I would speculate they are not classic smoothbore cannons either, as shot from large caliber cannon without any sort of recoil mechanism could easily damage/destroy the drone.
I think they are recoilless guns, just open tube with explosive charge in the middle, projectile in front and counterweight behind (look-up original Panzerfaust operating principle).
There is no simpler way to construct firearm really, and they have very low max barrel pressures for given projectile energy, so maybe even PVC tube as barrel would work...
I saw 2 barrels on some videos... With lightweight barrels (cfrp tubes), probably even more would be feasible, there is a precedent for multiple recoilless guns on one vehicle -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M50_Ontos
And here I was hoping for a resurrection of the good old hand gun, next step would be to mount a shooter on it with an eye patch as well, yelling arrrr! Before shooting down two and swashbuckling down another ten… sigh… alas not to be. Your explanation makes far to much sense. And I think Ukrainian innovations here is very much about sense. (But maybe a movie? )
The shooter that you would desire to mount on such a UAV should be an expert skeet shooter. There are more than a few gun nuts in my neck of the woods who just might volunteer for such exiciting duty. **ROFLMAO**
Anyone who has flown a drone knows you don't need a tree to bring them down, just a few leaves. My guess is they shoot some sort of entanglement something. The prop will happily do all the work.
It depends -> it's true for consumer grade small drone like DJI mini with feeble motors and small folding propellers, but your average strike FPV drone in UA theater is a 10" prop machine with ~3115 6S motors, capable of flying 20km with 3kg payload and stiff glass-reinforced nylon propellers, sporting very rugged frame.
It's capable of cutting your fingers of in a blink if you are not careful - each motor has more then 2 horsepower peak power, ~9hp in total, one motor has almost the same power as small moped.
If not for fused payload, it would be capable of cutting/flying through small branches without any issues and few leaves certainly won't take it down, entanglement net would have to quite strong to reliably work.
And now even bigger quads are in vogue and appearing in increased numbers, 13-15" machines running on 8-12S batteries...
Actually, my first thought on seeing that the bores were significantly larger than even an 8 or 10 bore shotgun was that they could be using something like an M79 grenade launcher.
40mm bore, hi/low pressure, and with a canister round already in production.
Haven't checked recoil or what the effective range would be for the canister or whether a solid or explosive projectile would be preferable.
I would speculate they are not classic smoothbore cannons either, as shot from large caliber cannon without any sort of recoil mechanism could easily damage/destroy the drone.
I think they are recoilless guns, just open tube with explosive charge in the middle, projectile in front and counterweight behind (look-up original Panzerfaust operating principle).
There is no simpler way to construct firearm really, and they have very low max barrel pressures for given projectile energy, so maybe even PVC tube as barrel would work...
This makes a lot of sense.
I assume the fighter-drone has multiple barrels for single shots at enemy drones?
I saw 2 barrels on some videos... With lightweight barrels (cfrp tubes), probably even more would be feasible, there is a precedent for multiple recoilless guns on one vehicle -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M50_Ontos
However, Ukrainian fighter-drones armed in this way, as far as I know, have not been used against enemy drones of the Lancet and Geran types.
And here I was hoping for a resurrection of the good old hand gun, next step would be to mount a shooter on it with an eye patch as well, yelling arrrr! Before shooting down two and swashbuckling down another ten… sigh… alas not to be. Your explanation makes far to much sense. And I think Ukrainian innovations here is very much about sense. (But maybe a movie? )
The shooter that you would desire to mount on such a UAV should be an expert skeet shooter. There are more than a few gun nuts in my neck of the woods who just might volunteer for such exiciting duty. **ROFLMAO**
Anyone who has flown a drone knows you don't need a tree to bring them down, just a few leaves. My guess is they shoot some sort of entanglement something. The prop will happily do all the work.
Amen! I remember the early days. A strong breeze and there goes your $1000 drone. Never to be seen again.
Yes I hope they experiment with all kinds of ammo.
Same thing happened to me. An FPV drone, fortunately, probably only $300. I still wonder where it ended up ;)
It depends -> it's true for consumer grade small drone like DJI mini with feeble motors and small folding propellers, but your average strike FPV drone in UA theater is a 10" prop machine with ~3115 6S motors, capable of flying 20km with 3kg payload and stiff glass-reinforced nylon propellers, sporting very rugged frame.
It's capable of cutting your fingers of in a blink if you are not careful - each motor has more then 2 horsepower peak power, ~9hp in total, one motor has almost the same power as small moped.
If not for fused payload, it would be capable of cutting/flying through small branches without any issues and few leaves certainly won't take it down, entanglement net would have to quite strong to reliably work.
And now even bigger quads are in vogue and appearing in increased numbers, 13-15" machines running on 8-12S batteries...
Thanks! Knowledge updated!
Some sort of shrapnel?
Let's call them "Flying Arquebuses" then :-)
Thanks for this analysis. Interstellar and detailed. A little low on sarcasm maybe, but I guess I will have to live with that. Keep on writing.
Actually, my first thought on seeing that the bores were significantly larger than even an 8 or 10 bore shotgun was that they could be using something like an M79 grenade launcher.
40mm bore, hi/low pressure, and with a canister round already in production.
Haven't checked recoil or what the effective range would be for the canister or whether a solid or explosive projectile would be preferable.
It would use long developed technology.
A very good idea.
Off topic and i might be wrong but the time where Syrskyi start blaming others and competent people to cover his own ass might have begun
https://x.com/Militarylandnet/status/1881723907990040812
Neat insight, thanks to Jan too.