. On the other hand, they tend just to show the successful attacks, with a few exceptions. A while ago, a Ukrainian drone operator said it took about five drones to kill one vehicle. (Losses to jamming and shootdowns, misses and ineffective hits account for 4/5 of the drone attacks).
Another reason is that Russians post a ton of stuff on Telegram and I can only view maybe 10% of those videos because the "media is too big".
On top of that, I posted that Andrew Perpetua collected data that someone analyzed and showed that for all the Russian drones in the air, his sample showed that Ukraine had a slight edge on drone attacks on infantry and greatly outnumbers Russia on drone attacks on vehicles. Andrew does regularly view Telegram, so he has access to that source, and there's still the caveat that these are limited by the videos Andrew was able to see. But it's still a significant trend that indicates for all the drones that are out there, Ukrainian drones seem to be siginficantly more effective.
https://twitter.com/HartreeFock/status/1742562500938256442
Thanks, sounds reasonable. So now my question is: is it a consolidated situation or in time russia will exploit in the future the battlefield with its production?
On the other end I read from other sources that actually the Ukrainians actually need 10 drones per destroyed/disabled vehicle but this is even more surpising if we take for granted that the russians have the edge in EW... much more effective with a lot less drones...
Ukraine's goal is to build a million drones this year. (Goals are not the same as accomplishments). How many drones Ukraine and its allies produce compared to how many drones Russia, Iran, North Korea and China produces (some of which is sold to Ukraine) will determine the raw power in that category. Utilization and EW will multiply or divide that power.
A year ago Russia had a strong EW advantage. They were able to largely shut down access to Ukrainian drones in the Kupiansk and Bakhmut area that were spotting for Ukrainian artillery and destroying Russian artillery. That isn't true anymore. Ukraine seized the EW advantage in the Kherson region, particularly around Krynky, it wavered for a little bit with parity, and then it seems as if Ukraine regained their EW advantage. Two weeks ago, Ukraine reported that it downed 20 of 24 Russian drones it encountered in one day due to jamming. Russia started with an EW advantage at Avdiivka and then lost it. A Ukrainian said that EW superiority seems to last about two months before it is countered, and with time the counter is countered.
Artillery still causes 70% of all casualties, down from 90%. Part of the reason it has been reduced is that ammo for both sides has been reduced. They're simply not firing as many shells. I don't know how much of that other 30% is caused by drones, but while drones play a very important role, including in causing artillery casualties, drones by themselves have a long way to go before they surpass artillery.
I read an interview that stated that Ukrainian volunteers that provide FPV drones to the soldiers require the drone operators to save videos of their successful attacks as a proof of the operator's skill. This is necessary as there is deficit of drones, thus the volunteers must choose the best operators to make sure the provided drones are used efficiently.
It is likely that some of those saved videos reach the Internet.
I read the same thing. If a military unit didn't provide them with videos then they didn't get any more drones.
The Ukraine army also has a drone school and if you don't pass the standards you don't get certified. That said, some units create their own drone operators on top of what is authorized and give them the official titles of cooks and drivers.
Some units are better at PR than others and that helps them generate donations. For instance, the fighting around Kupiansk has have been fighting hard for 15 months now but only last month did I see regular videos of fighting. Magyar is really good at raising money for drones, EW jamming devices, rubber boats with motors and wheeled stretchers that can be used to pull wounded soldiers a couple of miles. You need to show positive results to generate new donations and Magyar's birds show a lot of positive results. They're an effective unit that is deployed in tough situations, like Bakhmut and Krynky. But they don't show when their drones miss.
Stick a Claymore mine under a drone and presto, deadly airburst.