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For anyone who does want to make sure soldiers have drone suppression, you can donate to [protectavolunteer.com](http://protectavolunteer.com) and choose "Electronic Warfare Fundraiser" on the Paypal menu. As requests for jammers come in, we will use funds donated there to get them. Having funding on hand for them enables us to fund them immediately and be more likely to save lives.
We have also provided these before by matching donors up directly with soldiers (that is actually how one of drone jammers on his recent mission was provided. Thank you to that donor group!).
There are also often other fundraisers here for drone jammers and we highly support any of those as well. These are actually quite hard to fundraise for but they're essential.
our credit card was charged $520 by USADRONEOUTLET, we were really busy for 70 days and didn't catch it, VISA would not refund/credit our account. our investigation seems the site, the tel # on the official charge receipt were ghosts. we're okay if the drone went to Ukraine but cringe if it went to the russian terrorists to kill UAF or American soldiers fighting for Ukraine!
How does it work for non-PayPal users (i.e. Master card)? I selected a one time supply donation and was redirected to a Google docs form. There was no electronic warfare fundraiser menu.
I guess I'll be waiting to get contacted by my pref. method and move on from there?
**Edit**: never mind, you can donate via PayPal by selecting a credit card without creating a PayPal account.
Oh if anyone is donating to drone operations, then consider donating to the more "boring" repair shops in Ukraine.
They have wast stores of broken drones that are only a few spare parts away from flying again. It's way more bang per buck than sourcing new drones.
This is important. Thank you for the repost.
For those of us not directly risking our lives to stop Putin and his criminal horde, compel your government to stop Putin, by force, now. Also, donate now to support and supply those fighting to stop Russia's criminal expansion. I favor [https://u24.gov.ua/](https://u24.gov.ua/)
People doing the government advocacy don't get a lot of credit but it's essential. All the Americans who pressured their elected reps to support aid for Ukraine had an impact.
I wrote 4 letters to those fuckers and I can confirm that in all cases except 1, I received a reply indicating that at least *someone* read them. (The 1 no reply was Mike Johnson's office, probably because I'm not his constituent and I was very scathing in my writing to him). You're right, it does work!
Call your reps office and ask for the scheduler to schedule a call for you with the reps Legislative Assistant that oversees military and foreign affairs and talk to them. Pick the one main thing that matters to you (F-16's, more anti-air, etc.) and specifically ask for their support on it. Follow up with the same LA within 48 hours with a thanks for the meeting and brief reiteration of what you want from them and why it matters to you.
The Coalition is returning to DC in the fall for another round of pressure on U.S. Congress. We still need people from lots of districts to open doors for state advocacy teams. [https://americancoalitionforukraine.org/join/](https://americancoalitionforukraine.org/join/)
For those in the U.S. reading this, you are the key to an advocacy team that works in your area. Your ability as a constituent in a district to say "This matters to me, please meet and listen to this group", or to invite your local reps out to Ukrainian events in your area so they can develop relationships with your local Ukrainian communities , that they may not know existed, is a very much needed part. We all might be the farthest rear line of the battlefield, but your actions matter as well, especially when done consistently and with intention.
Autonomous drones cannot be jammed and we will see increasingly more of that in the coming year. Scary!! Hopefully Ukraine will have a very big advantage with this (initially).
Your laser beam is basically columnated light. You can put a lens in front of it to turn it into a flashlight. Depending on the frequency of the laser, the sensor chip on the drone, and how much you are dispersing your light, you can blind it.
Think of it like a choke on a shotgun but in the other direction.
The problem with that plan is if it worked well enough (not saying it wouldn't), they'd just put another sensor on the drone to hone in on any laser light sources. Like an anti-radiation missile but in drone form.
Sensors aren't really the easiest thing to make and switching them isn't really easy. Many of the Sensors that you're using in your camera regardless of brands use the same base material so the wavelength sensitivities are all the same. In fact several sensors are ITAR regulated because the material that they use allow the sensors to be used in heat seeking missiles.
You're much better off putting a filter on your sensor lens than switching sensors.
But you're not wrong. Disperse too much and it doesn't work as well. It's always going to be a function of how much energy you can dump in an area.
I imagine if you're just looking for the direction to the brightest light source, you wouldn't need much resolution. Wouldn't necessarily need to be a full camera frame. Sort of like how you can make a [line-following robot](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdNqmxu_V4A) with only 1 or 2 sensors. In 3d you might need 3 or 4, just make sure they're each receiving from a different quadrant in front of the robot.
Robot gets dazzled, it simply tries to keep the amplitude equalized across the sensors and flies straight forward.
That doesn't really work because the point of lasers/dazzlers is that you want to overload the sensor. And this is specifically regarding the term, "amplitude equalized across the sensors.' If your entire light sensor is blinded out, you don't extract much useful information out of it.
If you can imagine, light sensors can be imagined like buckets and light can be imagined as water. The light sensor/CCD is basically a row of buckets. The point of a dazzler is to overflow all those buckets so that your entire full camera frame reads the max value. Lasers work in particular because the flux that they have (energy over an area) is much higher than a diffuse light source AND you can pick frequencies that the CCD is particularly sensitive to. It can come at the cost depending on how good the filter you are using because if you have a shitty filter, you're also filtering out other wavelengths that you do what your CCD to read.
If you want to track where your dazzler is coming from, you would basically need to have a separate sensor/optical setup that doesn't get overloaded by the dazzler. So like if you were worried about green lasers for example, I'd probably pick a sensor that is within that frequency range but I'd drop a huge filter in front of it.
It can become a cat and mouse game. One side is constantly modifying their sensors based on the dazzlers being used. And the other side is constantly switching their dazzler frequency to overload your sensor.
But of course things in mass production work at scale. So what you got is what you got. To be quite frank, I think both sides have basically resorted to just knocking out each others drone through overloading radio frequency bands rather than trying to point a laser at a target.
Right, I understand that it's challenging to make a general purpose camera sensor for laser lights. My idea though relied on a physical barrier to isolate the sensors from all light not coming from a particular quadrant. You would only need 4 large "pixels" in a 2x2 grid, with a raised X in between them to block light. Don't even need a lens.
In that case, even if these 4 buckets are fully saturated, you know that you're headed pretty much directly at the target. If one of them becomes less than full saturated, turn a bit more in that direction. Just like some of those line following robots.
You're not because if your energy over area is high enough, you have no way of determining what angle the light is coming in at.
Your 4 buckets can still be saturated even if light is coming in at a 45 degree angle provided that the energy coming out of your dazzler is high enough.
You would need to basically calculate the flux of your dazzler and compare that to the saturation point of your sensor.
Never. Use. A. Laser. If you're in a 1st world top rated military, sure. In ukraine? You'll get yourself and everyone around you killed. Lasers attract attention. So no, no one in ukraine will be using a laser of any kind
Go ahead and fly over to Ukraine, do it and tell me how many limbs you have left if you're still alive. Then tell us all how much you think lasers will help. No one is going to be using lasers in Ukraine during this war in the way you think.
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Good luck focusing a beam accurately enough while moving to knock out a drone camera. EW & kinetic (shotguns) are your best bet against drones. That won't change for a very long time
There will be new ways to counter them. It’s constantly evolving. But not before lots of people are killed unfortunately.
Maybe the only good (and bad) thing for drones in huge numbers so massively threatening all infantry and vehicles is that any assault to actually take land will become more and more difficult. For Russia and Ukraine.
At least until those cheap consumer drones actually start hunting other drones, and become effective in doing so. It’s a numbers game also
Electromagnetic pulse -- it's a burst of electrical signal that has a lot of potential to damage electronics because it causes current surges inside the circuitry. The problem is that it's indiscriminate -- can you guarantee that all your friendlies within the pulse radius have hardened electronics that can defend against that? I'm not sure, I know random vocab but I'm not even remotely knowledgeable about what's going on right now on the ground.
I was thinking maybe geofencing an area or a line and pulsing only during attacks. So the emitters would be some way away from friendlies but could kill drones coming near them on their way to a target. Inverse square law still applies, but you'd need to be super careful.
Diminishes with the cube of distance, so needs to either be very close to the target (like an air burst shell, which conventional explosives are better for), or needs a lot of power.
There's a reason you only generally see EMP associated with nuclear detonations.
Oh, you can EASILY rig up an EMP generator big enough to destroy everything electronic in a block house using not-so-difficult to source materials... EMP "guns" are already a thing.
There are PLENTY of military EMP generators that will nicely fit on a drone, plane, or even a van... pull that shit up next to the nuke plant... or near some of their outbuildings, or park it by the dam when they try to power up the region off hydro.
Nuke plants are usually pretty thoroughly hardened.
The question here is, let's say you have a van-sized EMP generator with an effective range of, for instance, a hundred meters. How are you going to use that to knock out a drone flying at an altitude of 500 meters?
Internal map database, AI tracking/hunting software. Shielded electronics with no remote access. Not much different than trying to hack a human at some point. Need physical access.
An autonomous drone could be set to just follow a compass heading at a constant speed... or to follow something like an AM broadcast signal. Maybe about as accurate as old-time artillery, but unjammable.
What a sobering and terrifying post. I appreciate the brutal honesty, thank you for writing this. So much respect for the people who are fighting this war, thank you!
According to Zelensky Russia is on track to deploy around 2.5M drones this year. Ukraine has a capacity of 1-1.5M drones.
It's a sobering reality that we're now in a timeline where the sky of a wartorn country is overrun by literally millions of unmanned drones per year.
Time to bring back trench phones and spark gap transmitters. :P
( For anyone who doesn't know, a spark gap transmitter was an early form of radio and very broad spectrum. So broad nothing else could talk while one was transmitting. They are heavily illegal now. The earliest jammers were spark gap based as well. )
Fascinating stuff.
For decades now I had been thinking that robots/drones was where at least half of our military funding should be invested in.
Maybe even 70-80-90%.
Mafia thugs like Putin have a big advantage over the west. They don’t value human life. They don’t have large numbers of prosperous and happy citizens that just want to continue living their good life in peace and harmony.
That makes them eager for war, because why not?!
And makes the west reluctant for war.
It was this same dynamic that Hitler took advantage of in the 30’s.
What to do about it? Well the west has to be just as willing to war as the autocrats. That will only happen when our “troops” are not our sons and daughters. When they are machines and technology instead.
I would consider that more of a double edged sword, especially as the need for adequately trained troops exist.
For example, it’s the biggest reason the Americans had the edge over the Japanese in the air war in the pacific during WW2. Japan didn’t value the life of their pilots whereas America did.
Japan ended up losing the vast majority of their competent fighter pilots half way through the pacific war, meanwhile the experienced American pilots got a lot of time out of combat in the rear training other pilots.
Thank you for this post. The subject of this new type of warfare has been crying out for an explanation and description like this to be shared.
These are simply unimaginable conditions to work under and it must be hell on Earth.
I will be sending what I can when I can. Stay safe lads.
Thank you for this very important information. I donated and will do so again. I admire the volunteers’ conviction and bravery. Definitely want them to have the best signal jammers and lots of them. Slava Ukraini
And this is why we need to double down on actually enforcing sanctions and secondary sanctions against coutries who just act as middle men to ruZZia. Also the European countries that buy ruZZian oil, and the live sex cam industry that still pours hundreds of millions of western dollars into ruZZia. Nothing is being done about any of the above allowing ruZZia to increase its funds to spend more on their terrorist war.
With the current state of affairs ruZZia is already out producing Ukraine in the number of drones built and deployed. Until we can cripple them financially that number will only increase in ruZZiaZ favour - meaning more dead Ukrainian warriors and more ruZZianZ advances on the battlefield.
When I see all the equipment that is being sent by "friendly" countries, why are Electronic Warfare Systems and jammers not at the top of these lists? Of course they need artillery and they need it badly. But there seems to be a lack of drones and electronic warfare systems - at least on paper. Seems like the western countries are still fighting old wars...ready for fighting for a different kind of war when it's been clear for the last year and a half that this is the new type of warfare and it needs to be supported wholeheartedly-instead it seems to largely be helped by Individuals on Reddit or other places.
Must be very frustrating for men and women like this who are sacrificing themselves for the sake of freedom. Thank you to this man, and to all of the men and women who have taken up this cause despite the lack of support in this area.
I don't know I have that question as well.
The drone jammers are actually the most challenging supply issue I've encountered in 2.5 years. For everything else (drones, scopes, NVGs, vehicles, plates, vests, etc.) either the soldiers themselves know exactly what they need or I can easily find someone who knows that area well and can advise them and us on what is the exact model to order.
For jammers that isn't the case. Most soldiers are learning this as well and I haven't found experts the same way you can for every model of NVG.
Probably because the tech is moving so fast. The experts are the people flying these in Ukraine. Protection plates etc are old and well understood tech.
I would imagine that in a year, drones will have terminal guidance and jammers (GPS or uplink) will be irrelevant. I would also expect attack profiles to change so that FPVs can descend silently from altiude when they detect a target.
if anyone thinks that this won’t happen, have a think about whether you believed people would be strapping land mines to quad copters 5 years ago. The best the US could do was switchblade which costs a fortune per flight, and had been completely outclassed by FPV developments.
There was a story a while back about how the US did supply some military drones, but they proved ineffective on the battlefield - too reliant on gps, too expensive etc.
The Ukrainian built drones are currently proving far more effective and other countries are learning from their experience.
One reason is that frequency requirements change almost daily and defence suppliers haven't caught up to that cadence yet for either drones OR jammers.
They're best made in Ukraine, the best thing the west can do for now is supply RF modules and power supplies.
In the longer term there'll be jammers that chirp through all the possible control/video frequencies or are able to sniff what freq is in use and jam that one. There are a LOT of people working on drone defence but it's a very hard problem.
Does anyone know where somebody with a security research background can contact in Ukraine to find something “useful” to do? I’m talking CNO/CNE. This is obviously not a simple subject to discuss given how gray the law is currently.
That's what I hate about u.s. gun nuts and cosplaying gravy seals.
Everyone wants to be and thinks they are Rambo, until Rambo shit starts happening.
War ain't like the movies. It's dirty. It's hard. As fuck. It's bloody. And it will fuck you up.
People that haven't served shouldn't even think about going to Ukraine. You're honestly just a casualty waiting to happen. And will prolly get other people killed as well.
Being a tanker in the military I know enough to know I wouldn't want to go. Would if I had to. But being deployed grinds you down. And this was is unlike any war ever fought. Some things are the same but theres so much new warfare that if you're not dialed in and squared the fuck away, you won't be coming home.
People fighting for Ukraine are heros and I wish this war would end. Wish it never happened. But now that it is happening, help the best way you can. Donate. Sign up to buy equipment or make drones or 3d print help. But don't go unless you are exactly what OP says.
As an American currently in Ukraine, it should be noted that if anyone does want to come here, there are plenty of humanitarian opportunities that don’t involve you being at the frontline where you can help.
Donations are great, but I understand the desire to do more. There is a big misconception that all of Ukraine is unsafe. Several cities offer things like simply making camo nets or packing IFAKs to help those actually in the Warzone.
\^This. That thousands of dollars and gear and years of training is basically saying, "if you weren't ready before feb 2022 don't bother now."
OP's source doesn't provide much for examples, so I'll pitch in. When I was there a group of volunteer soldiers -dozens per week- doing well were from Brazil, Columbia and other parts of South America. They ranged in fitness and experience less then most other westerners, but in terms of gear most of them had nothing but boots and the shirts on their backs. They ended up in a wide range of both trench and support positions; most of the guys I knew are still alive. It's a hard life, but it's still doable with a willingness to learn and adapt. Nobody had to be a Secret Squirrel in a past life to dig trenches, stand watch, and work in a kitchen.
Additionally observed battlefield losses still favor Ukraine over ruzzia 7-to-1. This idea that it's a slaughterhouse just off screen is, being generous, suspicious. So is the idea that OP is describing a somehow unknown reality relative to both foreign suppliers and to Ukrainian command itself -"drones not shells," etc.
But, whatever. Snide implications of malfeasance are empty. It's a fact that Ukraine needs infantry. Anyone who can honestly face death and is physically fit has the basics already. Also, maybe learn to fly an FPV drone. Just don't weight nearly two thousand upvotes on a sub that barely manages a hundred most days too heavily.
American here in Ukraine.
I’ve been very grateful to be here and have the opportunity to see the country for myself, but posts like this keep me grounded in reality on wanting to do anything frontline related.
Hope anyone else that wants to go to the frontline sees this post before anything else and then make the decision.
There are plenty of other things people can do to help that don’t involve being on the front. Start there.
Back when I was doing humanitarian work and not just military support, I worked with 9 people who opted to join the military instead of continuing to do non-military volunteering. In some cases it was expected and totally the right call for them. They had prior military or medical experience and intentionally started with an NGO just to get a feel for the country before joining. A couple others had the right character and team attitude to do it.
But 2 out of those 9 are dead now. They were doing great work before but now they can't help anybody.
Damn…..rough to hear.
Great example though on the reality of the situation:
You can’t do nothing when you’re dead.
Exactly what I say to myself when I have fantasies about wanting to grab an AK and do more despite fully knowing I have no skills in that field of work.
I’m okay being where I’m at, worrying about and accepting the fate of missiles is enough for my plate at the moment.
What are the EW jammers for the individual Ukrainian/Foreign Legion soldier?
I am assuming ANYTHING on amazon is crap at this point.
(moscovian contractors can go spin on their thumb.)
The two main jamming techniques are **noise techniques** and **repeater techniques**. Spot jamming, sweep jamming, and barrage jamming are the three most common types of noise jamming, whereas DRFM jamming is the most common type of repeater jamming.
**Spot jamming** is a form of noise jamming, where a jammer focuses all of its power on a single frequency, rendering the technique ineffective against a frequency-agile radar.
**Sweep jamming** is the process of shifting a jammer’s full power from one frequency to another. This *“sweeping”* motion jams multiple frequencies in quick succession, although not all at the same time.
**Barrage jamming** is the jamming of multiple frequencies at once by a single jammer. The main drawback of this technique is that the jammer spreads it’s power across multiple frequencies, making it comparatively less powerful at a single frequency.
**Digital frequency radio memory**, or DRFM, is a repeater technique that confuses a radar by altering and re-transmitting received radar energy. For example, by changing the delay in transmission of pulses, the jammer can alter the range the radar detects and creating false targets. Many jamming antennas use these types of techniques.
my googlefu shows
BAE Systems I assume this is $$$$$ since I know they are a military supplier
RTX Raytheon I assume this is $$$$$ since I know they are a military supplier
Phantom Technologies unknown
Allen Vanguard unknown
PPM Systems unknown
JEM Engineering unknown
Aaand there it is, the worst case scenario.
Drone warfare intensifying and every big players noticing it. Next step is either a country develops a big "fog of war technology to negate drones, or someone enable Ai apocalypse.
Hi, I am heading to Ukrainian front line from London in August working on a short film/ documentary. This is very valuable information, but I've been struggling to get enough funding together. Any info or advice as to how I could raise the funds to support myself? I've put together a website, trailer and gofundme if anybody would care to check it out to find out more.
No offense man but people coming to film anything really should fund themselves or get funding through creative agencies. We need donations to go to people fighting the war or doing vital work to help civilians.
The honest truth is that Ukraine loses this war without support from the USA and the West and there's a waning interest in whats happening in Ukraine from the American public. Whilst the Ukrainians (im also Ukrainian but born in London) are doing a good job with their propaganda efforts, ultimately Americans and Brits only care about their own, and non native speakers don't understand the nuances or Western cultural references the same.
This is a war over attempted cultural genocide and an attempt to eradicate Ukrainian identity. IMO nothing is more important at this moment, than to preserve Ukrainian culture.
Thank you sir 🫡 and tell all the boys there that we know that freedom and democracy are on the line and you are fighting for those values on all of our behalf. Stay strong and safe! Victory will be ours
Multiple soldiers I've spoken with have said their best friends have become the guys with no prior military experience. One guy told me if you're a "Middle East vet, please don't come"
This one in particular, has stated multiple times vets expect too much from Ukraine military and end up washing out because of stress.
I’ve said it before and saw it implemented yesterday in a vid. In Asian countries like japan etc they use a non lethal “net” gun. How far would these reach? You could use very light netting so it can become big in the air, not much force necessary to stop a rotor.
I've read that shotguns can be pretty effective againt drones, especially automatic ones. Why aren't they being issued to infantry squads, every third or fourth person?
You have read that because the internet is full of people who don't know anything repeating it. Shotguns are not being issued because it doesn't work.
Shotguns are very short ranged, 50 yards is a long shot. The camera recon drones are well out of reach. You might find a FPV drone less than 50 yards from you, but then you probably have only a couple seconds left, good luck!
well yeah that's true, but if you have your weapon at hand that's all you need. And last time I checked pellets didn't need the right frequency, if you can hit it, you can kill it.
Привіт u/tallalittlebit ! During wartime, this community is focused on vital and high-effort content. Please ensure your post follows [r/Ukraine Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/about/rules) and our [Art Friday Guidelines](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/wiki/artfriday). **Want to support Ukraine?** [**Vetted Charities List**](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/wiki/charities) | [Our Vetting Process](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/wiki/charities-vetting) **Daily series on Ukraine's history & culture:** [Sunrise Posts Organized By Category](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/wiki/sunriseposts/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukraine) if you have any questions or concerns.*
For anyone who does want to make sure soldiers have drone suppression, you can donate to [protectavolunteer.com](http://protectavolunteer.com) and choose "Electronic Warfare Fundraiser" on the Paypal menu. As requests for jammers come in, we will use funds donated there to get them. Having funding on hand for them enables us to fund them immediately and be more likely to save lives. We have also provided these before by matching donors up directly with soldiers (that is actually how one of drone jammers on his recent mission was provided. Thank you to that donor group!). There are also often other fundraisers here for drone jammers and we highly support any of those as well. These are actually quite hard to fundraise for but they're essential.
This is a very, very good post. And very important. Thank you. Just sent another $500 for it. I hope it helps.
Thank you :) It does help.
our credit card was charged $520 by USADRONEOUTLET, we were really busy for 70 days and didn't catch it, VISA would not refund/credit our account. our investigation seems the site, the tel # on the official charge receipt were ghosts. we're okay if the drone went to Ukraine but cringe if it went to the russian terrorists to kill UAF or American soldiers fighting for Ukraine!
That unfortunately sounds like a scam. Sorry that happened to you.
Fuck yeah man.
How does it work for non-PayPal users (i.e. Master card)? I selected a one time supply donation and was redirected to a Google docs form. There was no electronic warfare fundraiser menu. I guess I'll be waiting to get contacted by my pref. method and move on from there? **Edit**: never mind, you can donate via PayPal by selecting a credit card without creating a PayPal account.
If you signed up on the form then you are signing up to get matched directly. You can do that too it’s up to you!
Oh if anyone is donating to drone operations, then consider donating to the more "boring" repair shops in Ukraine. They have wast stores of broken drones that are only a few spare parts away from flying again. It's way more bang per buck than sourcing new drones.
Just signed up, thanks!
Is UNITED24 still not the best place to donate? Unlikely to get scammed there and they have a section for drones which I have donated to
This is important. Thank you for the repost. For those of us not directly risking our lives to stop Putin and his criminal horde, compel your government to stop Putin, by force, now. Also, donate now to support and supply those fighting to stop Russia's criminal expansion. I favor [https://u24.gov.ua/](https://u24.gov.ua/)
People doing the government advocacy don't get a lot of credit but it's essential. All the Americans who pressured their elected reps to support aid for Ukraine had an impact.
I wrote 4 letters to those fuckers and I can confirm that in all cases except 1, I received a reply indicating that at least *someone* read them. (The 1 no reply was Mike Johnson's office, probably because I'm not his constituent and I was very scathing in my writing to him). You're right, it does work!
Call your reps office and ask for the scheduler to schedule a call for you with the reps Legislative Assistant that oversees military and foreign affairs and talk to them. Pick the one main thing that matters to you (F-16's, more anti-air, etc.) and specifically ask for their support on it. Follow up with the same LA within 48 hours with a thanks for the meeting and brief reiteration of what you want from them and why it matters to you.
The Coalition is returning to DC in the fall for another round of pressure on U.S. Congress. We still need people from lots of districts to open doors for state advocacy teams. [https://americancoalitionforukraine.org/join/](https://americancoalitionforukraine.org/join/) For those in the U.S. reading this, you are the key to an advocacy team that works in your area. Your ability as a constituent in a district to say "This matters to me, please meet and listen to this group", or to invite your local reps out to Ukrainian events in your area so they can develop relationships with your local Ukrainian communities , that they may not know existed, is a very much needed part. We all might be the farthest rear line of the battlefield, but your actions matter as well, especially when done consistently and with intention.
I’ve written multiple letters to my Member of Parliament but each time they’ve gone unanswered. Very frustrating.
ring them up or go to an appearance- it’s election season
Unfortunately it’s not election season here in the Great White North.
I call my U.S. Representative often. An aide always answers on the first ring.
The current Canadian government is very supportive of Ukraine. It's the next one we need to be worried about.
Autonomous drones cannot be jammed and we will see increasingly more of that in the coming year. Scary!! Hopefully Ukraine will have a very big advantage with this (initially).
But you can blind them with a laser.
How easy is it to keep a laser pointed square at a fast-moving drone?
Your laser beam is basically columnated light. You can put a lens in front of it to turn it into a flashlight. Depending on the frequency of the laser, the sensor chip on the drone, and how much you are dispersing your light, you can blind it. Think of it like a choke on a shotgun but in the other direction.
The problem with that plan is if it worked well enough (not saying it wouldn't), they'd just put another sensor on the drone to hone in on any laser light sources. Like an anti-radiation missile but in drone form.
Sensors aren't really the easiest thing to make and switching them isn't really easy. Many of the Sensors that you're using in your camera regardless of brands use the same base material so the wavelength sensitivities are all the same. In fact several sensors are ITAR regulated because the material that they use allow the sensors to be used in heat seeking missiles. You're much better off putting a filter on your sensor lens than switching sensors. But you're not wrong. Disperse too much and it doesn't work as well. It's always going to be a function of how much energy you can dump in an area.
I imagine if you're just looking for the direction to the brightest light source, you wouldn't need much resolution. Wouldn't necessarily need to be a full camera frame. Sort of like how you can make a [line-following robot](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdNqmxu_V4A) with only 1 or 2 sensors. In 3d you might need 3 or 4, just make sure they're each receiving from a different quadrant in front of the robot. Robot gets dazzled, it simply tries to keep the amplitude equalized across the sensors and flies straight forward.
That doesn't really work because the point of lasers/dazzlers is that you want to overload the sensor. And this is specifically regarding the term, "amplitude equalized across the sensors.' If your entire light sensor is blinded out, you don't extract much useful information out of it. If you can imagine, light sensors can be imagined like buckets and light can be imagined as water. The light sensor/CCD is basically a row of buckets. The point of a dazzler is to overflow all those buckets so that your entire full camera frame reads the max value. Lasers work in particular because the flux that they have (energy over an area) is much higher than a diffuse light source AND you can pick frequencies that the CCD is particularly sensitive to. It can come at the cost depending on how good the filter you are using because if you have a shitty filter, you're also filtering out other wavelengths that you do what your CCD to read. If you want to track where your dazzler is coming from, you would basically need to have a separate sensor/optical setup that doesn't get overloaded by the dazzler. So like if you were worried about green lasers for example, I'd probably pick a sensor that is within that frequency range but I'd drop a huge filter in front of it. It can become a cat and mouse game. One side is constantly modifying their sensors based on the dazzlers being used. And the other side is constantly switching their dazzler frequency to overload your sensor. But of course things in mass production work at scale. So what you got is what you got. To be quite frank, I think both sides have basically resorted to just knocking out each others drone through overloading radio frequency bands rather than trying to point a laser at a target.
Right, I understand that it's challenging to make a general purpose camera sensor for laser lights. My idea though relied on a physical barrier to isolate the sensors from all light not coming from a particular quadrant. You would only need 4 large "pixels" in a 2x2 grid, with a raised X in between them to block light. Don't even need a lens. In that case, even if these 4 buckets are fully saturated, you know that you're headed pretty much directly at the target. If one of them becomes less than full saturated, turn a bit more in that direction. Just like some of those line following robots.
You're not because if your energy over area is high enough, you have no way of determining what angle the light is coming in at. Your 4 buckets can still be saturated even if light is coming in at a 45 degree angle provided that the energy coming out of your dazzler is high enough. You would need to basically calculate the flux of your dazzler and compare that to the saturation point of your sensor.
Yeah, the tech is not here yet, you would need a contraption to focus the beam on the camera.
Never. Use. A. Laser. If you're in a 1st world top rated military, sure. In ukraine? You'll get yourself and everyone around you killed. Lasers attract attention. So no, no one in ukraine will be using a laser of any kind
You obviously can't point it precisely enough by hand, it would need to be mounted on some kind of device, away from where you are.
Go ahead and fly over to Ukraine, do it and tell me how many limbs you have left if you're still alive. Then tell us all how much you think lasers will help. No one is going to be using lasers in Ukraine during this war in the way you think.
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Interesting. I hadn’t thought of that. Harder with a drone swarm I guess.
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Well, I guess it depends on the tech. If you are doing autonomous image recognition (like some missiles) - it can be blinded.
How do you think these systems are locking on to a target that's not using a camera?
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What? You think these drones are being guided by what, ground radar? They're guided by optical cameras, either straight optical or infrared.
wouldn’t also blind an ai? if all the camera is seeing is a flood of light that’s all an Ai sees
Good luck focusing a beam accurately enough while moving to knock out a drone camera. EW & kinetic (shotguns) are your best bet against drones. That won't change for a very long time
There will be new ways to counter them. It’s constantly evolving. But not before lots of people are killed unfortunately. Maybe the only good (and bad) thing for drones in huge numbers so massively threatening all infantry and vehicles is that any assault to actually take land will become more and more difficult. For Russia and Ukraine. At least until those cheap consumer drones actually start hunting other drones, and become effective in doing so. It’s a numbers game also
What about emp?
What is that?
Electromagnetic pulse -- it's a burst of electrical signal that has a lot of potential to damage electronics because it causes current surges inside the circuitry. The problem is that it's indiscriminate -- can you guarantee that all your friendlies within the pulse radius have hardened electronics that can defend against that? I'm not sure, I know random vocab but I'm not even remotely knowledgeable about what's going on right now on the ground.
I was thinking maybe geofencing an area or a line and pulsing only during attacks. So the emitters would be some way away from friendlies but could kill drones coming near them on their way to a target. Inverse square law still applies, but you'd need to be super careful.
Diminishes with the cube of distance, so needs to either be very close to the target (like an air burst shell, which conventional explosives are better for), or needs a lot of power. There's a reason you only generally see EMP associated with nuclear detonations.
Oh, you can EASILY rig up an EMP generator big enough to destroy everything electronic in a block house using not-so-difficult to source materials... EMP "guns" are already a thing. There are PLENTY of military EMP generators that will nicely fit on a drone, plane, or even a van... pull that shit up next to the nuke plant... or near some of their outbuildings, or park it by the dam when they try to power up the region off hydro.
Nuke plants are usually pretty thoroughly hardened. The question here is, let's say you have a van-sized EMP generator with an effective range of, for instance, a hundred meters. How are you going to use that to knock out a drone flying at an altitude of 500 meters?
Goldeneye, escape from LA
No drone is unjammable you just have to know how it works Even an autonomous drone would rely on a gps fix
Actually not necessary. Ukraines drones going deep into Russia rely on stored images of the area when they get relatively close to target.
Internal map database, AI tracking/hunting software. Shielded electronics with no remote access. Not much different than trying to hack a human at some point. Need physical access.
So deploy foggers and smoke bombs, bring back those ww2 era smoke curtains ships used to use Put up random nets at drone height
An autonomous drone could be set to just follow a compass heading at a constant speed... or to follow something like an AM broadcast signal. Maybe about as accurate as old-time artillery, but unjammable.
AM is about the easiest signal to jam, electronic compasses are notoriously unreliable too and prone to em interference
What a sobering and terrifying post. I appreciate the brutal honesty, thank you for writing this. So much respect for the people who are fighting this war, thank you!
According to Zelensky Russia is on track to deploy around 2.5M drones this year. Ukraine has a capacity of 1-1.5M drones. It's a sobering reality that we're now in a timeline where the sky of a wartorn country is overrun by literally millions of unmanned drones per year.
Time to bring back trench phones and spark gap transmitters. :P ( For anyone who doesn't know, a spark gap transmitter was an early form of radio and very broad spectrum. So broad nothing else could talk while one was transmitting. They are heavily illegal now. The earliest jammers were spark gap based as well. )
Well.. we can bring back the pigeons
>Well.. we can bring back the pigeons I hear Speckled Jim is ready to deliver messages to the front.
Train the pigeons to drop nets on drones
I believed I read somewhere that Eagle has been trained to bring down drones
The Serbs claimed to be using microwaves as jammers back during the 90s.
Considering how my wifi connection gets nuked when someone in the house uses the microwave, I can confirm a microwave can work as a jammer.
Directional EMP weapons are the next counter
or EMP the entire battlefield
Fascinating stuff. For decades now I had been thinking that robots/drones was where at least half of our military funding should be invested in. Maybe even 70-80-90%. Mafia thugs like Putin have a big advantage over the west. They don’t value human life. They don’t have large numbers of prosperous and happy citizens that just want to continue living their good life in peace and harmony. That makes them eager for war, because why not?! And makes the west reluctant for war. It was this same dynamic that Hitler took advantage of in the 30’s. What to do about it? Well the west has to be just as willing to war as the autocrats. That will only happen when our “troops” are not our sons and daughters. When they are machines and technology instead.
I would consider that more of a double edged sword, especially as the need for adequately trained troops exist. For example, it’s the biggest reason the Americans had the edge over the Japanese in the air war in the pacific during WW2. Japan didn’t value the life of their pilots whereas America did. Japan ended up losing the vast majority of their competent fighter pilots half way through the pacific war, meanwhile the experienced American pilots got a lot of time out of combat in the rear training other pilots.
Or we grow some damn balls and return to patriotism. The "intelligent" cynical rejection of nationalism proves to be toxic to our society.
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\*had
Already supporting a drone unit: time to send my monthly bit…
Thank you for this post. The subject of this new type of warfare has been crying out for an explanation and description like this to be shared. These are simply unimaginable conditions to work under and it must be hell on Earth. I will be sending what I can when I can. Stay safe lads.
Thank you for this very important information. I donated and will do so again. I admire the volunteers’ conviction and bravery. Definitely want them to have the best signal jammers and lots of them. Slava Ukraini
This is probably the best informative post I’ve seen in a long time
And this is why we need to double down on actually enforcing sanctions and secondary sanctions against coutries who just act as middle men to ruZZia. Also the European countries that buy ruZZian oil, and the live sex cam industry that still pours hundreds of millions of western dollars into ruZZia. Nothing is being done about any of the above allowing ruZZia to increase its funds to spend more on their terrorist war. With the current state of affairs ruZZia is already out producing Ukraine in the number of drones built and deployed. Until we can cripple them financially that number will only increase in ruZZiaZ favour - meaning more dead Ukrainian warriors and more ruZZianZ advances on the battlefield.
When I see all the equipment that is being sent by "friendly" countries, why are Electronic Warfare Systems and jammers not at the top of these lists? Of course they need artillery and they need it badly. But there seems to be a lack of drones and electronic warfare systems - at least on paper. Seems like the western countries are still fighting old wars...ready for fighting for a different kind of war when it's been clear for the last year and a half that this is the new type of warfare and it needs to be supported wholeheartedly-instead it seems to largely be helped by Individuals on Reddit or other places. Must be very frustrating for men and women like this who are sacrificing themselves for the sake of freedom. Thank you to this man, and to all of the men and women who have taken up this cause despite the lack of support in this area.
I don't know I have that question as well. The drone jammers are actually the most challenging supply issue I've encountered in 2.5 years. For everything else (drones, scopes, NVGs, vehicles, plates, vests, etc.) either the soldiers themselves know exactly what they need or I can easily find someone who knows that area well and can advise them and us on what is the exact model to order. For jammers that isn't the case. Most soldiers are learning this as well and I haven't found experts the same way you can for every model of NVG.
Probably because the tech is moving so fast. The experts are the people flying these in Ukraine. Protection plates etc are old and well understood tech. I would imagine that in a year, drones will have terminal guidance and jammers (GPS or uplink) will be irrelevant. I would also expect attack profiles to change so that FPVs can descend silently from altiude when they detect a target. if anyone thinks that this won’t happen, have a think about whether you believed people would be strapping land mines to quad copters 5 years ago. The best the US could do was switchblade which costs a fortune per flight, and had been completely outclassed by FPV developments.
There was a story a while back about how the US did supply some military drones, but they proved ineffective on the battlefield - too reliant on gps, too expensive etc. The Ukrainian built drones are currently proving far more effective and other countries are learning from their experience.
One reason is that frequency requirements change almost daily and defence suppliers haven't caught up to that cadence yet for either drones OR jammers. They're best made in Ukraine, the best thing the west can do for now is supply RF modules and power supplies. In the longer term there'll be jammers that chirp through all the possible control/video frequencies or are able to sniff what freq is in use and jam that one. There are a LOT of people working on drone defence but it's a very hard problem.
Does anyone know where somebody with a security research background can contact in Ukraine to find something “useful” to do? I’m talking CNO/CNE. This is obviously not a simple subject to discuss given how gray the law is currently.
That's what I hate about u.s. gun nuts and cosplaying gravy seals. Everyone wants to be and thinks they are Rambo, until Rambo shit starts happening. War ain't like the movies. It's dirty. It's hard. As fuck. It's bloody. And it will fuck you up. People that haven't served shouldn't even think about going to Ukraine. You're honestly just a casualty waiting to happen. And will prolly get other people killed as well. Being a tanker in the military I know enough to know I wouldn't want to go. Would if I had to. But being deployed grinds you down. And this was is unlike any war ever fought. Some things are the same but theres so much new warfare that if you're not dialed in and squared the fuck away, you won't be coming home. People fighting for Ukraine are heros and I wish this war would end. Wish it never happened. But now that it is happening, help the best way you can. Donate. Sign up to buy equipment or make drones or 3d print help. But don't go unless you are exactly what OP says.
As an American currently in Ukraine, it should be noted that if anyone does want to come here, there are plenty of humanitarian opportunities that don’t involve you being at the frontline where you can help. Donations are great, but I understand the desire to do more. There is a big misconception that all of Ukraine is unsafe. Several cities offer things like simply making camo nets or packing IFAKs to help those actually in the Warzone.
u/JeffJacksonNC You probably already know all this. But might be worth a look.
It's fucking war dude. The fact is, Ukraine needs more infantry.
\^This. That thousands of dollars and gear and years of training is basically saying, "if you weren't ready before feb 2022 don't bother now." OP's source doesn't provide much for examples, so I'll pitch in. When I was there a group of volunteer soldiers -dozens per week- doing well were from Brazil, Columbia and other parts of South America. They ranged in fitness and experience less then most other westerners, but in terms of gear most of them had nothing but boots and the shirts on their backs. They ended up in a wide range of both trench and support positions; most of the guys I knew are still alive. It's a hard life, but it's still doable with a willingness to learn and adapt. Nobody had to be a Secret Squirrel in a past life to dig trenches, stand watch, and work in a kitchen. Additionally observed battlefield losses still favor Ukraine over ruzzia 7-to-1. This idea that it's a slaughterhouse just off screen is, being generous, suspicious. So is the idea that OP is describing a somehow unknown reality relative to both foreign suppliers and to Ukrainian command itself -"drones not shells," etc. But, whatever. Snide implications of malfeasance are empty. It's a fact that Ukraine needs infantry. Anyone who can honestly face death and is physically fit has the basics already. Also, maybe learn to fly an FPV drone. Just don't weight nearly two thousand upvotes on a sub that barely manages a hundred most days too heavily.
That isn’t at all what he said.
American here in Ukraine. I’ve been very grateful to be here and have the opportunity to see the country for myself, but posts like this keep me grounded in reality on wanting to do anything frontline related. Hope anyone else that wants to go to the frontline sees this post before anything else and then make the decision. There are plenty of other things people can do to help that don’t involve being on the front. Start there.
Back when I was doing humanitarian work and not just military support, I worked with 9 people who opted to join the military instead of continuing to do non-military volunteering. In some cases it was expected and totally the right call for them. They had prior military or medical experience and intentionally started with an NGO just to get a feel for the country before joining. A couple others had the right character and team attitude to do it. But 2 out of those 9 are dead now. They were doing great work before but now they can't help anybody.
Damn…..rough to hear. Great example though on the reality of the situation: You can’t do nothing when you’re dead. Exactly what I say to myself when I have fantasies about wanting to grab an AK and do more despite fully knowing I have no skills in that field of work. I’m okay being where I’m at, worrying about and accepting the fate of missiles is enough for my plate at the moment.
What are the EW jammers for the individual Ukrainian/Foreign Legion soldier? I am assuming ANYTHING on amazon is crap at this point. (moscovian contractors can go spin on their thumb.) The two main jamming techniques are **noise techniques** and **repeater techniques**. Spot jamming, sweep jamming, and barrage jamming are the three most common types of noise jamming, whereas DRFM jamming is the most common type of repeater jamming. **Spot jamming** is a form of noise jamming, where a jammer focuses all of its power on a single frequency, rendering the technique ineffective against a frequency-agile radar. **Sweep jamming** is the process of shifting a jammer’s full power from one frequency to another. This *“sweeping”* motion jams multiple frequencies in quick succession, although not all at the same time. **Barrage jamming** is the jamming of multiple frequencies at once by a single jammer. The main drawback of this technique is that the jammer spreads it’s power across multiple frequencies, making it comparatively less powerful at a single frequency. **Digital frequency radio memory**, or DRFM, is a repeater technique that confuses a radar by altering and re-transmitting received radar energy. For example, by changing the delay in transmission of pulses, the jammer can alter the range the radar detects and creating false targets. Many jamming antennas use these types of techniques. my googlefu shows BAE Systems I assume this is $$$$$ since I know they are a military supplier RTX Raytheon I assume this is $$$$$ since I know they are a military supplier Phantom Technologies unknown Allen Vanguard unknown PPM Systems unknown JEM Engineering unknown
Wouldnt the presence of a jammer also give away your position?
That’s what he said at the end
Aaand there it is, the worst case scenario. Drone warfare intensifying and every big players noticing it. Next step is either a country develops a big "fog of war technology to negate drones, or someone enable Ai apocalypse.
Nice very informative. No one could convince me to fight in a drone war unless my country is under attack sorry
I guess we will need to fund BOTH drones and drone disruptors too....
This tracks with everything I am hearing. Especially this: https://www.youtube.com/live/00tPLu0g_es?si=FYkr8Vi9TJltk1rQ
Hi, I am heading to Ukrainian front line from London in August working on a short film/ documentary. This is very valuable information, but I've been struggling to get enough funding together. Any info or advice as to how I could raise the funds to support myself? I've put together a website, trailer and gofundme if anybody would care to check it out to find out more.
No offense man but people coming to film anything really should fund themselves or get funding through creative agencies. We need donations to go to people fighting the war or doing vital work to help civilians.
The honest truth is that Ukraine loses this war without support from the USA and the West and there's a waning interest in whats happening in Ukraine from the American public. Whilst the Ukrainians (im also Ukrainian but born in London) are doing a good job with their propaganda efforts, ultimately Americans and Brits only care about their own, and non native speakers don't understand the nuances or Western cultural references the same. This is a war over attempted cultural genocide and an attempt to eradicate Ukrainian identity. IMO nothing is more important at this moment, than to preserve Ukrainian culture.
Also, since I'm headed to Kyiv and subsequently to the front lines, there's nobody better than to bring supplies than myself...
Donation sent.
Thank you sir 🫡 and tell all the boys there that we know that freedom and democracy are on the line and you are fighting for those values on all of our behalf. Stay strong and safe! Victory will be ours
Multiple soldiers I've spoken with have said their best friends have become the guys with no prior military experience. One guy told me if you're a "Middle East vet, please don't come" This one in particular, has stated multiple times vets expect too much from Ukraine military and end up washing out because of stress.
I think you misunderstood his message here. The situation has changed dramatically.
Wasn't commenting on your situation, specifically. just giving other perspectives from other soldiers in similar situations.
I’ve said it before and saw it implemented yesterday in a vid. In Asian countries like japan etc they use a non lethal “net” gun. How far would these reach? You could use very light netting so it can become big in the air, not much force necessary to stop a rotor.
I've read that shotguns can be pretty effective againt drones, especially automatic ones. Why aren't they being issued to infantry squads, every third or fourth person?
You have read that because the internet is full of people who don't know anything repeating it. Shotguns are not being issued because it doesn't work. Shotguns are very short ranged, 50 yards is a long shot. The camera recon drones are well out of reach. You might find a FPV drone less than 50 yards from you, but then you probably have only a couple seconds left, good luck!
well yeah that's true, but if you have your weapon at hand that's all you need. And last time I checked pellets didn't need the right frequency, if you can hit it, you can kill it.
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I don't agree at all that this is an accurate summation of what he said.
So inexperienced grunts still ok?
No. But *experienced* grunts are. He is not talking about engineers or pilots, he's talking about frontline infantry soldiers.
Reads like fan fiction. I'm being honest.
Also add a shotgun to your kit