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by oblio 80 days ago
In case you haven't been following Ukraine, that's what it's doing. It has multiple cheap long range drones (FP-1, FP-2, etc) plus more expensive ones (FP-5), and it's making them in the millions a year, I think.

They just took out 40% of Russian oil export capacity.
1 comments
trhway 80 days ago
no, the million or two is small battlefield drones, mostly quadcopters carrying an RPG warhead or similarly sized payload. The long range drones - and they carry only relatively small, like 20-50kg payloads - are well under 100 thousands. FP-5 was declared 1 per day half a year ago. By now i think we've seen may be 10-20 such missiles used - they use real turbo jet engine, there isn't much of them available, and they are expensive.

>They just took out 40% of Russian oil export capacity.

Yes, Ust-Luga and Primorsk. Very successful hits. Painful for Putin. Yet it isn't a knock-down. Russia is like a big drunk guy in a street fight - just delivering painful blows to him doesn't help, you have to deliver a knock-out blow, and unfortunately Ukraine still seems far from it.

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oblio 80 days ago
There will be no knockout punch here, instead it will be death by exhaustion.

North Vietnam didn't die of exhaustion, nor did Afghanistan (2x), Iraq.

For reference, it's likely Ukraine is making more medium cheap drones per year than Iran, the current boogeyman.

This war will end the same way, probably around 2030.

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XorNot 80 days ago
Countries aren't human. You don't deliver a "knock out punch".

WW2 wasn't ended by capturing Berlin, it was ended because the German military was destroyed or surrendered as they were forced back towards Berlin.

By the time it fell, there wasn't an effective German military left.

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