MANPADS can be effective against large drones, but definitely not against the kind of FOV shit we see in Ukraine. They were originally designed to kill helicopters and low flying aircraft, and I'm guessing that's still his design intent.

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niemandhier 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

My understanding is that for the civilians in Ukraine Shaheed style drones are the danger.

	▲	jacquesm 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		They are but the Ukrainians are making some serious inroads into the effectiveness of those drones and if they keep that up for a little while longer they will have near perfect ability to shoot them down. Essentially they've built hunter-killer drones that are sent off in the general direction of Shahed that then either succeed or fail in their mission. That success rate has been very steadily climbing over the last couple of months. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sting_(drone)

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Svoka 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

So far russia launched over 57 000 Iranian/inspired shahed drones. They are like 6ft long drones with 40+ lbs payload with couple hundreds of miles of range.

USA/NATO/allies heavily rely on Patriot AA system. Even if you disregard the prohibitive 100x cost difference, there are about 2500 Patriot compatible PAC missiles.

This is why gulf states are scrambling to get their hands on cheap alternatives - Ukraine manages to shoot down over 90% of all drones heading their way, usually it is over 400 per day in big waves.

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tamimio 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>FOV

FPV.

But I really hate the whole weaponization of these FPV drones (as opposed to the bigger fixed wings ones), not just they ruined the fun hobby that a lot enjoy, but also increased the prices for the parts. Before 2022 whenever I talk about drones everyone is enthusiastic about them, what benefits they can bring like drone deliveries and all, after that, you get a hostile reaction or the government putting you on some watchlist.

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jacquesm 6 hours ago | parent [-]

You can hate it, but at the same time, without it Ukraine would have been overrun by now and I think that trumps your feelings about your hobby.

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tamimio 5 hours ago | parent [-]

That's not true at all, the success rates of these fpv drones are around 1 to 100, ie out of 100 failed attempt you get a hit, but you only see the successful ones, and those aren't my words, this is straight up from a Canadian soldier in Ukraine (1). And you can actually ask any hobbyist, they will tell you how prone to failure/crashes/loss these fpv small drones are, after all, they are meant to be for fun.

(1) https://youtu.be/K8o4afysnBg?t=766

	▲	jacquesm 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I wasn't talking about the success rate for any individual drone, but about the cumulative effect. And the success rate of individual missions depends very strongly on which part of the front you are looking at and what kind of missions are flown. Just to give you one figure: estimates are that between 1000 and 1500 Shaheds have been downed by interceptors during last February. That's not a 100% kill rate but it definitely isn't 1% either. And they're getting better every week.