The Drone That Changed The Rules of War, Then Got Banned 

I remember, years ago, police in the US used a toy store drone with a camera to search a building to find a criminal suspect.

for anyone wondering, @ 6:13 they were calibrating the drone's compass

Perhaps the best drone is the one we made along the way

I do have the DJI mini pro 3 And I kid you not the things they can do are no joke. A drone that can capture wide area with 4k images and videos and has a fly range of 10km between the drone and the controller for a very cheap price. Not to mention they don't need internet connection like a starlink or whatsoever, they still record on real time from drone to the controller

First drone war actually was between Armenia and Azerbaijan, right? Pretty sure the drone on Azerbaijans sife tipped the balance on their favour, as they could destroy entire units without the Armeniens having an effective counter to it. Also this statement is very dependant on what the definition of a drone is, as there were multiple vehicles controlled from a distance even in WWII, that would pack a punch. For example the tiny Goliath tank.

5:16 just for clarification, the kalibr cost around 1 million for the Russian MoD, the 6.5 million tag is for export.

Its just too good of a product, and there are so many uses for it, and in a war scenario, like recognizance or "stealth" warfare and low price, ita unmatched.

I like to imagine that at dgi would have thought Huh these people are having a lot of weddings lately dispite of a war

DJI drones broadcast the location of both the drone and the operator. So using them in a warzone is asking to be shot at (if the opponent knows how to capture the data).

This technology is a genie that won't go back into the bottle. As drone roles expand beyond recon, anti-drone measures and tactics will be developed, and drones themselves will evolve into specialized forms like recon, bomber, and fighter, just as planes did- with any type adaptable to kamikaze. Their low cost and ease of use guarantee they will proliferate into roles limited only by human imagination.

The Russo-Ukrainian war had shown something. That is, in the modern battlefield. Even a powerless civilian can now do something for their country. This is something considering that the war in the pacific is looking ever closer.

A DJI drone does not need an internet connection to operate, it flies on a proprietary technology called ocusync. so starlink is not needed to operate the drone

Its utterly amazing how much you can learn when you arent forced to learn it. No wonder Finland is one of the top nations in education with 3 hours of school a day, they arent forced or dreading school.

A battleship used drones to spot for their guns 30+ years ago. Im surprised it's taken this long to catch on.

As a long time DJI fan it says alot about a company that withdraws its product from use in war. And although I had never owned a Mavic, DJI still offers the best quality and priced home assembled brushless motor/airframe kits / camera gimbals, that are more economically friendly to a tinkerer like myself.

*the research and footage u have is impeccable! well done!*

The impact of starlink as described in this video is greatly overblown. Starlink has been at best, a miniscule contributor. There are likely some national guard units using them, but the main Ukrainian army has secure and dedicated systems. That's why when starlink services started to get limited 6+ months ago, there was little impact to Ukraine's military operations.

Great video. Many thanks.

The CEO of the company "agreed" to the ban of course because he is a peaceful man and wants to live another day. And no one knows why-but apparently the Belarusians and Stan coutries seem to buy them on Aliexpress like hell. So there must be a lot of weddings there nowadays.

6:13 Haven't built a drone since the pandemic started, but you can still recognize the calibration dance anywhere XD

I pilot these drones for my summer internships at a tech integration company in Canada lol, sat in on sales calls with Turkish government agencies 3 years ago, crazy to see it become such news. We had a couple of models that were 2 - 3x bigger & the camera quality and zoom was insane, cell phone signal mapping and tracking was scary good too

What a time to be a drone enthusiast

Thanks for the viddy!!!

Tiny and cheap FPV kamikaze drones now dominate the battlefield. We assemble them ourselves here from parts, and we need tens of thousands of them every month. Mavic is too expensive and is used for reconnaissance from a long distance.

I can't wait to get my hands on these in military surplus lmao

3:24 "come, this is no place to die" drone carrying the other drone 😅

Informative Video 🎉 Nanotech Rules

6:58 I had indeed not seen that drone -- it sure looks like a beast

A plastic pop bottle is a perfectly valid fuel tank, especially when weight is an important variable. You simply cannot make a bottle cheaper and more reliable then pop bottles. Yes it will be pierced easily, but just rough handling wont break it, these bottles are made to resist international shipping.

I remember when someone mentioned a drone, you knew right away that they were a bee keeper.

Those drones were developed next door to my last work place. We had a 2,100 square foot warehouse and the military rented the 4,200 space next door. They put up sound acoustic foams to dampen the noise of the drones test fly and cover up the windows to prevent being able to see through the windows I think for secrecy. Damn were they noisy at hell. It's like hearing a legion of hornets or bees just bzzzzzzzzzinnnnnggg around.

The other day I had a helicopter and drone circling within a two block radius of my house at night looking for a missing woman. It's crazy how commonplace they are now.

The fact that a non-war company managed to produce an equipment better than many for-war companies

This is just godly advertising for DJI

I understand that some corporations don’t want their product to be used at military action. But Ukraine has no other choice, we do use it to protect life of our solders. Otherwise, it is 2nd world war, tranches style war.. Also want to thank all countries who did helped to Ukrainian people. We appreciate your support.

It's crazy that some company making drones for hobbyists are suddenly military suppliers for the Russia-Ukraine war.

"Geran-2" is not russian at all, it's Iranian Shaheed 131/136

Actually, starlinks is working perfectly) There were rumours, that some high ranked US military visited Starlink office that day...

What you need to do is take something like the Black Hornet and make the propeller as loud as possible, maybe even an LED flash on it. Fly those around the trench lines all night long and no Russian would get any sleep after that.

Patrick Cockburn in the London Review of Books wrote a good article about drones in warfare, easy to find online.

When did DJI ever provide drones themselves? People have been getting them from volunteers and donors since day one. Pretty informative video and the e-warfare aspect of this war is amazing so Im glad for videos like these but I'm m not sure that constitutes as being banned.

Man this is gonna be like Ace Combat 7 with the drones produced by Grunder Industries

Imagined the advanced version made for the Chinese military? There is a system called "flying daggers" drone swarm in service now.

A good ad. for DJI product.

"stop using our products for war" 😭 "No."

No mentioning of Leleka, Furiya, Ram2 , shark drones. Ukraine has advantage with drones in this war.

Nice video and explained correctly 🎉🎉🎉🎉 4:57

The funny thing about this is that there are even cheaper drones out there. Sure they suck, but they work "good enough" for certain tasks like finding out how the enemy forces are deployed.

You should note a later released maintinance report of the moskva revealed that those anti air defences didnt work in the first place, and that the radar was off due to an old engine being unable to power it

Ironically, im impressed that Russia is able to pull this far with basically the whole world against it right now. Russian resilence is something.

The US should set up some factories to produce clones of the DJI drone either directly or by financing reliable companies to do so. Tax incentives and a guaranteed military contract should do the trick. The company would also be able to get into a commercial market with the clone. Might not be able to compete on the commercial though due to the high cost of doing business in the US.

This is the opening of robot wars in the next few years

8:04 also, there is a photo showing Ukrainians using discord as a group chat while working in their bases.

The knife was first designed to cut food, not people. The firearm was first designed to burst into the sky, not people. The drone was first designed to shoot the happiness, not people.

Thank you

And people said ghost recon breakpoint was unrealistic because of the drones…

Now you know how drones are important for ukrainian defence. Drones are consumables and you can help us by donating your drone through official program called Army of Drones. Thank you for all of your support.

MY OG mavic still flies great after 5 yrs! DJI and all consumer drones use 2.4ghz for transmission, which really should be easy to jam for a competent military.

Would these thermal drones be able to see thermal activity in shipping containers?? How strong is the camera? Could you see a difference in the containers side by side?

Although the M30 is an even more attractive device for warzone operations, as it not only has 16x optical zoom and 200x hybrid zoom but also a thermal camera, can carry higher payload, switch batteries much faster, fly in light rain thanks to IP54 and also handle harsher winds. It also features a pointable range finder, which can be useful for scouting.

The future of warfare almost feels like an April Fools prank, but it isn’t.

"made in China" has a quality of its own

the TL;DW: of it is that gaining ground is next to impossible due to the defender knowing and seeing you far in advance.

A wise man once said they built drones,computers unmanned tanks all these things too keep us safe but they never thought what would happen if the enemy stole the keys

It's not really the first case of drone warfare. The US used them heavily, it was just completely one-sided in Iraq and Afghanistan. And then the Armenian war saw the first use by both sides.

Can you also provide metric equivalents of the US units?

Information has always been king, even since ancient times.

Get those 15,000 drones that can carry 50 lbs for ~15 minutes. They also can get the RTK thing to get cm resolution. They don’t make the cheap Parrots anymore but they can be outfitted with 4G radio, extra battery and make a 50 mile round trip.

It's a bit silly to call the Mavic "A drone designed to film weddings". It's a rather sturdy aircraft that can go many miles in sub-zero temperatures, adverse weather conditions and near total darkness.

0:50 the perfect drone

Locally a basic setup can be done for communication between drone that can extend upto a larger distance

Now that I think about it the kamikaze drones are like the scourge from StarCraft

The reason that the two Ukrainian missiles were able to penetrate the Moskva's air defense was because THEY WERE OUT OF ORDER as well as a lot of other stuff on the ship. There was a leaked russian report about this. They had seriously neglected that ship and considering it was the crown jewel of Russian navy, I shudder to think about the condition of their other ships.

The US military needs to move away from the multimillion $$$ UAVs that form the backbone of the UAV force. I was a test engineer for the MQ-4C Triton and I’d rather see a thousand small drones for the price of one Triton. They need to be small yet large enough to carry a 5-10kg payload and cheap enough that if one goes donee due to gun fire or EW the soldier can grab another and immediately carry on their mission. Yes cheap enough that if it goes down grab another as compared to Triton or other large ones where if it goes down you’ve lost control and monitoring of the battle space. A large UAV is not easily replaced where the lead time for replacement is months or years. Also the COMMS link needs rethinking. With limited bandwidth available and the threat of EW needs to be rethought. If in an attack mode give it a target and let AI take over if the command link is lost. If GPS is jammed or spoofed have inertial guidance take over and continuously update the position when GPS is available and reliable. The AFU really needs to have an accurate INS to take over on its long distance drones, the ones with a range of over 500km. GPS spoofed? Let INS take over until clear of the spoofed area. Slava Ukraini! Oh and I can’t wait for Ukrainian university students attend the SUAS annual competition! Hope they bring lots of patches and a big appetite. Our community will welcome them with open arms.

Besides DJI , there are many other companies in China that can provide good quality and cost-effective drone motors

Thanks for your unbiased reporting

I don't want to brag, but when I saw the first commercial avaible drone I said to family and friends, that they will change war forever. Regarding the depletion of the world's oil reserves, the endgame for gas guzzling vehicles, like planes, middle sized ships and tanks has come. The war of the future is lightweight, smart and electrical. My 5 cents, that the Chinese-US-war will be the last fought with those stoneagelike machines.

I'm surprised triple A hasn't become more common, given the cost of anti-air missiles.

I remember the story of the young guy who was a drone operator who helped the Ukrainian military last year.

That’s why I avoid answering any question, because it always appears to be not what I think 😊

Like I love to say, War drives Innovation.

What i find the most interesting and hilarious thing is that....... The military which is funded billions right and dji manages to out do them....... Now I'm not saying that someone should be fired.

Brilliant tool of law enforcement.

Can’t have wars ending in a Day, now can we !

So the question is where can we have mavics shipped for the Ukrainians to pick them up. More, drone hobbyists in the United States... can you start cranking them out. Name an hourly rate, and then start making quads, and long-range winged capable of carrying between 0.5 and 2.2 kilograms (1 to 4 drop grenades). Perhaps talk to styropyro about a laser designator & dronemesh about the drones. I wish I could help but those aren't my hobbies. I can help fund though. I'm not rich but crowdfunding could help.

I am so proud that our Bayraktar TB-2 is a game changer. I hope this war will stop as soon as possible.

in the end the commercial drone needs commercial things like LTE and Wi-Fi lol. which is why Military gadgets always have their own channels, because they aren't consumer things. their mistake was publicising their use of the consumer products for war. if they had no evidence of it, then Starlink wouldn't be forced to take a neutral stance and actually help them

Sounds like a nice playground :)❤

Wait until Boeing finishes their testing of the Wingman drone. That thing can take off from both ground and carrier bases, as well as carry out air to ground attacks or air to air attacks. It carries the same payload as an F35 but is 40% smaller since it doesn't have to accommodate a pilot. The drones can autonomously carry out missions or be controlled via operator as well. And they're relatively cheap too, also come with a stealth option. Pretty much every military drone contractor is looking at Ukraine right now for field tests.

When Mavic was introduced to the market for the first time, I knew immediately it would be a key element in an infantry soldier's equipment, and a very good reconnaissance device.

Idk how many vids I've seen of those lil drones dropping countless grenades in open tank hatches.

I fly DJI Mini Mavs for work. there really fun to fly

The ship got destroyed because only 1 out of 3 anti air systems worked(Russian standards) and the radar was off because it interfered with the communication sistems. You can find all of this in a log book 1 month before it was destroyed.

7:09 "as for eliminating man power switchable 300 is becoming popular " Proceeds to show blackwing💀

Ah, yes, the legendary SMO - Special Mavic's Operation.

If its manually controlled, its not a drone but a rpa

"You take a drone, attach a proximity charge, feed information about the target and sweep the building" - Elon Musk

loss of starlink was just at the front line and beyond. That actually helps UA because RU cant use captured starlink units but UA can still use them at 1grid location out which is still well within the drone range. The drones can relay their signal for miles and its only communication back to central hubs that go over the starlink. The video was very misleading about these details.

there's a video on the internet (im not gonna say the website) of a ukrainian drone dropping a grenade directly onto a russian and exploding as his comrade is stunned in awe of what just happened and the drone recorded the whole thing

I'm pretty confident that drone destroyers will soon be developed. Probably armed with ECM (to jam communications), AI controlled attack with melee weapon (a pincer capable of cutting off a propeller would be enough). It would dive and chop on another drone like a dragonfly.