I must back track a bit before I get into to the pie in the sky portion of this post. I totally agree with the comment in quaoar’s post Russian stuff blowing up: More Patriots may be on the way for Ukraine My bold below
First of all, a short remark: I am totally supportive of FPV drones. With both of my hands. But U need understand some thing: that’s not a panacea. Not at all.
U see only successful hits on Twitter or TG channels and they create a wrong point of thinking. Unfortunately, we use so much FPV drones because of lack of ammo for mortars, ATGMs, artillery and even antitank mines. …………..
Indeed I watched the successful hits and gave them the thumbs up on Telegram or wherever viewed. I’ve pretty much started scrolling by them though after I read this article from Kyiv Independent;
'Abandon all hope:' Ukraine’s wounded warriors compare military medical system to the Inferno The Orc drones are inflicting the same death and injury on Ukrainian soldiers. Fortunately I was chatting with KyivGuy who sent this link The Washington round of the international conference "Effective Veteran Policy in Ukraine: International Experience", organized by Ukrainian civil society activists, took place so they are at least trying to fix it. Still sounds like they need their own Jon Stewart. He also explained why there are so many 4x4’s listed on Ukraine’s side of the daily blowed up ledgers. The AFU doesn’t have the APCs and other vehicles to ferry troops and supplies.
So back to artillery shells. Ukraine has built defensive lines west of current Orc advances however without artillery support backing them up they cannot hold. Three days ago Zelensky said Russia is firing 10 times more shells than Ukraine. Soldiers in bunkers and trenches are getting shelled for days at a time. When the shelling stops the meat waves and armor attack. No sleep, shell shocked, no artillery, low on ammo, KIA and casualties you withdraw.
Now to the pie in the sky. At the start of the invasion a young boy, with his father, went to an artillery battery and told them he could use his drone to spot Orcs and from the chaos the opportunity sprang. 2 years and 2 months later Ukraine has MAGURA V5 sea drone sinking Orc ships, the Aeroprakt A-22 Foxbat wrecking havoc on Orc refineries 1000 Kms from the Ukrainian border using Machine Intelligence. Yesterday I saw a vid on Telegram of a Ukrainian FPV drone taking out 2 Orc mine laying bots while being streamed by a surveillance drone. We’ve come a long way baby. Well someone has, I sit on the sidelines and root for the good guys.
I haven’t kept up with Boston Dynamics of late and when I did I saw this;
Eat your heart out C3PO Atlas has the moves. So where’s the pie you ask. The Robot, for now, is controlled by a human (not shown) . Put some body armor on Atlases, a weapon belt fed from a back pack and some first person shooter champions with game controllers and you’ve point men for the company. Pie I know but a little more than 2 years ago a kid with a drone to today.
There is the dark side. Elon has his own variant which does some of Atlas’s moves but the darkness comes from them all being connected, sharing everything and constantly learning. One poster’s concern was who has access to all this data and where is it being stored. Well that would be Elon and on his company’s servers of course.
The AFU still needs artillery shells, air defense systems, APUs and other support vehicles. The vote is tomorrow? I will believe it when it passes.
Some good news for now;
Ukraine’s Bohdana howitzer is rolling off production lines – here’s what it can do
At NATO-Ukraine Council, Stoltenberg says allies pledge more air defense systems
U.S. Envoy On Ukraine's Economic Recovery Says Reconstruction Process Already Under Way
What would really make my day is the reason the AFU is seemingly focusing so much on Orc air defense systems and long range radars is it that the F-16s are ready to enter the war and they are shaping the battlefield.