this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2024
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In a sharp escalation of its drone campaign targeting strategic industries deep inside Russia, Ukraine seems to have fitted Cessna-style light planes with remote controls, packed them with explosives and flown at least one of them more than 600 miles to strike a Russian factory in Yelabuga, 550 miles east of Moscow.

Ironically, the Russian factory produces—you guessed it—drones.

Russians on the ground recorded the shocking scene as the light plane dove onto the sprawling Alabuga Special Economic Zone industrial campus, where workers assemble Iranian-designed Shahed drones that, just like Ukraine’s DIY Cessna-style drone, can range as far 600 miles with an explosive payload.

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[–] [email protected] 166 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Superior Ukrainian gen 5 stealth technology: The Cessna 206.

[–] [email protected] 82 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I'm just imagining a Cessna wearing a giant pair of Groucho Marx glasses.

[–] [email protected] 161 points 8 months ago (7 children)
[–] [email protected] 43 points 8 months ago

You're amazing and I love you.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It's a nose, actually. And eyebrows.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago

Now this is Marxism I can get behind.

:: wiggles cigar ::

Whether or not he'd let me stand back there is another story.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Next generation stealth plane: going back to basics.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Damn, thought this was Non Credible Defense.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Ukraine is basically the embodiment of NCD. I saw a guy carrying a traditionally vehicle mounted AA gun with a buttstock welded onto it.

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[–] [email protected] 140 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Let’s be honest…. Probably less expensive and just as effective as a tomohawk.

[–] [email protected] 137 points 8 months ago (3 children)

A Tomahawk goes about 4 times faster, but it seems it doesn't matter if your enemy is incompetent.

[–] [email protected] 54 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Your comment made me go do the math and a TCM is, in fact, between 3.5 and 4 times faster than the fuel efficiency speed of a Cessna 206.

Kudos to you good Person.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

And kudos to you for reporting that, so we all learn something new.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 8 months ago (1 children)

No, a Tomahawk is really only a little faster than a Cessna

/s

[–] [email protected] 44 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Surely the speed of the tomahawk depends on how hard you throw it?

[–] [email protected] 49 points 8 months ago (1 children)

African or European Cessna?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago

How many coconuts did it carry?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

You mean an Indigenous Peoples Hatchet Missle?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

Yes, although I believe they are incompatible with the First Nations Attack Helicopter.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 8 months ago (7 children)

It shouldn't be, though. The Russian military should have shot it down long before it got to the target.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago (1 children)

What a wild and spotted life that guy lives

[–] [email protected] 22 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I knew about him landing the plane. Didn't know that he stabbed a girl almost to death because she wasn't interested in him.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Just one of those things you do growing up

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago (12 children)

Perhaps? I worry about this tactic being used in the US against targets. For all anyone knows, they’re a plane that just lost communication.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago (3 children)

I mean, that kinda already happened

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago (10 children)

But in that case fighter jets here are usually scrambled and if they don’t see anyone in the cockpit, they shoot the damn thing down

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

They had this eventuality covered !

an inflatable pilot from the movie Airplane!

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

This is the equivalent of wrapping ping pong balls in tin foil, putting a lighter underneath for a few seconds, and suddenly effective smoke bombs.

Edit: Yes, you can try this at home. But outside and obviously don't rip the fumes like a bong.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago (1 children)

You forgot the part where the smoke bombs were able to travel a vast distance undetected after you threw them at a low speed.

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[–] [email protected] 101 points 8 months ago (5 children)

This is pretty embarrassing for Russian air defense. Though, I also wonder if they were hesitant to shoot down an unidentified aircraft after multiple cases of friendly fire bringing down VKS aircraft. I'm also amazed that there was seemingly no Electronic Warfare (EW) systems in the area to prevent remote control of drones. Sure, there are EW countermeasures, but this seems like a pretty significant failure that this drone could be flown in from that far away.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 8 months ago

Having a massive landmass has been a huge boon to Russia historically, but we’re seeing the inverse now with all these long range precision guided munitions. They have too much land to cover with adequate air defense, it seems

[–] [email protected] 26 points 8 months ago (1 children)

maybe it wasn't remote controlled as much as pre-programmed?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

Seems probable yes. Although it would still require GPS to keep its heading which can be jammed

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (5 children)

Commercial aircraft have IMUs that carefully measure acceleration to get its position, IMUs are more accurate and reliable than GPS so GPS is the backup system.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (4 children)

"dead reckoning" is the technical term for precalculated navigation, adjusting the path only from sensors like IMUs

(unless they used stuff like cameras and POI based navigation, but that seems unlikely)

I don't think it's correct to say normal planes use IMU more than GPS, they're all complementary. GPS tells the general direction and the IMU helps keeping the plane stable (no sudden jerks to turn when the GPS drifts). And ground radar tells the plane when it's too far off the path.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago

They were busy jamming the European airspace

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I heard they can stop nukes. I don't believe it.

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[–] [email protected] 90 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 38 points 8 months ago

There were so many moments like that in this war. The grandma giving Russian soldiers sunflower seeds to put in their pockets so they grow when they die. The guy berating Russian soldiers saying "Every other woman here is a witch! All your dicks are going to fall off!" Zelensky saying "I don't need a ride I need ammunition."

Though I don't know what else I'd expect from people who told the Ottoman Empire to go fuck itself.

[–] [email protected] 82 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Absolutely badass. Slava Ukraini!

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 8 months ago

In Soviet Russia plane is guided munition.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

MythBusters: Ukrainian War.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Hmmm.... SU-27 replica on top of some "cheap" jet... Smoke from second engine.... Control it like it was a damaged SU-27 returned home....

Land it wherever Russia has their temporary airfields... Boom.

After a while we're going to see Russia shooting down their own jets 😁

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Yeah pretty sure that's a war crime under the Rome Statute. Emphasis mine.

The law applicable in international armed conflict forbids “mak[ing] improper use of … the military insignia and uniform of the enemy …” (Art. 23(f) of the Hague Regulations of 1899 and 1907; Art. 39 of Additional Protocol I; Art. 8(2)(b)(vii) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court). Not all uses of enemy uniforms are prohibited therefore; only “improper” uses. For example, wearing enemy uniforms in order to flee the fighting or escape capture does not run afoul of the law (U.S. Department of Defense Law of War Manual § 5.23.1.4). On the other side of the spectrum, engaging in attacks while wearing the uniform of the enemy is flatly prohibited, as affirmed in the treaty law and numerous military manuals (see here, here and here, for example), and is a war crime under the Rome Statute.

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