It is so much worse. Like I watched a legitimate YT war strategist going through the viability timeline on robot dogs on the battlefield. We are already at that stage where a bigger player will be able to field tens of thousands of robot dogs.
Like it is not talked about enough, but Russia has a total GDP that is lower than just the US state of Texas. Texas is third to California and New York. So all of Russia and Ukraine are piddly in terms of total capacity. That is the sad part. Like, if people really wanted to end the war, stomping Russia should be very easy but no one is really funding that solution. They would rather Russia bleed its manpower ahead of China taking Taiwan and ending its civil war.
Robot dogs are limited by battery life and therefore range. Their real purpose is to draw fire and reveal the position of enemies. Drones are ineffective at triangulating the positions of fired munitions due to noise and the computational power required in combination with a 9 axis position sensor. That is the primary purpose of robot dogs. They are primarily for drawing fire for the drones to then attack.
When one looks at the cheap sensors available for microcontrollers now, like millimeter wave sensors, things get even more scary. Like you know how your WiFi goes through walls. Yeah, same thing but directional motion sensing. Like it can easily detect and differentiate me from my cats and trigger only when I make a gesture like waving my whole arm or entering a specific room…from a sensor in another room a few walls away… for less than $20… Now picture a mine triggered by that… Or a robotic high caliber gun shooting through walls.
Really cheap ground driving or walking drones can be an effective way to rapidly clear minefields too. It’s a good area for decoys too. If some of them have advanced thermal sensors and maybe some weapons then they’ll be a target for the enemy but you can have a bunch of real cheap dogshit versions that can’t do much more than move forward.
Also there is still the air breathing battery technology, which isnt ready but is very high performance, double the charge or half the size. The limitation is something that might not matter for one time use drones, where the limitation is that the batteries corrode and don’t have many recharge cycles. That’s bad for phones but fine for disposable drones. I expect that will be a thing within 5 years.
It would probably be more effective to use lithium and have a charge threshold where it just stops and acts as a sensor and mesh communications node. In that kind of mode, the battery life would be nearly indefinite. If the front line moves well past, they are recovered. If not, they are a mined explosive or ready to make a last stand.
Even at $3k-$10k robot dogs are dirt cheap next to training a human for 3-6 months.
It depends. If you start a war with a reasonable stockpile of artillery and shells then you will have a greater amount of shells than firing pieces at the start. So you can fire with your guns but you can get a big advantage if you can fire more than your opponent in the first round of fire and in the first few days. So if you can have a bunch of these cheapo things then you could effectively double or triple your rate of fire for a short period. That can be a big advantage if it means you break through fortifications or disabled anti air defense. They can move faster and be more responsive than moving artillery pieces around especially in rough terrain.
So you want both really. Having more options is better.
these things are so slow to drop 1 bomb its not increasing rate of fire at all. Their only advantage is that they dont get hit by counter artillery and dont require an artillery division to operate. It works for ukraine because they cant call for firesupport on most of their fronts.
Who would go to war willingly against what are basically, sentient flying artillery shells?
It is so much worse. Like I watched a legitimate YT war strategist going through the viability timeline on robot dogs on the battlefield. We are already at that stage where a bigger player will be able to field tens of thousands of robot dogs.
Like it is not talked about enough, but Russia has a total GDP that is lower than just the US state of Texas. Texas is third to California and New York. So all of Russia and Ukraine are piddly in terms of total capacity. That is the sad part. Like, if people really wanted to end the war, stomping Russia should be very easy but no one is really funding that solution. They would rather Russia bleed its manpower ahead of China taking Taiwan and ending its civil war.
Robot dogs are limited by battery life and therefore range. Their real purpose is to draw fire and reveal the position of enemies. Drones are ineffective at triangulating the positions of fired munitions due to noise and the computational power required in combination with a 9 axis position sensor. That is the primary purpose of robot dogs. They are primarily for drawing fire for the drones to then attack.
When one looks at the cheap sensors available for microcontrollers now, like millimeter wave sensors, things get even more scary. Like you know how your WiFi goes through walls. Yeah, same thing but directional motion sensing. Like it can easily detect and differentiate me from my cats and trigger only when I make a gesture like waving my whole arm or entering a specific room…from a sensor in another room a few walls away… for less than $20… Now picture a mine triggered by that… Or a robotic high caliber gun shooting through walls.
Really cheap ground driving or walking drones can be an effective way to rapidly clear minefields too. It’s a good area for decoys too. If some of them have advanced thermal sensors and maybe some weapons then they’ll be a target for the enemy but you can have a bunch of real cheap dogshit versions that can’t do much more than move forward.
Also there is still the air breathing battery technology, which isnt ready but is very high performance, double the charge or half the size. The limitation is something that might not matter for one time use drones, where the limitation is that the batteries corrode and don’t have many recharge cycles. That’s bad for phones but fine for disposable drones. I expect that will be a thing within 5 years.
It would probably be more effective to use lithium and have a charge threshold where it just stops and acts as a sensor and mesh communications node. In that kind of mode, the battery life would be nearly indefinite. If the front line moves well past, they are recovered. If not, they are a mined explosive or ready to make a last stand.
Even at $3k-$10k robot dogs are dirt cheap next to training a human for 3-6 months.
I was being glib - you’re horrifically spot on - but my point stands; who would willingly become a combatant in that?
The uneducated and brainwashed
I’m immediately remembering the guy that moved him and his family to Russia and is now on the front lines.
On the plus side, he won’t be their long.
The Ukraine war has shown that electronic warfare is very effective against drones.
Man, could you imagine if Russia cared about its soldiers? Shit would be hardcore.
I dont think i’d rather have drones dropping these shells than artillery. This is a hack solution to their no arty problems.
It depends. If you start a war with a reasonable stockpile of artillery and shells then you will have a greater amount of shells than firing pieces at the start. So you can fire with your guns but you can get a big advantage if you can fire more than your opponent in the first round of fire and in the first few days. So if you can have a bunch of these cheapo things then you could effectively double or triple your rate of fire for a short period. That can be a big advantage if it means you break through fortifications or disabled anti air defense. They can move faster and be more responsive than moving artillery pieces around especially in rough terrain.
So you want both really. Having more options is better.
these things are so slow to drop 1 bomb its not increasing rate of fire at all. Their only advantage is that they dont get hit by counter artillery and dont require an artillery division to operate. It works for ukraine because they cant call for firesupport on most of their fronts.
Shells don’t work without no barrel.
Pretty sure that’s wrong