Ukrainian air defense personnel engaged in intercepting Russian Shahed series of long-range one-way attack drones have published footage showing multiple examples of the weapons literally disintegrating in the air before reaching their targets — a visible sign of deepening manufacturing
    • woelkchen@lemmy.worldOPM
      191·
      4 months ago

      The last shahed has panels missing and something is held in place with blue rope. The article has the screenshot right at the very top. You clearly didn’t open the article, let alone read it.

      • besmtt@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        4 months ago

        Could be rope, but it also might be an Ethernet cable? IDK.

        You’re right though, the quality on those last two was worse.

    • x1gma@lemmy.world
      4·
      4 months ago

      The original shahed is a cheap shit bucket of an UCAV already, and the russian made temu knockoff is even worse. If someone or something attacked those drones that they would look like this, there’s close to zero chance that this thing would keep flying.

        • x1gma@lemmy.world
          2·
          4 months ago

          But these things fly and hit targets precisely. Now with jet engines too. Your dismissive tone is inappropriate in this case.

          Any 50 dollar drone from Amazon flies precisely too.

          https://isis-online.org/isis-reports/monthly-analysis-of-russian-shahed-136-deployment-against-ukraine

          No idea how credible that source is, it’s the first one I’ve found and the estimates seem plausible.

          Overall the hit rate is at its lowest point of 8.2%, shaheds specifically 12.66% in March 2026, steadily dropping, despite the launch volume increasing, which corresponds to the quality of the drones lacking in Russian production. The strike effectiveness is estimated at around 5%. That’s for a 48k$ production cost. So no, the dismissive tone is pretty much appropriate. It doesn’t seem that the Russian “customizations” are working out for them. Slapping a more powerful engine and a nearly doubled payload on a drone doesn’t make it more effective in some magical way. It runs out of spec, and is produced using an untrained workforce in some quickly rigged up factory.

          It’s a plain volume weapon used to saturate air defences, and the occasional hit is a nice to have. The only reason they still have a payload is because if they would only launch decoys Ukrainian air defences would avoid shooting at them at all.