The majority of the drones will be highly effective first-person view (FPV) drones. The package will also include 1,000 one-way attack drones, researched and developed in the U.K., as well as surveillance and maritime drones.

The prices for the drones are not equal. I am guessing their maritime drones are the expensive bit because of their range and capabilities. This article from last September says they are about $250k a pop: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66373052

Even just one Russian ship loss would offset the costs for all of the drones. (How many submarine conversions does Russia have now?)

[–] troyunrau@lemmy.ca 3 points 8 months ago (2 children)

This is a fair take. Those marine drones are doing amazing work.

Somewhere in a timeline with an alternative timeline in Imperial Japan, there's a guy going "what if we didn't have to put pilots in our flying bombs...". And a bean counter is figuring out if that'll save money.

[–] eveninghere@beehaw.org 2 points 8 months ago

Nah, boomers here'd be like "That's unfair to us who did it without drones!"

[–] remotelove@lemmy.ca 2 points 8 months ago

That was actually being developed around that time, just not by the Japanese from what I am aware of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aphrodite

Besides what is in that link, I believe there were several other similar things going on between the USAF(or equiv. I don't think the USAF was formed at the time.) and the RAF.

[–] Deebster@beehaw.org 2 points 8 months ago

Those marine drones are five and a half metres long - so they're like speedboats, not those little hovering ones or those enormous UAVs.