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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   28494 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 21, 2025

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Yeah it's not really that much and in exchange here's one good advantage of Ukraine, it's an actual war with actual survival pressure making new strong technology for the west. The US Army is so far behind we're bragging about just being able to drop grenades from drones because there's no actual survival pressure on us to do anything.

Israel and Ukraine hold value just by being live testing grounds. If drone warfare is the future (it most likely is a pretty significant part of it) then having an ally actually expanding western drone capability for cheaper is a great return, instead of sticking with this level so bad we're bragging about being able to do things even rebels in Myanmar can manage. Here's Grok doing a comparison, it's baffling how much better the Ukrainians have gotten just by actually facing a real threat

The US Army's Skydio X10D drone costs ~$25,000-35,000, with 340g payload (e.g., M67 grenade) and advanced AI for precision, but high per-unit expense limits scalability.

Ukrainian homemade droppers (e.g., Osa quadcopters) cost $500-1,000, carry 0.5-2kg payloads, and excel in efficiency via mass production and combat-proven low-cost drops, enabling asymmetric warfare advantages.

The US Army is so far behind we're bragging about just being able to drop grenades from drones

Why assume the public-facing releases are actually the state of the force?

[reupload of video here]

I'd expect a lot of capabilities to be hidden, so that we can't guess about what the actual capabilities are...

((and to be fair to Skydio, this does look like it's intended as a scout rather than a kamikaze. And the cost comparison is probably doing an invoice vs cost-of-parts comparison.))

But I'd also had hoped that the United States military did enough that the stuff it does release looks a little more impressive; if you don't present anything it's clear you're hiding something. There should at least be some hobby-level projects around, but as a hobby-level project this is the sorta thing I'd expect to see from the CtrlPew crowd on a weekend rather than a dedicated engineer on a summer.

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