The War in the Ukraine

Interesting development in FPV drone usage, fibre-optic wire guided FPV, immune to EW.

There's been a lot of back and forth on weibo regarding the heavy kamikazi FPV drone and lancet usage in Ukraine and lack of similar gearing up in PLA in this area with people saying PLA is not taking experiences from Ukraine seriously enough. The opposite view to this is FPV drone and lancet type drones are just the cheapest and quickest means to these ends and not necessarily the best, and PLA have long foresaw these use cases and have better tools for them, in other words:

Kamikazi FPV = poor man's HJ-10
Lancet = poor man's PHL-16

I was included to agree with this before, with this development of making FPV even more like HJ-10 we'll get an opportunity to see if HJ-10 design was visionary.

I think there is a mobility and inconspicuousness advantage of FPV's drones not entirely present in the HJ-10 and similar systems, though. Of course, the trade off being range and warhead size.

Temstar said:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1765736910943613005

Interesting development in FPV drone usage, fibre-optic wire guided FPV, immune to EW.

There's been a lot of back and forth on weibo regarding the heavy kamikazi FPV drone and lancet usage in Ukraine and lack of similar gearing up in PLA in this area with people saying PLA is not taking experiences from Ukraine seriously enough. The opposite view to this is FPV drone and lancet type drones are just the cheapest and quickest means to these ends and not necessarily the best, and PLA have long foresaw these use cases and have better tools for them, in other words:

Kamikazi FPV = poor man's HJ-10
Lancet = poor man's PHL-16

I was included to agree with this before, with this development of making FPV even more like HJ-10 we'll get an opportunity to see if HJ-10 design was visionary.

Click to expand...

FPV is not a poor man's HJ-10, because HJ-10 cannot scout or launch and then wait for the best opportunity.

I am disappointed at the lack of consideration for information in combat among Chinese fans.

FairAndUnbiased said:

FPV is not a poor man's HJ-10, because HJ-10 cannot scout or launch and then wait for the best opportunity.

I am disappointed at the lack of consideration for information in combat among Chinese fans.

Click to expand...

Isn't scouting done at the moment with non-FPV DJI drones, then once a target is located a FPV sent out to hit it strictly as munition?

I don't doubt there's some cases were FPV could be used to scout, particularly if by the time a FPV reach the original target it's gone and so it's looking for target of opportunity, but that's also a negative against FPV compared to HJ-10 - much slower time to target.

sheogorath said:

Apparently there is a new issue within the AFU where 700.000 soldiers are unaccounted for and only 300.000 people have fought in the frontlines.
...
Of course, these numbers don't make sense but even if the number of mobilized and sent to the front lines were true, 700.000 missing soldiers is a massive problem

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This is like Afghanistan's huge supposed army which only existed on paper. This was a huge corruption scheme where they claimed they had people in the military so they could siphon more money. They basically collected the salaries of these phantom soldiers and pocketed it.

Temstar said:

Isn't scouting done at the moment with non-FPV DJI drones, then once a target is located a FPV sent out to hit it strictly as munition?

I don't doubt there's some cases were FPV could be used to scout, particularly if by the time a FPV reach the original target it's gone and so it's looking for target of opportunity, but that's also a negative against FPV compared to HJ-10 - much slower time to target.

Click to expand...

I don't see a model difference between the drones that are scouting (except for Krasnopol) and the ones that are used as munitions other than when the warhead is strapped on.

Ukrainian artillery gets destroyed in counterbattery. Somewhere in the north.


Uragans of the Kalmius Brigade working on Ukrainian positions in the Avdeyevka direction. Previously I posted that Uragans are now armed with cluster munitions, which might be a reason for their recent comeback in usage.


Ukrainian AA system built on a GAZ-66 chassis gets destroyed by artillery in the Kharkhiv region.


FAB-1500 hits Krasnogorovka.


Ukrainian Furia UAV shot down by an Osa of the 155th Marine Brigade.


More strikes occurring in the Odessa region. The last wave of attacks were at the drone producing and housing facilities, likely a response to the project 22160 ship sinking.


Ukrainian shelters taken out by artillery of the 200th Brigade of the Northern Fleet. This in Bogdanivka.


Lancet hits a Ukrainian tank in the Artemovsk direction.


UK to supply more than 10,000 drones to Ukraine.


Artillery from the 6th Brigade takes out a Ukrainian vehicle or system.


Ukrainian transports near the Russian border gets hit by drones.


Bradley in the sights of an Upyr drone.


Rocket attack reported on the city of Alexandria in the Kirovograd region.


T-64BV taken out by Lancet from the 98th VDV in the Artemovsk front.


Cluster bombs RBK-500 working on Ukrainian defenses on Budarki village in the Kharkhiv region, about 3km from the Russian border. Attack from this direction to be expected?


Polish Krab SPG tracked to this hanger in Novoukrainka in South Donetsk. Then the hanger gets hit by FAB-250 with UMPK launched from an Su-34.


Mi-28N and Ka-52 narsing with S-8s on Ukrainian positions in the Artemovsk area.


Air strike in Konstantinovka, 20km from the front line. This is a logistics hit.


Russians driving through Georgievka taking control of the reservoir.


Attempt by Ukrainians to evacuate the knocked out third Abrams gets shelled. Not shown due to artillery hitting on Ukrainian soldiers.

FairAndUnbiased said:

FPV is not a poor man's HJ-10, because HJ-10 cannot scout or launch and then wait for the best opportunity.

I am disappointed at the lack of consideration for information in combat among Chinese fans.

Click to expand...

China’s military would be paying extremely close attention to the war in Ukraine, and I’m sure it’s blue force will be mimicking a lot of the tactics and equipment to test out how well the PLA might deal with it, but to be frank, both sides of the conflict are significantly behind the PLA in terms of drone use, and I seriously doubt the PLA will go backwards to adopt equipment and tactics being used in Ukraine.

FPV suicide drones are effective but rudimentary and very limited. China’s technological and industrial capabilities are well beyond it at AI controlled drone swarm level where mass launchers can pump out swarms of automated drones that can take out entire platoons and trench lines instead of individual soldiers.

I think China’s main reaction to the use of FPVs in Ukraine would be to develop FPV and drone control signal homing counter drones that go straight for the pilots. That is the other key weakness of FPVs and DJIs as military drones. This can be mitigated somewhat with wire guided drones, but all that wire adds a lot of weight and cost and operational limitations that it’s really a poor solution as well. The logical progression of that line of development gets you back to a long range ATGM like the HJ10.

The other likely area of development would be next gen hard kill APS that can deal with FPVs as well as ATGMs. So either a remote weapon station with an automatic shotgun solution similar to a miniature naval gun CIWS, and/or smaller, more numerous munitions for explosive charge launchers. But both solutions can be easily countered by drone swarms with some minor programming to either daisy-chain drones to punch through explosive charge launchers or a multi-prone attack to overwhelm gun based systems. That is the true power of drone swarms, it is easily adaptable to any counters to it, and has the weight of numbers to win battles outright.

T-64BV knocked out by Krasnopol.


TOS from the 26th Regiment lands on Ukrainian positions.


2nd Swedish Archer 155mm SPG hit by a Lancet. By the 106th VDV Division.


Two howitzers and a counterbattery radar of the AFU gets taken out by Lancets in Kherson.


Russian drone drops bomb on a pile of TM-62 mines collected by Ukrainian sappers.


Villagers in Ukraine resists a mobilization attempt violently.


Ukrainian drone gets shot down.


Ukrainian ammo depot in Belogorovka gets hit by artillery.


Vehicle used by Ukrainian UAV operators gets attacked by Lancet.


Krab is tracked to its hanger which is then hit with a precise strike.

Temstar said:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1765736910943613005

Interesting development in FPV drone usage, fibre-optic wire guided FPV, immune to EW.

There's been a lot of back and forth on weibo regarding the heavy kamikazi FPV drone and lancet usage in Ukraine and lack of similar gearing up in PLA in this area with people saying PLA is not taking experiences from Ukraine seriously enough. The opposite view to this is FPV drone and lancet type drones are just the cheapest and quickest means to these ends and not necessarily the best, and PLA have long foresaw these use cases and have better tools for them, in other words:

Kamikazi FPV = poor man's HJ-10
Lancet = poor man's PHL-16

I was included to agree with this before, with this development of making FPV even more like HJ-10 we'll get an opportunity to see if HJ-10 design was visionary.

Click to expand...

Some people have done some more digging and sure enough the optic fibre parts came from China: