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Russians complain that cheap Hornet UAVs now reach Crimea. (sopuli.xyz)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/ukraine@sopuli.xyz
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[–] 5 points 5 months ago* (5 children)

The "hard to counter" thing is arguable, because yeah, anything that's up there reflecting radar can theoretically be shot down (and probably by something cheaper yet). They might not be set up to detect and attack balloons right now, though. I mean, even NORAD famously wasn't for a while.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    Shot down with something cheaper than a balloon?

    Brother, handgun rounds probably cost more than balloons, and I can't think of anything cheaper, offhand.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

    A small arms round costs cents at scale. A big balloon like that costs hundreds of dollars, and the drone hundreds more. The bigger question is if a bullet would do enough damage.

    For targeting the balloon, the eventual best weapon might just be a sickle-ish blade, either on a rod or rope. Melee weapons worked for most of human history, and if your target has airspeed zero, why not? If you're hitting the drone, you'll need something more heavy-duty; small arms, a small mine or a powered blade. I suppose just tangling it or lassoing on a drogue chute could work.

    The obvious choice for interceptor drone is a small blimp. It's faster then an unpowered balloon, but still very stable and capable of extreme altitudes.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago* (2 children)

    Bullets indeed do essentially nothing against weather balloon type craft. Bullets from ground level, even less so unless they're significantly larger rounds. Oh, and you don't want to be downrange of all those misses either.

    Flak would probably be the "cheapest best bet" for ensuring damage to the balloons' payload, but the collateral damage from debris could be significant. They will probably use some small missile to do the job, which is the only way to be sure, really. However, that's not ideal from a cost ratio standpoint, which leaves them wide open to the fact that;

    Those balloons are also probably cheaper than you estimate, when produced at the same scale as the rounds of which you speak.

    Which means that when and if the Russians put something in place to attempt to stop the balloons, the Ukrainians can simply send arse-loads of decoy balloons to waste Russian ammo supplies.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

    It might be tens of dollars rather than hundreds, that information is harder to come by, but it's not going to be cents. It's a lot of area of material, even if it's cheap material, and hydrogen isn't free either (helium is much much more yet). Plus, the drone costs what the drone costs.

    Shooting from ground level probably isn't going to be the solution, because a balloon can fly higher than any heavier-than-air craft. Maybe bigger AA guns could be developed, but it's going to get less mobile, and eventually there's a fundamental limit to muzzle velocity set by the speed of sound in whatever detonation. Plus, if you're using large specialty rounds and a lot of them per hit we're right back to cost.

    but the collateral damage from debris could be significant.

    How so? There's a lot of empty farmland in the area, and it's wartime. It seems like unless the Ukrainians (or Russians; this will be copied) can still steer and reliably detonate the drone it's no longer an effective weapon.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago*

    How so? You think Ukraine will stop where they are with those, seeing the success they're having? lmao

    They'll be hanging over Moscow like party balloons given the right wind conditions, what with Russia laying into Kyiv with anything and everything they have.

    Given that they're sticking Pantsir launchers on the roofs in Moscow, Russia are indeed expecting it to get worse yet.

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