The media also thinks a sawed-off shotgun is a weapon of mass destruction.

A cool bit of 'East meets West' here:

An interesting explanation about the increasing popularity of the 'FPV' style kamikaze drones.

I had thought it was mostly about having a bigger bang then the grenade dropping Quadcopters. 

However it seems another factor is the very fast FPV drones are less susceptible to being stopped by Russian EW 'drone guns' as theres not enough time to aim at them and deploy the jammer / microwave.

Elon restricting Starlink usage, which among other things explains why we haven't seen more exploding drone boats used.

https://twitter.com/olliecarroll/status/1638093221921259520

FPV drones are by leaps and bounds easiest to jam  , hardest to fly , lose contact on their own when flying between  trees and buildings, only really work LOS and in practice have very high failure rates , i would be suprised if 1 in 10 make it onto the target ,but they are cheap and DIY  aspect is very important

What makes them difficult targets is a profile of use , reconnaissance or even grenade dropping drones fly high  loiter on the spot and stay in the air for 20-30 minutes long enough for someone to use an EW gun on them.  FPV drone has 3-5minute endurance so is typically done before anyone tries to stop it with EW guns.

DIY kamikaze drone is by far best bang for the buck , chinese recce drone is 6-10+K$(depending on the camera and size) and it might drop some bomblets + has a average life span of 2-5missions before EW takes it down , kamikaze drone is 500-700$ for one mission and has an RPG warhead. FPV drone offers much more bang for the buck than  Switchblade300 even if 1;10 hits 

Note the FPV  kamikaze drone lost a signal about 50m before the impact as LOS was interrupted by a building in front of the target , the operator used a far too low  angle approach where a steep dive could be used to ensure FPV  LOS literally to last meter  , that is why in heat of the moment many FPV drones are probably lost to pilot error.   By the way same problem is inherent to miltary drones like switchblade , lancet, hero ....that is why they mostly have a simple AI to do the attack run even if the radio link is broken at the last couple of seconds.

https://t.me/grey_zone/17878

Telegram

GREY ZONE

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When it comes to drone guidance over long ranges, Starlink enabled low-level approaches like that used on Strizh jet drones that attacked airbases that are harder to detect and fight (couple of Stizh drones actually hit trees and were lost due to flying so low to avoid radars), but commercial stuff enables 400+km deep guidance and telemetry, big problem is just that all these systems are line of sight , so further you fly higher you need to be to maintain LOS  , which is a big problem for naval drones that need a flying repeater drone to provide a link.

One alternative is using a LTE/4G/5G network, which enables intercontinental range but not on the sea where there is no network coverage.  Long story short enterprising individuals can for about 1000$ control drones from their couch anywhere on the planet where there is mobile networks, and if just using long-range radio link 500km is probably doable on sub 1000$ system , the problem is actually hitting anything of value as the radio link will break once plane drops below LOS (that might be hundreds of meters or even multiple kilometers from the target where the drone would need to continue the attack on autopilot.)  , that can be augmented with use of an NVIDIA Jetson AI module, those are not expensive but know how to create targeting and controlling AI to fit your needs is another problem.

Starlink is not crucial to use of drones.

Great info on drones, thank you 

It seems that the Ukrainian naval drones don't need Elon Musk's Starlink to attack Russki ships.

YouTube

Ukrainian drones attack Sevastopol port where Russian ships are stationed

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YouTube

Update from Ukraine | Drone boats attack on Ruzzian Ship in Sevastopol | Ruzzia sent more Crap Tanks

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In all the naval drone attacks so far none hit a ship, even though everyone was rolling with claimed hit on ship,  will see if this is any different if there is a ship hit will see on satellite pics soon enough, but the upper video is definitely edited to make it look like drone hit something vs drone blew up after being it, Original vids on telegram have incoming tracer fire before the explosion. 

No they don't need a Starlink , but they need to have an airborne transmitter node ,to cover distance to Crimea airborne node needs to be a couple of kilometers high up in the air to enable LOS radio control, that is why starlink was very convenient, but note Starlink is not the only satellite constellation that can be used there other less capable and then there is always military satellite coms options .

One Web for example is an alternative , Russians now have 36 or so of them satellites as they were meant to be launched from Baikonur days after the war started one wonders if they can be repurposed.

But considering the attack was combined air and sea , my money is on the airborne node with LOS radio command and not a satellite. 

The line of sight on the sea surface is extremely short due to earth curvature as is effective radio control distance.

Mines - something we don't see modern militaries focussing on much anymore - are apparently having a big effect.

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1638658220955713539

I've also read UA having great success with the US made RAAM 155mm artillery deployed mines. Sometimes firing them behind Russian tanks to surprise them when they retreat.