As Watling himself puts it: “Unhardened UAVs are disposable tools like munitions and get consumed very rapidly. You need them in your force and you need them to be cheap.”

For decades, Western armies have relied on a few expensive, 'exquisite' high-tech platforms, and that includes drones. This conflict of disposable drones may lead to a radical change in military procurement towards the many and the cheap.

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[–] mysticaldeknoi@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

“…even if the figure really is 10,000, this appears sustainable…10,000 DJI quadcopters at an average cost of about $1,000 would be $10m. Last week, Russia lost an Su-34 bomber, with a sticker price of something over $40m…

“And yesterday Russia apparently lost an even more advanced Su-35, which goes for around $85m. Together these two aircraft alone represent a loss ten times as great as all Ukraine’s drones for the month put together.“

The headline is pretty much clickbait. $10m is a drop in the bucket.

[–] sexy_peach@feddit.de 4 points 1 year ago

Yeah! I thought it was interesting that it's not a big deal.

[–] Weirdmusic@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Great breakdown, very enlightening

[–] nhgeek@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago

This conflict has unique characteristics and will rewrite some "rules" for modern war.

[–] Ilovethebomb@lemmy.nz 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Does this includes the kamakaze FPV units? The ones that are meant to be expended?

[–] Ulijin 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Good point. They are pretty cheap to construct. All in less than €400 per unit but will take a few hours each to build.

[–] Ilovethebomb@lemmy.nz 4 points 1 year ago

Pretty cheap for the damage they do, of course.

[–] sexy_peach@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

good question, idk

[–] OwlPaste@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wouldn't we by now be seeing piles of dead drones being showcased daily if they were lost in such a high number? Like it was done with the recent loss of leos?

[–] Cypher@aussie.zone 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A lot of these drone losses will be little more than shrapnel strewn across the battlefield. Not much to show off.

[–] OwlPaste@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If they get shot down sure, but jammed drones would either land or fall, in either way theres plently to go for a drone carcass surely.

[–] Cypher@aussie.zone 2 points 1 year ago

True but then it becomes a logistics and organisation problem for a fairly meaningless photo op and Russia aren’t doing well with either of those things.

[–] FaceDeer@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They're not going to be in a pile, though. They're still going to be individual drones lying in ditches in no-man's land. Hardly a compelling photo-op.

[–] OwlPaste@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

We have reports that russia is running out of materials, surely if the drones are flying around they would be closer to their front lines, so easier opportunity to recover.

I mean just logically, russia is not doing so well in the information war, so I assumed they would use any opportunity to showcase their achievements, like they have done with the several bradleys/leos destroyed. They were milking that footage for a week at least.

So to me its weird that they have not tried to improve morale with such statistics. But I obviously have no clue on combat morale.

[–] leds@feddit.dk 3 points 1 year ago

RUSI? Tried to look them up to see if theysharee more than just letters with Russia. Found this great assessment from 2019 UK would be 'outgunned' in Russia conflict - think-tank

So if not biased just incompetent?

[–] 73ms@fosstodon.org 2 points 1 year ago

@sexy_peach In one of Hromadske's reports from Bakhmut a drone team did quote a fairly high number for drone losses. Not sure how accurate 10k a month is but it doesn't strike me as completely unbeliveable in relation to that.