Quote: "There is acute dissatisfaction among the personnel of the Russian fleet based in Novorossiysk over the senseless ‘meat-grinder’ orders from their command to retrieve the Ukrainian naval drone, which led to the elimination of the elite group."

I was wondering how it killed them.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 19 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Quote: "There is acute dissatisfaction among the personnel of the Russian fleet based in Novorossiysk over the senseless ‘meat-grinder’ orders from their command to retrieve the Ukrainian naval drone, which led to the elimination of the elite group."

Maybe the next 'elite group' will learn from this and frag their commander instead of following suicidal orders.

[–] SkyezOpen@lemmy.world 18 points 4 days ago (1 children)

With their attrition rate you really gotta wonder if the current qualifications for "elite" groups is anything like they were 3 years ago. They were content to throw waves of VDV troops at the same airfield over and over just for them to get shelled immediately after landing, and that's how the war started

[–] magikmw@piefed.social 10 points 4 days ago

From their effectiveness I'd say VDV looked better in music videos than fought on the battlefield.

[–] jaybone@lemmy.zip 11 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Yeah I was hoping for something more James Bond. Like launching electrical probes like a tazer, or spinning blades or something. But this works too.

Now I wonder how intentional it was. If it had lost radio contact, that seems like somewhat dangerous default behavior.

[–] Quill7513@slrpnk.net 13 points 4 days ago (3 children)

naval ordinance are a military's most sacred secrets. from a military prerspective the consequences of a drone like this falling into enemy hands likely necessitates the "fail to the safe position" of "if we can't reach a drone, better to scuttle it than risk it falling into enemy hands"

[–] Madison420@lemmy.world 10 points 4 days ago

Plus an explosion near where you know it was is better than an explosion where you don't know. Thousands of naval mines ended up on beaches far flung where they were laid and moreover sometimes decades after the war.

[–] The_v@lemmy.world 11 points 4 days ago

I guess it would be pretty straightforward to to put a detonation timer kill switch on loss of contact. Say something like 30-60 minutes after loss of contact the drone blows up.

As well as the military secrecy aspect, they don't want these drones washing up on the shore where some civilians could accidentally set them off.

[–] resipsaloquitur@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago

Wouldn’t want to be QA on that project.

[–] fullsquare@awful.systems 9 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Maybe it has a sort of antihandling device just for this purpose

[–] x00z@lemmy.world 7 points 4 days ago

Maybe it didn't even lose contact.

[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Wouldn't be a surprise to avoid capture of tech, but maybe it was just an accident due to damage. A small explosion underwater (lithium batteries and fuel?) can be deadly enough. Maybe they're designed to self destruct but this one failed until it got handled (wouldn't you want it to destruct as soon as certain variables were exceeded?)

[–] fullsquare@awful.systems 5 points 4 days ago

ukrainian drones already washed out on shore once when musk shut off starlink during one of first crimea raids, i'm sure they account for loss of signal now

[–] Geobloke@aussie.zone 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I can see something like if it rolls over and can't right itself would be good reason to self detonate. Or maybe if it reaches a certain altitude

[–] fullsquare@awful.systems 4 points 4 days ago

rolls over, gets taken out of the water, loses connection for some long time, gps indicates that it's on land, all of these suggest future reverse engineering and can be prevented easily

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 4 points 4 days ago

I always figured this was a good approach to dealing with the Russians.