Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

From_Ancient_Stars t1_je1vg5o wrote

Reply to comment by Secure-Badger-1096 in Ukraine Defense intelligence shows insides of Shahed drones, which Russia uses to attack by DoremusJessup

I'm no droneologist, but heavy bulk is perfect for building up kinetic energy during a fall. I expect that's quite useful for suicide drones like this.

134

TheLit420 t1_je21x4b wrote

Would be better if they tried for velocity? Right? I mean, for ke, (1/2)mv^2. With velocity being much more of a factor...

35

Ag0r t1_je2bvly wrote

I doubt the kinetic energy of the mass of the drone really has much impact (heh) on the destructive potential, that is probably almost entirely down to the explosives it's packing.

More mass in the drone would be useful for making it less prone to bring buffeted around by wind, so it would be easier to stay on target with less sophisticated equipment perhaps.

69

tufftyAus t1_je23txd wrote

Depends how much velocity you'd gain. If they're going basically as fast as they're going to go aerodynamically by the time they arrive because they've got as long a run-up as you want, then more mass makes sense.

22

[deleted] t1_je2etmb wrote

[deleted]

3

Duckfammit t1_je2iemz wrote

Unless you're talking about accelerating these tiny shitty drones to some percentage of the speed of light, any weight budget is much better spent on extra explosives.

22

p4di t1_je48yf4 wrote

just add the same weight in explosives instead. that's more effective and even cheaper.

2

gosu_link0 t1_je30x9y wrote

Absolutely not. No airframe design adds weight on purpose. Increased weight necessitates increase lift from the wings and increased drag. Means lower range, speed, and efficiency.

29

wasdlmb t1_je3v9yg wrote

This is very, very wrong. The drone weighs 200 kg and travels at about 50m/s. Let's say in a dive it could reach 100m/s (it can't but let's pretend it does). That would be 1MJ of kenetic energy total. C4 has about 1.5MJ of energy per kg. There's about 30-50 kg of explosives total. The kenetic energy is absolutely dwarfed by the explosive energy. And every kg of engine you have is a kg of explosive you don't have.

7

Secure-Badger-1096 t1_je29tr5 wrote

i forgot about that! i was thinking more of payloads and velocity than self destruct/suicide drones

4

hydrated_raisin2189 t1_je3weze wrote

Not quite. They main damage comes from explosives. That “bulk” is useless.

To me (not an expert in the slightest) it seems to have been designed with parts similar to small commercial propeller planes. Most likely because the machinery and parts for such vehicles already exists and would be far cheaper to produce.

2

WaterIsGolden t1_je39360 wrote

And probably cheaper to manufacture in the same way a full size computer is cheaper to build than a similarly powerful laptop. Why waste money keeping things compact if the final mission for the device is kamikaze anyway.

1