We are really quite f'ked. There is commercial equipment avalble to guide a tractor in a field

[31j20b3]

using GPS.

That very same stuff, can with at bit of knowledge, guide a terrestrial weapons carrying drone.

Think of a double wide tracked ATV with some sort of weapon mounted on it.

This shit seems like the Ukranians were full of genius.... But it is actually pretty much a variation of practical application of commercial technology to a military application.

Ram jet engines that can push a few hundred pounds of R/C aircraft are nowavailable on the web.

OMG!' Commerce has opened civilization to buzz bombs operated by terrorists.

[rampartd]

1. i'm looking at these things

maybe swarms of cheap little suicidal quadcopters?

maybe jam, or hijack control systems? spoof gps? i don't know a lot of things but this seems possible.

the ukrainians seem to be doing a lot of digging. chain link overhead , the stuff i wanna do when there are dangerous things in the air.

[31j20b3]

3. A man with knowledge, a passport, and an ebay account

could turn American belief that this is all on the other side of the world upside down.

OMG. It;s all TOO EASY for kids with a bit of electronics background.

THAT is what has made Ukraine's drone war a success.

It does NOT take rocket scientists. Just a few guys that understand the commercially available equipment.

The US is in no better position to stop that than Russia, and Russian is now BURNING.

[rampartd]

6. i think the more we learn ..... can't hurt to know.

using off the shelf components is the way to make them cheap

[31j20b3]

8. Yes

Scary

[SWBTATTReg]

2. Also shows just how versatile, low-budget, and rapidly the Ukrainians can move into getting needed weapons of

various capabilities onto the battlefield while not having the $billions to buy the weapons. In some cases, even making better weapons than previously known (totally brand new). Necessity is the mother of all inventions.

[31j20b3]

4. Yes. It's quite unsettling to me

[Midnight Writer]

5. There was an article in the Washington Monthly a few years back about how Israel was building cheap drones.

They were using parts from a bicycle plant, among others, and rapidly producing drones for a couple of thousand dollars apiece.

The article contrasted that to the USA's drone program. Military procurement started attaching additional capabilities for our drones, lots of bells and whistles, then took bids from military contractors who wanted a hefty sum for producing the needlessly complicated drones. As a result, our drones are extremely expensive, cumbersome, take a long time to produce, and are not as versatile.

It was obvious decades ago that drones would be the future of warfare, but we invested in billion-dollar fighter jets and multi-billion-dollar warships that no longer fit the needs of modern warfare.

[SWBTATTReg]

7. Good points. If the arms being made don't return a certain % back to the manufacturer(s), then the item is not

worth making. It's got to yield lots of bucks in order to even make it. Note, it's not the capability driving the manufacturing of the item, it's the profit margin of the weapon(s) driving what's being made, a, in my mind, the wrong way to decide on what weapons to make/develop/buy.

[31j20b3]

10. The asymmetrical opportunities seem favorable to the angry little groups

with input from a few affordable semi-clever folks with a grudge

That part is very disturbing to me.

[Ilsa]

9. I guess my next home won't be a Hobbit Hole after all.

It'll have to be a Hobbit Bunker.

Why can't we have nice things?

[orthoclad]

11. operated by terrorists like the US?

bombing more children?

Or Hegseth's lethalitymaxxing AI?

Or Amazon? They had this tech for years - trying to get the ok to deliver things by drone.