Ukrainian Drone Holds Position for 6 Weeks
76 points - today at 5:57 PM
SourceSomeone here said "[Russian] tactical units", "smoke grenades". They must be joking.
A drone like this is defending against 2-3 50-year-olds without military experience wading through a bombed out tree-line into almost certain death, because there are literal firing squads waiting if they don't. With a huge round like 12.7, all you have to do is fire pot shots in the general vicinity while drone pilots do the rest. Also, these can be life-savers for an outpost when weather conditions ground all drones.
This is a fluff piece, but these machines might become very real very soon. They're already used for resupply and dropping mines. We have plenty of videos of that from both sides. A few months ago we had a video of one of these taking out an infantry carrier. This is not vaporware. It's a bad approach at worst, but I wouldn't be surprised if this grows exponentially for many years to come.
Reading between the lines of the article it seems advanced but not too surprising.
I assume that at night when it "withdrew to a covered location" there was opportunity for maintenance, battery swaps, etc.
The article says that it successfully carried out "multiple calls for fire." That sounds like over those 45 days there were multiple missions to provide suppressive fire. They're not explicit about what that means but it sounds like, "if you see anything moving in this arc, take a few shots at them". Presumably there's some AI to prevent it from wasting ammo on really dumb decoys.
A "simple" mobile automated turret has been around for a while. The novelty they would be demonstrating is essentially battlefield robustness. They aren't claiming that this machine can operate completely autonomously for 6 weeks but the incremental pieces are still hard.
crazygringo
today at 7:59 PM
Are these called drones? I thought drones flew.
The article calls this a "Ukrainian unmanned ground vehicle armed with a machine gun" and the headline calls it a "Ukrainian Combat Robot". Not a "drone" like the submitter's title has.
Edit: it seems like the creator calls it a "droid". Is that just them, or is that becoming standard terminology for a kind of ground-based "soldier-robot"? See:
https://devdroid.tech/en/catalog/droid-tw
tart-lemonade
today at 8:09 PM
The <title> tag is "Ukrainian Drone Holds Position for 6 Weeks". OP probably hit the "fetch title" button or copy-pasted from a chat app embed when submitting.
outside2344
today at 7:12 PM
We really are trying our best to make Terminator reality aren't we?
On the plus side there is now quite a lot of drone on drone combat saving people's lives
Maybe drones will make human soldiers unacceptable in the future.
intheitmines
today at 7:57 PM
“It occurred to me that if I could invent a machine - a gun - which could by its rapidity of fire, enable one man to do as much battle duty as a hundred, that it would, to a large extent supersede the necessity of large armies, and consequently, exposure to battle and disease [would] be greatly diminished.”
― Richard Jordan Gatling, 1877
If only wars would end when all the soldiers on one side were dead.
If the people fought before they'll keep fighting, even after their robots are gone.
They will certainly make human soldiers unviable. (I draw mostly dystopian conclusions from that prediction.)
throwaway85825
today at 7:37 PM
Or it will just lead to lopsided massacres like the maxim gun did.
kelvinjps10
today at 7:36 PM
They are being operated by humans
But imagine the efficiencies to be gained if you swapped out the direct human operator with an automated operator. Then, you can have teams of automated operators being operated by a single human!
There was never any other option, given the direction of progress and basic human nature.
I know I know, but this and that and not me nor you, yet here we are and this is just beginning.
mullingitover
today at 6:45 PM
I’ve been wondering when modern battlefields would get Team Fortress 2 sentries.
Nice marketing pitch. In reality it was probably parked at an empty crossroads 10 miles behind the frontline, taking potshots at "suspected" enemy positions.
mrhottakes
today at 7:29 PM
My car also held position for 6 weeks during the winter storms
I had a car hold its position for 6 months during the pandemic. It became occupied by rats, which was fun to deal with.
They gathered some apples from a nearby tree, and apparently had set up a hard cider production facility.
mrhottakes
today at 7:44 PM
i'm going to write a fawning article about cars standing still
throwaway85825
today at 7:33 PM
The proportion of videos featuring drones taking out other drones is increasing.
But what if it gets hacked by the russians?
AftHurrahWinch
today at 5:57 PM
"It takes infantry to hold territory" is still true I guess, but now it's a single operator in a bunker.
Perhaps in the dead man zone, not sure this would work well where there is civilian population.
bee_rider
today at 7:57 PM
I haven’t heard “dead man zone” (although I don’t really engage much with military stuff so maybe it is just an expression I’m not familiar with).
I think “no man’s land” is a pretty popular and similar expression. Out of curiosity, did you translate “dead man zone” from another language?
I just find it interesting because it seems conceptually similar but much bleaker, so if it comes from, like, French or German or something maybe it reflects an even bleaker WW1 experience.
So what happens in a few years when a submarine pulls up some miles off US coast and unleashes 100 super-automated drones to terrorize the country?
Heck maybe not even a sub needed, some smaller country could have an automated tiny raft too small to be seen on radar tow in the drones
They could charge via phantom power from powerlines and will find a way around GPS jamming
CrzyLngPwd
today at 6:58 PM
This is on my 2026 bingo card of things that never happened.
garganzol
today at 7:23 PM
Yep, until it hits you.
Maybe it's the ghost of Kiev controlling the robot army? You don't know. But they sure should get a $50 billion contract to make them
andrewstuart
today at 7:10 PM
Is there some sort of hybrid flying/stationary drone that flys in an sits to hold a ground position?
throwaway85825
today at 7:35 PM
Common tactic is for drones to wait next to a road and ambush.
samothrace
today at 7:16 PM
Ammunition is heavy.
Are these the ones controlled by Steam Decks?
konchunas
today at 7:20 PM
These ones by PS5 controllers I believe
This smells more like military propagand, i.e., bullshit.
There is no way this is honest or real, i.e., it somehow fought off a tactical unit trying to take the frontline that this drone was holding? Or was it just parked in some area where there was no tactical point of even taking the territory?
Just by virtue of its nature, a single drone and/or a well placed dumb grenade, not even to mention likely a smoke grenade could have easily defeated this thing within seconds of deployment if there was any interest in taking the area this toy was "controlling".
Someone is doing a literal con job to get military graft and fraud contracts.
WhatsTheBigIdea
today at 7:40 PM
Perhaps it would be helpful to view the claims of this article through a cost/benefit analysis?
Clearly if the opponent had wanted to defeat this vehicle and take this ground, they could have.
That said, it seems likely that this vehicle substantially increased the expected cost of taking this ground, and it did so at very little cost/risk to the defenders.
This sort of device dramatically changes the equation of conflict. It seems this article does a pretty good (though unverified) job of making that case.
There are real videos, even months old of exactly these 'land drones', equipped with good ol' .50 cal. In certain situations, they fought extremely well given no risk for crew. I mean killing off entire bmp-something transport including all crew with AP rounds, typically during night since it has night vision, zoom and so on. Verified also by drone flying nearby.
Now I am not claiming all the facts stated in the article are verified by me, but I can imagine one of them got so lucky with drones and getting hidden from their view for prolonged time it could theoretically pull it off. Not sure about batteries/fuel/ammo part thought.
Yes propaganda and bullshit, but by way of exaggeration and puffery, not lying.
I wouldn't expect even a lightly informed mid-wit to think that this murderbot held the ground by itself; and I don't think the author expects that either. Thus something else is probably going on. To wit - puffery.
The murderbot is remotely operated, so it did not held the ground by itself, though it is claimed that it might be able to do some things autonomously.