A Minor Change on the Subject

...the 4th and Drones

Jul 05, 2023

Greetings Me Droogs N Droogettes!
Rackum Frackum Computer and Stubstack. I apparently don’t have the full ‘gist’ of how this site works, and the looooong poast I had painstakingly put together got flushed when the power supply in the PC took a dump.

The initial panic that the primary HDD had taken El Grande Shytte was thankfully NOT the case, and I was as of this A.M. able to repair/replace with a new one.

And my inability to navigate this fucking thing still has my head spinning. Just like the bigcountryexpat dot com bleggsite, I’ll be damned if I know how to ‘dress it up’ the way I’d really like to, like Mike over at ‘Cold Fury’ has his.

I’m just old I guess.

I’m retuning the subject matter today, and leaving it free. My landmine poast I have to completely rebuilt which also means re-finding my resources so I give good intel. That’s gonna take some time that right now, I don’t have the energy to do…. It will get done, before this weekend… but for now? This lil substitute substack poast WILL enlighten y’all quite a bit as I lern’t a few things over the 4th.

So… quick notes on the 4th Funeral Services.

Yeah, Funeral. To me, this 4th? This was about as lame, somber and dead a 4th I can ever remember NOT participating in. Let’s face it. This Country Twas of Thee is Deader Than Kelsey’s Nuts. Usually I’m -all in- on the 4th.. I mean shiiiiiit… a chance to blow up shit without having the nosy parker neighbors and Karens of the World and HOA call the fuzz on me for fucking around!?! Betcher ass as normally I’m out there, every 4th of July, Flammenwerferin’ like a Mad Dawg Arsonist… Playing with my home-made mortar shells (I make some really pretty BIG shells) and generally lighting off anything explosive that I can safely play with.

Hell, one year Ranger Jay, Sapper, the Serbian War Criminal and myself, we lit off so damned much firecrackers and whatnot in the road, the next AM? We were literally ankle deep in blown out paper shreds… took weeks to finally get it all cleaned up and washed away.

The only thing of note that I did THIS YEAR was I took the mini-drone out to play with in the yard. I wanted to see how the camera and recon ability of the $40 el cheapo drone would do, both time wise and picture wise… see if it could be used within reason as a cheap, if not expendable recon force multiplier. I learned quite a bit.

Problem: This thing is (was) so small, and so light, even when playing with it inside, the Central Air blowing was enough to put it off course inside the living room. Think ‘feather in a breeze’ sort of thing… Well, yesterday here in Tampa, no wind… that I knew of. At ground level.

WHOOOOOLE different story 60-75 feet off the ground.

I sent it up straight… like had it programmed to go up, start recording, and rotate 360 degrees at about 200 feet up, shoot a vidya of the Area of Operation… then “Return to Sender”

Apparently the next line is “Address Unknown” like in the Elvis song

At about 50 feet up, the Fucking drone caught a stiff Northerly breeze and the last I saw of it was it climbing up (last command given) and headed towards the Publix Supermarket/Mall place…which is a quarter/half mile from the house… the battery was at a full charge, which means 7-8 minutes of full flight time, including auto-return. So far? Gone baby, Gone….

I actually laughed my ass off however… the absurdity of the situation, hearing it’s lil engines Buzzing away and faaaaaaading into the far distance. I mean what else was I to do right?

Via Con Dios Lil Drone…
A cheap but valuable lesson learned there.

One is For real recon a heavier, industrial size 2-3k dollar Drone is going to be needed. However, on checking them, some pretty good ones can be had even cheaper it seems… to continue

Lil Baby Drones need not apply, except to learn the handling and flying characteristics.

THAT was I will say, key. I have a pretty good grasp on the 3/4d of Flight, the 4th d being time, as in “How long do you have before you’re out of juice/flight time?” Call this what it is, which is a great flight trainer.

Now, looking on the ‘Zon, I’m surprised at some of the offerings. This one here looks like it might be worth saving for:

Bit more on the ‘burly side’ of things.
75 minutes of potential flight time
5.5 pounds
Supposed to be rated up to F6 winds
F6? Huh!?!

Heh.

I used the search for “recon drone military” and this’s one of the examples that it came up with. Now, filing under even MOAR interesting is that there are underwater drones available for what I’d consider ‘short money’ IF you intend on doing ‘bad things’ underwater, like oh, say strapping a couple of kilos of Octal Explosives to it and diving it down, to, oh say a Gas Pipeline underwater?

Perish the thought!

According to specs, those have the ability to go down 150 meters controlled via cable. That’s just shy of 500 feet down. I’m pretty sure that IF you got a longer cable, it’d go further…. COTS Equipment. Commercial Off-The-Shelf equipment as it’s called in the DotMil. In fact, opening up the whole just “drone” category, and then listing them, Highest To Lowest, I got this:

Guess where we know the Krainians are buying their wunderwaffen… any bets they’re telling Uncle Sugar that they’re spending a million-a-throw- and pocketing the vig?

That one? 70km range with a 1 Kilo “Payload”
Huh… One Kilo of PETN/TNT/RDX would definitely fuck up the target’s day.

And a 70km range, to us ‘Muricans, that’s 43+/- miles.
Double the paylaod, cut the range in half, and TWO kilos of ka-boomy-boom?

Yeah… that’s bringing the remote-pain.

So, going to be saving my pennies for a while, as the fact is,
Drone Warfare and Recon?
It’s purely the shit and useful as fuck.

Case in point: NSFW vidya here, but, besides being the starter of my mine poast, this vidya shows the absolute use of getting IRT (in Real Time) intel Gathering of the FEBA (Forward Edges of the Battel Area). In this case, the Krainians get purely and utterly fucked up by what appear to be anti-infantry Russian FASCAM, FAmily of SCAtterable Mines, that utterly wreak havoc on these doodz.

The worst is the last guy who jumps off the back deck of the Brad, and goes to a knee, and BOOM! no more knee/leg. If you watch closely, and then rewind after he gets hit, you can see the mine in the dirt that his right knee hits, and gets subsequently blow’d the fuck off, along with the majority of his leg…

I mean I put it on him being jazzed and amp’d the fuck up that he didn’t look before he leapt, or at least recon-by-fire or even thrown a grappling hook as we were taught back in the day…. Me? I sure as fuck after all them other now-Peg Leg Petes are laying there, would have taken my M-4 and shot every. single. place. I even -thought- about putting my foot on…

But nope… he just leaps, takes a knee, and loses it….
Fuckin’ Aye…

”I’ll take ‘Things I’m Glad I Never Had to Deal With’ for $400 Alex!”

Also file under “Shit that made me cringe.”

So, I figure it’s a useful force multiplier. Granted, they are loud and noticeable. A good shotgun could take out one IF the operator of the drone isn’t paying attention or is too low, and yeah, bringing the drone on a return trip IF there are ‘bad guys’ in your immediate Area of Operation, you give away your position.

You don’t want to be necessarily operate it out of your base camp, unless you’re in a solidly secure area. All of Patrick Lancaster’s vidyas when he’s running around with Russian Troops in the Krain, in particular, when he’s with Recon Elements, as soon as the drone returns they do a hasty bug-out boogie so’s any Krainians in the area don’t get them in a bag.

For those of you who don’t know him, Patrick Lancaster is a US Citizen who married a Krainian… or a Russian… meh… either way, he and his (kids etc) have been in the shit since back when the Azov Assholes started ‘ethnically cleansing’ the whole Eastern Area of the Krain. He started reporting waaaaaaay back before anyone knew shytte about shytte.

I recommend him and his channel. TBH, I think you get a truer perspective of what’s happening there, than any other bullshit ‘Ministry Approved Organs’ will give. His Channel is HERE

So, Next one around’ll be the landmines, Uncle Sugars past, current and possible some NATO ones, as these days, allllll sorts of ‘weird shit’ turning up where and when you least expect it.