Why didn't we see the use of drones by Iraqis or Afghans? Quadcopters have been around since the late 1990s. Fixed wing drones have been around even longer than that. What gives? I'm starting to think these wars were hoaxes
Drones
Why didn't we see the use of drones by Iraqis or Afghans? Quadcopters have been around since the late 1990s. Fixed wing drones have been around even longer than that. What gives? I'm starting to think these wars were hoaxes
technologies mature over time?
They tried that a few times but with a few updates to EW the effort quickly fizzled out.
Why wasn't I able to play Minecraft in the 90s?
drones were cutting-edge high-tech almost scifi for me in the 2010s, do you think some illiterate peasant from the afghani mountains had good access to such tech?
t. europoor
ISIS had a pretty good run with qudrocopters, to the point of their use in Syria being one of the main copes about how the cope cages were always meant for drones.
China and Taiwan weren't producing them yet.
Surely you aren't one of those people who thinks Ukraine or Russia make their own fpv drones? They only update software and add ammo holders. The entire drone revolution so far is racing to import from China/Taiwan faster than the other side.
Russia is to stupid to but Ukraine is way better and kicking Russias ass
>They only update software and add ammo holders.
They are plastic toys you absolute buffoon. Most of the mass is 3D printed,
or made of carbon. And the only reason most electronic parts and chips come from china is because they are ungodly cheap. Making full cycle for FPVs is possible for both russia and Ukraine, but it will hike the price many times for the same result, which is why the frick would you do that moment.
>Most of the mass is 3D printed
you have absolutely no fricking clue
>Most of the mass is 3D printed,
I doubt it. 3D printing is usually a rather expensive way to produce an item because it's relatively slow. Injection moulding on the other hand can be a massive pain in the ass to set up (cutting moulds out of a solid black of steel) but once you've done that you can just churn out items at an astonishing rate. So for a small series you'd 3D print since the cost of cutting the mould would be prohibitive when you're just splitting it between a few items, but for the kind of mass production we're looking at here the initial cost gets divided out over an frickton of items and so the per-item-cost comes to dominate instead.
The other problem with 3D printing is that most methods leave a rough surface finish which would be terrible for making aerodynamic parts like propellers, especially if you are concerned about efficiency and being able to extend your range and weight carrying capacity as much as possible. Injection molding makes perfectly smooth surfaces. These days making the molds are no big deal with modern CNC milling technology. Furthermore, the Chinese are really really good at it. They've been injection-molding complex plastic parts for decades making toys, tools, housewares, auto parts.. If there's anything the Chinese can do well it's make mass produce parts out of plastic cheap. Honestly a 1980's GI Joe toy fighter jet or the average plastic model kit is massively more complicated molding project compared to making the parts for the drone. The problem was the electronics: microprocessors, communications, motor controllers, micro accelerometers & gryos, etc, as well as batteries.
>Surely you aren't one of those people who thinks Ukraine or Russia make their own fpv drones? They only update software and add ammo holders.
Both sides still buy off-the-shelf Chinese drones, but at least for the Ukrainians that's dwarfed by their domestic production, and they're continuously pushing to do more of the manufacturing/assembly locally.
Attached .webm is from Ukrainian drone manufacturer Wild Hornets, showing a pick and place machine laying components on printed circuit boards to be soldered. By the look of the PCBs, they appear to be 4-in-1 electronic speed controllers, responsible for driving a quadcopter's 4 motors based on commands from the flight controller.
So. Why aren't we using them drones to take back Afghanistan now?
It was exotic technology back then, and the copters performed a lot worse because of the batteries of the day. Now the technology has matured, we have cheap as shit high-performing batteries and the drones themselves are mass produced toys for literal children.
They shoved jammers on literally everything. Don't stand too close to that thing at the front of the Humvee, it'll cook your brain
turns out drone warfare only happen when both garbage nations can't afford to jam the combat zone, because both are heavily relying on them
ISIS tried that in syria, EW made them useless.
They weren't good enough to carry even a small grenade until the mid 2010s (now officially 10 years ago), when the best we got was ISIS dropping small IEDs on Iraqi patrols and praying the wind was on their side.
And both Iraq and Afghanistan have both been war-riddle hell holes since the 1980s, so never had the chance to incorporate building or transporting that tech into their infrastructure that you later see in Ukraine (or whichever country in Western Europe supposedly boogaloos first).
https://www.currykitten.co.uk/the-history-of-fpv/
Cool article, thanks for sharing. Amazing how far it's all come.
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Some forward thinking folks knew the technology was mature. It just took time
Because Osama Bin Laden did not actually orchestrate the 9/11 attacks. The dude rode camels and still used VHS in 2015. He did not understand that passenger jet planes could be used as bombs, that's a concept intelligence agencies came up with in war games and actually executed to create a false flag.
>did not
He did, and was responsible for previous attacks. Osama wasn't exactly innocent pre 9/11.
Prior to the late 00s drones were prohibitively expensive and there weren't really any off-the-shelf consumer models.
It was mainly the development of smartphones that led to the push to improve batteries and ultra miniaturized cameras and other sensors. Plus the wireless networks and devices that the drones need to communicate.
A bit later, VR gaming headsets would help with the development of the headsets for FPV drones.
They were also really shitty compared today. One of my employees was big into drones in the mid-late 00's. He had a very big fancy quad, all aftermarket parts with him spending tons of time after hours fiddling with it. It was barely capable of lifting a beer three feet off the ground, no way could it have carried an RPG warhead a meaningful distance.
didn't have cheap, long lasting lithium batteries until recently