[dmos62]

Someone 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.

[tim333]

From the video with one of these robots (maybe the one in the story?)

>We prepared for the combat use of these modules for a very long time. It was a very difficult sector on which the enemy was constantly conducting assault actions. That's why the infantry needed reinforcements. But the robot drone didn't just drive onto the position for a day. Instead of real fighters, an iron one held the line for a month and a half and actually fooled the Russians because they didn't even think about something like this. (https://youtu.be/Ir6sNgW91Hw?t=226)

"Very difficult" and constants assaults doesn't sound like what you describe.

I have to say if I was defending against Russians trying to kill me I'd much rather operate the gun remotely from behind a hill than sit there in range.

[dmos62]

This is the second comment that says that I'm downplaying these situations, so I guess I really wasn't very clear.

Small assault groups of untrained men can still be "very difficult". The defending outposts are similarly small groups. The defenders experience very long, exhausting rotations: a month is considered good: supplies are dropped by drones. This is because as of ~2025 the most dangerous part of a rotation is the infil/outfil. The record for a frontline rotation is close to 500 days (they had to dig their own well underground). Both sides are backed by drones. As someone pointed out, the "expendable" assault groups, in part, serve to draw defenders out for drones. Further, you often hear of anecdata that a defensive position was overrun, because Russians sent bodies after bodies until defenders ran out of ammo. 5:1 death rate (Russian:Ukrainian) is considered good for Russia, 10:1 is something they probably can maintain. Ukraine has to aim for 15:1. Russian personnel losses average around 30k per month since early 2025, which, I hear, is very close to how much they can regenerate at the moment. I've watched an interview on Lindybeige where someone involved with drone pilots said that pilots with 1k+ kills is not uncommon, kills in the hundreds is normal.

It's not easy to talk about the Ukraine war, because it changes so radically every N months.

[integralid]

>5:1 death rate (Russian:Ukrainian) is considered good for Russia

>pilots with 1k+ kills is not uncommon, kills in the hundreds is normal.

I am strongly pro-Ukraine in this conflict, but this sounds over the top and unbelievable. Are you sure this is not Ukrainian propaganda? Are there any reliable public sources about this?

[dmos62]

I think Ukrainian propaganda would go "we can generate N times more manpower than Russia", which is the opposite of what these figures suggest. These figure are about the fact that force generation in Ukraine is a huge problem.

Edit: I first heard of these numbers from Peter Zeihan. I've since heard ballpark-similar estimates from other people. I think of it this way: Russia has a huge manpower pool. Further, their ability to extract actual manpower from it is higher (due to poverty, largely). So Ukraine likewise requires a huge battlefield advantage to break even. Further, Ukraine needs another huge advantage on top of that, so that it's painfully obvious that not only the war is unsustainable, but that it's only unsustainable to Russia: only then will Russia sue for peace. At the moment, it seems like the war is unsustainable for both, which means noone has the advantage.

[dyauspitr]

> pilots with 1k+ kills is not uncommon

Incredible. I wonder what the most kills is for a single individual through direct action? There’s always the nuclear bombshell but that’s more of a team effort. These kills are through individual action.

[iammjm]

You are being dishonest. Those squads usually have SOME degree of drone, artillery and aviation support behind them. They are basically there to find out where the defenders are. Sure they are expendable, but they are just a part of the attack. I bet 24 hours sitting in a trench with FPVs, 152mms, and FABs exploding all over your position would change your mind as to the danger posed by those attacks you make fun of. Being at exactly this location vs kilometers away while remotely controlling a mobile gun turret makes ALL the difference

[dmos62]

I am not making fun. If it seems that way, I misspoke. I think that any war is terrifying and this one more than any other I know of.

The way I imagine the attacks this UGV defended against is small groups of men deemed expendable knowingly going to their very likely deaths. Yes, this is part of a bigger Russian strategy which is very dangerous and unfortunately, so far, too effective.

[Waterluvian]

When you don’t value humanity, the ugly fact is that people grow faster than trees.

[expedition32]

Considering Russian demographics I kinda doubt it.

The reality is that Russia is not gaining anything in this war- it just keeps Putin in power.

[chasil]

Can we name them The Dinochrome Brigade?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolo:_Annals_of_the_Dinochrome...

[Yizahi]

> 2-3 50-year-olds without military experience wading through a bombed out tree-line into almost certain death

Yeah, excepts apparently these good for nothing oldtimers are taking 5 to 10 square kilometers per day against entrenched integrated force, capable of launching dozens of killer drones per target at a moment notice. Do you feel the inconsistency here? I do.

[dmos62]

I do not suggest that the Russian tactic I described doesn't work. I'm saying that these machines are a viable approach to explore. Further, I'm not saying that the Russian strategy is to just repeat this tactic ad nauseam: it's part of a bigger play where they probe for weaknesses across very long lengths of the frontline, stretching Ukrainians thin, and, when weakpoints are found, they do proper, hyper-concentrated assaults with war-hardened veterans.

A big backdrop of this UGV story is that Ukraine is spread very thin. Rumour has it that brigades across the front are 20-40% strong.

[rcxdude]

At that rate Russia will have conquered Ukraine in about a century. The war is clearly going to be decided by attrition, not the current rate of land capture.