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0 pointsSkyeCA1mo ago0 comments

> So making drones and drone parts do not require any highly advanced technology or manufacturing processes?

I'll understand if you aren't a hardware person, but I think you severely overestimate how complex a drone needs to be if you only intend for it to be single use (which is apparently all the rage in modern war).

You don't even need drone specific parts, the parts you need are used in all kinds of other applications...many are even in your home right now whether you know it or not.

To destroy the supply of these generic parts you would have to destroy...basically everything.

> Then why weren't they widely used in the first world war?

This statement alone makes me not take your argument seriously. You aren't arguing in good faith.

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XorNot1mo ago

No they're exactly right: drones need cheap, powerful parts which have only become possible due to highly concentrated mass production in places like China. You aren't fabbing up integrated machine learning SOCs in a shed in Ukraine, and the cheapness of the parts depends on large unfettered supply chains. They're not "with some skill, you can build a lathe and then machine a pipe gun" simple.

In a direct conflict, no one is going to sit back and be destroyed by drone swarms: they'll bomb the industrial districts.

In war, the enemy gets a say in your plans: Iran can't beat the US directly, but it can hit energy infrastructure around the Gulf which is politically untenable for the US.

But it works the other way too: if your enemies plan is "you won't bomb the big industrial facilities so we'll just win" then you break out the fancy expensive missiles and bomb the industrial facilities. Or the power plants.

SkyeCAOP1mo ago

> You aren't fabbing up integrated machine learning SOCs

All the basic sensors you need for flight exist in the literal billions of Android phones produced in the last 15 years.

I'm trying to be evasive about how you'd build such a thing because I don't want a visit over a comment online, but if you understand aerodynamics you can make almost anything fly.

I think the disconnect here is people reading "drone" and thinking something super high tech and precise, whereas I'm thinking of the minimum thing viable thing to create chaos/fear for you enemy.

carlosjobim1mo ago

> I think the disconnect here is people reading "drone" and thinking something super high tech and precise, whereas I'm thinking of the minimum thing viable thing to create chaos/fear for you enemy.

Even something like a ball bearing is super high tech and precise. Any kind of modern (post WWI) technology is super high tech and precise. Giant efforts were made to destroy ball bearing manufacturing in WWII, not to mention the rest of the war machine. Including German drones.

In a total war scenario, all enemy war factories and infrastructure will be attacked, and even civilian residential areas providing workers to the enemy war effort. This is how the allies mainly fought WWII against Germany.

When you start assembling drones from spare parts from other machines, and making custom drones, then you are at small scale and drones aren't anymore the cheap, mass produced weapon.

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