this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
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Ukraine

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New Report: Ukraine Drone Losses Are ‘10,000 Per Month’ (web.archive.org)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
16 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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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[–] [email protected] 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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Great breakdown, very enlightening

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 3 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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Pretty cheap for the damage they do, of course.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

good question, idk

[–] [email protected] 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?

[–] [email protected] 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.

[–] [email protected] 2 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.

[–] [email protected] 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.

[–] [email protected] 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.

[–] [email protected] 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.

[–] [email protected] 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?

[–] [email protected] 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.