React on Rails HN RSC Demo

They've been doing drone evacuations for years. What makes this different is the drone is flying.

I wonder what is the risk analysis here?

Without knowing more details it would seem to be a lot less risk to transport wounded soldiers in those MAUL armored sarcophagus type of containers, than to be airborne and exposed to enemy fire.

edukite 1d ago

It's not. Ukraine roads are filled with armoured vehicles which needed only 1 hit to become roadblocks. To be functional Ukrainian army is transforming them into Mad Max like vehicle before sending to fight and they still are a little more safer because if drone pilot is skilled enough and adjust both vehicle and drone speed he might succeed in hitting weak spot. Changing direction to left or right on bumpy road when you chasing with max it's possible can be death sentence plus you must take in the equation all trash on the road with may destroy weals

In other hand you have 3 axis plus if you reduce proportion you can at any moment without adding any power dodge enemy. Skilled operator may be able to hit and this is why they added swarm of suicide drones to protect carrier

spwa4 1d ago

Apparently a big concern is mines.

MiroslavPokorny 1d ago

And Mud

simonh 23h ago

And I imagine time. A significant issue for a lot of medical situations.

random3 1d ago

it's in the article's subtitle

> “Due to intense enemy drone activity and the presence of landmines, evacuation using conventional unmanned ground vehicles was impossible,”

egorfine 1d ago

> I wonder what is the risk analysis here?

Simple. Soldier left as is will survive with probability=0. UAV medevac has probability of success strictly > 0.

abc123abc123 1d ago

Now add 100s or 1000s wounded at the same time, some can heal, and go back out to fight, some cannot, some will die during transport. The drone might be shot down, some areas are cleared. Simple? Not at all.

rnd33 1d ago

Risk calculations aside, don't forget to take into account how this could impact soldier morale. Just knowing that if injured a giant flying drone will attempt to airlift you to safety, regardless of how hopeless the situation on the ground looks like probably is a huge boost to morale.

mschuster91 21h ago

... particularly if you know the other side treats their soldiers like the Star Wars CIS treated droids - completely and utterly expendable cannon fodder.

In the situation that Ukraine is, which is a desperate lack of money, ammunition ("thanks" to the US), weapons and soldiers, anything that purely exists to lift troop morale is already worth the effort, and if it even saves only one brave defender, it is more than worth it.

nirui 20h ago

Well, it's a war, some people will die. But if drone saves one, that's one life goes on, at least it's very important for that individual life, people often forgot about that when they drown themselves in numbers.

And, if this method got "industrialized", they'll probably use survey drones to do a scan first before more expensive bigger drone gets deployed.

Damn, how long they been fighting now? Years, as far as I can remember. You know sometime I think human beings don't deserve anything pass the tree stick age.

egorfine 18h ago

It still is simple.

Probability of death = 1 vs probability of death < 1.

crest 19h ago

If the alternative is certain death the answer it remains simple: do you have the drone to and can you afford to send it? -> give it a try.

It becomes a whole lot more complicated if you have other options and have to implement triage.

mcintyre1994 23h ago

I think they mean compared to the self-driving road vehicles they've been using for evac, not compared to abandoning the soldier.

laughing_man 23h ago

The Russians target the ground vehicles with drones and artillery. From what I understand, in some areas they've been completely unable to evacuate casualties. Guys are dying from infections and wounds that could easily have been treated by people with the right expertise and equipment.

ridgeguy 1d ago

A ground target is one 50cal or smaller round, or one RPG or antitank round, from oblivion. Airborne things are harder to destroy.

laughing_man 10h ago

Bullets, rockets, and anti-tank rounds aren't that big of a threat to a vehicle going from the front lines to the rear area. The threats are mines, artillery, and drones.

But you're right. Airborne things behind opposing lines are harder to destroy. Still doable, though, with missiles and drones. I guess the hope here is it's fast enough to evade drones and also that the Russians aren't going to want to risk expensive aircraft and pilots to kill a guy that might die anyway or be too disabled to return to the fight.

BetterThanSober 1d ago

Depends on the speed and agility, at minimum 70kg body weight before accounting for the drones mean it's quite a heavy aircraft, not necessarily agile without burning the battery

crest 19h ago

The battery only has to last 5 to 10 minutes for this to be useful, because adding a second battery to drop just before picking up the wounded wouldn't be hard so loiter time wouldn't be much of an issue if they go down that route. Also multi-copters become more efficient flying in a reasonably straight line compared to high-g manoeuvrers or hovering in place.

moritonal 1d ago

Whilst I do understand your point it's hard to argue that a drone would fare any better against a 50cal round. They are infamously, very fragile.

leoedin 1d ago

There's a video on YouTube which shows a world champion shotgun shooter try to shoot down drones before they get to him. His success rate - knowing the drones are coming, ready to go with a loaded shotgun and with elite skill - is really bad. It really opens your eyes to just how scary drones on the battlefield are. You need to hit every single one of them to survive. They just need one to get through to kill you.

Bigger drones would be slower and easier to spot, but even then - if you're not ready and waiting it'll be gone before you have time to react. The only consistent solution for anti-drone warfare is automated. Or nets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mORdXxZ2uKU

pferde 1d ago

The flying drone is more agile, as well as moving faster and less predictably. More difficult to hit than a ground vehicle.

yobbo 23h ago

The main enemy fire here are FPV drones. The flying evacuater gets out of danger quicker, even if it is spotted by a reconnaissance drone.

dghlsakjg 1d ago

Hitting a ground target is much easier.

MisterMunchkin 1d ago

The entire battlefield is landmined

crest 19h ago

Slowly dying in no man's land vs. a chance to make it out alive makes it a fairly tempting risk to take. I can totally understand the Ukrainians trying such stunts with their wounded when the alternative wouldn't be a medivac chopper, but watching them perish in agony through the spotter drones. Even if was a 50/50 chance to crash and or be intercepted I don't think many wounded soldiers would hesitate at a chance to fly to an aide station or even proper surgical care in minutes instead of hours, days, or more likely never. Acute pain and the expectation to die otherwise shift the risk tolerance completely.

lifeisloving 1d ago

Thats called a UGV, not a drone.

laughing_man 23h ago

Yes, it's a UGV. It's also a drone.

dominicrose 18h ago

doesn't look like a ground vehicle

lifeisloving 17h ago

Nobody in this industry calls a UGV a drone.

Muromec 17h ago

Here is an example from the industry calling it a drone: https://www.blue-bird.tech/en/category/products/nazemnyj_dro...

flemhans 15h ago

I've seen the term ground drones quite a lot

laughing_man 16h ago

Not only is that not true, you might be surprised to discover another term for flying drone is "UAV".

Kye 17h ago

This seems like an arbitrary line with no reason to hold it. "Drone" refers to how it functions (remotely or autonomously), not how it moves.

gpvos 20h ago

Misleading title, and the article takes until the third paragraph to mention it was a flying drone evacuation. Without that specification, this would have merited a (2023) in the title (the year is a rough guess).

dmix 19h ago

The ground ones are usually called UGV (unmanned ground vehicles).

“Drone” is well associated with flying in common language. The headline (Ukraines claim) is accurate enough.

harperlee 19h ago

As an english-as-a-second-language speaker, I learnt quite late that the original meaning of drone is a male bee, and that the modern drone is called like that because it is a small flying thing that buzzes with their propellers. Perhaps that’s useful for others.

weezing 15h ago

In my country literally nobody would call road unmanned vehicle a drone.

throwaway2037 22h ago

Full size video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmT6EL16hRA

throwaway2037 2h ago

I found an even better video about the rescue here: https://hromadske.ua/en/viyskovi/272791-ukrainian-troops-res...

The soldier self amputated his left leg using a knife. He also survived 491 days on the front line. Brutal. This guy is a real-life Rambo.

    > "I had a blunt knife that I'd previously used to open canned meat."

More info about soldier's experience here: https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/surrounded-by-russi...

1970-01-01 1d ago

If they can pull them out, they can also drop fresh ones down.

Not sure if that is better than just using a helicopter however.

traceroute66 1d ago

> Not sure if that is better than just using a helicopter however.

Anyone who has done first responder training should have had it drilled into their skulls to remember the number one rule .... "do not add yourself to the injury list".

If you're operating in a war-zone its kind of the same thing. Send in a helicopter to drop off one or more guys and you are also sending in bare minimum of one extra person but realistically almost certainly three extra people (two at the front and one at the back to watch the people jumping out).

Also drones are probably somewhat cheaper than helicopters. Both to buy and to operate.

rembal 23h ago

And less noisy.

maxdo 1d ago

Because it's not America with Vietnam/ Iraq war mindset.

Helicopters are extremely vulnerable for drone interceptors. With Recent developments, the an interceptor can fly up to 600 km/h. It can also wait for you on the balloon.

Overall, piloted aviation, it's almost a dead end with all the recent capabilities.

nradov 1d ago

Piloted aviation is still very much alive. US and Israeli 5th generation aircraft took minimal losses in the recent strikes on Iran despite some fairly capable defenses. Drone capabilities will continue to improve but for now the autonomous flight control software is incapable of complex, dynamic missions and remote piloting doesn't work in a hostile EW environment. We'll increasingly see manned/unmanned teaming with the drones pushing forward while the manned aircraft trail behind, but close enough to exercise tight control.

maxdo 1d ago

Missions in Ukraine Russia achive same results for 1000 times cheaper. Real war nowadays is cheap and mass produced.

As an example, Russia hits with drones a specific parts of the bridge using mesh network of ER resistant drones . Ukraine is sending drones for 2000 miles deep into Russian territory. F-35 plus payload is not capable of that .

What is the point of sending f-35 if Ukraine can send 5 cheap rockets? And deliver 2-3 tones of payload over the most sophisticated air protection in the world ?

bluGill 22h ago

Russia and Ukraine are using what they can do though. That doesn't mean that a different Air Force couldn't work differently. The US has a lot more airplanes in the Air Force plus a lot more planes in the Navy. They could be used potentially. We don't know what would happen, but the generals in the US military still think the manned planes would have a powerful role and would change the situation in Ukraine.

aloha2436 1d ago

> Ukraine is sending drones for 2000 miles deep into Russian territory. F-35 plus payload is not capable of that .

Source on the drones actually flying that far? I would assume they're forward positioned.

vlade11115 1d ago

https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/drones-reach-russia...

3000 km or around 1864 miles.

nradov 1d ago

Those cheap drones and missiles are only effective against relatively soft, static targets. As I already explained above, manned aircraft are still the only platforms capable of executing critical missions in complex, dynamic environments. Maybe that will change in a few years but not today.

Ukraine and Russia are both second-rate powers making do with what they can manage because they're too poor to afford anything better. The systems that sort of work in Eastern Europe likely won't be effective in a major conflict between the USA and China around the First Island Chain. (Let's hope we don't have to find out for sure.)

ponector 1d ago

>>manned aircraft are still the only platforms capable of executing critical missions in complex, dynamic environments.

Only if the mission is not against a peer adversary. Manned aircraft cannot bomb russian refineries. Manned aircraft cannot cross the frontline in Ukraine.

chmod775 1d ago

Ukraine is already using drones that can autonomously identify and seek out even moving targets, without any operator required during the terminal phase.

Drones with that sort of capability started appearing on the battlefield more than a year ago, and it has only been refined since.

Examples are the RAM-2X, the Helsing HX2, and whatever drones they use that automatically identify and seek out stationary aircraft on Russian airfields.

MiroslavPokorny 1d ago

America is also a second rate power, just ask the Houthis and Iranians.

The Houthis have no airforce, no professional army and no navy and yet they control the red sea.

maxdo 21h ago

That’s false . Ukraine is hitting moving targets with middle strike every single day with ai that knows what to strike. More capable than any f-35 in that regards .

kakacik 1d ago

it covers 99% of the need for fraction of the costs and is way more scalable in manufacturing and operations. Nobody ain't sending a single F-35 into that environment, US won't allow that (we all know why). Plus US completely destroyed trust into its products globally, they can become worse than extremely expensive paperweight on a whim of a single senile sick man.

Lets be a bit clear - F-35 in Iran are also effectively used against static targets in most if not all the cases. School, intersections full of civilian traffic and some underground tunnel here and there or a parked truck, we've seen the videos its not like they are hiding them.

Era of hunt for expensive sophistication at all costs is coming to an end, no point if one can overwhelm any adversary including US by just sending one cheap wave after another, and it doesn't even take long. How long is the backlog for US patriot missiles? Plus Ukraine can do same type of missiles 80% cheaper soon.

This overwhelming already happened numerous times in recent months, US is just not bragging about it on fox news for obvious reasons.

bluegatty 1d ago

Not really though

Russia's S300/S400 can absolutely down everything the USA has including F22 and F35 - stealth is an 'advantage' not 'cloaking device'.

Rotary wing are 'dead' - because manpads and now drones, they are just not used. Any smart adversary can figure out the drones, as for now.

Iran is a poor country with challenging AA but even they downed like 30 predators (or equivalent). They have passive systems.

Russia doctrines is to have massive numbers of S300/400 which makes it takes weeks at minimum for US to get enough Air dominance to be able to fly, though, eventually they would be worn down as we have seen US standoff munitions are limited.

US used 30-50% of munitions against just Iran. Imagine Russia.

China has a lot of sneaky new toys up their sleeve as well - very long range capabilities for a lot of things, enough to 'deter' USN pretty hard.

Nobody doubts US would ultimately 'win' v Russia, but everything is up in the air right now.

FYI even Houthis downed US jets.

estearum 1d ago

The US - Iran capability gap is orders of magnitude larger than the Ukraine - Russia gap.

Silly nonsense comment.

The US would absolutely not be sending manned helicopters into the same situations. Zero chance.

The US is failing to decisively win a war against a third world country. Ukraine is failing to decisively win (but gradually winning) a war against an adversary several multiples its size and economic strength.

kelipso 1d ago

Right...even Ukranians are now saying that they hope they won't be in a too disadvantageous position during the eventual negotiations. So that's where the war is at right now.

MiroslavPokorny 1d ago

The USA is unable to support ground troops in either sphere be it Houthi territory or Iran.

The Osprey is dead, the mission it was built for was Iran, and today they are limited to 15 min from base missions, aka they are effectively retired.

Those new Littoral combat ships are decommissioned.

Russia has almost no tanks or armoured vehicles to deliver troops in Ukraine, and the USA is no different. It cant support troops on the ground in either area. Any troops dropped there would be abandoned in a very harsh terrain.

derektank 1d ago

The US is more than capable of deploying and supporting a Marine Expeditionary Brigade in either Iran or Yemen. That it has not is a political decision.

greedo 19h ago

There are so many things wrong with your post that either you're trolling or so wildly misinformed that it amounts to the same thing.

The US doesn't have ground troops fighting in Iran or Houthi territories (perhaps some SpecOps, but nothing public.)

The Osprey is not limited as you describe, and the US is purchasing follow on tilt-rotor aircraft.

What do the LCS have to do with anything about CASEVAC?

The Russians still have quite a lot of armor. They're reserving it from combat in Ukraine. The US has even more armor.

noeltock 1d ago

I've never seen a helo anywhere near UA frontlines. Would be over in seconds.

ponector 1d ago

There are multiple occasions when drones were hunting russian helicopters. Tough target to kill with one FPV drone.

tim333 23h ago

They had them in the first months of the war but a lot got shot down.

jefftk 1d ago

> for now the autonomous flight control software is incapable of complex, dynamic missions

I give it 1-2y.

paganel 1d ago

> US and Israeli 5th generation aircraft took minimal losses in the recent strikes on Iran despite some fairly capable defenses.

It didn't win the Americans and the Israelis the war, to the contrary, it gave them (the Americans and the Israelis) the illusion that they could win it based on air power alone as a result of the Douhet doctrine.

varjag 1d ago

The very reason Trump and his drill sergeant in Pentagon refuse to commit boots on the ground is even they realize how it's going to be. ISR footage of American servicemen dying with no chance of rescue would be bad for ratings.

Gud 1d ago

Ukraine is not Iran.

ajuc 1d ago

Old-school piloted aviation is good for the first 3 months because you have missile stocks that you can launch from further away with basically 0 risk.

If you have to fight longer than that even US runs out of the expansive stuff and then drones win.

MiroslavPokorny 1d ago

American aviation also lost the war.

morkalork 1d ago

Piloted aviation is alive and well in Russia/Ukraine for missle trucks lobbing glide bombs from BVR

tim333 23h ago

Also Ukr uses them to shoot down incoming drone/missiles.

laughing_man 1d ago

>Helicopters are extremely vulnerable for drone interceptors.

Do we have evidence even a single helicopter has been shot down by a drone?

rajamaka 1d ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSbmBpJSrYI

LarsAlereon 1d ago

And just to be clear, there were previous videos of interceptions and near interceptions that just didn't look so photogenic so weren't widely distributed. This video was not where things changed.

laughing_man 23h ago

Did the helicopter go down?

MiroslavPokorny 1d ago

There are zero American helicopters that are even able to fly from any friendly base or ship to either Houthi or Iran. All american ships that could support a landing are thousands of kms away. The Carriers are thousands of kms away in the Indian because of drones and missiles have pushed them back.

Paratroopers and similar troops could be dropped but it would be a suicide mission in an extremely harsh land, with no water and no food.

laughing_man 23h ago

But that's because of IAD, not drones.

MiroslavPokorny 21h ago

Thanks for confirming all my other points are correct, one minor disagreement hardly matters.

jacquesm 1d ago

Multiple and two in the last month.

timcobb 1d ago

Do we have evidence there's even a war going on there?! I've never seen a single video, but they keep shipping money and weapons over there.

laughing_man 23h ago

Did you respond to the right comment?

ponector 1d ago

How there could be a war if Trump had finished it in 24 hours?

xmcp123 1d ago

There’s no way anyone is getting a helicopter anywhere near that front line.

Transporting wounded soldiers has become a significant problem in recent years.

zenyc 1d ago

As of a couple of weeks ago, they’ve been using drones to deploy remote-controlled robots that fire rockets behind enemy lines.

https://youtu.be/tIJy0sLzfl4?is=fJfZkiC1vVvtkgiR

tim333 23h ago

They can't really use helicopters because they get shot down. It's partly economics. A heli is ~$10m, a stinger like missile ~$100k so they shoot it. If a drone is ~1-10k they tend not to.

edukite 1d ago

Ukraine in recent days destroyed bombers with drones. They were faster and dodger than any heli you could send. Also drone can go low but still in the air, heli most either land or stay relatively high.

Also heli is much laughter and easier to spot

And the lost of why would you not send it goes on and on

zardo 1d ago

Probably harder to hit six single-soldier carrying drones than one helicopter.

newsclues 1d ago

A lot of the wounded soldiers that are getting these heroic evacuations have lost weight, months of combat and limited nutrition, blood and limb loss.

Fresh soldiers, with a combat load, might be too heavy. Or simply risky

brohee 1d ago

Heavy lift drones are pretty common, a 150kg or more payload is enough for a soldier with his individual equipment. The are pretty short ranged but they only need to reach to a few kms into the grey zone and back.

See e.g. the KF 150 multi copter. And it's sub $50k

newsclues 22h ago

Yeah, more weigh less range. 100 KG human with body armour/rifle, and a small combat load would be around that 150KG limit.

Problem is staging is hard, because you take fire trying to set them up, so you need to be further away, which brings up the weight/range issues.

And that's why the war is fought with one way attack drones, to maximize range and payload.

wombat-man 1d ago

You could have separate drones bring the gear.

andrewflnr 1d ago

If you weren't improvising with a bomber, you could also just build a slightly larger drone.

weezing 15h ago

Non US soldiers don't tend to be that heavy.

pletnes 1d ago

Can not see the drone and shoot it down using thermal camera or ir seeking missile

esseph 1d ago

You can definitely see the drone and person with thermals, and can engage with thermal or electro optical tracking.

pletnes 22h ago

I’m sure you’re right, in absolute terms. Still, a SAR helicopter with jet turbines and a multi person crew is much more visible than a battery powered electric drone carrying one man alone.

rembal 23h ago

I'm waiting for the first drone-carried human airbirne assault.

So far the only drone carried airborne were Ground grone drops on the back of the enemy, some with grenade launcher drones.

farseer 21h ago

How would that be different from a regular helicopter based airborne assault?

radu_floricica 19h ago

It would be very different. Heli would be long range, small number of larger helis, very juicy targets for manpads and bigger AD.

Drones can be hidden near the front, and will carry individual soldiers plus equipment. Nobody has 20 manpads at ready, and would be funny to shoot S300 at them. They can be used for short jumps - go over the immediate front line, or over a river, or a mine field. Doubt they'll carry 200 pounds for over a few clicks - but enough to get behind the enemy.

twodave 19h ago

So, jump jets basically haha

Schiendelman 19h ago

Oh that's interesting - I assume those have always been too loud and expensive to be useful.

mschuster91 21h ago

Helicopters are orders of magnitude more heavier, expensive and difficult to operate. And they are very vulnerable to an opponent damaging the props.

Drones in contrast have much less payload and range, but they can be made extremely cheaply (a DJI Agras T100 spray drone with about 75kg payload is ~13.000 €!), more difficult to hit due to lower size, and anything above 5 arms is pretty resilient to prop damage.

subscribed 19h ago

You'd need at least 150-200 kg payload to account for thinks like clothes and equipment ;) but indeed, the difference with the cost of purchasing, flying and servicing the helicopter are stark.

voxleone 19h ago

It occurs to me that heavy-duty flying drones could be the ultimate platform for solo skydiving.

hacker_88 1d ago

People trapped in Floods have been rescued by drones

MisterMunchkin 1d ago

Are the floods a battlefield? Were the people soldiers?

vzaliva 1d ago

It reaffirms that Ukrainians are:

1. very advanced with drones 2. caring about their soldiers

Disclaimer: I am a proud Ukrainian.

znnajdla 3h ago

I too, live in Ukraine, and I have full faith in the UA army. Their sincerity and self-sacrifice and determination is undefeatable.

theonething 1d ago

Slava Ukraini!

AndrewKemendo 1d ago

The stuff the front line hackers are doing is incredibly impressive

Bassilisk 1d ago

Do you have more information about that, an article or something?

AndrewKemendo 1d ago

You kind of just need to follow the drone news like this article and you can see over the course of the last few years the kind of wild stuff they figure out.

this was a favorite of mine when I first saw it: https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2024/9/9/what-are-dragon-...

Bassilisk 1d ago

Thanks. The fault is mine though. Thought you were talking about "hackers" in the breaching networks sense, not in the sense of engineering innovative mechanical solutions. Either way, impressive what Ukraine is capable of coming up with.

AndrewKemendo 18h ago

That’s happening also but I mean more classic hardware/firmware hacking

diegolas 18h ago

yay war crimes

skeledrew 1d ago

NGL, reading this gave me the feels...

Also, next wartime invention: air mines.

andrewflnr 1d ago

Loitering munitions are already a thing. You just need to combine that concept with interceptor drones. Actually I'm not sure autonomous interceptors are a thing yet, so that might be the blocker.

esseph 1d ago

600km/h autonomous interceptors are around...

andrewflnr 1d ago

...hmm, yeah, now that you mention it. Those generally have pretty big targets though, with IR signatures. I'm not sure how much of that translates directly to subsonic drone-on-drone violence. (In general it's just a matter of time, of course.)

collingreen 1d ago

This is a thing already

andrewflnr 1d ago

Do you have a link with details?

barrenko 21h ago

Contrast this with the supermarkets getting hacked in France.

walrus01 1d ago

The German company Avilus has shown a medevac drone, I don't know if it's been used to transport a live human (even uninjured) for a test yet.

https://www.xponential-europe.com/en/Media_News/Magazine/Art...

https://www.google.com/search?num=10&client=firefox-b-d&hs=p...

noeltock 1d ago

Seems odd to make a purpose-specific drone like this. The modular ones give much larger breadth, especially when you are constrained to being underground, etc.

walrus01 1d ago

It also seems suitable as a general purpose cargo delivery UAV for military purposes. Likely its utility is somewhat limited by endurance and range with current battery tech. As I recall from when I first saw that design about 1.5 years ago they're marketing the same thing for many purposes. It just happens to be large enough to theoretically carry one man on a litter.

tokai 1d ago

Was it two years ago, or even longer, that Akhmat troops claimed Ukrainian drones tried to abduct their men in the field? Who knows, it might end up actually happen one day. Wild.

gaiagraphia 1d ago

Pretty horrifying prospect really. Imagine the buzzing of a huge drone descending upon you from nowhere, before it just grabs you with its metal arms, and whisks you away into the sky, lol.

Guess it's better than dropping nades on top of you, maybe :/

froh42 1d ago

Instead of grabbing anyone this could be a real game changer. Enemy soldiers could surrender even deep behind enemy lines, signal their intentions with a white flag, and be evacuated to safety. It could also make taking prisoners much easier and safer, since there would be no need to send troops into hostile territory to retrieve them.

The basis is that it became known that POWs are treated fairly and decently.

doubled112 1d ago

It wouldn't need to drop grenades. It could pick you up, fly high enough, and drop you to your death. Never runs out of ammo, just batteries.

This is pretty horrifying. Bonus points if you hit somebody on the way down?

nostrademons 1d ago

If a drone wanted to kill you, it would use a bullet. Cheapest and easiest way, with the least risk to the drone.

The extraction case would only be for high-value targets (enemy military/economic/political leaders), where having them alive would give leverage on having them order their organizations to do something useful for the drone owner.

smackeyacky 1d ago

Cheapest and easiest way to kill people is starvation and disease. Bullets are quick but relatively expensive compared to that

nostrademons 16h ago

Not targeted. While it's true that starvation and disease are usually the biggest killers in any armed conflict, they tend to kill the poor, helpless non-combatants, because the military tends to redirect food and medical care toward soldiers or other key personnel. This makes these strategically ineffective. People will die from starvation and disease in large numbers, but usually not the people who pose a threat to you.

joedwin 1d ago

Slow which makes it costly in terms of active war

bluegatty 1d ago

Yeah they're not going to 'snatch and drop' gadzooks.

They're going to 'snatch' because they want prisoners to exchange, they want info, etc.

leni536 1d ago

Bullets are probably more economical.

Muromec 1d ago

It's usually an fpv with some explosives up their bearded ass.

renegade-otter 1d ago

Wasn't that Terminator: Salvation?

bluegatty 1d ago

It's coming soon.

Ukraine will be grabbing Russian soldiers off the field within 12 months, I predict.

Edit: they've already been trying.

toss1 1d ago

for the Russian soldiers, it would certainly be a better fate than remaining on the field for a few more tens of minutes before they die (on average). AFAICT, they are treated better in Ukrainian POW camps than in the Russian deployed positions

senderista 1d ago

Depends.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture_of_Russian_soldiers_in...

toss1 1d ago

Right, highlight the one incident on the Ukrainian side vs the standard war-crimes treatment by the Russians, and yes, there are also a number of incidents during capture on the both sides.

Also note the mismatch in POWs died in captivity returned by Ukraine (14) vs by Russia (>1000, as of [0]).

And note the overall condition of Russian soldiers returned is well-fed, and Ukrainians returned are barely walking.

It has been some 400 years since Cardinal Richelieu said "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." [1] We can always find an exception to condemn someone.

Our task is instead to try to get a fair grasp on what is happening. Highlighting the exceptional event out of context is not helpful

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners_of_war_in_the_Russo-...

[1] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cardinal_Richelieu

edit: completed last paragraph; accidentally posted incomplete

senderista 1d ago

There are actually quite a few more documented incidents of POW abuse on the Ukrainian side than the one I linked to, but I think I would agree that there's probably more on the Russian side. I don't consider the amount of POW abuse on the Ukrainian side to be negligible though, nor would I expect it to be given how bitter this war is.

senderista 1d ago

I think ideologically extreme volunteers on either side are more likely to commit war crimes than regular troops. The incident I linked above was perpetrated by the Kraken Battalion, which is basically the Kharkiv chapter of the neo-Nazi Azov Regiment (formerly based in Mariupol). Similarly, the horrific video of the castration/execution of a Ukrainian POW seemed to be related to Rusich, the Russian neo-Nazi volunteer unit.

tim333 23h ago

could do with some for the phone snatchers in London

fellowniusmonk 1d ago

A net shooting drone that pops an expanding weather balloon would get anyone you need off the ground and then plenty of time to collect then while they are floating around

ck2 22h ago

China was rescuing people from floods by drone many months ago

Applying this to war though just means more war

Russia must be completely cut off from the rest of the world financially until they leave Ukraine alone

But unfortunately that's never going to happen, at least not for the next 800 days

* https://www.reddit.com/r/Keep_Track/comments/j6z8eh

simonh 19h ago

If you are invaded you're in a war whether you like it or not. At that point there are three ways to end up with less war. Surrender, force a truce, or win.

chinathrow 19h ago

> Applying this to war though just means more war

Can you explain why?

I agree that Russia should be further isolated, but with China and India close by, that's not possible.

weezing 15h ago

"until they leave Ukraine alone" part is not needed. They should be a pariah state and they deserve that for much longer than Ukraine war.

expedition32 1d ago

I hope in the future all wars are fought by drones. Just don't make them unstoppable like in that Horizon videogame.

bickfordb 1d ago

I hope not. This looks like a nightmare world constrained only by basic manufacturing.

schiffern 1d ago

World War I called. It wants its "horror at the concept of industrialized warfare" back.

estearum 1d ago

In World War 1, countries had to contend with the political unsavoriness of sending their youth to go die in droves.

In asymmetric drone warfare stronger economies can nearly “costlessly” conquer less wealthy economies.

pjc50 1d ago

Materiel isn't free! Had everyone forgotten the "cross of iron" speech from Eisenhower?

It also doesn't seem to be working all that well in the Middle East, which looks more like a standstill. Even in Ukraine the actual holding of ground is mostly manned.

Muromec 1d ago

Hold is, but attacking often isn't

MentalM 1d ago

> In asymmetric drone warfare stronger economies can nearly “costlessly” conquer less wealthy economies.

Iran vs US shows the opposite. Stronger economy is a huge vulnerability, low human life cost is a big advantage. Economy matters a lot, but if one country can allow itself to lose 80% of it's resources in the war, and another will capitulates long before 5% loss, the first will win no matter the size of the economy.

somenameforme 1d ago

And I think this generalizes. War is basically a game of morale. Whoever's morale breaks first, loses - in both battles and wars. This is precisely why Afghanistan managed to defeat both the USSR and the USA. They will fight you to the very last man without even having a hint of morale issues. And then after they're all dead their children will do the exact same. And then their children's children. They simply will never surrender, and that makes them practically impossible to defeat. Iran is showing themselves capable of the exact same.

It's interesting to imagine a parallel WW2 where the Japanese emperor did not tell the war council to end the war, and they just continued to fight, as the council wanted. It seems that surely Japan would have lost, but the shape this would take when you have a people, and not just a leadership, unwilling to surrender is not at all clear.

neltnerb 1d ago

From the point of view of "the market" I imagine that it's profitable rather than merely costless.

sigh

tantalor 1d ago

The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In any case, most actual fighting will be done by small robots, and as you go forth today remember your duty is clear: to build and maintain those robots.

bamboozled 1d ago

I hope there are no future wars.

The point of war is to kill people.

halfmatthalfcat 1d ago

That's not necessarily true. The point of war is to force control. You can force control without killing people. Economically, psychologically, digitally, etc. Killing people is one of the ways but not the only way to wage war.

lazyasciiart 1d ago

Indeed - anti-personnnel mines are intended to maim, not kill, because severely wounded soldiers or civilians are a greater drain on enemy resources and morale than a quick death.

Aeolun 1d ago

The point of war is enforcing your will through violence. You can skip the violence, but then bullies would essentially be unrestricted.

megous 1d ago

There's no single point to war. It can be anything from enjoying the destruction and killing and torture and lack of rules, to "retribution" (for people who are into thinking of other people in terms of arbitrarily and vaguely defined groups), though creating chaos to get political advantage, to distraction from political issues, or really whatever...

swat535 1d ago

"War" for the sake of "war" is pointless. It should be tied to a political objective for some kind of gain.

Ideally, it would be the last resort in limited capacity when diplomacy fails.

Otherwise you're unleashing horrors on humanity.

bamboozled 1d ago

Do you think there is a difference between killing people and violence ?

pixl97 1d ago

You can have violence without killing people, for example in torture the goal is generally not to kill the recipient.

And if a doctor has a surgery that goes bad and the patient died, they may have killed someone, but there was no violence.

bamboozled 1d ago

But you can't have killing without violence.

Dylan16807 1d ago

> The point of war is to kill people.

You could have a war that's entirely based around infrastructure damage, and you could warn people away from incoming attacks.

megous 1d ago

Never happened.

Dylan16807 1d ago

Even if it hasn't happened, it would still be a relatively normal war if it happened.

The point of wars usually isn't death.

krashidov 1d ago

ah right, good point. Let's have more wars then.

Dylan16807 1d ago

Do you think that's what I was arguing?

Well I'll quote the sentence to make it clearer, I guess.

8note 1d ago

the point of war is to get past bargaining frictions and make it clear what a mutually acceptable settlement looks like

egorfine 1d ago

As a Ukrainian, I really wish my country could innovate in areas other than evacuation of wounded people from our own soil.

majorchord 1d ago

They are many... you should be proud. I am.

https://ukraine.ua/invest-trade/ukrainian-inventions-that-ch...

And the recent drone tech is saving many lives and lots of money.

barbazoo 1d ago

From outside it seems that Ukraine is not really given a choice right now but to defend itself. I wish for a soon end to the war so your beautiful country can prosper again and your people can start healing.

squidbeak 1d ago

I think the poster's point was, "Imagine what we could be applying our ingenuity to if the bastards invading us would only piss off."

wiseowise 1d ago

> "Imagine what we could be applying our ingenuity to if the bastards invading us would only piss off."

As someone who lived through Ukraine’s 90s and early 00s, “we” wouldn’t apply it that much.

jacquesm 1d ago

Indeed. Ukraine is - and always was - a tech and innovation powerhouse and it is very sad to see the continued degree of distraction caused by russia. Let's hope the midterms will at least muzzle trump to the point that the tide will turn. I can't believe it is almost 5 years now. Very frustrating.

mrheosuper 1d ago

Could you be elaborating more? What is better than evacuating the injured ?

Muromec 1d ago

Not having shit neighbours that invade you would be nice

ChrisRR 1d ago

It's not like they can up and move their country

dgunay 1d ago

Doesn't this have potential applications in disaster relief?

fhdkweig 1d ago

https://inkorr.com/en/litna-zinka-v-kostantinivci-napisala-v...

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ukrainian+woman+writes+i+ask+for+b...

A woman wrote "I ask for bread" in the snow in front of her house. A passing drone photographed it. This led to a later mission to air drop food to her.

Ancalagon 1d ago

is this not a good innovation?

egorfine 1d ago

It's a good innovation.

The whole situation that required that innovation is not.

cbg0 22h ago

How would you have avoided that "whole situation"?

egorfine 18h ago

I do have an opinion on that but this is not a discussion for HN.

In short: I believe it was avoidable.

Y-bar 1d ago

It is a good innovation in the same way a shield is a good innovation. Perhaps people do not always want to innovate in the area of war, but instead doing something else, but they are forced to innovate like this.

8note 1d ago

it also feels like it could be a replacement to the electric scooter at some point?

drone pickup is basically a jet pack

helterskelter2 1d ago

[flagged]

tomhow 1d ago

Please don't post political/ideological rhetoric on HN. It doesn't matter how correct your position is or how correct you feel it is; it only leads to back and forth arguments between people on opposing sides, and that's just what we're trying to avoid. Please aim for curious conversation at all times here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50156201 and marked it off topic.

EA-3167 1d ago

Setting aside the politics and the personalities, if we focus on the technology and the lessons in how to produce, iterate, and deploy I think there's enormous value in looking at what Ukraine has to offer from a tactical and strategic standpoint. It's a fact that countries and organizations are rushing to benefit from that aspect of this war, from NATO states to organized crime. Unless we imagine that data from this war isn't being actively pursued by any party that thinks they have the ability to adapt their local conflicts to a "new way of fighting", it's a matter of intense intellectual curiosity.

Doubly so when we recall that drones and ML are inextricably linked on the modern battlefield, and the technology we routinely discuss here is already being used in kill chains, ISR, SAR, and it's evolving on a weekly basis.

tomhow 1d ago

Sure, and there's a place for discussion about that (though whether HN can host such a discussion without it spiraling into a hellish flamewar is not something we can be confident about).

That aside, in this context the issue is that the comment very much didn't set aside the politics and the personalities.

EA-3167 1d ago

Of course, I was just trying to extract a bit of good from the bad.

apercu 1d ago

I wish “even Republicans” but that party stands for nothing any more, it isn’t even conservative. It’s the most bizarre and morally bankrupt thing I’ve seen in American politics and I’ve been paying attention since the 80s.

postsantum 1d ago

back to reddit kind sir

ahartmetz 1d ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kompromat

>Use of kompromat has been common in the politics of Russia[7] and other post-Soviet states

Surely they wouldn't do the things that they usually do with Trump, who visited Russia in 1987 upon invitation by, more or less clearly, the KGB?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_between_Trump_associates...

owebmaster 1d ago

Do you really think there's anything Trump is afraid of any secret that could be worse than what we already no? There's not. The idea that he's manipulated by Russia is just stupid.

ahartmetz 21h ago

Yes, sex with underage models and directly receiving money from Russia would be worse than what's currently known. Things can always get worse - that includes Trump's reputation.

owebmaster 18h ago

That's already what's expected from his participation in the Epstein parties. It changed literally nothing.

usefulcat 1d ago

> even Republicans are beginning to wonder what dirt Putin has on Trump.

What dirt could they possibly have on him that would actually matter to the voters that voted for him last time?

Not trolling or rhetorical; that's a completely sincere question. Even if something "bad" were to surface, his supporters would simply deny it and/or ignore it, same as they've done for all the other things he's done that are already known.

You can pretty much divide American voters into two camps right now: the ones who loathe him and the ones who DGAF (non-voting voters being in the latter category).

helterskelter2 1d ago

> What dirt could they possibly have on him that would actually matter to the voters that voted for him last time?

Some segment will always deny any dirt that comes out but I think most would become fairly adverse to him if, say, conclusive evidence of child sexual abuse surfaced.

lawn 1d ago

No need for dirt. Putin simply funnels money to Trump and that's enough.

macintux 1d ago

Active discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50155237

dgudkov 1d ago

Another Ukrainian innovation using drones: transporting transplant organs.

https://ukrspecsystems.com/blog/pd-2-uav-tested-for-organ-de...

Cpoll 1d ago

I think this has been done before, as early as 2022, according to this article: https://globalnews.ca/news/8583562/drone-delivery-organ-tran...

I'd actually assumed it'd be commonplace by now, but I can't find too many stories about it.

atlasunshrugged 1d ago

Not exactly the same but Zipline has been transporting medical supplies in Africa for almost a decade (in the US I think they're mostly focused on food delivery which is more profitable) https://time.com/5295821/ziplines-drones-are-saving-lives/

dgudkov 1d ago

To be precise, innovation doesn't mean invention. I never claimed that Ukraine was the first to invent organ delivery, but it definitely keeps innovating in this field.

Anyway, the point is that there is a lot of interesting/innovative going on with regards to drones in Ukraine.

Haven880 1d ago

Basically like during nam with helicopter. And many were destroyed mid flight. Plus this is PR stunt. Do OSINt how many drones needed by Ukrainian side per month. That means that many destroyed EVERY MONTH. Now imagine one of them carry wounded soldier.

Retric 1d ago

Drones are not at equal risk in all missions and neither are wounded soldiers in equal need for evacuation. A long list of Americans have died in helicopter accidents while receiving medical transport but a much longer list had their lives saved by those same basic methods.

sampullman 1d ago

Presumably less likely to get destroyed than a suicide drone, or one sent further into enemy controlled areas.

There probably aren't a lot of scenarios where it makes sense sense to pick an injured guy up with a drone, but it seems like a plausible last resort option.

Retric 1d ago

I’d expect there’s many situations where sending a helicopter would be considered too dangerous for the crew, but the lack of medical care on a drone seems like a big limitation.

xbar 19h ago

Evac drones will have a lower destruction rate than kamikaze drones per month, for obvious reasons. If I imagine a kamikaze drone carrying a wounded solder, it better be in Rambo VII because that's ridiculous.

It is a story with strong PR value.

Ukraine claims first drone evacuation of wounded soldier (nbcnews.com)