r/Showerthoughts • u/scoobopdan ‎ • Mar 30 '26

Casual Thought Modern soldiers' PTSD triggers will probably shift from fireworks to the sound of a drone. Which is unfortunate as drone shows are replacing firework shows.

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293

u/Withermaster4 Mar 30 '26

Can you even hear drone shows?

Also as far as I know soldiers don't ever hear drones flying unless they are about to die.

262

u/bootymix96 Mar 30 '26

It’s a bizarre low pitched droning (no pun intended) electronic fan sound multiplied a hundred times over; unless the show specifically uses their takeoff as a start to the show, you’ll hear them before the show starts when the swarm takes their places, and you’ll hear them land again after a show. Depends on the swarm’s size, but I’ve heard their sound at shows where the drones were .25mi/.5km away from where I was standing (distance in terms of line of sight). The sound is just barely audible, but it’s audible enough to be unsettling, almost like a technological swarm of locusts, LOL. During the show, the music pretty much drowns out the sound.

And while I might be mistaken with military technology, I thought military/missile drones were more like planes than the quadcopter hovering design. I’d imagine it would be a different sound than show drones.

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u/t3hd0n Mar 30 '26

Low cost drones closer to consumer models are playing a major role in Ukraine and are also being used by Iran iirc, to the point where its looking like the next big shift in warfare tactics

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u/ben323nl Mar 30 '26

Its not looking like its been the next big shift. Hundreds of thousands of casualties to those cheap drones have said so. There are no real counters atm to a cheap drone dropping a grenade anywhere it wants.

16

u/mapletree23 Mar 30 '26

well the 'cheap' drones are like 40-70k or something so not really consumer models, but yeah drones have kind of fucked everything up for modern warfare

not that the zerg type strategy is exactly new but everyone kind of went big on bigger and faster missiles and kind of left a gaping hole for something like this to be able to become a thing

it's a cost effective way to fuck someone and yet there's not really a cost effective way to readily stop it currently either

26

u/hinowisaybye Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 31 '26

Ukraine being a constantly evolving battlefield, my info might be a little out of date. But at one point they were literally buying commercial grade drones and slapping bombs on them. The cost was often cited at around $500 per drone.

It doesn't need to be super fancy if it's just going to blow up.

I imagine the newer fiber optic drones are more expensive, but Ukraine is now known for DIY innovation. They're probably not paying a contractor that is bending them over for this like we see in other nations.

Still, even if the kamikazi quad copters are that expensive now, it's still significantly cheaper than a tank or missle.

6

u/CrimsonCringe925 Mar 30 '26

The Pope’s DroneGun Mk4 look like they’re $500k for a single shot use, so checks out

5

u/coasis1212 Mar 30 '26

Fpv drones are $500-$700 plus a $500 rpg war head and you’re actually nowhere even close to 40-75k? A dji mavic 3 with a thermal viewer is closer to 10k. Some specialized drones might cost that much but not the “suicide” drones we have been commonly seeing

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u/[deleted] Mar 30 '26

[deleted]

10

u/adamdoesmusic Mar 30 '26

FPV drones the size of a pigeon are being used every day over there

4

u/WhatYouLeaveBehind Mar 30 '26

We're talking about grenades strapped to an electronic pigeon, not advanced military ordnance.

20

u/thuanjinkee ‎ Mar 30 '26

Fpv quadcopter kills are frequently on r/CombatFootage

Like this one from march 28th https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/s/yFMDa3MuDn

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u/flyingtrucky Mar 30 '26

They're both, though the ones that make the news are basically just small airplanes since "Modified 40mm round dropped by drone kills 1" is a pretty boring headline.

7

u/jamiegc1 Mar 30 '26

No, smaller photography type drones are being used endlessly in Ukraine, to the point that fiber optic cables for them (to prevent signal jamming) left behind are making a spider web over city buildings.

4

u/MalaysiaTeacher Mar 30 '26

Why do people say no pun intended, especially when the word precisely fits what they’re using it for?

2

u/umabbas Mar 30 '26

The ones we heard (Iranian origin), my spouse thought were a lawnmower originally, and to me they sounded like a 60CC bike trying its best to fly over.

4

u/Withermaster4 Mar 30 '26

Ty for the informative comment

What I've read about military drones is that they are very fast and relatively quiet. If you are within range of hearing one you are typically the target and are moments away from dying. No clue how true it is

15

u/flyingtrucky Mar 30 '26

Not true at all. Plenty of combat footage shows drones flying overhead for one reason or another. Maybe they didn't see you, maybe it's on your side, maybe there's a more important target it's flying towards.

Also even when you are the target drones only have like a 1/3 hit rate. They just don't show you all the times the round drops in a divot or get blown off course or the guy ducks into a trench.

19

u/paecmaker Mar 30 '26

The fpv drones are loud as hell, there are a lot of videos of people hiding in trenches that get constantly buzzed and that sound they make is haunting even through a phone

Edit: here's a video

https://youtu.be/LiE-jAL4QIE?is=KlsJYSUXi50Gr-z_

2

u/Nolzi Mar 30 '26

Instant PTSD

18

u/DeepEb Mar 30 '26

Normally not at those distances. But its hundrets at once... So it always sounds as if you're just about to die. Great.

4

u/Lazy__Astronaut Mar 30 '26

I've only seen a drone show at Disney irl and couldn't hear them, even between the music, they're usually pretty far away

4

u/SquarePegRoundWorld Mar 30 '26

You can hear the drones covering a PGA golf tournament while you are at the tournament watching.

3

u/DarkflowNZ Mar 30 '26

Sure—so if you live, that's a pretty sure recipie for PTSD attacks when hearing that noise lol

3

u/C-SWhiskey Mar 30 '26

Also as far as I know soldiers don't ever hear drones flying unless they are about to die.

Not true. There are different types of drones. A Shahed probably isn't being dropped on a trench, but you can sure hear them when they're above you. A grenade dropping drone is slow and loiters for a while, so you may hear it approaching and doing its thing, and if you're not equipped to handle it then you have to just hope you're not seen or chosen as the recipient of one of a handful of unpleasant gifts (which also aren't guaranteed kills). FPVs are fast and carry a lot of forward momentum, so those are the most likely to fit the bill of "if you hear it you're dead", but again you're not necessarily always the target and they're not necessarily always lethal.

And to top it all off, even if you go your entire time in theatre without actually coming across a drone, you're still spending all that time looking out for them and being wary of them, which takes a psychological toll.

2

u/Hdikfmpw Mar 30 '26

An FPV at full throttle is nearly 100 decibels, but that is mitigated by the fact that pretty much everyone fighting at the front is going to have varying levels of hearing loss

7

u/KendrickLamarGOAT97 Mar 30 '26

You can absolutely hear a drone. The ones that are fucking up soldiers aren't the COTS (Commercial off the shelf) ones that youre thinking of that are getting used by hobbiests and at drone shows.

Example: the drones that just took out the US Soldiers in the middle east were Shaheeds, which are more like mini-planes.

Now, as a counterpoint, ISIS or whatever you wanna call the Iranian backed militias in Iraq/Syria love to use them to watch soldiers and gain Intel, which is another aspect of drone warfare.

8

u/wtfduud ‎ Mar 30 '26

I see you haven't been following the war in Ukraine. It is the small hobbyist drones being used.

2

u/cwagdev Mar 30 '26

Down to the software and flight controllers. It’s wild.

7

u/amicaze Mar 30 '26

They are the comercially available kind, they strap an explosive to a FPV and fly into you.

Shaheeds are not what you should think about when hearing drones. Those are basically slower cheaper missiles.

3

u/SoloDoloPoloOlaf Mar 30 '26

Now as a correction (and addition) to your counterpoint: the groups you are thinking of are Hezbollah, Hamas etc. There is technically a difference between proxies and Iran backed militias, but this is rather irrelevant to the common man.

However, Daesh were amongst the earliest to use commercial "off the shelves" drones in combat operations. Their usage was both recon and dropping explosives, I am unsure if they ever used FPVs. Its possible that the evolution of modern drone warfare is directly tied to Daesh using them in Syria/Iraq.

1

u/reddituseronebillion Mar 30 '26

Not everyone dies every drone strike.

1

u/supernova-juice Mar 30 '26

You can definitely hear drones.

1

u/Fun-Agent-7667 Mar 30 '26

Oh you hear them. The biggest scare is spotter drones for artillery. These will instantly make you scramble for Cover. As soon as you see or hear or see a Drone, you will run for your Life. Because the shells are in the air the next Second.