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Initially, it was Bayraktar drones, then NLaws, Stingers, HIMARS- who remembers HIMARS? And now they are using FPV drones weighing 200gms to win the war.
When I covered this topic last month I was barely able to scratch the surface. Great video. When I deployed to Iraq over 10 years ago the drones we had organic to the platoon sounded like lawn mowers ripping through the sky and were about as heavy. Crazy to think they have hand held ones that each squad can have now. soon they'll follow you around on patrol like a little personal pet. A tomagotchi battle-buddy if you will. anyway, big fan of your content and story telling style, all the best !
Since IS first deployed consumer, and home made, ones back in late 2016 warfare changed. Not all wars, the conditions of Ukraine are, obviously by this point, an extremely good example of it though. Two forces, with neither having air superiority, that are primarily fighting from entrenched positions where drones can be a stand in for precision guided munitions which neither side has enough in stock to be using at the rates needed along the frontlines. I've been in Ukraine twice since the war began, and with about a year gap between the two time periods how much the volunteer networks had spun up production on drones was incredible to see. Hopefully the govt starts to put some money behind them and begin developing larger scale production facilities for them. What the volunteers are achieving is incredible, but scaling production is very much needed still
I remember I stumbled upon a video early in the war of a Ukrainian drone dropping a grenade through the top hatch of a BMP and I thought to myself “well that’s changing things forever.” The fact that the war has resorted to WW1 style trench warfare combined with the most modern cheap tactic is so mind blowing. Couldn’t imagine having to constantly be paranoid about drones in the sky. Great work as always 🤟🏼
When BF2042 came out, putting c4 on a recon drone and flying it into a tank was so effective and annoying that it had to be patched out for balance reasons. Strapping explosives to a vehicle and driving them into bigger and more expensive vehicles is like the oldest Battlefield tactic but the drone is so difficult to see and shot out the sky, that when you hear it you were basically done. And here i thought it was so dumb you could do that when in fact it was accidentally realistic.
In battle but you can still do it, more easily if you attach an antipersonnel mine to a drone and fly it into infantry squads, or an anti vehicle mine and fly it into tanks, helicopters or APC's
Watched a Japanese streamer strap a bunch of C4 to a Jeep, get out of it and then remotely detonating the payload. The three guys in the tank (targeted by the Jeep) never saw it coming.
It's a quotation of Roman Ratushny - a social activist and a volunteer Ukrainian defender who was killed by russians last summer. This words are pretty popular and wide-spreader in Ukraine mainly because this is true.
That's originally the quote of our killed defender Roman Ratushnyi, who was a public activist and died in June 2022 on the frontline at the age of 24. Those words were one of his last tweet. And that's crystal clear because Russians haven't ever accepted and will never accept the mere fact of Ukrainian existence. This dude and all of us just want to live - they want us disappear as a nation. Little room for compromise.
@vladalexeev8529 He talks about protecting his home from foreign invaders. Replace 'Russians' with 'Germans' in context of WWII to understand how Ukrainians seeing this now.
@@AlexKaduk he didn't say "invaders". Nobody could say "Our children will kill Germans" - it's a straight Nazi thing. Nazis could say "Our children will kill Jews".
@@bluebird7575 about fpv? Well i recommend the dji avata as a good starter drone! If you don’t have money for it then check out something from rekon. Before ur first flight practice A LOT in the sim and never fly higher than 120m in the air!
@@_ee75 also $4 million dollar big jet/piston driven drones with guided mentions vs suicide drones that are smaller than a pizza box and guides its self for $400
@@holokyttaja5476 not when 10 is considered a too high number as we see with bayraktar, which makes them much less capable weapon of war or even useless as they can't be used like the SU-24 for the Russians, doesn't matter how fancy your weapon is if you can't afford to lose it. Another analogy is the Yamato battleship of the Japanese, so big and powerful and so expensive they never dared use it for effect.
@@holokyttaja5476its not about capability, its about cost efficiency in different roles. 4 million would buy you 1 bayraktar, or approx 5000 pov drones with a grenade ducttaped to it. Both are used for very different reasons in differenr scenarios
I studied National Security in college, and had to do an assignment on an article titled "Technologies Converge and Power Diffuses" by an author named TX Hammes. In it he talks about how 3D Printing, AI, Nanotechnology, and cheap Drones are being made available to small-scale actors, and are thus ushering in a new era of warfare that places a larger emphasis on defensive tactics rather than offensive and precision-strike tactics.
As a long time manufacturer of this equipment here in the USA, this really hits hard... and as an expert in radio technology I see how this is done and can clearly see how this will escalate. The good thing is that drones effectively keep human lives out of direct battle. I forsee a day when war is simply robots battling each other with no humans involved. If we can't eliminate war, hopefully we will at least eliminate the suffering it brings.
That’s yin yan, the nature of humanity to be good and evil at the same time. And it’s built into us from the nature of reality itself. Everything is yin yan on Earth. Perhaps more so than any other planet in our solar system. Day night, sun moon, male female, fire ice, earth water, depression mania…everything!
He also has a video where he justifies russian occupation of Ukrainian and uses Putin's essay as the main source to support this idea. He can push blatant misinformation.
Yeah be careful with Johnny harris. He has a way of hyperbolizing things and stretching the truth a bit. While i do find his content entertaining sometimes, careful with thinking he understands the situation bc he doesn't. He was using russian lies as if they are truths on some "both sides" bs not understanding one side lies and the other reports facts bc the world is watching them and criticizing them for every mistake so they report what's true and usually have proof but the russians literally lie almost every time and if u still use what they say as a source thinking it's fact then ur gullible at best and complicit at worst.
@@77Avadon77 exactly the opposite. Becasue russia attacked Ukraine in 2014 Ukraine had to weaponize its front to protect itself from russian aggression. Before 2014 Ukraine was demilitarizing believing that russia will not violate Budapest agreement.
It makes me think about the 1920s when biplanes that could have been made in a rich guy's warehouse with canvas, wood and plumbing could be versatile and lethal enough to cripple some of the biggest capital ships of the era. (Yes this is a shoutout to the Swordfish.) It is *anything is possible* in both exciting and concerning ways.
Not really the same situation since these types of drones are trivially disabled by ECM and Russia has much better ECM and anti-drone weapons. There's a reason why Russia has no problem blowing up targets all over Ukraine with drones while Ukraine mostly focuses on shelling random villages that are close enough to the border with very rare significant drone attacks
Fairey really just built something that would, beyond its time, devastate ships that cruise faster than it could fly in a headwind (which really doesn't matter when the ship is in port). Gotta love the Stringbag (:
@@MickJonesHogSmacks yup exactly including them, nobody knows how it feels until it comes to your home and family. You only truly know once you've experienced it for yourself.
This war hasn't been about homes or families or survival of a nation for many months. It's a purely political territorial standoff where Ukraine tries to recapture the land it lost at the cost of soldiers and equipment. The peace agreement that Russia and Ukraine drafted back in March 2022 consisted of Ukraine accepting the losses of the land and remaining neutral, but with the military support Ukraine was promised from the West, Ukraine thinks that it can recapture at least some of that land back. That's it. The situation on the front line changed very little since then, except for tens of thousands of soldiers dying over the course of almost 2 years
US politicians and military representatives frame the war much more honestly - it's the cheapest way to destroy Russian military equipment with no Americans dying. The only people dying are Russians - and that's beneficial to Pentagon, and Ukrainians - and they are completely irrelevant and expendable. When viewed in this context, the way it has been progressing makes perfect sense, along with why the equipment was sent to Ukraine in small batches, never allowing them to accumulate enough power to actually overtake Russia. The longer the stalemate is artificially sustained, the better it is for Pentagon, up to a point when they decide for some reason that it's enough, and then Ukraine and Russia will return to some version of the same agreement from 2 years ago
He also has a video where he tells that Ukraine is inherently russian territory and justifies russian occupation by economical and political reasons. He was literally using Putin’s essay as a reliable source of information. I wouldn’t trust him - he can push blatant misinformation.
He also has a video where he justifies russian occupation of Ukraine and uses Putin's essay as the main source to support this idea. He can push blatant misinformation.
I love the inventiveness of the Ukrainians. I am nearly 90 and it reminds me of the inventiveness of the British in WWII. I was child and I remember the ingenuity of people to make do and mend. After the war I heard of numerous things we did to fool our enemy such as escape plans for those POWs incarcerated in Germany.
Britain, we're the dogs B's when it comes to the psychological war, that's what's made us so successful. We can literally take on anyone. The best and least known psyop we did in WW2 was getting the Japs to attack Pearl Harbour.
⚠️ ⚠️ All those millions of Dollars the U.S Government 💸is sending to Ukraine and these guys are using cheap drones to combat the Russians?? 🤔 I dunno but someone is lying. Where is OUR tax money going⁉️⁉️ We are been fool by the News 🗞️ 📺, by international Governments like the U.S, Ukraine and also Russians. We the people are just been played
Problem is, Russia cought on and not only are employing cheap FPV's as well, they have upped their Electronic Warfare game to a new level. Ukraine still has an edge in integration of Drones on a tactical level and experience, but this attriton is giving Russia time to catch up. What we really have to see is how this winter will affect Ukraine.
@@MaXXXimus1984 It is NOT like Russia can't invent good FPVs or better drones. Previously, they didn't have to - because they lived in peace. After Ukraine began doing what they did in the Donbas then Russia was not safe anymore.
As well as the shorter range consumer drones, Ukraine has been given drones with a longer range like the Corvo PPDS waxed cardboard/foam design from Australia that can fly up to 75miles with about a 12-15 lb payload of explosives from memory. A flat pack IKEA like drone aircraft that is easy to put together and can cause a really bad day for someone, or even modded to house cameras for reconnaissance.
I cant believe that is a product lol its just an RC plane. The video also says that type of drone I'd detectable by radar and I think its harder to drop an explosive from it too.
@@henhen7890 The drones in this whole video are basically just quadcopters as far dropping explosives you're right but the amount of explosives you can pack in it is greater. And as the video says a lot of the FPV's are used as kamikaze drones anyway so similar usage.
Back before I dropped out of college, I wrote a paper on the benefits of low cost DIY drones for underfunded search and rescue teams, including a step by step assembly manual for a €185 drone with a 2kg payload capacity, and then put in a full page outlining alternate uses, with this being one of them.
@15:40 This is something I have discussed before but we already have a fantastical solution for this. A while back there was the controversy on U.S providing Ukraine with M864 and M483A Cluster munitions. That was an incredibly controversial topic at the time dude to the whole panic effect even mentioning cluster munition creates in public's eye. To understand why this munition is so incredibly important, we need to discuss what is inside of this munition. This shell contains 72 M42 anti-armor submunitions. A cluster bomb can be disassembled and individual bomblets can be dropped from these drones. For Ukraine this means a single $500 drone, now has the capability to take out a Russian tank. Tanks are especially vulnerable to this form of attack since neither the tank itself, not its accompanying infantry can do anything to defend the tank from this form of attack from the above. The bonus effect of this use case is that a controlled drop of a submunition in this way will also significantly reduce the risk of a dud.
Also, the succes rate of said ammunition is greater since they drop it basically on top of the tank, while a more "traditional" artillery shot can still miss due to the distance and movement of a target.
See, controversy is a funny thing in war. It's basically the public asking the military, "Hey, could you like, not do that?" And the military would say "See we would but we already deployed it and well, we're not going out to go get those munitions back, but if you want to, you can sign up and go get them for us if you like."
I’m Ukrainian Mexican and both my uncles were in the Ukrainian army and were drone operators. But both were killed last month with Russian kamakazi drones as their own comrades said you can’t hear kamakazi drones as they come down fast down. (RIP to both my uncles) also rip to the 3 Americans that’s were in his unit who were killed within a week
@@josepvabr1593uh being enlisted in the military doesn’t make you a mercenary. Also, they are fighting for their country, what have you done lately for your country, Vlad?
The first I saw a FPV race a couple of years ago I thought, that terminator was wrong. The futur won't be humanoid soldier but a swarm of machine gun drones. I therefore started investing more into drone oriented Stock. But I'm still amazed at how fast it came about.
I remember in the tigray war drones were absolutely instrumental, the federal governmenr was close to losing then decided to start purchasing tons of drones and heavily relying on them, it completely turned the tide of the war and they ended up winning. I was surprised this didn't become immediately obvious in the war in Ukraine, you'd think both sides would've paid attention to the largest conflict going on anywhere in the world when the war started
@comicomment yes they were the same general type of drone as bayraktar drones (large, visible to radar, not as easily expendable) but they were a shit load of different kinds of drones, from everywhere from Turkey to the UAE to China, but it seemed to me as though it was mostly the UAE, although the media made it out that it was mostly China sometimes, which I'm guessing is just because "oh no China spooky"
Hi, Tigrayan here. The difference is that the drones used in the Tigray War by the National Military were conventional warfare drones bought from Middle Eastern countries. Those drones were primarily used for recon and to bomb civilian population centers with impunity since the Tigray Defense Force was only an army, and were based in the mountains. In Ukraine, yes there are conventional warfare drones, but this video is about the jerryrigging of cheap commercial drones for warfare that is unique to the Ukraine War.
@@kevincronk7981 Yeah. Most of the drones came from the Middle East (especially UAE, Turkey & Israel). Some came from China & Russia. But there was no weaponization of commercial drones.
I've been building and flying racing quads for many years now. The view with the goggles means that the pilot is virtually riding IN the drone. It's an amazing hobby. And those quads can be damn fast. My fastest currently is good for about 187KPH in short bursts.
the power of opensource software. if it wasn't for open source, FPV software wouldn't be where it is at today. War sucks, but it's good Ukraine is fighting back and winning.
I think it is just a matter of time before autonomous drones technology reaches the battlefield. This video does not cover this topic, but i think people would be surprised to see how quickly this field is evolving and the current capabilities that groups from universities like eth or mit have today. As for defense, well, you can't block a radio communication if there isn't one.
Yes, but not. What Jonny didn't say, is that Ukraine hid their air defence systems right before the invasion. That let them counter russian aviation. And russia didn't get any superiority in air. That led to this situation and gave abilty to use drones against infantry.
@@HolyOllie 14:15 they're also using "signal boosting drones" to counter this. I'm no drone expert so Idk how effective this is, but thought I should mention this
@@onyshchukv Ok man. First, it wasn't about air superiority. Maybe my mentioning of raptor made it. What I meant was America invaded Afganistan and lost 4000 soldiers, spend trillions of dollars and failed. They didn't need Raptors against Afganishtan, Taliban, Somalia and even Hamas. An army of drones (high quality) would have been way more efficient in most wars US waged in last 2 decades.
I've watched your videos for years, on different devices. Just want to note this video didn't show up on any feed of mine. I had to search for it, once you mentioned on your Short clip that this video "flopped". Have your videos been throttled or limited in different countries or regions before ? Thank you to the team for the great work you've been doing.
I'm incredibly torn about this. It could be me. I'm a British mecatronic engineering student exactly the same age as Mykyta. I started building, flying, modifying and developing fpv drones 7 years ago at the age of 13. It's been by far the best hobby I've been a part of, it's consumed my life and my almost every thought: I can design and implement precisely the right craft for each mission, build it, and fly with over 1500 hours of experience at the sticks. In short, I can pull off every step of the process myself. These beautiful birds, the tools, software and equipment around them were developed by excited enthusiasts in their time off around the world, almost always "open source" (=editable so anyone can modify/contribute). These drones grew out of passion for the pure bliss of flight, the feeling is the most addictive adrenaline rush I know of. I'm in no way surprised by how effective they are on the battlefield, as a community we all knew someone would notice eventually and that this would happen... And yet seeing them become weapons of mass destruction and a symbol of fear shakes me to the core. Christian values mean a lot to me, and the idea of me killing someone in my current environment in unthinkable. However, what would I do here? Although nothing is purely black and white, this war sure does seem like good vs evil: a noble cause for the protection of their home, and the survival of what otherwise would be a peaceful nation. The Ukrainian lives saved by this technology are without a doubt proportional to the price Russia is paying in blood. As you say repeatedly, this changes warfare for ever, and hobby flight worldwide will see extremely firm restrictions and regulations put in place, and as much as that saddens me, you can't blame resourcefulness in their desperation with so much at steak. I fear for the future of this civilisation, which seems to me more uncertain than ever. At the speeds at which things spread nowadays it will end up catching us up and being used against us before we know it. May God bless all who are out there on the battlefield at the moment, and their families. This really is a turning point.
Great video. In war, running a jammer is considered one of the jobs with the shortest expectancy. When they triangulate your location, they drop a bomb on you within seconds. I'm surprised the Ukrainians don't develop jammer hunters. If the propeller arms are also used as antenna, then the direction of the jammer can be quicky determined with direction finding technology. Then just fly to the source instead. If they turn off the Jammer, then manual control is re-established and the jammer can be taken out normally.
I'm sure they're working on it, but testing that kind of AI isn't simple. You don't want it to accidentally lock onto a friendly transmitter, etc. Existing anti-radiation missiles are among the most complex munitions in the field.
Not really, for it to happen needs to be an understanding of drone position and jamming station position. Without triangulation of signals and gps it is very hard to do. It can be done with neural vision and some swarm tactics, when multiple drones automatically communicate, detect and destroy the target, but Ukraine is not there yet.
Short answer is yes. HAARM missiles are designed to detect and hunt radars. AIM-120D air to air missiles have home on jam capabilities. But that is a complex problem to solve for a drone you are trying to make cheap and mass produce. You need special equipment and programing in the drone to detect, triangulate and then have the range to get there. Boosting the signal is the better solution.
Right now autonomous targeting like that is a very grey area of ethics. Allowing a robots programing to take the decision to fly to a jamming station that is operated by people and blow it up killing them in the process is scary. Something like taking a life should be dictated by a human decision. Another thing is that fpv drones usually have short ranges and often cant reach far back enought to get to enemy EW inatalations. Detecting the source of jamming and hitting it with artilery is probably much more sensible though also not very simple i habe to imagine. Otherwise the problem would have been solved already
I can see that being possible in theory by using 2 signal boosting drones, and having them in conjunction with the armed drone triangulate the position of the jammer, however I don't know how quickly they would be able to calculate that while actively being jammed, plus if Russia had their own signal blocking type drones to counter that exact type of thing... The cat and mouse in drone warfare truly is new levels of intricate and terrifying honestly.
Why are you shocked? Before FPV was common, drones were already war machines. The Predator, for example pre-dates the quadcopter. War is economic. Governments will continue to send troops and equipment to the battle until their economy can no longer support it. FPV drones are cheap. Hence why they are the chosen vehicle.
Just a reminder he's doing this for his own self and isn't pro-Ukrainian he's actually just making content off the backs of Ukrainians. The same ppl he justifies the genocide of by presenting russian lies on the same level as info from the US or Ukraine gov.
@zato0 you paid for multiple drones? Salute to you sir. Here I am thousands of dollars in, across over 2 dozen donations, and I would never dare say that I am "paying for their drones" when my tiny donations are dust in the wind relative to the sacrifice others have made. Thank you for personally spending your own money to such an extent that you have financed multiple drones yourself. I only wish I could contribute to the war effort more, bc I understand where my contributions stand on the macroscale.
@duval904yeah um yeah my friend in the great country of America we pay this wonderful thing called taxes… if you pay close attention to our wonderful leaders they are doing all the generous donations for us! So if you aren’t American sure I salute you donations. My tax dollars fund war, and when we fund these wars we aren’t just buying the oligarchs nice boats and houses no we are also supplying them with weapons not just any weapons NATO weapons EVEN AMERICAN MADE WEAPONS so can I get an amen? Here’s some news for ya more money BEING DONATED??!! “WASHINGTON, March 12 (Reuters) - The United States will send a new military aid package for Ukraine worth $300 million, President Joe Biden's administration said on Tuesday, the first such move in months as additional funds for Kyiv remain blocked by Republican leaders in Congress”
Imagine you're a soldier sitting in the back of a transport truck. You suddenly hear a buzzing sound and you don't know where it comes from. And then you see something in the sky and it's getting closer to your truck. By the time you realize it's a kamikaze it's already too late. That's scary dude
I just got into freestyle FPV a couple years ago, and it's the first thing that I have in my life that I can consider a real hobby. It has brought me so much joy, and has made major contributions to my mental health. Although I'm sure I would be doing the same thing in their shoes, I have torn feelings seeing something that has, in my own personal life, been such a positive and life afferming force be used in such a way, and I hate how it affects my hobby.
Yeah, I totally agree. I just got into FPV, and don't love the fact that it has this... taint, being known as such an horrible weapon. Feels wrong using these drones in warfare. Makes death so random, so impersonal, so normalized, almost guilt-free. Russians, or Ukrainians, lives should not be ended in this manner. I hope the jamming technologies get so advanced that it makes it impossible to fly them. Especially now that the Russians (the aggressors) have gotten much better at the drone warfare.
@@eraldylli Uhm thats not going to happen. First of all there is anti jamming technology and you can hardly put jammers everywhere being active all the time esp. outside of the zero line of a major war and also drones will increasingly use ML/AI assisted aiming which won't require operator's input when attacking.
It shouldn't affect your hobby much. I mean, you don't have access to ordinance which is what does the damage. Anything can be used for evil. In the hands of a surgeon a knife saves lives. In the hands of a murdered, it brings death. FPV is no different.
@@CAGreve1231 A few counties have already started banning the buying and import of drones. It looks like more countries will do the same. Which, you know, sucks for us that have no relation to using them in warfare.
@@eraldylli- I didn't realize there were import bans which is unfortunate. However, that doesn't stop you from building your own. I would encourage everyone to try and build their own as it is very rewarding. I have built a few Y6 and tricopters for fun and still prefer the Y6 handling over a quad.
He also has a video where he justifies russian occupation of Ukraine and uses Putin's essay as the main source to support this idea. He can push blatant misinformation. Wouldn't trust him.
@@henryate5028 The on board hardware i think is too complex for something like object recognition and tracking to be used on the drones, it would raise the cost too much, it's easier to do it the way they're currently doing it, and i'm sure they probably make some small amount with that capability
2:49 There is a slight error here. FPV kamikaze drones, as the ones depicted and described in the shots before, usually do not have a "release button", as they get destroyed during the mission either by hitting the target or crashing beforehand. This gets cleared up later but you even show a RC remote when describing the "release button", which gives off a wrong impression.
I love FPV drones They’re my hobby for couple years You see the world from another point of view They really help me calm down when ever I‘m stressed I‘m really scared that even hard regulations will come now, because of the warfare
Johnny, I'm a huge fan of you. Great video, as usual. It’s great to see your videos on the Russia-Ukraine war. Can you please make more such videos on the Israel-Palestine war as well? We want to know about the allegations of genocide against Israel and the systematic bombing of civilians. Please create more content on this.
12:50 Shooting these canons is not entirely a guessing game. I spent 3 years at Bragg in an artillery unit, the gunline has what are called forward observers who would radio coordinates for them to shoot. The forward observers are ground troops who are usually alot closer to the enemy. But you're right that they helped us adjust our shots for targets that we're moving
@@JohnNjengaCOCO Seems to me that if the drones are being used mostly to take out military equipment then when either side runs out of said equipment the drones wont have as much use. It stands to reason that this will eventually just revert to trench warfare where this all started. Which Russia will eventually win.
@@ScentlessSun I mean russia has its on factories. These lines about Ukraine producing them is just nonsense. They beg for drones, then they maybe modify them because they are comercial drones. Ukraine doenst really have any industry whatsoever. It was bombed to dust in the first week. They even admitted it back then.
A bit strange that Pentagon didn't think of using small-scale drones before this war, I mean, this technology was ready and it's potential use as a weapon was obvious. I guess, only by some real life examples it becomes more clear that such technology works effectively
They have, but to my understanding the industry wanted to sell the big drones. Probably because that was better for their bottom lines, but also because it is much easier to sell the flashy stuff with impressive spec sheets. This conflict is really waking people up to the fact that companies haven't sold us the weapons that were most efficient, but rather the ones that were most profitable. Not that the expensive weapons aren't good, it's just that in a prolonged war, you want scalability over impressive specs.
This is a really well made video, much better than I expected from a western journalist. As far as I understand, the resource that we now need the most is not money or parts for drones, it's hands to assemble them, so we now have organizations that will teach for free in exchange for a drone you assemble and send them to be tested and sent to the front lines. There is a huge number of people that take part in this and some of them never even soldered before, but they want to learn and they do so successfully.
These organizations teach people, but they do not provide parts. You have to pay around $300-400 out of pocket for each drone. It means we still need parts for drones.
@@ShankarSivarajan Because they can destroy tanks. These clickbait videos about drones dropping a grenade cant do anything. Most of the time they are interestingly cut away at the second you would see the detonation.
When people like Denis are using their talent to create something for their country Ukraine... Huge respect man!! Thanks Johnny as always for the content 🤘👍
Minor correction but it is worth noting: Russia is yet to secure air superiority; they certainly have the advantage but they cannot perform missions over pretty much any of Ukraine not currently on the frontline or within their lines (having to rely on long range missiles from outside of air defence range to hit targets). Ukraine is still able to perform air missions in their territory. This is due to the amount of air defence weapons both sides have, with neither side having the stealth aircraft to break the deadlock (SU57 doesn’t have the numbers and it’s stealth characteristics are far from incredible) Functionally they are at air parity, with Russian advantage.
@@JustAnotherAccount8 Russia isnt really an airpower based military. So I dont ge tthese talking point. They have all the advantages, but people keep pointing at irrelevant things. "They dont fly that much aircraft" they in fact do. They launch many airsorties daily. I actually search how the Us described similar ammount of air strikes and I found their description "high intense". Ukraine does no air sorties whatsoever.
Killing the rc hobby I see great work gov will see this and regulate the hell out of our quad and planes also it does take much skill to build an fpv quad I did it when it was 13 year old with a hobbyking kk2
“The more Russians we kill now, the fewer Russians our children will have to kill” - this is common phrase you would hear in Ukraine (I’m telling you this as Ukrainian). But in comments, people have speculated on the context. What this means, that historically Russians have always tried to conquer and wipe out Ukraine. This phrase is about not killing because we want to, but killing because we have to, if we want to survive. And because of the imperialistic views in Russia, the more we deal with them today, the less our children will have to care about simply surviving in future, and live their lives in peace.
The signal jamming problem is going to be the biggest challenge going forward. I think radio control is eventually going to become obsolete, as overpowering jammers requires more and more transmission power. The most promising solutions to this problem are line-of-sight control using optical wavelengths (i.e. lasers), and eliminating the need for a remote operator by allowing the drones to fly themselves to the target. Using lasers, you not only become immune to jamming, but you also prevent the enemy from being able to listen to radio signals that alert them of an incoming drone.
@@xponen- Just one of the many things you can do. Do you remember the "wave rider" where you printed up cut locations on paper, glued some aluminum foil to a cheap whip antenna, and boosted the signal 30 fold?
For this period.. everyone has to be involved to look for means on self defense and survival..after the war then the school and homes will be normal again
Thank you, Johnny! I can foresee the United States, when they figure out how to make them less jammable, sending a whole container or two over there stuffed with pre-loaded drones.
I think what this video did not cover is that practically all of the drone parts they used to make these DIY drones are sourced from China. From the motors, to the receivers, to the video transmission system, to the controllers, to the FPV goggles, to the IC boards, even the frames. I don't recall any country that even has a supply chain for drone motors other than China. The US tries to make these drones home-made but China is so dominant in the supply chain that all American-made drones are leagues more expensive than Chinese ones. In addition, the Chinese drones are far superior in everything compared to the Ameican made ones.
I remember watching a YT short about a company developing Hunter Killer drones that would be able to essentially fly up to someone's forehead and detonate, killing them instantly. Crazy how that's becoming a very tangible reality.
That was a hoax. Facial recognition technology isn't that advanced to be put into a small autonomous aircraft... but it is true that it may soon become a reality, unfortunately. It is absolutely awful that we as a species still resort to violence to settle our differences...
There is a quality inn quantity. Yeah an expensive American suicide drone is likely better than a $300 diy drone. But for the price of one American drone you can get like 300 FPV drones... In the end the FPVs are a much better investment.
This was so fascinating but also scary at the same time that you could be minding your business and get KO’d by a drone. I also admire the resilience of Ukraine. Also not sure why the mass production of these drones is not being funded by Ukraine. You would think that they would empower these individuals to make them.
We need more financial support from foreign to do such things. All our gov finances works on other important fields, so for drones we don’t have enough ( Im hope foreign investors will see perspective of Ukraine and ukrainian’s drones and invest in mass production.
Why is everybody ignoring the fact that Russia is using if not the same amount then more drones like this on the battlefield, DJI even gave special permission to russian companies to edit code and modify their drones (i mean china and russia are allies after all)
did.... did you watch the video?? He specifically says how Russia is also using a bunch of drones now..?? He didn't mention the DJI thing, which yes I think should have maybe been mentioned, but Johnny definitely mentioned Russian drone usage.
Cheering for the people in UKRAINE fighting for their freedom, treating their heroes like legends. But when the Palestinians fighters do the same, you call them terror*sts?. Seriously? That's just plain hypocritical.
The music for this video, created by our in house composer Tom Fox, is available on our music channel, The Music Room! Follow the link to hear this soundtrack and many more: th-cam.com/video/Qmx8Lhver1s/w-d-xo.html
Initially, it was Bayraktar drones, then NLaws, Stingers, HIMARS- who remembers HIMARS? And now they are using FPV drones weighing 200gms to win the war.
The intro music make it hard to hear you
bro to relax peace and have adventure come to nepal
Very nice
I don't know how... But all my fav TH-camrs are sponsored by incogni... Is this a targeted ad? Lol
When I covered this topic last month I was barely able to scratch the surface. Great video. When I deployed to Iraq over 10 years ago the drones we had organic to the platoon sounded like lawn mowers ripping through the sky and were about as heavy. Crazy to think they have hand held ones that each squad can have now. soon they'll follow you around on patrol like a little personal pet. A tomagotchi battle-buddy if you will. anyway, big fan of your content and story telling style, all the best !
Since IS first deployed consumer, and home made, ones back in late 2016 warfare changed. Not all wars, the conditions of Ukraine are, obviously by this point, an extremely good example of it though. Two forces, with neither having air superiority, that are primarily fighting from entrenched positions where drones can be a stand in for precision guided munitions which neither side has enough in stock to be using at the rates needed along the frontlines.
I've been in Ukraine twice since the war began, and with about a year gap between the two time periods how much the volunteer networks had spun up production on drones was incredible to see. Hopefully the govt starts to put some money behind them and begin developing larger scale production facilities for them. What the volunteers are achieving is incredible, but scaling production is very much needed still
Wow I did not expect the crossover of my two favorite channels in the comments, big fan of your videos and neutral approach, great work.
Youre the real mvp. Love your channel. You and Preston Stewart make great unbiased content.
We love your content too!! Didn’t expect to see you here 🔥
Find some way to create video featuring a map and ask johnny for help!
I remember I stumbled upon a video early in the war of a Ukrainian drone dropping a grenade through the top hatch of a BMP and I thought to myself “well that’s changing things forever.”
The fact that the war has resorted to WW1 style trench warfare combined with the most modern cheap tactic is so mind blowing. Couldn’t imagine having to constantly be paranoid about drones in the sky.
Great work as always 🤟🏼
Nice to see you here Mr. Blue (;
One can only imagine all the people after this war with PTSD towards buzzing sounds.
That was airsoft not Ukraine.
@@jasonprime8171 🤣
same here. knew it’ll be a matter of time before everyone was talking about it
15:05 There is something extremely savage about that Angry Birds patch on a drone pilot :D
Omg it is
It's awesome! Glory to these Angry Birds of Liberation 🇺🇦
0:10 is pretty savage too
@@reallytho99 its lil on the nose
Angry birds destroying pigs (they call the Russians Orcs).
When BF2042 came out, putting c4 on a recon drone and flying it into a tank was so effective and annoying that it had to be patched out for balance reasons. Strapping explosives to a vehicle and driving them into bigger and more expensive vehicles is like the oldest Battlefield tactic but the drone is so difficult to see and shot out the sky, that when you hear it you were basically done.
And here i thought it was so dumb you could do that when in fact it was accidentally realistic.
In battle but you can still do it, more easily if you attach an antipersonnel mine to a drone and fly it into infantry squads, or an anti vehicle mine and fly it into tanks, helicopters or APC's
Watched a Japanese streamer strap a bunch of C4 to a Jeep, get out of it and then remotely detonating the payload. The three guys in the tank (targeted by the Jeep) never saw it coming.
@@johnnycheung5536 Jeep stuff is an old tactic, nothing new.
@@SYKOK1LLERnow it's drone stuff
If Palestinians were doing that they would have been labelled as terr0r!sts
Too much hypocrisy 😢😢
That last quote is fucking brutal. Dude has a crystal clear clarity on what he needs to do.
It's a quotation of Roman Ratushny - a social activist and a volunteer Ukrainian defender who was killed by russians last summer.
This words are pretty popular and wide-spreader in Ukraine mainly because this is true.
That's originally the quote of our killed defender Roman Ratushnyi, who was a public activist and died in June 2022 on the frontline at the age of 24. Those words were one of his last tweet. And that's crystal clear because Russians haven't ever accepted and will never accept the mere fact of Ukrainian existence. This dude and all of us just want to live - they want us disappear as a nation. Little room for compromise.
Yeah, it's ethnicity cleansing he is talking about
@vladalexeev8529 He talks about protecting his home from foreign invaders. Replace 'Russians' with 'Germans' in context of WWII to understand how Ukrainians seeing this now.
@@AlexKaduk he didn't say "invaders". Nobody could say "Our children will kill Germans" - it's a straight Nazi thing. Nazis could say "Our children will kill Jews".
Im a fpv pilot from slovakia and its hard to belive for me that only a few kilometers away from me this is happening. Stay strong!
Teach us something
@@bluebird7575 about fpv? Well i recommend the dji avata as a good starter drone! If you don’t have money for it then check out something from rekon. Before ur first flight practice A LOT in the sim and never fly higher than 120m in the air!
"killer drones" was once a Sci-Fi term crazy times we are living through
I mean killer drones are a thing for a quite some time, but that people can build them at home is new
@@_ee75 also $4 million dollar big jet/piston driven drones with guided mentions vs suicide drones that are smaller than a pizza box and guides its self for $400
@@ldIezzI can tell you that the 4 million dollar drone is still a more capable weapon of war.
@@holokyttaja5476 not when 10 is considered a too high number as we see with bayraktar, which makes them much less capable weapon of war or even useless as they can't be used like the SU-24 for the Russians, doesn't matter how fancy your weapon is if you can't afford to lose it. Another analogy is the Yamato battleship of the Japanese, so big and powerful and so expensive they never dared use it for effect.
@@holokyttaja5476its not about capability, its about cost efficiency in different roles. 4 million would buy you 1 bayraktar, or approx 5000 pov drones with a grenade ducttaped to it. Both are used for very different reasons in differenr scenarios
I studied National Security in college, and had to do an assignment on an article titled "Technologies Converge and Power Diffuses" by an author named TX Hammes. In it he talks about how 3D Printing, AI, Nanotechnology, and cheap Drones are being made available to small-scale actors, and are thus ushering in a new era of warfare that places a larger emphasis on defensive tactics rather than offensive and precision-strike tactics.
If Palestinians were doing that they would have been labelled as terr0r!sts
Too much hypocrisy 😢😢
As a long time manufacturer of this equipment here in the USA, this really hits hard... and as an expert in radio technology I see how this is done and can clearly see how this will escalate. The good thing is that drones effectively keep human lives out of direct battle. I forsee a day when war is simply robots battling each other with no humans involved. If we can't eliminate war, hopefully we will at least eliminate the suffering it brings.
I don't see that coming. I see the future as drones targeting civilian targets.
You could setup a recon drone factory something like the cardboard drones that just need hot glue from Australia
@@ZoomZoomMX3 lol
Its amazing and scary what humanity manages to create in times of struggle and hope
That’s yin yan, the nature of humanity to be good and evil at the same time. And it’s built into us from the nature of reality itself.
Everything is yin yan on Earth. Perhaps more so than any other planet in our solar system.
Day night, sun moon, male female, fire ice, earth water, depression mania…everything!
When enemy bombs your country, you'd write comments on YT?
Exactly like Palestinians
World War will kill millions of soldiers and civilians but it will pave way to high technological inventions. It's odd but it's true.
@@tatishamenniche278 well said 🇵🇸❤️
This was so fascinating
This is amazing! I'm so glad you are supporting Ukraine! Thank you - from the bottom of my heart.
Слава Украйна братко! Love from Bulgaria ❤!
He also has a video where he justifies russian occupation of Ukrainian and uses Putin's essay as the main source to support this idea. He can push blatant misinformation.
Yeah be careful with Johnny harris. He has a way of hyperbolizing things and stretching the truth a bit. While i do find his content entertaining sometimes, careful with thinking he understands the situation bc he doesn't. He was using russian lies as if they are truths on some "both sides" bs not understanding one side lies and the other reports facts bc the world is watching them and criticizing them for every mistake so they report what's true and usually have proof but the russians literally lie almost every time and if u still use what they say as a source thinking it's fact then ur gullible at best and complicit at worst.
@@oksana5393 If Ukraine didn't weaponize their eastern front, Russia would not have invaded.
@@77Avadon77 exactly the opposite. Becasue russia attacked Ukraine in 2014 Ukraine had to weaponize its front to protect itself from russian aggression. Before 2014 Ukraine was demilitarizing believing that russia will not violate Budapest agreement.
It makes me think about the 1920s when biplanes that could have been made in a rich guy's warehouse with canvas, wood and plumbing could be versatile and lethal enough to cripple some of the biggest capital ships of the era. (Yes this is a shoutout to the Swordfish.) It is *anything is possible* in both exciting and concerning ways.
Not really the same situation since these types of drones are trivially disabled by ECM and Russia has much better ECM and anti-drone weapons. There's a reason why Russia has no problem blowing up targets all over Ukraine with drones while Ukraine mostly focuses on shelling random villages that are close enough to the border with very rare significant drone attacks
Fairey really just built something that would, beyond its time, devastate ships that cruise faster than it could fly in a headwind (which really doesn't matter when the ship is in port). Gotta love the Stringbag (:
@@NJ-wb1cz found the russian bot.
During WWI pilotes would drop grenades from planes.
@@NJ-wb1cz
Katyusha is working great...
When you say that ruzzia has no problem, you mean like in Avdiivka?
You're ridiculous.
Nobody knows how nasty and horrifying war is until it comes to their homes and families
@@MickJonesHogSmacks yup exactly including them, nobody knows how it feels until it comes to your home and family. You only truly know once you've experienced it for yourself.
@@PluvioZAYou too
This war hasn't been about homes or families or survival of a nation for many months. It's a purely political territorial standoff where Ukraine tries to recapture the land it lost at the cost of soldiers and equipment.
The peace agreement that Russia and Ukraine drafted back in March 2022 consisted of Ukraine accepting the losses of the land and remaining neutral, but with the military support Ukraine was promised from the West, Ukraine thinks that it can recapture at least some of that land back. That's it. The situation on the front line changed very little since then, except for tens of thousands of soldiers dying over the course of almost 2 years
US politicians and military representatives frame the war much more honestly - it's the cheapest way to destroy Russian military equipment with no Americans dying. The only people dying are Russians - and that's beneficial to Pentagon, and Ukrainians - and they are completely irrelevant and expendable. When viewed in this context, the way it has been progressing makes perfect sense, along with why the equipment was sent to Ukraine in small batches, never allowing them to accumulate enough power to actually overtake Russia.
The longer the stalemate is artificially sustained, the better it is for Pentagon, up to a point when they decide for some reason that it's enough, and then Ukraine and Russia will return to some version of the same agreement from 2 years ago
@@NJ-wb1czrussian apologetic, huh?
As Ukrainian a huge thank you to you and your team for this video! War is not over.
yes it is. finally
He also has a video where he tells that Ukraine is inherently russian territory and justifies russian occupation by economical and political reasons. He was literally using Putin’s essay as a reliable source of information. I wouldn’t trust him - he can push blatant misinformation.
He also has a video where he justifies russian occupation of Ukraine and uses Putin's essay as the main source to support this idea. He can push blatant misinformation.
I love the inventiveness of the Ukrainians. I am nearly 90 and it reminds me of the inventiveness of the British in WWII. I was child and I remember the ingenuity of people to make do and mend. After the war I heard of numerous things we did to fool our enemy such as escape plans for those POWs incarcerated in Germany.
They are retrofitting trigger mechanisms and using 'toys' for warfare, sound pretty inventive to me. 😂
Britain, we're the dogs B's when it comes to the psychological war, that's what's made us so successful. We can literally take on anyone. The best and least known psyop we did in WW2 was getting the Japs to attack Pearl Harbour.
They are even using retrieved anti tank mines as drone bombs now. Demining yields useful explosives.
Back when the British Armed Forces were capable and creative. At least, it's reassuring to know that spirit lives on in Ukraine.
⚠️ ⚠️ All those millions of Dollars the U.S Government 💸is sending to Ukraine and these guys are using cheap drones to combat the Russians?? 🤔 I dunno but someone is lying. Where is OUR tax money going⁉️⁉️ We are been fool by the News 🗞️ 📺, by international Governments like the U.S, Ukraine and also Russians. We the people are just been played
Problem is, Russia cought on and not only are employing cheap FPV's as well, they have upped their Electronic Warfare game to a new level.
Ukraine still has an edge in integration of Drones on a tactical level and experience, but this attriton is giving Russia time to catch up.
What we really have to see is how this winter will affect Ukraine.
Yeah he said that in the video but thanks😂👍🏽
Even the Ukrainian chief of staff said Russian Electronic Counter Measures are top on the range.
Russia is mass-producing more FPVs than Ukraine. They have a 5 to 1 advantage at the frontline. So this video above is a little too late.
They also started to integrate night vision on their fvp drones
@@MaXXXimus1984 It is NOT like Russia can't invent good FPVs or better drones. Previously, they didn't have to - because they lived in peace. After Ukraine began doing what they did in the Donbas then Russia was not safe anymore.
SLAVA UKRAINE 🤙 from Minneapolis Minnesota USA 🇺🇦🤝🇺🇸
🌻🇺🇦Героям слава!!🇺🇦🌻
✊️💞 ~ Piedmont Triad, North Carolina
Gotta give props to the engineers and technicians over there helping out their countrymen
As well as the shorter range consumer drones, Ukraine has been given drones with a longer range like the Corvo PPDS waxed cardboard/foam design from Australia that can fly up to 75miles with about a 12-15 lb payload of explosives from memory. A flat pack IKEA like drone aircraft that is easy to put together and can cause a really bad day for someone, or even modded to house cameras for reconnaissance.
I cant believe that is a product lol its just an RC plane. The video also says that type of drone I'd detectable by radar and I think its harder to drop an explosive from it too.
@@henhen7890 The drones in this whole video are basically just quadcopters as far dropping explosives you're right but the amount of explosives you can pack in it is greater. And as the video says a lot of the FPV's are used as kamikaze drones anyway so similar usage.
If Palestinians were doing that they would have been labelled as terr0r!sts
Too much hypocrisy 😢😢
Fly from memory? any way different from GPS i hope? those get. jammed by zhitel systems
@@svenvanwier7196 No I was trying to remember how much they could carry I think I remembered about 12lb or so
Back before I dropped out of college, I wrote a paper on the benefits of low cost DIY drones for underfunded search and rescue teams, including a step by step assembly manual for a €185 drone with a 2kg payload capacity, and then put in a full page outlining alternate uses, with this being one of them.
Where can I get that?
Can you share the link of these papers
Would that SAR drone have FLIR, or is that too expensive?
@@Ray_Mac Too heavy and too expensive. They start near 100k.
@@Ray_Mac it had a €5-ish thermal cam from banggood that could do 144p IIRC
@15:40 This is something I have discussed before but we already have a fantastical solution for this. A while back there was the controversy on U.S providing Ukraine with M864 and M483A Cluster munitions. That was an incredibly controversial topic at the time dude to the whole panic effect even mentioning cluster munition creates in public's eye. To understand why this munition is so incredibly important, we need to discuss what is inside of this munition. This shell contains 72 M42 anti-armor submunitions. A cluster bomb can be disassembled and individual bomblets can be dropped from these drones. For Ukraine this means a single $500 drone, now has the capability to take out a Russian tank. Tanks are especially vulnerable to this form of attack since neither the tank itself, not its accompanying infantry can do anything to defend the tank from this form of attack from the above. The bonus effect of this use case is that a controlled drop of a submunition in this way will also significantly reduce the risk of a dud.
Also, the succes rate of said ammunition is greater since they drop it basically on top of the tank, while a more "traditional" artillery shot can still miss due to the distance and movement of a target.
two years from now we are going to see us army recruiters infiltrating the fpv drone community
See, controversy is a funny thing in war. It's basically the public asking the military, "Hey, could you like, not do that?" And the military would say "See we would but we already deployed it and well, we're not going out to go get those munitions back, but if you want to, you can sign up and go get them for us if you like."
If Palestinians were doing that they would have been labelled as terr0r!sts
Too much hypocrisy 😢😢
They actually did that to several of the cluster munitions when the shipment was sent to Ukraine.
I’m Ukrainian Mexican and both my uncles were in the Ukrainian army and were drone operators. But both were killed last month with Russian kamakazi drones as their own comrades said you can’t hear kamakazi drones as they come down fast down. (RIP to both my uncles) also rip to the 3 Americans that’s were in his unit who were killed within a week
@@josepvabr1593 this is the utmost truth.
@@josepvabr1593uh being enlisted in the military doesn’t make you a mercenary. Also, they are fighting for their country, what have you done lately for your country, Vlad?
@@j2simpsoit kind of does
@@jimk8520 but he is right. There is no way Ukraine ever had a chance against Russia.
@@josepvabr1593Being a mercenary implies you're getting paid. they're volunteers.
thank you, Johnny for uncovering such an interesting topic and supporting Ukraine, your work means a lot!
This is an amazing report. It shows what happens when human beings are motivated and committed to their country.
The first I saw a FPV race a couple of years ago I thought, that terminator was wrong. The futur won't be humanoid soldier but a swarm of machine gun drones.
I therefore started investing more into drone oriented Stock.
But I'm still amazed at how fast it came about.
they can't handle the recoil
I remember in the tigray war drones were absolutely instrumental, the federal governmenr was close to losing then decided to start purchasing tons of drones and heavily relying on them, it completely turned the tide of the war and they ended up winning. I was surprised this didn't become immediately obvious in the war in Ukraine, you'd think both sides would've paid attention to the largest conflict going on anywhere in the world when the war started
@comicomment yes they were the same general type of drone as bayraktar drones (large, visible to radar, not as easily expendable) but they were a shit load of different kinds of drones, from everywhere from Turkey to the UAE to China, but it seemed to me as though it was mostly the UAE, although the media made it out that it was mostly China sometimes, which I'm guessing is just because "oh no China spooky"
Hi, Tigrayan here. The difference is that the drones used in the Tigray War by the National Military were conventional warfare drones bought from Middle Eastern countries. Those drones were primarily used for recon and to bomb civilian population centers with impunity since the Tigray Defense Force was only an army, and were based in the mountains. In Ukraine, yes there are conventional warfare drones, but this video is about the jerryrigging of cheap commercial drones for warfare that is unique to the Ukraine War.
@@kevincronk7981 Yeah. Most of the drones came from the Middle East (especially UAE, Turkey & Israel). Some came from China & Russia. But there was no weaponization of commercial drones.
I've been building and flying racing quads for many years now. The view with the goggles means that the pilot is virtually riding IN the drone. It's an amazing hobby. And those quads can be damn fast. My fastest currently is good for about 187KPH in short bursts.
Thanks!
the power of opensource software. if it wasn't for open source, FPV software wouldn't be where it is at today. War sucks, but it's good Ukraine is fighting back and winning.
Umm they are not winning tho Russia took more land then Ukraine did this year how is that winning u brainwashed?
The great summer offensive
I hear that they reached Crimea 😂😂😂
Hmm what and where they are winning, sadly they are on the way of total collapse.
How are they winning if they permanently lost territories?
Johnny: Talking about being incognito in the internet
Also Johnny: uses Chrome
Thanks!
That last quote is powerful
I think it is just a matter of time before autonomous drones technology reaches the battlefield. This video does not cover this topic, but i think people would be surprised to see how quickly this field is evolving and the current capabilities that groups from universities like eth or mit have today. As for defense, well, you can't block a radio communication if there isn't one.
They're actually there. They're immune to EW. But they're pricey and the software isn't fully there yet
Ukraine has recently released drones operated by AI. They're tested now on the battlefield.
Every IT company it Ukraine now has a group of Engineers developing AI SW for automated drone fleets.
Our top general said that we need some new high tech technology to brake enemy’s back bone on the battlefield… so society responded.
We can buy a million drones in the price of one F22 raptor. Sometimes I really think every small nation should work on their drone technology.
Yes, but not.
What Jonny didn't say, is that Ukraine hid their air defence systems right before the invasion. That let them counter russian aviation. And russia didn't get any superiority in air.
That led to this situation and gave abilty to use drones against infantry.
it's not that easy tho.. all those fpv drones are instantly useless once a little jamming happens which competent militaries have
@@HolyOllie You not watch the video?
@@HolyOllie 14:15 they're also using "signal boosting drones" to counter this. I'm no drone expert so Idk how effective this is, but thought I should mention this
@@onyshchukv Ok man. First, it wasn't about air superiority. Maybe my mentioning of raptor made it. What I meant was America invaded Afganistan and lost 4000 soldiers, spend trillions of dollars and failed. They didn't need Raptors against Afganishtan, Taliban, Somalia and even Hamas. An army of drones (high quality) would have been way more efficient in most wars US waged in last 2 decades.
thank you for supporting Ukraine
Thanks!
I've watched your videos for years, on different devices. Just want to note this video didn't show up on any feed of mine. I had to search for it, once you mentioned on your Short clip that this video "flopped". Have your videos been throttled or limited in different countries or regions before ?
Thank you to the team for the great work you've been doing.
I feel like TH-cam is shadow banning Ukraine
I'm incredibly torn about this. It could be me.
I'm a British mecatronic engineering student exactly the same age as Mykyta. I started building, flying, modifying and developing fpv drones 7 years ago at the age of 13. It's been by far the best hobby I've been a part of, it's consumed my life and my almost every thought: I can design and implement precisely the right craft for each mission, build it, and fly with over 1500 hours of experience at the sticks. In short, I can pull off every step of the process myself. These beautiful birds, the tools, software and equipment around them were developed by excited enthusiasts in their time off around the world, almost always "open source" (=editable so anyone can modify/contribute). These drones grew out of passion for the pure bliss of flight, the feeling is the most addictive adrenaline rush I know of.
I'm in no way surprised by how effective they are on the battlefield, as a community we all knew someone would notice eventually and that this would happen...
And yet seeing them become weapons of mass destruction and a symbol of fear shakes me to the core. Christian values mean a lot to me, and the idea of me killing someone in my current environment in unthinkable.
However, what would I do here? Although nothing is purely black and white, this war sure does seem like good vs evil: a noble cause for the protection of their home, and the survival of what otherwise would be a peaceful nation. The Ukrainian lives saved by this technology are without a doubt proportional to the price Russia is paying in blood.
As you say repeatedly, this changes warfare for ever, and hobby flight worldwide will see extremely firm restrictions and regulations put in place, and as much as that saddens me, you can't blame resourcefulness in their desperation with so much at steak.
I fear for the future of this civilisation, which seems to me more uncertain than ever. At the speeds at which things spread nowadays it will end up catching us up and being used against us before we know it.
May God bless all who are out there on the battlefield at the moment, and their families.
This really is a turning point.
Related fear: they'll be used by domestic terrorists eventually, not just in war.
Jonny, I see millions of data every day, and it crazy in the underground world. Nothing is hidden.
Great video. In war, running a jammer is considered one of the jobs with the shortest expectancy. When they triangulate your location, they drop a bomb on you within seconds. I'm surprised the Ukrainians don't develop jammer hunters. If the propeller arms are also used as antenna, then the direction of the jammer can be quicky determined with direction finding technology. Then just fly to the source instead. If they turn off the Jammer, then manual control is re-established and the jammer can be taken out normally.
Communications always has the shortest life expectancy. It is the core of movement and planning. Jammers can be defeated, but it isn't easy.
I'm sure they're working on it, but testing that kind of AI isn't simple. You don't want it to accidentally lock onto a friendly transmitter, etc. Existing anti-radiation missiles are among the most complex munitions in the field.
When the drone is hit by electronic jamming, is it possible to program it to automatically direct itself to the electronic jammer?
Not really, for it to happen needs to be an understanding of drone position and jamming station position. Without triangulation of signals and gps it is very hard to do.
It can be done with neural vision and some swarm tactics, when multiple drones automatically communicate, detect and destroy the target, but Ukraine is not there yet.
Short answer is yes. HAARM missiles are designed to detect and hunt radars. AIM-120D air to air missiles have home on jam capabilities. But that is a complex problem to solve for a drone you are trying to make cheap and mass produce. You need special equipment and programing in the drone to detect, triangulate and then have the range to get there. Boosting the signal is the better solution.
Right now autonomous targeting like that is a very grey area of ethics. Allowing a robots programing to take the decision to fly to a jamming station that is operated by people and blow it up killing them in the process is scary. Something like taking a life should be dictated by a human decision.
Another thing is that fpv drones usually have short ranges and often cant reach far back enought to get to enemy EW inatalations. Detecting the source of jamming and hitting it with artilery is probably much more sensible though also not very simple i habe to imagine. Otherwise the problem would have been solved already
@@rozkaz661 Peacetime ethics. In war, there is only one law: win.
I can see that being possible in theory by using 2 signal boosting drones, and having them in conjunction with the armed drone triangulate the position of the jammer, however I don't know how quickly they would be able to calculate that while actively being jammed, plus if Russia had their own signal blocking type drones to counter that exact type of thing... The cat and mouse in drone warfare truly is new levels of intricate and terrifying honestly.
As an FPV pilot and drone designer myself - definitely shocked to see this become a reality 😢
And happy this helps Ukrainian defend their homes though..
Why are you shocked? Before FPV was common, drones were already war machines. The Predator, for example pre-dates the quadcopter.
War is economic. Governments will continue to send troops and equipment to the battle until their economy can no longer support it. FPV drones are cheap. Hence why they are the chosen vehicle.
I’d love to get into this field of work. How did you start ? @JPMediaProductions
I just want to thank you for covering this topic and for not letting people forget about Ukraine.
Just a reminder he's doing this for his own self and isn't pro-Ukrainian he's actually just making content off the backs of Ukrainians. The same ppl he justifies the genocide of by presenting russian lies on the same level as info from the US or Ukraine gov.
Hard to forget about when we are paying for this war and their drones 😂😂
@zato0 you paid for multiple drones? Salute to you sir. Here I am thousands of dollars in, across over 2 dozen donations, and I would never dare say that I am "paying for their drones" when my tiny donations are dust in the wind relative to the sacrifice others have made. Thank you for personally spending your own money to such an extent that you have financed multiple drones yourself. I only wish I could contribute to the war effort more, bc I understand where my contributions stand on the macroscale.
@@duval904yeah Thank you! Thank you from the bottom of my heart
@duval904yeah um yeah my friend in the great country of America we pay this wonderful thing called taxes… if you pay close attention to our wonderful leaders they are doing all the generous donations for us! So if you aren’t American sure I salute you donations. My tax dollars fund war, and when we fund these wars we aren’t just buying the oligarchs nice boats and houses no we are also supplying them with weapons not just any weapons NATO weapons EVEN AMERICAN MADE WEAPONS so can I get an amen? Here’s some news for ya more money BEING DONATED??!! “WASHINGTON, March 12 (Reuters) - The United States will send a new military aid package for Ukraine worth $300 million, President Joe Biden's administration said on Tuesday, the first such move in months as additional funds for Kyiv remain blocked by Republican leaders in Congress”
Imagine you're a soldier sitting in the back of a transport truck. You suddenly hear a buzzing sound and you don't know where it comes from. And then you see something in the sky and it's getting closer to your truck. By the time you realize it's a kamikaze it's already too late. That's scary dude
saw few friends in video. thanks for your work)
I just got into freestyle FPV a couple years ago, and it's the first thing that I have in my life that I can consider a real hobby. It has brought me so much joy, and has made major contributions to my mental health. Although I'm sure I would be doing the same thing in their shoes, I have torn feelings seeing something that has, in my own personal life, been such a positive and life afferming force be used in such a way, and I hate how it affects my hobby.
Yeah, I totally agree. I just got into FPV, and don't love the fact that it has this... taint, being known as such an horrible weapon. Feels wrong using these drones in warfare. Makes death so random, so impersonal, so normalized, almost guilt-free. Russians, or Ukrainians, lives should not be ended in this manner. I hope the jamming technologies get so advanced that it makes it impossible to fly them. Especially now that the Russians (the aggressors) have gotten much better at the drone warfare.
@@eraldylli Uhm thats not going to happen. First of all there is anti jamming technology and you can hardly put jammers everywhere being active all the time esp. outside of the zero line of a major war and also drones will increasingly use ML/AI assisted aiming which won't require operator's input when attacking.
It shouldn't affect your hobby much. I mean, you don't have access to ordinance which is what does the damage.
Anything can be used for evil. In the hands of a surgeon a knife saves lives. In the hands of a murdered, it brings death. FPV is no different.
@@CAGreve1231 A few counties have already started banning the buying and import of drones. It looks like more countries will do the same. Which, you know, sucks for us that have no relation to using them in warfare.
@@eraldylli- I didn't realize there were import bans which is unfortunate. However, that doesn't stop you from building your own. I would encourage everyone to try and build their own as it is very rewarding. I have built a few Y6 and tricopters for fun and still prefer the Y6 handling over a quad.
Thank you for your support each and every one ❤
with love from Ukraine ❤😘
He also has a video where he justifies russian occupation of Ukraine and uses Putin's essay as the main source to support this idea. He can push blatant misinformation. Wouldn't trust him.
I'm a drone engineer and I'm headed to Ukraine to help. Thank you for covering this.
Stay home
I subscribe to Kiev Independent. A very unexpected collaboration. Well done 👏
Its Kyiv, Not Kiev
I have been building exactly the same kind of FPV drones for years just for fun flying. Seeing them used like this is just scary.
Just wait until our government starts regulating them like guns because of this new capability. Stock up on them while you can.
It’s gonna be scarier when these type of drones are AI operated
let the machine rise 🛫
@@henryate5028 The on board hardware i think is too complex for something like object recognition and tracking to be used on the drones, it would raise the cost too much, it's easier to do it the way they're currently doing it, and i'm sure they probably make some small amount with that capability
2:49 There is a slight error here. FPV kamikaze drones, as the ones depicted and described in the shots before, usually do not have a "release button", as they get destroyed during the mission either by hitting the target or crashing beforehand. This gets cleared up later but you even show a RC remote when describing the "release button", which gives off a wrong impression.
I love FPV drones
They’re my hobby for couple years
You see the world from another point of view
They really help me calm down when ever I‘m stressed
I‘m really scared that even hard regulations will come now, because of the warfare
Johnny, I'm a huge fan of you. Great video, as usual. It’s great to see your videos on the Russia-Ukraine war. Can you please make more such videos on the Israel-Palestine war as well? We want to know about the allegations of genocide against Israel and the systematic bombing of civilians. Please create more content on this.
12:50
Shooting these canons is not entirely a guessing game.
I spent 3 years at Bragg in an artillery unit, the gunline has what are called forward observers who would radio coordinates for them to shoot.
The forward observers are ground troops who are usually alot closer to the enemy.
But you're right that they helped us adjust our shots for targets that we're moving
"Quantity has a quality of its own." I’m reminded of that quote when I think about drone warfare.
Russia has 5 times more FPVs on the frontline than Ukraine. But probably, that's not something you wanted to hear.
@@JohnNjengaCOCO Interesting. What is your source for this information?
@@ScentlessSun Dail Mail in September and Reuters back in June.
@@JohnNjengaCOCO Seems to me that if the drones are being used mostly to take out military equipment then when either side runs out of said equipment the drones wont have as much use. It stands to reason that this will eventually just revert to trench warfare where this all started. Which Russia will eventually win.
@@ScentlessSun I mean russia has its on factories. These lines about Ukraine producing them is just nonsense. They beg for drones, then they maybe modify them because they are comercial drones. Ukraine doenst really have any industry whatsoever. It was bombed to dust in the first week. They even admitted it back then.
A bit strange that Pentagon didn't think of using small-scale drones before this war, I mean, this technology was ready and it's potential use as a weapon was obvious.
I guess, only by some real life examples it becomes more clear that such technology works effectively
They have been. I knew someone 6+ years ago who was working on a kamikaze drone like these for the DoD.
They have, but to my understanding the industry wanted to sell the big drones.
Probably because that was better for their bottom lines, but also because it is much easier to sell the flashy stuff with impressive spec sheets.
This conflict is really waking people up to the fact that companies haven't sold us the weapons that were most efficient, but rather the ones that were most profitable.
Not that the expensive weapons aren't good, it's just that in a prolonged war, you want scalability over impressive specs.
there's Switchblade drone, but it cannot do anything that a commercial drone can do.
This is a really well made video, much better than I expected from a western journalist.
As far as I understand, the resource that we now need the most is not money or parts for drones, it's hands to assemble them, so we now have organizations that will teach for free in exchange for a drone you assemble and send them to be tested and sent to the front lines. There is a huge number of people that take part in this and some of them never even soldered before, but they want to learn and they do so successfully.
These organizations teach people, but they do not provide parts. You have to pay around $300-400 out of pocket for each drone. It means we still need parts for drones.
Deadly as they are, i believe the Russian Lancet drone and its variants are much more lethal on the battlefield
Both sides are literally using FPVs to kill a single soldier. They are that cheap...
@@johnzach2057yes but Russia is developing better drones in rapid time, dont like that fact? Go and cry
Those are about a 100 times more expensive though.
@@ShankarSivarajan Because they can destroy tanks. These clickbait videos about drones dropping a grenade cant do anything. Most of the time they are interestingly cut away at the second you would see the detonation.
@@attilamarics3374 Yeah, that makes sense. I expect the cheap ones are still good for killing _people._
So many details, I can’t even imagine how you were preparing this material
When people like Denis are using their talent to create something for their country Ukraine... Huge respect man!! Thanks Johnny as always for the content 🤘👍
This is maybe the golden age of drones. Soon we will find ways to effectively defend ourselves against them.
We're going to have to. It's terrifying.
@@TomVCunningham I don’t think anyone will.
Better thing to do with your fear: learn to make them yourself, and shoot them down yourself.
0:10 well that picture on that T shirt....remembers me on mentality of that "moderate rebels" in Syria few years a go...if you know what I mean.
Bro has changed the title and thumbnail six times in 7 hours.
TH-cam moment
What was it?)
Great job, Ukrainian people! We are supporting your efforts, love from Romania ❤
Great job, Russian Federation people! We are supporting your efforts, love from Estonia.
Thank you ❤
Thank you for supporting Ukraine💙💛🕊️
Minor correction but it is worth noting: Russia is yet to secure air superiority; they certainly have the advantage but they cannot perform missions over pretty much any of Ukraine not currently on the frontline or within their lines (having to rely on long range missiles from outside of air defence range to hit targets). Ukraine is still able to perform air missions in their territory. This is due to the amount of air defence weapons both sides have, with neither side having the stealth aircraft to break the deadlock (SU57 doesn’t have the numbers and it’s stealth characteristics are far from incredible)
Functionally they are at air parity, with Russian advantage.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think they're even trying anymore, same with naval superiority
They don't need to when they have artillery and numerical superiority.
@@Ballardian Imagine liking your own comment
@@JustAnotherAccount8 Russia isnt really an airpower based military. So I dont ge tthese talking point. They have all the advantages, but people keep pointing at irrelevant things. "They dont fly that much aircraft" they in fact do. They launch many airsorties daily. I actually search how the Us described similar ammount of air strikes and I found their description "high intense". Ukraine does no air sorties whatsoever.
@@JustAnotherAccount8 Lol, imagine editing such a simple comment as yours 😅
What a lovely shirt at 10:20. Imagine it said any other nationality
Yep, I believe if the neighboring country invades yours, you will still call them "brothers and sisters", right?
Where can I buy it
Damn Johhny, not to take away from the importance of this story, but that is a huge monitor!
As an FPV pilot. I'm stoked about this one.
Killing the rc hobby I see great work gov will see this and regulate the hell out of our quad and planes also it does take much skill to build an fpv quad I did it when it was 13 year old with a hobbyking kk2
Excellent video! Glory to Ukraine
The last part is really sad.
Such a smart engineer talking about killing within generations.
“The more Russians we kill now, the fewer Russians our children will have to kill” - this is common phrase you would hear in Ukraine (I’m telling you this as Ukrainian). But in comments, people have speculated on the context. What this means, that historically Russians have always tried to conquer and wipe out Ukraine. This phrase is about not killing because we want to, but killing because we have to, if we want to survive. And because of the imperialistic views in Russia, the more we deal with them today, the less our children will have to care about simply surviving in future, and live their lives in peace.
This is the reality for countries that have russia as a neighbour
@@n6itisixsixsix And a bad president
The signal jamming problem is going to be the biggest challenge going forward. I think radio control is eventually going to become obsolete, as overpowering jammers requires more and more transmission power.
The most promising solutions to this problem are line-of-sight control using optical wavelengths (i.e. lasers), and eliminating the need for a remote operator by allowing the drones to fly themselves to the target. Using lasers, you not only become immune to jamming, but you also prevent the enemy from being able to listen to radio signals that alert them of an incoming drone.
You can use parabolic antenna (ie: radio-beam). Basically, it does the same thing as laser but doing it using low-tech solution.
@@xponen- Just one of the many things you can do. Do you remember the "wave rider" where you printed up cut locations on paper, glued some aluminum foil to a cheap whip antenna, and boosted the signal 30 fold?
I built RC planes since childhood. Since 2012 I build FPV drones. My hobby turned from being a cool high tech hobby to weapons manufacturing.
Now i see why there's a chip shortage
5:28
So homes and schools are now military infrastructures?
Yeah, it’s insurgence warfare. It is very old, and isn’t going away as long as humans fight humans.
В країні яка захищається від агресії немає ні однієї законної цілі.
in the country against which military aggression is carried out, there is not a single legitimate military objective
@@andriymedved7701 Genewie convention says otherwise
For this period.. everyone has to be involved to look for means on self defense and survival..after the war then the school and homes will be normal again
Good luck UKRAINE!!!
You are top tier Johnny. Congrats on the success and cheers for more to come. This was amazing to watch.
Thank you, Johnny! I can foresee the United States, when they figure out how to make them less jammable, sending a whole container or two over there stuffed with pre-loaded drones.
Thank you for real journalism Johnny!
Smh we got drone warfare before gta 6
I bit scary to think how hard this tech can be regulated and how easy it'll be to deploy something like this over civilians in a non-war context
If Palestinians were doing that they would have been labelled as terr0r!sts
Too much hypocrisy 😢😢
I helped with this name title by voting for it and completely forgot. When I saw “Drone labs” I immediately clicked it!! It worked!!
I think what this video did not cover is that practically all of the drone parts they used to make these DIY drones are sourced from China. From the motors, to the receivers, to the video transmission system, to the controllers, to the FPV goggles, to the IC boards, even the frames. I don't recall any country that even has a supply chain for drone motors other than China.
The US tries to make these drones home-made but China is so dominant in the supply chain that all American-made drones are leagues more expensive than Chinese ones. In addition, the Chinese drones are far superior in everything compared to the Ameican made ones.
I will bet the lawyers, judges, and politicians r the most wealthy professions in this country
June 10, 2022. Remember this date.
This is the first successful use of a FPV kamikaze-drone in combat (by Signum squad)
the beginning of a new era
I remember watching a YT short about a company developing Hunter Killer drones that would be able to essentially fly up to someone's forehead and detonate, killing them instantly. Crazy how that's becoming a very tangible reality.
I remember that video too!!!
That was a hoax. Facial recognition technology isn't that advanced to be put into a small autonomous aircraft... but it is true that it may soon become a reality, unfortunately.
It is absolutely awful that we as a species still resort to violence to settle our differences...
@@CAGreve1231 It wasn't a hoax because it wasn't trying to sell itself as real. It was just a short film.
@@gracecalis5421 - Hoax might have been a strong word. That doesn't deny the fact that the technology doesn't exist (yet).
@@CAGreve1231 I think the word you're looking for is science fiction. But yeah, that stuff thankfully isn't a thing yet (as far as the public knows)
This is also a huge concern domestically in terms of homeland security from extremism.
it's so cool when you understand what they say in two languages
Це так круто коли розумієш що говорять на двох мовах (Ukrainian language)
There is a quality inn quantity. Yeah an expensive American suicide drone is likely better than a $300 diy drone. But for the price of one American drone you can get like 300 FPV drones... In the end the FPVs are a much better investment.
Yeah, great for cinematic videos too lol
This was so fascinating but also scary at the same time that you could be minding your business and get KO’d by a drone. I also admire the resilience of Ukraine.
Also not sure why the mass production of these drones is not being funded by Ukraine. You would think that they would empower these individuals to make them.
The Ukrainian government just doesn’t have the budget for this right now. That’s why it needs the civilians support and that of other countries
We need more financial support from foreign to do such things. All our gov finances works on other important fields, so for drones we don’t have enough ( Im hope foreign investors will see perspective of Ukraine and ukrainian’s drones and invest in mass production.
Thanks man💙💛
Support Ukraine
Why is everybody ignoring the fact that Russia is using if not the same amount then more drones like this on the battlefield, DJI even gave special permission to russian companies to edit code and modify their drones (i mean china and russia are allies after all)
Have you watched the video in full? Johnny had said exactly that.
@@malachi8154 he only said “DJI doesn’t want its drones in war” and “russia has a lot of jammers”
Right? Johnny likes to give one sided info
did.... did you watch the video?? He specifically says how Russia is also using a bunch of drones now..?? He didn't mention the DJI thing, which yes I think should have maybe been mentioned, but Johnny definitely mentioned Russian drone usage.
@@Fenthule lets be honest, west in general thinks that drone usage is some genius Ukrianian idea
Cheering for the people in UKRAINE fighting for their freedom, treating their heroes like legends. But when the Palestinians fighters do the same, you call them terror*sts?. Seriously?
That's just plain hypocritical.
Great video and so important!! Glad your short directed me over here :)
Thank you for support and this video!!! SLAVA UKRAINI!
Great video Johnny!!!
I’ll show this to my grandson, a history nut and war crazy kid. The future Of war !!