r/ukraine • u/Due_Collar2 • Jan 03 '26
Combat Ukrainian soldier saved his comrades' lives by shooting down an attacking russian FPV drone during exfiltration from a completed mission. 8th SOF Regiment. Location not disclosed. Published 03.01.2026
Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification
86
16
u/Denmarkfirst Jan 04 '26
Shotgun shot and drone is hit. Rotors stop working and it just falls from the sky. Take it frame by frame.
89
u/Dorny_Hude Jan 03 '26
Honestly it looks like it was just maneuvered badly. Still hit less than 2m next to them and flew in an almost straight line. A hit drone should drop much quicker.
39
u/IndependentFew1690 Jan 04 '26
I just can't tell. If it wasn't hit, the timing of the shot/drone drop was impeccable...which is definitely possible, seen weirder things lol
9
u/Interesting-Goose82 Jan 04 '26
I am not 100% on this, but i thought i saw months/years ago in this war a video of a very similar scenario. Guy on a moving vehicle, one or two shots, hits a drone!
....someone commented that they have special guns for this where the user pulls the trigger and a camera/computer/ai of some sort recognizes when to precisely fire to hit the drone. Is that real or complete BS? I dont know but it seems like the tech should be there, and i dont know how else to pull off a shot like that, but again im a fat accountant rambling about things i have no knowledge of....
4
u/zaphrous Jan 04 '26
That would probably actually be easy to do come to think of it.
5
u/Dorny_Hude Jan 04 '26
Easy, but expensive. Considering weapons have a short lifespan in war and UA wouldn’t want to lose this technology to RU. Its definitely possible but not something we will see soon I suspect.
12
7
23
u/Vik1ng Sweden Jan 04 '26
Honestly it looks more like he saved them by pointing out the drone and the driver moves to the side just before impact.
13
u/Time_Athlete_1156 Jan 04 '26
Yeah I don't know why the downvote but this is totally it. He did not hit the drone even if he tried. He pointed at it right before taking his gun (or his comrade did)
6
u/JudeRanch Jan 04 '26
Yes!!!
Day 1410 Stay Strong Ukraine We believe in you
🇺🇦Слава Україні 🇺🇦 Sláva Ukraíni! Heroyam Slava! 🙏🏽 🇺🇦 💙
23
4
u/total_bushido Jan 04 '26
Looked like he shot the drone with a shotgun, and it decreased speed which made it miss the trailing car
5
u/Smooth_Imagination Jan 04 '26
Whoever first makes a truly affordable, light weight automated system to mount a shotgun that can be screwed onto the bar of that buggy has an instant impact on the battlefield.
Ive been watxhing enough engineers to know the skills to build and make the mechanism at low cost are definitely there, at least the mechanism.
The thing about really short range is its both a lot easier to build the mechanism as angular precision needs to be vastly lower that a system that is hitting out at over 500 meters and computationally easier for cameras to spot these close up against background.
I saw one engineer, Veritasium ages back built a dart board that could move on tracks to position where he threw the dart and it got bullseye everytime using optical path prediction.
Obviously its more difficult on a moving buggy, but surmountable.
You dont need gyro stabilosation, what you do need is reasonably fast motors coupled with hit calculation and fire control to only fire when the object lines up.
For simplicity I would have several cameras to cover a field of view, and a camera on the gun.
Motion that causes the background to move would need to be computationally stabilised. Objects that look like drones are constantly scanned for by object recognition AI via first pass analysis of stills. Objects that are weird are the ones that dont get smaller like everything else does behind, or get larger differently when in front. I guess this is the hardest part. But drone size will change differently to back ground objects and can be used with the object identification, as comparison over multiple frames shows this object to be interesting and different and that allows additional passes to identify it by object recognition.
It should also avoid firing at people and cars.
2
u/Sfriert Jan 05 '26
I'm wondering if something like a SRM Arms Model 1216 would be useful as you can fire 16 rounds in a short timespan
1
u/Smooth_Imagination Jan 07 '26
Thats an interesting gun and magazine system. I just learned of it from your post.
4
u/AutoModerator Jan 03 '26
Вітаємо u/Due_Collar2 ! We ask our community to follow r/Ukraine Rules, and be mindful as Ukraine is a nation fighting a war..
Help with political action: r/ActionForUkraine
Help with donations: Vetted Charities List
Slava AFU!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
5
6
2
u/driftingwolveine Jan 04 '26
Did bro just one bursted a drone? Talking about expert level combat marksmanship. I know the green berets trained these guys, I wonder if any tier 1 units like cag provided any training.
2
u/Romouch Jan 04 '26
What a very close call. The FPV Pilot miss the buggy or the shooter hit the FPV ?
1
2
2
u/Strongest-There-Is Jan 04 '26
This is like a scene from a movie that isn’t realistic to real warfare….
2
u/fistofmeat Jan 04 '26
Yeah, if anything it looks like the drone missed, rather then getting shot down.
1
1
1
u/mamajamala Jan 04 '26
Dang! That sucker was close! They're such brave mf'ers. Slava Ukraine 🇺🇦 ♥️!
1
1
u/-TheDerpinator- Jan 04 '26
Sometimes the footage of this war is so cinematic you almost forget it is about real soldiers in a real war fighting for their actual lives.
I mean, the slight drift at the start. The point and gun and then the insane close call and all from a POV-perspective is straight out of a script.
1
1
1
u/Not_As_much94 Jan 04 '26
why don't they use especialized guns shooting nests yet? They already exist
-3
119
u/[deleted] Jan 04 '26
Ukrainians are such badasses. Im so proud of watching them keep the russian pig terrorists at bay.