💥 Air defense soldiers intercept Russian FPVs: vivid footage from GoPro

In a relatively short time, FPV drones have become the deadliest and most terrifying weapon in the war. Especially in the Toretsk direction, where at least one "bird" can be found for every hundred meters. But when the FPV meets with the soldiers of the anti-aircraft missile and artillery battalion of the 28th Mechanized Brigade, the hunter becomes prey.

Machine guns, machine guns and even hunting rifles! Everything that can help "land" the drone is used. This is incredibly important and at the same time very dangerous work. After all, unlike strike wings, FPV has no priorities - it flies to destroy everything it sees. And it is also small and fast.

But the Knights hit quickly and accurately. Because they remember that every downed drone is a saved life.

https://t.me/ombr_28/2431

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[–] thebestaquaman@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Honest question: I've seen several videos of people shooting down drones, and obviously, it's very hard to hit them. There are often discussions about cost-effective means of countering cheap FPV drones. Is there a good reason light (i.e. man-portable) flak guns haven't made an entry yet?

Quite simply, I've wondered several times what is preventing anyone from equipping their soldiers with 5.56 mm or 7.62 mm flak rounds that can be fired from standard rifles/MGs. There is of course the issue of programming the detonation distance, but I can imagine several ways of potentially achieving that, for example a muzzle-mounted piece that programs the ammo on exit, or something you attach to the magazine itself.

With the extreme prevalence of drones, I would imagine that ensuring that every soldier, or at least every squad, has a couple mags of flak ammo that they could use to tear up any drone within 100 m would be a massive benefit.

[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I think there are some layers to this question.

First yes Ukraine and militaries around the world are investigating this kind of counter to FPV drones.

Second, if you are standing out in the middle of the open firing wildly at a pack of FPV drones that are attacking you, you are already in a position you shouldn't have placed yourself into. This doesn't mean that the drones aren't a cause of the danger, but consider how a squad of confused, untrained Russia soldiers could easily stumble into the kill zone of a Ukrainian infantry squad set up for an ambush with normal assault rifles and experience a similarly brutal end to their lives.

Third at a squad level and above what primarily deflects the threat of FPV drone attacks are jamming and electronics warfare equipment, which is where most of the focus will be for militaries that are smart. The job of the infantry might to be to attempt to shoot down an enemy FPV drone, but that means that the infantry was not able to do their original job of setting up the drone jamming equipment or putting pressure on enemy positions so that the FPV drones wouldn't have the operational freedom to be able to roam deep through their territory to find targets.

So yes, I think you will definitely see more of this technology developed but consider that the first response military experts are going to be thinking who understand small unit infantry tactics... is those drone operators are somewhere... why aren't we putting pressure on where they are so that they don't have the initiative to reach out and attack us like this? If you start hitting them back, they are going to eventually have to take off the drone goggles and reach for an assault rifle to defend their trench themselves...

[–] thebestaquaman@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I think there are two major reasons hard AA is needed, no matter how much EW and counter battery you have.

Fibre optic drones hard-counter EW. They are literally immune to jamming, and have grown quite prevalent. The only way to stop them is to shoot them down or cut the wire (short of a massive EMP).

Drones are different from artillery in that you can't trace them back to their origin just by spotting them. Additionally, they can be operated by two guys sitting in an underground bunker 10 km from the zero-line, which are far less exposed than an artillery piece. The operators could even be in a moving vehicle.

So, put simply, guys manning front-line trenches or conducting assaults need a way to protect themselves from a threat that can be immune to EW, and be practically impossible to trace back to the operator on short notice. This requires some tactical-level weapon to physically shoot down the drones.

Not to say that what you're pointing out isn't important, but I would imagine EW and especially counter battery to be higher-level tasks than a 10 man squad.

[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Fibre optic drones hard-counter EW. They are literally immune to jamming, and have grown quite prevalent. The only way to stop them is to shoot them down or cut the wire (short of a massive EMP).

From the perspective of the person developing the fiber optic drone in an office... yes.

To the soldiers at the frontline, no a fiber optic drone is NOT a hard counter to EW it is a reaction to it which then leads to a different tactical situation that infantry may be better able to exploit (or may not, it of course depends).

Do you know what the very first extremely effective guided antitank weapons used as a method for guidance?

https://history.redstone.army.mil/miss-tow.html

This isn't a new development, yes fiber optic drones are evolution of drone warfare, but they have a number of significant limitations that wireless drones do not. Forcing Russians to use fiber optic drones severly limits the effectiveness of their drone tactics even if the actual fiber optic drones they are turning to using are technically resistant to EW warfare in most respects.

Thus, the use of fiber optics has to be seen as a defensive evolution that is unfavorable for the attacker that has had to evolve and use much more limited control options.

https://warontherocks.com/2025/06/i-fought-in-ukraine-and-heres-why-fpv-drones-kind-of-suck/

Fiber optic drones do, however, have a number of drawbacks that mean they might not fully replace radio-controlled drones. The wire that connects the drone to the operator limits the maneuverability of the drone. Snagging it on any kind of obstacle can result in a loss of control. Fiber-optic drones cannot really double back over their route or circle a target, as this could tangle their control wire and also result in a loss of control. As a result, fiber-optic drones are said to be even more difficult to fly than radio-controlled drones. Because of these limitations, several drone operators I spoke to actively resist using fiber-optic drones. Furthermore, though cost will probably come down, at present the cost of the cable means that a fiber-optic drone with 10 kilometers of cable costs about twice as much as a radio-controlled model of similar range. Finally, production capacities available to Ukraine for fiber-optic cables are, at present, fairly limited compared to radio-controlled drones, meaning they are chronically in short supply.

I don't necessarily agree with all of the points in this article, but I do think this evaluation of fiber optic drones is spot on and is a much needed douse of cold water on the general terror around this weapons development. It is scary, it is new, technically, but is also an entirely expected defensive evolution that introduces a number of other vulnerabilities to a process that before the enemy could accomplish without, not the least of which is a literal wire has to connect the drone to the operator's equipment.... See this as a defensive evolution, the kind of step a defending enemy takes when you are successfully throwing their strategy off and beginning to turn their operation into a defensive, reactive one rather than an offensive one that demands you respond to them.

This is really my same point about shahed flying bombs having to be developed with more sophisticated electronics and sensors to negate the new electronics warfare jamming methods Ukraine has been using to mess with simpler shaheds equipped with very cheap, affordable, mass producable GPS guidance equipment. The headlines and imagery are scary because yes the weapon has become more scary, but understand this is a defensive evolution that the enemy did not and does not want to have to pay the continuing price for otherwise they would have already done it almost by definition.

[–] thebestaquaman@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

I agree with everything you're saying here, fibre optic drones are in no way perfect. If they were, they would have been used even before EW became so prevalent (as you point out).

However, they remain unjammable. That was really all I was pointing out. Despite their flaws, fibre optic drones remain highly lethal weapons, that soldiers need a means to defend against. I think tactical-level light AA seems like a good tool for the task. Of course, this kind of AA would be just as effective against radio-controlled drones, which is just a bonus.

[–] LaFinlandia@sopuli.xyz 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

There is a goal for each infantry soldier to have at least one mag of anti-drone rifle ammunition.

https://en.defence-ua.com/weapon_and_tech/ukraine_develops_anti_drone_ammo_gamechanger_or_filler-15068.html

[–] thebestaquaman@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

That looks like an awesome initiative! It was unclear to me whether they could adjust detonation range, but it seemed like they couldn't. Perhaps that was deemed unnecessarily complex?

Regardless, with a 25 cm spread at 100 m I can imagine that an MG or a couple soldiers laying down a small barrage of these would make for an effective "flak shield", much more effective than ordinary ammo.

[–] School_Lunch@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

Finally. I've seen quite a few drone videos, and this is the first time I've seen someone with a shotgun. A wide-spread sawed-off shotgun would probably make it a lot easier to hit the drones than a rifle... I'm also not a soldier on the front lines, so I don't really know what I'm talking about.