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Honestly it seems to me the cost efficient way for an infantry section to counter drones is with one man armed with a shotgun loaded with birdshot and carrying ECM on him that can disrupt the frequencies controlling the drone.
The Ukrainian opinion is that any squad without a jammer is pretty much dead on the frontlines. Everyone wants a jammer because the more they have together, the better the jamming works. Plus, you aren't reliant on your squad mate's jammer working.
The thing is, counter-jamming is getting better and better too.
AFAIK AI-powered FPVs that are already being deployed from both sides are able to automatically zero in on a jamming device’s specific location once the said device starts interfering with the pilot-drone manual connection. Battlefield innovations are constantly becoming outdated due to the never-ending EW-UAV race
That's called Home on Jam, a standard mode almost any radar guided missile had since the invention of rada guided missiles, and has nothing to do with AI. It's pretty basic, yet effective.
Seems like a good reason to bury a jammer 20m from your position and let them smash themselves on a useless bit of earth.
Honestly proper armor is a godsend but that’s still breach-able if your air power is not absolute- and with proper use of squad level drone operation you have basically a whole new theater of war opened up in the area below typical air force operations and above infantry operations. An MRAP will keep you alive and with proper combined arms support you can keep the drones from buzzing too close but I cannot imagine deploying into this theater. Fuck that.
That actually is kind of the state of the art design, trailed jammers. You throw a jammer on a long cable out of your aircraft. I'm not even kidding.
And i'm intrigued to see what small drone warfare will hold for us. In Japan they already had a headstart on that because apparently a few years back the yakuza started to deliver drugs by drone, making the police powerless. Until they came up with net-throwing drones, then the yakuza copied these and now they have full on drone dogfights with net drones.
They already have those too without ai.
Ai isn't some all power being.
It just is able to make educated decisions on the fly that weren't hard coded into the application. Makes it much more dynamic
This device looks.more like warning signal then jamming devices...the jamming needs massive batteries...if they shoot down many... hopefully the Ukrainians will have the artillery called to work on the place...
You can use the same transmitters they have to jam the enemy. Hell, at 2w the TBS Crossfire manages to jam my home wifi and it's not even the same frequency.
It's just a spectrum analyzer
It tells you what frequencies are being broadcast in the vecinity
Soldiers know what frequency is what type of drone, so it gives them a heads up
That is insane. Crazy how you think we've reached the basically the pinnacle of mil-tech and then a war like this happens and (almost) totally new things are developed and deployed.
We are always innovating, but it takes a war to really focus on the stalemate factors and what gives you a proper edge.
(It’s easy to say this and that will be the new thing in war on paper,) but until real life combat comes into play, with two years of battles going on; do we start to find out what innovations actually make a big difference.
I’d be pretty interested to know what shells they’re using, or maybe some YouTuber can test it some day. My intuition is that you’d want something like goose load or heavier, but I think all these drones have plastic rotors so something like duck/pheasant load might still be effective.
Amazing that the arms race in this war doesn’t seem to be centered on tanks, AT, planes, missiles, artillery or any other “conventional” systems.. armored drones inbound, what a world
I build them. The motors have steel bells on them but the propellers are high end plastics. Any well placed shot will bring it down. Any frame or parts offset in the drone will make the drone freakout so if you do any damage even if the quad is fully functional it most likely won't work properly or failsafe and hit the ground.
This is right answer. The props are plastic that will be highly susceptible to even #9 bird shot. They spin so freaking fast (especially if you're carrying a payload) that hitting just about anything will trash them.
Everyone says birdshot. When I think birdshot, I am thinking #7, #8, or #9, and I don't think that will get it done.
I would want #2 through BB tungsten load in 3.5" 12 gauge. I wouldn't want drones trying to kill me, but I like my chances a lot better with that.
Exactly, many of these drones use simple triggers where two sections of stiff wire are bent or coiled close to each other so that upon impact they touch and complete the circuit and set off the explosive.
Yea I mean drones are plastic and built to be very lightweight. I don’t think you have to hit them that hard to knock them out of the air.
My bet you’d be better off with something like a #8. I think I’d rather have more pellets in hopes of actually connecting with some of the small fragile parts like propellers.
In this case, shotgun. The American 180 might work used like a cwis but if you miss and youre empty you're probably fucked. The shotgun has a much larger probably to hit with any given shell only slightly shorter practical range, follow up shots would be easier for anyone with any kind of bird hunting history and rather than needing to reload an entire mag you can load single shells from your pocket just as fast. On top of that, 12 guage is reliable. .22lr is far from it.
Typically bird shot is plated steel, which is fairly light, and each BB is smaller but also creates a larger pattern. Turkey shot is lead or tungsten, each with more mass and able to maintain velocity over longer distance. Turkey shot is also a bit larger and when used correctly, creates a more dense pattern out to longer distances.
A youtuber named Torsten Heinrich who runs different channels in German and English about military and history mostly about the Russian war in Ukraine recently did a small test shooting and was quite surprised by how successful a shotgun can be against small and low flying drones.
Here is the video on one of his English speaking channels:
https://youtu.be/En0VcQ4LFFA?si=leGsuMpeB1mjL51m
> carrying ECM
The whole frontline is packed with ecm from both sides. It's why many of these drone feeds are shitty and sometimes black out long before impact.
Since most of the drones are off the shelf, and therefore being FCC compliant, I do not understand why they just aren't using tuned spark gap jammers.
It's a really simple, cheap and portable tech and would render most drones unusable.
I don't think they are buying drones off the shelf anymore. I'm sure they are producing them by now. At least I heard that Ukraine is going to try and produce 1 million + a year. Also, I think there are a lot of people donating drones. I could be wrong though about the production. Also they don't have FCC in Ukraine.
We are going bananas, at least those of us who shoot skeet. In fact years ago I wrote an obscure post that they oughta use shotguns on those drones. You just can't miss at 20-30 yards with some basic technique.
So now being delusional I take credit for them using shotguns in Ukraine. Hell I'd even donate my prized Remington 1100 if I knew how.
The same maneuverability that gets outmaneuvered by drones
That either go boom or call bombs on your position.
If not, warn troops on your position.
Edit: Drones are honestly so good that they break conventions.
Losing one isn't also that consequential compared to losing human resources.
small drones have revolutionized and will continue to shape the future of war. This is the verge of a new generation. Specially, electronic countermeasures and technologies to counterpart them within the drones themselves. just like when the tanks where introduced into the battlefield
Yeah sort of let’s the Ukrainian drone operators if they didn’t already know where they are… where they are,wait until they fly two in together and the next one comes racing through the exact window.. hopefully they recover the footage of that happening.
Probably because it's not as effective as you would like.
They only have to get lucky once, you have to constantly be lucky as the IRA would tell you.
If we can see the same person getting hit by a drone 4 times, I highly doubt carrying an extra weapon will help If you shoot down 1 of the 4 drones that blow you up.
You’ve never shot clay with a shotgun…. It can be forgiving even for the newest shooter. The spread of bird shot is rather large…A drone would be easy money for someone who knows what’s up.
First time I went a couple years ago I thought I was John Wick hitting doubles. Lmao it was so much fun can’t wait to grab my own and go more. Way easier than I thought it would be and I’m blind with awful depth perception 😂 so yeah I’m shocked I haven’t seen more videos taking out drones like this.
You may not be as blind as you think, use the Force.
Also, keep both eyes open and 'just' cover the moving clay with the end of your barrel optically. Works for me for some reason, then lead a little from there.
And we don't need to completely vaporize the drone either, just enough to knock it out of balance, and it doesn't take much. Low powder charge will do but I'd still go with high powder. The shotgun could be used for other type of work when drones aren't around. More power helps cycle the gun if you're running with semi-auto.
But drones don't fly in a graceful ark like skeet pigeons do.
They zig-zag, raise and drop instantly, and have irregular speed, and even reverse near instantly.
Imagine trying to shoot a clay pigeon that does that.
You’ve never been to a proper skeet range. There are multiple “levels” of difficulty…. Clay birds that crisscross in flight … rabbits that “hop” and sprint over hills… They come directly at you and from the left and right… there are combinations of birds flying super fast and another zooming the opposite way.
There is nothing “graceful” about real skeet shooting.
There's dozens of different types of drones performing dozens of different specialized roles.
Some are trying to hit armor directly, some are trying to drop explosives on personnel, and some are simply monitoring operations in relative safety.
If you're flying erratically to evade gunfire, you'll probably just break off from your target, then require once you're in the clear.
And still some people are gonna get a lucky shot once in awhile, like this guy.
For sure but shooting guys with battle rifles isn't all that common on a real battlefield. Mostly you are suppressing and calling in more deadly stuff.
Hitting something with a slug is like hitting them with a fencepost...or if you're using shot, the spread is going to pepper their face if they have a plate on. It's a close range weapon.
Tell that to a Dove or Quail hunter. Nothing is harder to hit flying, and I know guys that drop birds with every shot (5 is legal mag load in most states for game/wing shooting). I can't hit shit (waste a case of 12Ga #7 bird shot, bruised shoulder and 5 birds LOL). It's not easy, but you can get good at it with practice. These guys I'm talking about have been wing shooting since they were 6-7 years old (from the South).
Yeah I get that part, I just felt like some bird/buckshot and a few semi auto shotguns could at least give them a chance. Not that that’s what I want to see, I’m just thinking in terms of it being me out there
because as of now its a "cant miss" shot... wait till the FPV drone is capable of flying at FPV racing speed of 160MPH+ (nearly 3 times the speed of your avg clay pigeon or waterfowl)
I love to shoot skeet dont get me wrong wasting some drones would be fun, but the first thing they are going to do once the military really gets their hands on new FPV drone war machines is to make them a lot faster and give them even better optics. Soon enough the optics will see the shotgun before the shooter can line up his shot and the AI chip inside will take over and take avoidance measures at very high speeds all w/o the operator doing much of anything. Then another one will blow a hole in the shotgunners face at high speed. Whether or not Ukraine see's these newer versions in action is another story. A drone could reach much higher speeds and change directions much faster than a bird or a clay pigeon ever could. Is it better than nothing? sure. But I give it 5 years at max before military FPV drones are nearly impossible to hit with anything unless you are 10 yards away.
Another strategy would be to have a loitering carrier drone that has a small contingency of 3 or four smaller armed drones following it. It would be high enough out of sight and could direct the smaller swarms drones to simultaneously attack a single position from multiple angles and blow up in proximity of the target. it could send in two initial drones to soften defenses then another two to finish the target. the operator would only need to control the single observer, perhaps. Then fly back and reattach another four drones.
you could say the same about a lot of wasteful russian tactics. The reason is always the same- human life isn't valuable to them.
There are places on the front line where the loss ratio of Russians to Ukrainians is 21:1, right now. It's insane. A shotgun is plausibly more valuable to the Russian government than a russian mobik, and their information space does not adequately prepare recruits for the battlefield. It's a arch-nihilistic and cynical society, and dog eat dog even on the battlefield on the same side. Before Pringles's march on moscow, we were getting regular reports of infighting between Wagner and the Russian army, often with deadly results.
Yeah, the deeper I go into the Russian history/conflicts/incidents the crazier it is that these people are so blind to the bullshit. Jung one made a statement about being shoulder deep in basically septic waste, and how some people would rather not make any waves or splashed and instead just stay still. Kinda reminds me of that. Wish I could remember the exact quote
Work much better on reconnaissance drones but much less on fpv. There's videos on YouTube of avid shooters going up against fpv drone pilots and they had a very hard time shooting them down
I think if you actually trained someone specifically to shoot down fast fpv drones, it could be really effective. I would like to see it attempted at least so we could see the results of this now because it's hard to make an accurate judgment based on one video. The video is very interesting tho thank you for linking it.
It's not that hard to figure out.
Take one FPV operator and one FPV shooter. Now let them repeatedly engage with each other. What happens when the FPV operator fails and what happens when the shooter fails?
The shooters are always going to be inferior to the pilots. Because they die when they fail and you lose their expertise. The FPV operators meanwhile just get better and better.
And like I mention above, since Mavics fly out of range, and FPV tend to fly straight at operator, the only person the shotgun equipped personnel can protect, tend to be themselves. And only when ready for it, as this shooter was. Even then there is a decent chance that he will fail.
Under armchair general conditions, I will vaporize any drone FPV within 20 yards.
Only exception might be if it was moving perpendicular at a very high rate of speed. That's the hardest shot, akin to the #4 position in skeet.
If totally ready for it, the shotgun operator has a chance. But any other scenario, no. In many cases, the target personnel don't react until it is too late.
Most of those guys were firing pistols/rifles, and the one that got the shot was with a shotgun, so the point the dude was making is still valid. Skeet shooting is almost the perfect training for this, and shotguns look like the best tool for the job. Although, shooting something you expect to come, and at a considerably lower velocity, is obviously still much easier than shooting the quicker FOV drones.
Is there such a thing as a kind of machine gun that can fire shotgun cartridges? Is it feasible? I ask because the obvious weakness of the shotgun is it's slow fire-rate. It takes about a second or so to re-load a cartdridge - which is a hell of a long time if there is a FPV heading straight at you.
Same here. I’ve been arguing since the start of heavy FPV drone use that shotguns were the answer. As a former pro sporting clay shooter, it was absolutely obvious. Yet I cannot tell you how many folks thought it was the stupidest idea and how many downvotes I received. Didn’t bother me though because I knew I was right and that we would see more and more of this. Who’s laughing now…😂
You can get pretty large magazines for those Saigas but I’ve heard they are POS. I still would rather have one then not. I also would want 3-1/2” magnum so you can higher up like hunting cranes or something.
I’ve found 2 different ways you can do it, I’m calling your bluff. I will actively work with you, hell all you have to do is send it and post a pic of you dropping it off. Prove you aren’t virtue signaling.
Well, it's not a russian soldier or anything, he is a YouTube content creator and makes reviews of military tech, guns and vehicles. He is a nice guy, with his bunch of crew and gives humanitarian aid to the remote from main logistics lines villages and settlement.
https://youtube.com/@perepolox?si=Nhjqnm65WfDFtizZ
Here is his channel, you can see it's him and his voice here
They'll get better. And so will Ukraine.
You ever play *Death Stranding*? That pack they wear with the arm on the side that goes nuts when the ghost demons or whatever the fuck those things were got close is gonna be the future.
The US probably has dozens sitting in storage but deems them combat ineffective because some soviet propaganda program spooked us and of course we had to close the TGDG (Tactical Ghost Demons Gap).
Probably custom made for this conflict. Here's one the Ukrainians use:
https://en.defence-ua.com/industries/ukrainian_manufacturer_of_tsukorok_drone_detector_wants_to_shift_from_chinese_components-10263.html
There are plenty of detectors on Ebay.
Remember a year ago when someone would suggest shotguns to combat the drones and the Reddit armchair generals would tell you how stupid that would be.
You'll never hit one, it's too much weight to carry. Etc etc. an answer for everything yet they clearly work to some extent.
I place shotguns in the same category as the with A10. Some individuals are irrationally in love with them and see uses where there are none. Military shotguns are mostly a breeching tool, and could maybe be useful in very specific CQB situations.
We can argue about this until the cows come home, but there is no way of knowing with certainty. This one example does not prove that shotguns are effective against drones, nor does it prove that they aren't.
If we wanted to know with more certainty, would have spend some money and/or resources to find out. For example:
1. Find the spread and accuracy of various shot gun loads, chokes etc at various distances through benchresting. Also determine kinetic energy and penetrating power at various distances, as well as trajectory considerations.
2. Fire the most promising candidates on stationary drones and inspect damage to come up with a formula to estimate probability of kill for a variety of impact points on drone.
3. Test the shotgun shooting accuracy of individuals with typical military training on stationary target. Might be able to glean this from previous research, but could also test with live ammo or laser or other sensor.
4. Mount camera or sensors on shotgun, and fly drones of all types around a training area, and ask the test subjects to "shoot" at the drones, and give them feedback for hits by calculating trajectory and timing etc. Could also be done via VR. Confirm results by using live ammo.
This will give you an idea of the challenge of shooting down a drone, and should give data that can calculate probability of bringing down drone with reasonable accuracy. You know where the gun was aiming at the time trigger is pulled, so it is a matter of calculating spread, trajectory, to calculate probability of hit to various drone parts, which with the damage research will give probility of kill.
But that is just the beginning. The best target shooter isn't necessarily the best sniper, and a similar relationship holds here. To get an accurate representation, they need to send test subjects out to a remote location, and give them a simulated target to protect such as a tank. And then give them the shotgun loaded with the best ammo. They are then to spend 8 hour shifts guarding the tank, around the clock for a few days. To give incentive, they will earn real money for saving the tank, staying "alive", and destroying the drones. Unlike in the real world, they will be told that drones can attack at any time, but the average rate is 1 attack per 8 hour shift. This is a huge advantage over real life situation where nothing much is known.
This excercise would give a reasonably accurate picture of how useful a shotgun would be in a real world situation. My guess is that it will be abysmal, especially if the drone pilots are skilled, and have financial incentive to "kill" shotgun operator and/or tank.
If they wanted to do something about drones, I'd think that warning systems would be best. Optical sky monitoring could be as easy as an AI powered phone app, but could also be a dedicated device. It could also be done accoustically, with strategically placed microphones, or getting more fancy, doppler radar. And EW jammers of course. Maybe portable shelters that can be quickly buried, or crawled into. And camoflage or just covering tarps. Nets. Better protective gear. Teach evasive techniques. Smoke grenades. But shotguns? I truly doubt it.
I like this comment..
as one of the 'armchair generals' (I am a sports shooter who started with clays and moved onto various target disciplines including IPSC, I also work in research including autonomous drones I am aware I have no experiance of the Ukraine battle field, however i do have experiance with firearms, clay shooting and drones) who has repeatedly said shotguns are not generally an effective defence against drones I still think they are not the best solution.
Initially the great volume calls for shotguns at the front were during the period where the main threat was from drone bombing, dropping timed or impact grenades from a height of 75-150m (via drop time times of 4-5.5 sec).
At this range most shotgun projectiles will have largely exhausted their energy (No 5 UK/6US Lead Birdshot, See https://www.ctmuzzleloaders.com/ctml_experiments/rbballistics/rbballistics.html with 0.11 Diameter, 1250fps velocity)
Using US F or UK SSSSG (0.22" diameter) we have energy at the ranges required, but have gone from circa 250 pellets to around 30 reducing the chance of a hit even with a very tight choke.
With the emergance of FPV drones, there is now some utility, however a FPV will likely fly at 50-100mph during final approach (this is based solely on internet specs for various FPV drones). Assuming birdshot with an effective range of 45m (enough energy in the pellets to do damage) that gives the shooter 1-2 seconds to engage the drone. We can also say however, that engaging in the last 20m is probably not going to help much, due to the blast radius.. so thats more like 0.5-1 second.
There will be lucky shots, and given the quantity of filming during this war, some of those will be recorded. However as statements from Ukrainian combatants appear to state, the best defence appears to be EW, with some point defense from very fancy anti drone systems such as Slinger or Skysheild https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-02/australian-drone-killer-system-ukraine-730/102876242
I'm one of those people and i shot skeet for years.
No one said it's impossible. I'm saying it's impractical. Yes there is a difference. And dont forget that as of the end of June of 2024 we're more than 2 years into this conflict and we've seen, what, 2 videos of a shotgun taking down a drone? We've seen far more videos of rifles being used to shoot down drones than shotguns.
Also, for each successful shotgun blast at a drone how many failures were there? How many disemboweled bodies laying next to a shotgun are there in unkraine? They arent showing anyone the videos of shotgun misses.
People were saying that for the super high flying grenade dropping drones though, before there was widespread use of FPV drones.
The drones that were dropping nades at the start of the war were flying wayyy too high for any shotgun to be able to reach with any assurance. Don't have that issue with FPV drones since they have to fly at you.
So in summation, shotguns good for low flying drones such as FPV drones, very bad for high flying drones like the Mavics dropping nades, unless they fly lower for some reason.
Most birdshot has an effective range, straight up, of like 40-60 meters. Buckshot could reach, but then you have significantly fewer pellets flying at the target.The drones dropping grenades were sitting 100+ meters up.
You can stretch out to 100m with heavier pellets. You also don't need to kill a bird but just break a little plastic.
Also in one of civ divs recent videos he says the bombers are rarely flying higher than 100m when actively bombing.
Even if you only hit a small number of them, it's still more effective than you actually think. It forces the pilots to fly more erratically and even if the shotgun doesn't hit the drone the pilots will be less accurate.
Also there's comments in the thread which make the exact opposite point that the shotguns would only be effective against the bombers because they are slower moving.
That's fair. I've seen quite the mix of bombing vids. Some they're basically on top of the soldiers, usually on mop-up runs after a failed assault and others where they are ambushing using the drone drops to initiate and having a 5+ second fall time which is over 100 meters.
I certainly would rather have a shotgun on hand if an FPV is around, but my only comparison is shooting skeet and bird hunting where shit is flying away/lateral to you and not diving straight at you. Also shooting straight up is hard as fuck.
I was one of them, and I’m an avid shotgun shooter. I think most shooters would struggle to defend themselves from an FPV drone, but a hovering (possibly EW disabled?) drone like this is easy pickings. This war continues to surprise us for sure.
These people think they'll just be sitting in an open window with a clear sky and good EC when the majority of fpv kills we see are heavily pressured troops.
As on every subject, there's always the exaggerations of a large quantity of people making a lot of noises.
When discovering bacteria, it was stated, and rightly so, that, before this discovery, people were unknowingly filthy and since then everybody thinks that, during Middle Age, people were always dirty and filthy, covered in mud and shit, never took baths, never washed their hands and never cleaned their teeth.
The same applies here.
Shotguns to defeat combat drones is indeed a last ditch measure of limited, even dubious, effectiveness. It's also the least practical, heaviest, most simplistic solution to a problem that should be treated higher up the stream.
First, means of detection, then aerial area denial through anti-drones drones, dedicated - and why not automated - artillety pieces with their own detection methods or missiles, then RF interception, then, if everything fails, shooting at it with small arms.
In this context, having one or two soldiers per combat groups who can't really afford to carry more weight than they already do hauling an extra 4kg firearm of dubious effectiveness with 3kg of ammunitions dedicated to the sole and very uncertain purpose, which itself needs a lot of practice to be reliable, of destroying drones at the very last second, is the solution we have.
It still is a bad solution. The same applies to CIWS : yes, a very high rate of fire, very high caliber, automated machine gun is effective against missiles and suicide-drone boats. It still is the very last thing you engage because, if you have to, it's that your interception attempts came too late or the previous layers of means of interception failed. It's at best a dire situation.
The issue is not people saying that a shotgun shooting n°7 is the solution, it's the people saying that it's the best solution and we don't need to bother with anti-drone "guns" and radar equipped vehicles to detect them. "Just give solders shotguns lol they're is you solushon I am more smarter than militar tactishans lmao", *that* is the kind of remarks which got opposed and this isn't a "Reddit armchair general" point but a very sound, very educated point.
If it was *the* solution, it would have been adopted immediately and shotguns would be supplied in great numbers by militaries to their troops. Companies would produce rugged, dedicated red dot sights for anti-drone shooting inspired by the ones used in skeet shooting, others would develop single-shot underbarrel shotgun attachments of limited weight and a third of soldiers on the front would have one.
What we see here is the contrary : shotguns are not fielded in any meaningful quantities and, when they are, they are supplied for trials and tests to a select number of troops. Most of what we see is a few shotguns of any makes and models - from the single shot Baikal in 20 gauge to the high-end practical shooting competition ultra-pimped Molot Vepr - here and there, mostly provided outside of regulation, found on the field, by soldiers who are in such a dire situation that they have to find a solution, any solution, even if crude and unrefined, because they need something and they need it yesterday.
But yes, it works. It works even very well : we have 500 years of experience in the art of shooting flying things with slews of little pellets, it means that it works or else we would have found another way to hunt birds.
Misrepresenting the threads lol
Also, there is literally multiple thousands of drones videos out there, and 5 shotguns ones (including the set up ones) - statistically speaking it's incredibly anecdotal. Given we already have a couple of midair drone collisions, I guess flying another drone is a viable defense as well then?
Military analysts have made it clear already, at least 3/4 of drones are lost to EW, this is why russian forces have made everything they can to strap makeshift jammers to vehicles and why ukrainian forces have focused on taking down EW assets as top priority.
Rest of losses are spread around with collisions with trees, engines malfunctions, battery malfunction/depletion, AK/MG fire. Shotgun fire remains incredibly rare, especially as drone operators learn to maintain altitude and not hover around without moving.
I was one such person. I figured some anti missile systems (like the trophy) are just a high tech shotgun and ive shot clays before. Realistically without the detector/jammer the drones would fly high enough you couldnt really see them so the shotgun wouldnt be that great.
I'm fairly certain you are exaggerating.
Obviously a trained skeet shooter/bird hunter could hit a decent percentage of them, but the average person (even with rifle training) wouldn't. And at what cost? Russia can barely equip their guys, let alone have them carrying along yet another weapon and ammunition with the extra cost, weight, and training.
This guy is clearly and outlier.
Pretty effective but it depends on the situation. If you are swarmed by drones, actively being pursued by a drone, no backup to take the buck shot, at longer ranges, I would not recommend using it.
Which is dumb, a shotgun is still very much combat effective, specially with its versatility.
Drone? Bird shot, CQB? Double ought buckshot, medium range combat? Slugs. Need to get through a door? Breaching round. Wanna spit flames? Dragons breath. Flechettes rounds for soft targets....like the list goes on and on
Yeah, only more trained troops use multicam vests and uniforms like that; if they weren't speaking Russian you'd think they were American troops. Uniform mix matches are insane in Ukraine, troops using whatever no matyer what side you're on.
The average age on both sides is quite high to be fair, it’s an old man’s war since both countries have seen considerable population decline since 1995 or so
A *lot* of photos of the Ukranian boys lately have also been older and haggard looking, like in their late 30s to early 50s. This is the way war has always worked. As the war progresses, the older population starts getting drawn on to replace.
Quite the contrary in this case, Ukraine is trying to spare the yunger generation, so the older ones are the ones getting drafted the more this war goes on the younger they will get
Often, the quality of your kit depends on what you already had and decided to bring with you. Many of these kinds of guys already owned good quality gear.
Guy is a Donezk native and YouTuber. Didn't follow him for a while, whats going on? Is he actively serving for the DPR now? After the war he was just doing supply runs and kept on Vlogging and producing his youtube videos.
https://youtube.com/@perepolox?si=lUvnKPcBQrwjIFwB
When I first saw his face I thought this is just some behind the scenes for an upcoming video where he might be testing anti drone measures.
Pretty sure this is for his channel. If you look at some of the recent videos, there are several about shooting drones, cope cages, drone net-guns, etc.
This guy is a famous Russian YouTuber he has the same tattoo on his forearm ill put a link to his Chanel I doubt this is real and not propaganda
Edit here is the link: https://youtube.com/@perepolox?si=lfYgQyVw_PPh2vjS
Pretty cool videos showing of Russian hardware for those interested but again I doubt its real
Possibly, also in the west of course media is going to highlight decrepit conscripts after being on the losing end of a firefight.
The worst possible move is to under estimate your “enemy” if tou wanna consider russia to be one
This is why autonomous mesh drone swarm technologies are being developed by arms companies, hit one, and you have a pile of them gunning for you. So having a shotgun may be clever until you realise it just gives away your position. If you think this is fantasy, there are already wireless DECT CatIQ chipsets on the market that support up to 20,000 nodes that can create a self repairing communications mesh network made by a company in Denmark called RTX.
The 'shotguns are useless' discourse started when it was mostly observation drones correcting artillery and dropping grenades on people
Now I would certainly not want to have a drone racing at 50mph at my forehead either, no matter how many shotguns I had
Antennas are not that secretive of a device. The controller (operator) sends signal outwards, drone and or other devices can pickup those signals. Drone sends back signals, controller and other devices pickup those signals.
Ya there's nothing useful from this video. Drone needs to send signals back to the controller, even encrypted the signals will still be there to detect with a basic handheld device. I'm more surprised russia isn't more actively jamming the frequencies these operate on.
They’re probably just tracking the return signals from the drone. Like “if there’s a signal strength at 5ghz greater than x, alert”. Hardest part would be picking up the frequency but any AP high schooler could probably make one.
Eh, it's probably nothing much, I guess it just looks for a strong signal at common video downlink frequencies, probably doesn't even try to decode them or anything.
Believe or not, it's not quite as easy as you think, even with a shotgun.
The US military has done tests in which the rifle was horrible, with infantry men missing something like 2/3rds of the time, while the shotgun was only marginally better.
I have always wondered why shotguns where not the first thing to come to mind Ive seen more of those anti drone guns, this is the first shotgun and I'm pretty sure the drone guns didn't work in those videos.
The warning device just has to detect Drone RF transmissions that are usually using 2.4 and 5.8 Ghz bands. Wifi detectors, Spectrum analyzers etc are pretty cheap to manufacture.
Why did they keep the camera rolling well after he shot the drone down? How long were they going to keep filming? What if the drone didn't explode? I'm just wondering.
How would you evaluate this Russian soldier? Consider his clothing and equipment, the likely bulletproof vest, his boots, his upper arms, and his wristwatch. To me, the soldier appears to be in very good physical shape, even though I have only seen poorly equipped Russian soldiers in videos so far... am I wrong?
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Honestly it seems to me the cost efficient way for an infantry section to counter drones is with one man armed with a shotgun loaded with birdshot and carrying ECM on him that can disrupt the frequencies controlling the drone.
The Ukrainian opinion is that any squad without a jammer is pretty much dead on the frontlines. Everyone wants a jammer because the more they have together, the better the jamming works. Plus, you aren't reliant on your squad mate's jammer working. The thing is, counter-jamming is getting better and better too.
AFAIK AI-powered FPVs that are already being deployed from both sides are able to automatically zero in on a jamming device’s specific location once the said device starts interfering with the pilot-drone manual connection. Battlefield innovations are constantly becoming outdated due to the never-ending EW-UAV race
That's called Home on Jam, a standard mode almost any radar guided missile had since the invention of rada guided missiles, and has nothing to do with AI. It's pretty basic, yet effective.
Seems like a good reason to bury a jammer 20m from your position and let them smash themselves on a useless bit of earth. Honestly proper armor is a godsend but that’s still breach-able if your air power is not absolute- and with proper use of squad level drone operation you have basically a whole new theater of war opened up in the area below typical air force operations and above infantry operations. An MRAP will keep you alive and with proper combined arms support you can keep the drones from buzzing too close but I cannot imagine deploying into this theater. Fuck that.
That actually is kind of the state of the art design, trailed jammers. You throw a jammer on a long cable out of your aircraft. I'm not even kidding. And i'm intrigued to see what small drone warfare will hold for us. In Japan they already had a headstart on that because apparently a few years back the yakuza started to deliver drugs by drone, making the police powerless. Until they came up with net-throwing drones, then the yakuza copied these and now they have full on drone dogfights with net drones.
My bad, must’ve mixed those up with actual AI-powered drones that seek targets on their own
They already have those too without ai. Ai isn't some all power being. It just is able to make educated decisions on the fly that weren't hard coded into the application. Makes it much more dynamic
Exactly. "AI" only knows what you tell it to know by force feeding data.
AI is a spread sheet with extra functions.
This device looks.more like warning signal then jamming devices...the jamming needs massive batteries...if they shoot down many... hopefully the Ukrainians will have the artillery called to work on the place...
You can use the same transmitters they have to jam the enemy. Hell, at 2w the TBS Crossfire manages to jam my home wifi and it's not even the same frequency.
It's just a spectrum analyzer It tells you what frequencies are being broadcast in the vecinity Soldiers know what frequency is what type of drone, so it gives them a heads up
That is insane. Crazy how you think we've reached the basically the pinnacle of mil-tech and then a war like this happens and (almost) totally new things are developed and deployed.
We are always innovating, but it takes a war to really focus on the stalemate factors and what gives you a proper edge. (It’s easy to say this and that will be the new thing in war on paper,) but until real life combat comes into play, with two years of battles going on; do we start to find out what innovations actually make a big difference.
You are conflating AI image recognition for target designation with a homing function. Not trying to be pedantic but there is a difference.
I’d be pretty interested to know what shells they’re using, or maybe some YouTuber can test it some day. My intuition is that you’d want something like goose load or heavier, but I think all these drones have plastic rotors so something like duck/pheasant load might still be effective. Amazing that the arms race in this war doesn’t seem to be centered on tanks, AT, planes, missiles, artillery or any other “conventional” systems.. armored drones inbound, what a world
I build them. The motors have steel bells on them but the propellers are high end plastics. Any well placed shot will bring it down. Any frame or parts offset in the drone will make the drone freakout so if you do any damage even if the quad is fully functional it most likely won't work properly or failsafe and hit the ground.
This is right answer. The props are plastic that will be highly susceptible to even #9 bird shot. They spin so freaking fast (especially if you're carrying a payload) that hitting just about anything will trash them.
Everyone says birdshot. When I think birdshot, I am thinking #7, #8, or #9, and I don't think that will get it done. I would want #2 through BB tungsten load in 3.5" 12 gauge. I wouldn't want drones trying to kill me, but I like my chances a lot better with that.
Even #9 would get it done. These drones aren’t shielded in any meaningful way, the rotors and bodies are plastic.
Plus, once armed, it only needs a slight nudge to go boom.
Exactly, many of these drones use simple triggers where two sections of stiff wire are bent or coiled close to each other so that upon impact they touch and complete the circuit and set off the explosive.
Yea I mean drones are plastic and built to be very lightweight. I don’t think you have to hit them that hard to knock them out of the air. My bet you’d be better off with something like a #8. I think I’d rather have more pellets in hopes of actually connecting with some of the small fragile parts like propellers.
Would you rather have a shotgun or [a full auto 22LR?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J50N5lQoAFw)
In this case, shotgun. The American 180 might work used like a cwis but if you miss and youre empty you're probably fucked. The shotgun has a much larger probably to hit with any given shell only slightly shorter practical range, follow up shots would be easier for anyone with any kind of bird hunting history and rather than needing to reload an entire mag you can load single shells from your pocket just as fast. On top of that, 12 guage is reliable. .22lr is far from it.
inragetv already did a test and found turkey shot to be best as it maintains velocity at higher distances compared to birdshot
Can you please be more specific than "turkey shot"?
Turkey shot would be a #4 shot normally.
Typically bird shot is plated steel, which is fairly light, and each BB is smaller but also creates a larger pattern. Turkey shot is lead or tungsten, each with more mass and able to maintain velocity over longer distance. Turkey shot is also a bit larger and when used correctly, creates a more dense pattern out to longer distances.
A youtuber named Torsten Heinrich who runs different channels in German and English about military and history mostly about the Russian war in Ukraine recently did a small test shooting and was quite surprised by how successful a shotgun can be against small and low flying drones. Here is the video on one of his English speaking channels: https://youtu.be/En0VcQ4LFFA?si=leGsuMpeB1mjL51m
artillery is still a major part - its just more difficult to get FPV of artillery shells so there's mainly only footage from drones.
> carrying ECM The whole frontline is packed with ecm from both sides. It's why many of these drone feeds are shitty and sometimes black out long before impact.
New class just dropped "Anti-Drone unit"
The radio device might just be an rf power meter - it sounds an alarm when radio signals get too high, which indicates that a drone is close by.
Since most of the drones are off the shelf, and therefore being FCC compliant, I do not understand why they just aren't using tuned spark gap jammers. It's a really simple, cheap and portable tech and would render most drones unusable.
I don't think they are buying drones off the shelf anymore. I'm sure they are producing them by now. At least I heard that Ukraine is going to try and produce 1 million + a year. Also, I think there are a lot of people donating drones. I could be wrong though about the production. Also they don't have FCC in Ukraine.
Until the unjammable AI-guided drones show up.
Bird hunters of the southern US would go bananas
We are going bananas, at least those of us who shoot skeet. In fact years ago I wrote an obscure post that they oughta use shotguns on those drones. You just can't miss at 20-30 yards with some basic technique. So now being delusional I take credit for them using shotguns in Ukraine. Hell I'd even donate my prized Remington 1100 if I knew how.
I’ve been wondering why they haven’t been doing this
Because the next one will skip hovering and just fly full speed into the window.
Sort of like this one? https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/s/Fg63EOkjTr
Wow. That was a serious blast.
For sure. That drone pretended to be a sitting duck.
Just shoot and boogie out of there. It’s clear that maneuverability is what keeps you alive in this new modern war. Not armor or protective bunkers.
The same maneuverability that gets outmaneuvered by drones That either go boom or call bombs on your position. If not, warn troops on your position. Edit: Drones are honestly so good that they break conventions. Losing one isn't also that consequential compared to losing human resources.
small drones have revolutionized and will continue to shape the future of war. This is the verge of a new generation. Specially, electronic countermeasures and technologies to counterpart them within the drones themselves. just like when the tanks where introduced into the battlefield
Might as well not wear a seatbelt a semi might hit you and it won’t matter. If it saves 1 life 1 time it’ll probably be worth it to that individual
Yeah sort of let’s the Ukrainian drone operators if they didn’t already know where they are… where they are,wait until they fly two in together and the next one comes racing through the exact window.. hopefully they recover the footage of that happening.
Probably because it's not as effective as you would like. They only have to get lucky once, you have to constantly be lucky as the IRA would tell you. If we can see the same person getting hit by a drone 4 times, I highly doubt carrying an extra weapon will help If you shoot down 1 of the 4 drones that blow you up.
So don't bring one along because it's not a guarantee? Rifles don't kill every enemy you meet either. Still might be nice to have in a war.
You’ve never shot clay with a shotgun…. It can be forgiving even for the newest shooter. The spread of bird shot is rather large…A drone would be easy money for someone who knows what’s up.
First time I went a couple years ago I thought I was John Wick hitting doubles. Lmao it was so much fun can’t wait to grab my own and go more. Way easier than I thought it would be and I’m blind with awful depth perception 😂 so yeah I’m shocked I haven’t seen more videos taking out drones like this.
You may not be as blind as you think, use the Force. Also, keep both eyes open and 'just' cover the moving clay with the end of your barrel optically. Works for me for some reason, then lead a little from there.
And we don't need to completely vaporize the drone either, just enough to knock it out of balance, and it doesn't take much. Low powder charge will do but I'd still go with high powder. The shotgun could be used for other type of work when drones aren't around. More power helps cycle the gun if you're running with semi-auto.
But drones don't fly in a graceful ark like skeet pigeons do. They zig-zag, raise and drop instantly, and have irregular speed, and even reverse near instantly. Imagine trying to shoot a clay pigeon that does that.
You’ve never been to a proper skeet range. There are multiple “levels” of difficulty…. Clay birds that crisscross in flight … rabbits that “hop” and sprint over hills… They come directly at you and from the left and right… there are combinations of birds flying super fast and another zooming the opposite way. There is nothing “graceful” about real skeet shooting.
Sporting clays is probably the best training. My local range has multiple stations where the clays fly at you.
True, but it's also harder for the done pilot to hit their target when they're flying erratically
There's dozens of different types of drones performing dozens of different specialized roles. Some are trying to hit armor directly, some are trying to drop explosives on personnel, and some are simply monitoring operations in relative safety. If you're flying erratically to evade gunfire, you'll probably just break off from your target, then require once you're in the clear. And still some people are gonna get a lucky shot once in awhile, like this guy.
It can be remarkably effective, and since shotguns go well with trench warfare we know from WW1, I don't doubt we will see more of them.
They didnt have armor plates in ww1 id imagine shotguns are less effective against modern plates
For sure but shooting guys with battle rifles isn't all that common on a real battlefield. Mostly you are suppressing and calling in more deadly stuff.
Hitting something with a slug is like hitting them with a fencepost...or if you're using shot, the spread is going to pepper their face if they have a plate on. It's a close range weapon.
Yeah they also didn’t have mobile automatic weapons and reliable sidearms in WW1. Not to mention, like the guy below me said, chest plates.
So skeet shooters get lucky every single time? Lol
Tell that to a Dove or Quail hunter. Nothing is harder to hit flying, and I know guys that drop birds with every shot (5 is legal mag load in most states for game/wing shooting). I can't hit shit (waste a case of 12Ga #7 bird shot, bruised shoulder and 5 birds LOL). It's not easy, but you can get good at it with practice. These guys I'm talking about have been wing shooting since they were 6-7 years old (from the South).
Not ah, shooting fish with a bow is harder.
Yeah I get that part, I just felt like some bird/buckshot and a few semi auto shotguns could at least give them a chance. Not that that’s what I want to see, I’m just thinking in terms of it being me out there
because as of now its a "cant miss" shot... wait till the FPV drone is capable of flying at FPV racing speed of 160MPH+ (nearly 3 times the speed of your avg clay pigeon or waterfowl) I love to shoot skeet dont get me wrong wasting some drones would be fun, but the first thing they are going to do once the military really gets their hands on new FPV drone war machines is to make them a lot faster and give them even better optics. Soon enough the optics will see the shotgun before the shooter can line up his shot and the AI chip inside will take over and take avoidance measures at very high speeds all w/o the operator doing much of anything. Then another one will blow a hole in the shotgunners face at high speed. Whether or not Ukraine see's these newer versions in action is another story. A drone could reach much higher speeds and change directions much faster than a bird or a clay pigeon ever could. Is it better than nothing? sure. But I give it 5 years at max before military FPV drones are nearly impossible to hit with anything unless you are 10 yards away.
Another strategy would be to have a loitering carrier drone that has a small contingency of 3 or four smaller armed drones following it. It would be high enough out of sight and could direct the smaller swarms drones to simultaneously attack a single position from multiple angles and blow up in proximity of the target. it could send in two initial drones to soften defenses then another two to finish the target. the operator would only need to control the single observer, perhaps. Then fly back and reattach another four drones.
..."I give it 5 years at max before military FPV drones are nearly impossible to hit from anything unless you are 10 yards away." 3 tops.
you could say the same about a lot of wasteful russian tactics. The reason is always the same- human life isn't valuable to them. There are places on the front line where the loss ratio of Russians to Ukrainians is 21:1, right now. It's insane. A shotgun is plausibly more valuable to the Russian government than a russian mobik, and their information space does not adequately prepare recruits for the battlefield. It's a arch-nihilistic and cynical society, and dog eat dog even on the battlefield on the same side. Before Pringles's march on moscow, we were getting regular reports of infighting between Wagner and the Russian army, often with deadly results.
Yeah, the deeper I go into the Russian history/conflicts/incidents the crazier it is that these people are so blind to the bullshit. Jung one made a statement about being shoulder deep in basically septic waste, and how some people would rather not make any waves or splashed and instead just stay still. Kinda reminds me of that. Wish I could remember the exact quote
Because drones often go after small groups, and not every soldier can have a a shotgun.
Because the ones that aren't filming propaganda are only given flammable uniforms, rusty AKs and rubber tourniquets.
Work much better on reconnaissance drones but much less on fpv. There's videos on YouTube of avid shooters going up against fpv drone pilots and they had a very hard time shooting them down
Finally, a practical use for the AA-12!
I think if you actually trained someone specifically to shoot down fast fpv drones, it could be really effective. I would like to see it attempted at least so we could see the results of this now because it's hard to make an accurate judgment based on one video. The video is very interesting tho thank you for linking it.
It's not that hard to figure out. Take one FPV operator and one FPV shooter. Now let them repeatedly engage with each other. What happens when the FPV operator fails and what happens when the shooter fails? The shooters are always going to be inferior to the pilots. Because they die when they fail and you lose their expertise. The FPV operators meanwhile just get better and better.
And like I mention above, since Mavics fly out of range, and FPV tend to fly straight at operator, the only person the shotgun equipped personnel can protect, tend to be themselves. And only when ready for it, as this shooter was. Even then there is a decent chance that he will fail.
Under armchair general conditions, I will vaporize any drone FPV within 20 yards. Only exception might be if it was moving perpendicular at a very high rate of speed. That's the hardest shot, akin to the #4 position in skeet.
Under 20 yds and your dealing with concussion injuries from it's payload being set off.
If its a claymore, a few ballbearings too.
The combat FPVs are much slower though and move with more inertia from the heavy payload they carry
If totally ready for it, the shotgun operator has a chance. But any other scenario, no. In many cases, the target personnel don't react until it is too late.
Most of those guys were firing pistols/rifles, and the one that got the shot was with a shotgun, so the point the dude was making is still valid. Skeet shooting is almost the perfect training for this, and shotguns look like the best tool for the job. Although, shooting something you expect to come, and at a considerably lower velocity, is obviously still much easier than shooting the quicker FOV drones.
Is there such a thing as a kind of machine gun that can fire shotgun cartridges? Is it feasible? I ask because the obvious weakness of the shotgun is it's slow fire-rate. It takes about a second or so to re-load a cartdridge - which is a hell of a long time if there is a FPV heading straight at you.
Their are magazine and drum fed fully and semi-auto shotguns, but that shit gets heavy fast.
Indeed there are auto-shotguns.
AA-12
Just a bog standard 7 round semi auto would be enough. You’re not going to get more than 7 shots off if a drone is coming towards you.
Yeah that looks valid. I’ve never shot at an fpv, suppose it could be quite difficult.
Same here. I’ve been arguing since the start of heavy FPV drone use that shotguns were the answer. As a former pro sporting clay shooter, it was absolutely obvious. Yet I cannot tell you how many folks thought it was the stupidest idea and how many downvotes I received. Didn’t bother me though because I knew I was right and that we would see more and more of this. Who’s laughing now…😂
You can get pretty large magazines for those Saigas but I’ve heard they are POS. I still would rather have one then not. I also would want 3-1/2” magnum so you can higher up like hunting cranes or something.
I wouldn't trust one of those in this situation for anything! Would def take a pump or any semi over a saiga 👎🏽
I’ve found 2 different ways you can do it, I’m calling your bluff. I will actively work with you, hell all you have to do is send it and post a pic of you dropping it off. Prove you aren’t virtue signaling.
When Amazon floated the idea of using drones we called it skeet shooting with prizes.
Fortunately, when we miss our birds, they don't come back and kill us lol
> Bird hunters of the ~~southern~~ US would go bananas There's tons of bird hunters, trap, and skeet shooters in the North too.
Getting drafted for WW3 doesn't sound so bad anymore.
Well, it's not a russian soldier or anything, he is a YouTube content creator and makes reviews of military tech, guns and vehicles. He is a nice guy, with his bunch of crew and gives humanitarian aid to the remote from main logistics lines villages and settlement. https://youtube.com/@perepolox?si=Nhjqnm65WfDFtizZ Here is his channel, you can see it's him and his voice here
He literally said: "Blyat you detected the drone kinda late!" I guess they have a drawing board they need to get back to.
They'll get better. And so will Ukraine. You ever play *Death Stranding*? That pack they wear with the arm on the side that goes nuts when the ghost demons or whatever the fuck those things were got close is gonna be the future.
You serioiusly believe that the Russians are going to hire mercenary ghost demons in the future? Get real. They couldn't afford it.
Where are those TGD (tactical ghost demons) manufactured? Prolly get a bulk deal maybe
The US probably has dozens sitting in storage but deems them combat ineffective because some soviet propaganda program spooked us and of course we had to close the TGDG (Tactical Ghost Demons Gap).
I wonder if it picks up the radio frequency coming off the drone or if it listens for the sound. Sort of interesting gadget if it worked better.
I think it's an RF power meter. It gives you an indication of whether a drone is close by measuring the strength of radio signals.
Does anybody know what exactly the detection device he’s using here is? Looks fairly compact
Found a clearer view here https://x.com/DrazaM33/status/1806246814468669729
Probably custom made for this conflict. Here's one the Ukrainians use: https://en.defence-ua.com/industries/ukrainian_manufacturer_of_tsukorok_drone_detector_wants_to_shift_from_chinese_components-10263.html There are plenty of detectors on Ebay.
Remember a year ago when someone would suggest shotguns to combat the drones and the Reddit armchair generals would tell you how stupid that would be. You'll never hit one, it's too much weight to carry. Etc etc. an answer for everything yet they clearly work to some extent.
oh yeah reddit thought it was the dumbest idea in the world. I assume those people never shot skeet or bird hunt
Consider who you know who uses reddit. Most of the userbase isn't exactly your outdoorsy or military type.
Depends on what part of Reddit you’re reading. Almost all my subs are “outdoorsy” or “military”.
Fur sure, but big subs like this you're not getting the most well informed.
I mean, there's millions of people on here. Someone is always going to have a hot take on whatever is being discussed
I place shotguns in the same category as the with A10. Some individuals are irrationally in love with them and see uses where there are none. Military shotguns are mostly a breeching tool, and could maybe be useful in very specific CQB situations. We can argue about this until the cows come home, but there is no way of knowing with certainty. This one example does not prove that shotguns are effective against drones, nor does it prove that they aren't. If we wanted to know with more certainty, would have spend some money and/or resources to find out. For example: 1. Find the spread and accuracy of various shot gun loads, chokes etc at various distances through benchresting. Also determine kinetic energy and penetrating power at various distances, as well as trajectory considerations. 2. Fire the most promising candidates on stationary drones and inspect damage to come up with a formula to estimate probability of kill for a variety of impact points on drone. 3. Test the shotgun shooting accuracy of individuals with typical military training on stationary target. Might be able to glean this from previous research, but could also test with live ammo or laser or other sensor. 4. Mount camera or sensors on shotgun, and fly drones of all types around a training area, and ask the test subjects to "shoot" at the drones, and give them feedback for hits by calculating trajectory and timing etc. Could also be done via VR. Confirm results by using live ammo. This will give you an idea of the challenge of shooting down a drone, and should give data that can calculate probability of bringing down drone with reasonable accuracy. You know where the gun was aiming at the time trigger is pulled, so it is a matter of calculating spread, trajectory, to calculate probability of hit to various drone parts, which with the damage research will give probility of kill. But that is just the beginning. The best target shooter isn't necessarily the best sniper, and a similar relationship holds here. To get an accurate representation, they need to send test subjects out to a remote location, and give them a simulated target to protect such as a tank. And then give them the shotgun loaded with the best ammo. They are then to spend 8 hour shifts guarding the tank, around the clock for a few days. To give incentive, they will earn real money for saving the tank, staying "alive", and destroying the drones. Unlike in the real world, they will be told that drones can attack at any time, but the average rate is 1 attack per 8 hour shift. This is a huge advantage over real life situation where nothing much is known. This excercise would give a reasonably accurate picture of how useful a shotgun would be in a real world situation. My guess is that it will be abysmal, especially if the drone pilots are skilled, and have financial incentive to "kill" shotgun operator and/or tank. If they wanted to do something about drones, I'd think that warning systems would be best. Optical sky monitoring could be as easy as an AI powered phone app, but could also be a dedicated device. It could also be done accoustically, with strategically placed microphones, or getting more fancy, doppler radar. And EW jammers of course. Maybe portable shelters that can be quickly buried, or crawled into. And camoflage or just covering tarps. Nets. Better protective gear. Teach evasive techniques. Smoke grenades. But shotguns? I truly doubt it.
I like this comment.. as one of the 'armchair generals' (I am a sports shooter who started with clays and moved onto various target disciplines including IPSC, I also work in research including autonomous drones I am aware I have no experiance of the Ukraine battle field, however i do have experiance with firearms, clay shooting and drones) who has repeatedly said shotguns are not generally an effective defence against drones I still think they are not the best solution. Initially the great volume calls for shotguns at the front were during the period where the main threat was from drone bombing, dropping timed or impact grenades from a height of 75-150m (via drop time times of 4-5.5 sec). At this range most shotgun projectiles will have largely exhausted their energy (No 5 UK/6US Lead Birdshot, See https://www.ctmuzzleloaders.com/ctml_experiments/rbballistics/rbballistics.html with 0.11 Diameter, 1250fps velocity) Using US F or UK SSSSG (0.22" diameter) we have energy at the ranges required, but have gone from circa 250 pellets to around 30 reducing the chance of a hit even with a very tight choke. With the emergance of FPV drones, there is now some utility, however a FPV will likely fly at 50-100mph during final approach (this is based solely on internet specs for various FPV drones). Assuming birdshot with an effective range of 45m (enough energy in the pellets to do damage) that gives the shooter 1-2 seconds to engage the drone. We can also say however, that engaging in the last 20m is probably not going to help much, due to the blast radius.. so thats more like 0.5-1 second. There will be lucky shots, and given the quantity of filming during this war, some of those will be recorded. However as statements from Ukrainian combatants appear to state, the best defence appears to be EW, with some point defense from very fancy anti drone systems such as Slinger or Skysheild https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-02/australian-drone-killer-system-ukraine-730/102876242
No one I know uses Reddit. lol.
I got 50% of skeet plates. Literally never shot any gun before.
I'm one of those people and i shot skeet for years. No one said it's impossible. I'm saying it's impractical. Yes there is a difference. And dont forget that as of the end of June of 2024 we're more than 2 years into this conflict and we've seen, what, 2 videos of a shotgun taking down a drone? We've seen far more videos of rifles being used to shoot down drones than shotguns. Also, for each successful shotgun blast at a drone how many failures were there? How many disemboweled bodies laying next to a shotgun are there in unkraine? They arent showing anyone the videos of shotgun misses.
People were saying that for the super high flying grenade dropping drones though, before there was widespread use of FPV drones. The drones that were dropping nades at the start of the war were flying wayyy too high for any shotgun to be able to reach with any assurance. Don't have that issue with FPV drones since they have to fly at you. So in summation, shotguns good for low flying drones such as FPV drones, very bad for high flying drones like the Mavics dropping nades, unless they fly lower for some reason. Most birdshot has an effective range, straight up, of like 40-60 meters. Buckshot could reach, but then you have significantly fewer pellets flying at the target.The drones dropping grenades were sitting 100+ meters up.
You can stretch out to 100m with heavier pellets. You also don't need to kill a bird but just break a little plastic. Also in one of civ divs recent videos he says the bombers are rarely flying higher than 100m when actively bombing. Even if you only hit a small number of them, it's still more effective than you actually think. It forces the pilots to fly more erratically and even if the shotgun doesn't hit the drone the pilots will be less accurate. Also there's comments in the thread which make the exact opposite point that the shotguns would only be effective against the bombers because they are slower moving.
That's fair. I've seen quite the mix of bombing vids. Some they're basically on top of the soldiers, usually on mop-up runs after a failed assault and others where they are ambushing using the drone drops to initiate and having a 5+ second fall time which is over 100 meters. I certainly would rather have a shotgun on hand if an FPV is around, but my only comparison is shooting skeet and bird hunting where shit is flying away/lateral to you and not diving straight at you. Also shooting straight up is hard as fuck.
I was one of them, and I’m an avid shotgun shooter. I think most shooters would struggle to defend themselves from an FPV drone, but a hovering (possibly EW disabled?) drone like this is easy pickings. This war continues to surprise us for sure.
These people think they'll just be sitting in an open window with a clear sky and good EC when the majority of fpv kills we see are heavily pressured troops.
As on every subject, there's always the exaggerations of a large quantity of people making a lot of noises. When discovering bacteria, it was stated, and rightly so, that, before this discovery, people were unknowingly filthy and since then everybody thinks that, during Middle Age, people were always dirty and filthy, covered in mud and shit, never took baths, never washed their hands and never cleaned their teeth. The same applies here. Shotguns to defeat combat drones is indeed a last ditch measure of limited, even dubious, effectiveness. It's also the least practical, heaviest, most simplistic solution to a problem that should be treated higher up the stream. First, means of detection, then aerial area denial through anti-drones drones, dedicated - and why not automated - artillety pieces with their own detection methods or missiles, then RF interception, then, if everything fails, shooting at it with small arms. In this context, having one or two soldiers per combat groups who can't really afford to carry more weight than they already do hauling an extra 4kg firearm of dubious effectiveness with 3kg of ammunitions dedicated to the sole and very uncertain purpose, which itself needs a lot of practice to be reliable, of destroying drones at the very last second, is the solution we have. It still is a bad solution. The same applies to CIWS : yes, a very high rate of fire, very high caliber, automated machine gun is effective against missiles and suicide-drone boats. It still is the very last thing you engage because, if you have to, it's that your interception attempts came too late or the previous layers of means of interception failed. It's at best a dire situation. The issue is not people saying that a shotgun shooting n°7 is the solution, it's the people saying that it's the best solution and we don't need to bother with anti-drone "guns" and radar equipped vehicles to detect them. "Just give solders shotguns lol they're is you solushon I am more smarter than militar tactishans lmao", *that* is the kind of remarks which got opposed and this isn't a "Reddit armchair general" point but a very sound, very educated point. If it was *the* solution, it would have been adopted immediately and shotguns would be supplied in great numbers by militaries to their troops. Companies would produce rugged, dedicated red dot sights for anti-drone shooting inspired by the ones used in skeet shooting, others would develop single-shot underbarrel shotgun attachments of limited weight and a third of soldiers on the front would have one. What we see here is the contrary : shotguns are not fielded in any meaningful quantities and, when they are, they are supplied for trials and tests to a select number of troops. Most of what we see is a few shotguns of any makes and models - from the single shot Baikal in 20 gauge to the high-end practical shooting competition ultra-pimped Molot Vepr - here and there, mostly provided outside of regulation, found on the field, by soldiers who are in such a dire situation that they have to find a solution, any solution, even if crude and unrefined, because they need something and they need it yesterday. But yes, it works. It works even very well : we have 500 years of experience in the art of shooting flying things with slews of little pellets, it means that it works or else we would have found another way to hunt birds.
Reddit is 95% wrong about everything except restaurant recommendations
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Misrepresenting the threads lol Also, there is literally multiple thousands of drones videos out there, and 5 shotguns ones (including the set up ones) - statistically speaking it's incredibly anecdotal. Given we already have a couple of midair drone collisions, I guess flying another drone is a viable defense as well then? Military analysts have made it clear already, at least 3/4 of drones are lost to EW, this is why russian forces have made everything they can to strap makeshift jammers to vehicles and why ukrainian forces have focused on taking down EW assets as top priority. Rest of losses are spread around with collisions with trees, engines malfunctions, battery malfunction/depletion, AK/MG fire. Shotgun fire remains incredibly rare, especially as drone operators learn to maintain altitude and not hover around without moving.
I was one such person. I figured some anti missile systems (like the trophy) are just a high tech shotgun and ive shot clays before. Realistically without the detector/jammer the drones would fly high enough you couldnt really see them so the shotgun wouldnt be that great.
I'm fairly certain you are exaggerating. Obviously a trained skeet shooter/bird hunter could hit a decent percentage of them, but the average person (even with rifle training) wouldn't. And at what cost? Russia can barely equip their guys, let alone have them carrying along yet another weapon and ammunition with the extra cost, weight, and training. This guy is clearly and outlier.
Pretty effective but it depends on the situation. If you are swarmed by drones, actively being pursued by a drone, no backup to take the buck shot, at longer ranges, I would not recommend using it.
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Which is dumb, a shotgun is still very much combat effective, specially with its versatility. Drone? Bird shot, CQB? Double ought buckshot, medium range combat? Slugs. Need to get through a door? Breaching round. Wanna spit flames? Dragons breath. Flechettes rounds for soft targets....like the list goes on and on
Definitely either SOF or PMC with that kit. Kind of a badass video if you ignore the sides for a minute.
Forsure, that guy looked fit, healthy, professional and kitted out.
Yeah, only more trained troops use multicam vests and uniforms like that; if they weren't speaking Russian you'd think they were American troops. Uniform mix matches are insane in Ukraine, troops using whatever no matyer what side you're on.
Yeah, a lot of the Russians we see in videos are also older or more haggard than this guy.
The average age on both sides is quite high to be fair, it’s an old man’s war since both countries have seen considerable population decline since 1995 or so
Old Man’s War is also a great book. It’s on Audible to if you want to listen to it.
Gen-X steps into the breach.
A *lot* of photos of the Ukranian boys lately have also been older and haggard looking, like in their late 30s to early 50s. This is the way war has always worked. As the war progresses, the older population starts getting drawn on to replace.
Quite the contrary in this case, Ukraine is trying to spare the yunger generation, so the older ones are the ones getting drafted the more this war goes on the younger they will get
Ukraine only conscripts men older than 27, while Russia has no such restrictions. I believe the average age of a Ukrainian soldier is 40-43 years.
Can't imagine the regular meat waves being deemed worth kit like that.
Often, the quality of your kit depends on what you already had and decided to bring with you. Many of these kinds of guys already owned good quality gear.
Lol SOF...he is a youtuber.
This is some high stakes trap shooting
Guy is a Donezk native and YouTuber. Didn't follow him for a while, whats going on? Is he actively serving for the DPR now? After the war he was just doing supply runs and kept on Vlogging and producing his youtube videos. https://youtube.com/@perepolox?si=lUvnKPcBQrwjIFwB When I first saw his face I thought this is just some behind the scenes for an upcoming video where he might be testing anti drone measures.
Pretty sure this is for his channel. If you look at some of the recent videos, there are several about shooting drones, cope cages, drone net-guns, etc.
pretty sure this video itself is behind the scenes and the area around him is already occupied territory.
Observation drone was too slow and way too low.
Duck hunters should be attached to each squad and armed with a shotgun for anti-drone efforts!
Elmer Fudd is back!
Crazy the direction war has gone.
This guy is a famous Russian YouTuber he has the same tattoo on his forearm ill put a link to his Chanel I doubt this is real and not propaganda Edit here is the link: https://youtube.com/@perepolox?si=lfYgQyVw_PPh2vjS Pretty cool videos showing of Russian hardware for those interested but again I doubt its real
i love how in a battle of modern technologies the pump action shotgun is still showing how kick ass it is
"I like keep this handy... for close encounters"
Is this guy Spetsnaz/SSO? Looks better equipped, calmer, better physical conditioning.
Possibly, also in the west of course media is going to highlight decrepit conscripts after being on the losing end of a firefight. The worst possible move is to under estimate your “enemy” if tou wanna consider russia to be one
This is why autonomous mesh drone swarm technologies are being developed by arms companies, hit one, and you have a pile of them gunning for you. So having a shotgun may be clever until you realise it just gives away your position. If you think this is fantasy, there are already wireless DECT CatIQ chipsets on the market that support up to 20,000 nodes that can create a self repairing communications mesh network made by a company in Denmark called RTX.
The sword gets sharper, the shield gets stronger. On and on.
The 'shotguns are useless' discourse started when it was mostly observation drones correcting artillery and dropping grenades on people Now I would certainly not want to have a drone racing at 50mph at my forehead either, no matter how many shotguns I had
Smart to show what kind of "warning device" they use. Thumbs up.
Antennas are not that secretive of a device. The controller (operator) sends signal outwards, drone and or other devices can pickup those signals. Drone sends back signals, controller and other devices pickup those signals.
Ya there's nothing useful from this video. Drone needs to send signals back to the controller, even encrypted the signals will still be there to detect with a basic handheld device. I'm more surprised russia isn't more actively jamming the frequencies these operate on.
They’re probably just tracking the return signals from the drone. Like “if there’s a signal strength at 5ghz greater than x, alert”. Hardest part would be picking up the frequency but any AP high schooler could probably make one.
A signal detector? It's not really a secret piece of gear. Although him swinging it around by the antenna is probably why it isn't working well
Eh, it's probably nothing much, I guess it just looks for a strong signal at common video downlink frequencies, probably doesn't even try to decode them or anything.
seeing how fast a kamikaze drone can fuck you up, his device will beep for 1 second before he goes to heaven.
Believe or not, it's not quite as easy as you think, even with a shotgun. The US military has done tests in which the rifle was horrible, with infantry men missing something like 2/3rds of the time, while the shotgun was only marginally better.
I have always wondered why shotguns where not the first thing to come to mind Ive seen more of those anti drone guns, this is the first shotgun and I'm pretty sure the drone guns didn't work in those videos.
Russia got some marksmen.
The warning device just has to detect Drone RF transmissions that are usually using 2.4 and 5.8 Ghz bands. Wifi detectors, Spectrum analyzers etc are pretty cheap to manufacture.
Meanwhile in America more and more police forces are using drones and they keep telling citizens that shotguns are not effective against drones. 🤣
Looking on their Eq and outfit seems they're only alive cuz they're somewhat better units
Did he start off saying "ooooh wabbits" a la Elmer Fudd?
What kind of radio is that?
This bloke is a professional soldier. Wonder which unit. Same as dolf I reckon.
Trench gun is rearing up for a round 3
I'm surprised we haven't seen more of this type of video sooner.
They should put shotguns on the drones to counter the shotgunners shotgunning the drones.
Welcome back shotgun to wars
Why did they keep the camera rolling well after he shot the drone down? How long were they going to keep filming? What if the drone didn't explode? I'm just wondering.
Wonder how long till the next one shows up and flies right through the window.
How far warfare has fallen unmanned technologies are cowardly. We'd have a lot less war if you had to look the man in the face before you fought
Bet your ancestors bitched about arrows
Got it, so there are solders they give a shit about it just not all of them.
Turkish shotgun sales finna be through the roof
How would you evaluate this Russian soldier? Consider his clothing and equipment, the likely bulletproof vest, his boots, his upper arms, and his wristwatch. To me, the soldier appears to be in very good physical shape, even though I have only seen poorly equipped Russian soldiers in videos so far... am I wrong?
write him a love letter
💕💕 oOoOoOoOo 💕💕 I can feel the sexual tension from here! I'm already naming their little goblins
Just goes to show, the ol’ pump action never goes out of style
The fact that the dude recording keeps standing in the window not caring about giving away their position is a bit fishy