#video on #Ukraine #slaughterbots (#weaponry #drones) reaching Moscow en masse and hitting precision targets (including many oil refineries) starting May 17, instead of 90% getting shot down and the rest hitting random crap (not sure if I believe that). Apparently they have better intelligence and they’ve blown up more of Russia’s air defenses. Also operatives inside Russia are launching drones. Profile of Ukrainian Commander Robert “Madyar” Brovdi, whose parents have now survived two Russian assassination attempts within Ukraine, using rocket launchers: reprisals against family members of key military officers are apparently routine in today’s form of war. They’re using “FP1” “Firepoint” winged drones vaguely similar to the Shahed: 1600km, 130 “pound” payload; and the jet-powered RS1 Bars: 800km, 200 “pound” payload. Russia has built a new air defense ring of 40 truss towers at some distance around Moscow.
on 02026-05-23Russian warblogger commenting on the #Ukraine #slaughterbots #news, suggesting ways to tweak Russian tactics to deal better with #drones.
on 02026-04-13#news from last week: Russia calls the new #weaponry #drones from #Ukraine "Martians" or "Bumblebees": “The enemy has begun using new drones called ‘Martians,’ which, unfortunately, have a cruising speed of up to 300 kilometers/hour [186 miles / hour], no longer fly under operator guidance but are controlled by [#AI],” [Horlivko Russian mayor] Prikhodko said. “They are undetectable by electronic warfare systems, and drone detectors don’t spot them.” And Apti Alauidnov: “It appears they are jointly produced, Ukraine-Germany, Ukraine-France. They are modernized. They fly farther than the old ones.” Plausibly, though, these are not full-fledged #slaughterbots but just using LPD radio links to a teleoperator.
on 02026-04-13talking-head #video on #weaponry #drones. Says #Ukraine front-line military units buy directly from manufacturers on an Amazon-like platform called “Brave One”. “The side that masters drones at scale, in doctrine, in training, and in organization will shape how wars are fought in the coming decades.” #slaughterbots
on 02026-04-12#Joby partners with #L3Harris (“the defense industry’s Trusted Disruptor”) to make #eVTOL #slaughterbots
on 02025-08-01#video on Australian #PPDS #drones: cardboard, or waxed-paper foamboard sandwich, airplane-shaped, “origami of death”, being used in #Ukraine for #weaponry. 24 shipped flat-packed in a pizza box, front propeller, catapult launch, straight wings attached with rubber bands, 5.3 “pounds” empty, 6.6 “pounds” payload, 37 “miles” per hour, 75 “miles” range. Unit price speculated to be between $670 and $3350, an oddly precise upper bound suggesting wankery around exchange rates. It’s claimed that the MiG-29 and four Su-30s destroyed at the Kursk airbase were destroyed with these drones at well over their nominal range. #slaughterbots
on 02025-02-27#video #interview about #Slaughterbots with Shashank Joshi of the Economist.
on 02025-01-30#video of ground-based #Slaughterbots in #Ukraine (D-21-11) looks like a slow-moving four-wheeler ATV. The presenter calls it “their drone” and a “UGV”. Ukrainian design. Allen bolts, lots of laser-cut (?) steel plate. The machine gun is mounted on shock absorbers (something like McPherson struts, with springs around what looks like a ground steel piston, but I think it’s actually just sliding through greased bushings). The cut metal plates, which have weight-reduction cutouts, are bent and intermittently welded onto structural steel tubing to form the frame. No visible ribs, so they probably aren’t pressed, just cut and bent in a brake. Lots and lots and lots of screws, probably optimized for field hackability and repairs. There’s a ripcord, but not for pull-starting the engine. About the size of a riding lawnmower or golf cart, and about as fast in what they show here. It can carry about 4–6 people when the machine gun isn’t mounted, or one person in a lying-down position, tied down with bungee cords to built-in D-ring tiedown spots. It’s electric with 15km of battery; the battery does have ribs. Two or three cameras on both the front and the back surrounded by near-infrared LEDs. Two 1.5-meter-long things at the back that seem to be large whip antennas. Turns in place like a tank rather than by turning the wheels; there seems to be a chain drive to each wheel, protected by a metal chain guard. It seems you can drive it from a laptop with a game controller or from a purpose-built FPV remote controller.
on 02024-06-25another #video #toread on #PPDS #Slaughterbots #weaponry in #Ukraine #flying
on 02024-06-25#video from 9 months ago on flat-pack waxed cardboard drone #weaponry in #Ukraine “destroying Russian jets”; the airfoils and the rest of the bodies are assembled with rubber bands and tape and can be repaired with a hot glue gun, cardboard, and tape. Looks like there are some wooden rails (dowels?) for mounting the airfoils. Mainly powered by a single #brushless motor and propeller. Brands printed on the body are “Tanglewood Group Ltd.”, “SYPAQ Australia” (who exhibited it at a military trade show this year), and “CORVO precision payload delivery system” ("PPDS"). There’s what look like laser-cut balsa or other hardwood spars in the kit, at least in some cases plywood. SYPAQ’s Michael Partridge is quoted as saying a laptop allows you to “mission plan and launch” it, so presumably it’s not FPV, though FPV seems to be the main approach used these days. “About a shoebox size [unassembled], can carry roughly three kilos. (...) we've delivered over 600 of the PPDS into Ukraine.” Has been supplying “100 of these every month since March”. Mentions a strike at an airbase at Kursk destroying “five fighter jets, a missile launcher, and an air defense system,” then another attack on a Russian site a few days later destroying two cargo planes, also probably with these cardboard drones. #Pricing quoted at AU$5000 per drone. #Slaughterbots #flying
on 02024-06-25"Slaughterbots" #video on #drones. Shortened URL <https://is.gd/slaughterbots>.
on 02018-10-19