Someone here said "[Russian] tactical units", "smoke grenades". They must be joking.
A drone like this is defending against 2-3 50-year-olds without military experience wading through a bombed out tree-line into almost certain death, because there are literal firing squads waiting if they don't. With a huge round like 12.7, all you have to do is fire pot shots in the general vicinity while drone pilots do the rest. Also, these can be life-savers for an outpost when weather conditions ground all drones.
This is a fluff piece, but these machines might become very real very soon. They're already used for resupply and dropping mines. We have plenty of videos of that from both sides. A few months ago we had a video of one of these taking out an infantry carrier. This is not vaporware. It's a bad approach at worst, but I wouldn't be surprised if this grows exponentially for many years to come.
Animats 11 minutes ago [-]
This is a standard unit from DevDroid.[1] Here's the marketing video.[2] It's available for pre-order. They also have a model with a grenade launcher.
The proportion of videos featuring drones taking out other drones is increasing.
outside2344 28 minutes ago [-]
We really are trying our best to make Terminator reality aren't we?
kelvinjps10 4 minutes ago [-]
They are being operated by humans
k__ 11 minutes ago [-]
Maybe drones will make human soldiers unacceptable in the future.
theptip 9 minutes ago [-]
They will certainly make human soldiers unviable. (I draw mostly dystopian conclusions from that prediction.)
throwaway85825 3 minutes ago [-]
Or it will just lead to lopsided massacres like the maxim gun did.
kakacik 24 minutes ago [-]
There was never any other option, given the direction of progress and basic human nature.
I know I know, but this and that and not me nor you, yet here we are and this is just beginning.
mullingitover 55 minutes ago [-]
I’ve been wondering when modern battlefields would get Team Fortress 2 sentries.
CrzyLngPwd 42 minutes ago [-]
This is on my 2026 bingo card of things that never happened.
garganzol 17 minutes ago [-]
Yep, until it hits you.
roysting 35 minutes ago [-]
Maybe it's the ghost of Kiev controlling the robot army? You don't know. But they sure should get a $50 billion contract to make them
mrhottakes 11 minutes ago [-]
My car also held position for 6 weeks during the winter storms
Ifkaluva 4 minutes ago [-]
I had a car hold its position for 6 months during the pandemic. It became occupied by rats, which was fun to deal with.
They gathered some apples from a nearby tree, and apparently had set up a hard cider production facility.
AftHurrahWinch 2 hours ago [-]
"It takes infantry to hold territory" is still true I guess, but now it's a single operator in a bunker.
verdverm 1 hours ago [-]
Perhaps in the dead man zone, not sure this would work well where there is civilian population.
andrewstuart 30 minutes ago [-]
Is there some sort of hybrid flying/stationary drone that flys in an sits to hold a ground position?
throwaway85825 5 minutes ago [-]
Common tactic is for drones to wait next to a road and ambush.
samothrace 24 minutes ago [-]
Ammunition is heavy.
pirbull 45 minutes ago [-]
looks like a treadmill
SirFatty 44 minutes ago [-]
Not a drone...
gclawes 33 minutes ago [-]
Are these the ones controlled by Steam Decks?
konchunas 20 minutes ago [-]
These ones by PS5 controllers I believe
roysting 39 minutes ago [-]
This smells more like military propagand, i.e., bullshit.
There is no way this is honest or real, i.e., it somehow fought off a tactical unit trying to take the frontline that this drone was holding? Or was it just parked in some area where there was no tactical point of even taking the territory?
Just by virtue of its nature, a single drone and/or a well placed dumb grenade, not even to mention likely a smoke grenade could have easily defeated this thing within seconds of deployment if there was any interest in taking the area this toy was "controlling".
Someone is doing a literal con job to get military graft and fraud contracts.
kakacik 18 minutes ago [-]
There are real videos, even months old of exactly these 'land drones', equipped with good ol' .50 cal. In certain situations, they fought extremely well given no risk for crew. I mean killing off entire bmp-something transport including all crew with AP rounds, typically during night since it has night vision, zoom and so on. Verified also by drone flying nearby.
Now I am not claiming all the facts stated in the article are verified by me, but I can imagine one of them got so lucky with drones and getting hidden from their view for prolonged time it could theoretically pull it off. Not sure about batteries/fuel/ammo part thought.
csours 34 minutes ago [-]
Yes propaganda and bullshit, but by way of exaggeration and puffery, not lying.
I wouldn't expect even a lightly informed mid-wit to think that this murderbot held the ground by itself; and I don't think the author expects that either. Thus something else is probably going on. To wit - puffery.
adrian_b 3 minutes ago [-]
The murderbot is remotely operated, so it did not held the ground by itself, though it is claimed that it might be able to do some things autonomously.
Rendered at 19:40:29 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
A drone like this is defending against 2-3 50-year-olds without military experience wading through a bombed out tree-line into almost certain death, because there are literal firing squads waiting if they don't. With a huge round like 12.7, all you have to do is fire pot shots in the general vicinity while drone pilots do the rest. Also, these can be life-savers for an outpost when weather conditions ground all drones.
This is a fluff piece, but these machines might become very real very soon. They're already used for resupply and dropping mines. We have plenty of videos of that from both sides. A few months ago we had a video of one of these taking out an infantry carrier. This is not vaporware. It's a bad approach at worst, but I wouldn't be surprised if this grows exponentially for many years to come.
[1] https://devdroid.tech/en/catalog/droid-tw
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oay_-cAlLXE
I know I know, but this and that and not me nor you, yet here we are and this is just beginning.
They gathered some apples from a nearby tree, and apparently had set up a hard cider production facility.
There is no way this is honest or real, i.e., it somehow fought off a tactical unit trying to take the frontline that this drone was holding? Or was it just parked in some area where there was no tactical point of even taking the territory?
Just by virtue of its nature, a single drone and/or a well placed dumb grenade, not even to mention likely a smoke grenade could have easily defeated this thing within seconds of deployment if there was any interest in taking the area this toy was "controlling".
Someone is doing a literal con job to get military graft and fraud contracts.
Now I am not claiming all the facts stated in the article are verified by me, but I can imagine one of them got so lucky with drones and getting hidden from their view for prolonged time it could theoretically pull it off. Not sure about batteries/fuel/ammo part thought.
I wouldn't expect even a lightly informed mid-wit to think that this murderbot held the ground by itself; and I don't think the author expects that either. Thus something else is probably going on. To wit - puffery.