@cstross

The shooting down thing seems to have been introduced in translation.

The actual law is aimed at setting up a joint unit to enable the civilian police (with no drone interdiction capabilities) to liaise more closely with the military (that has drone interdiction stuff), which they legally may not at the moment.

The big question for Germans is whether this result of the #RussiaUkraineWar is taking Germany back to a pre-WW2 rôle for the #Bundeswehr.

#GermanPolitics #drones

@cstross @rootwyrm I couldn’t find any mention in German news media about actually shooting down drones with firearms. Not counting stupidity like when Bavarian Police shot a catfish [1] other means are used.

[1] https://divernet.com/scuba-news/health-safety/german-police-officer-shoots-giant-catfish/

@cstross I am pretty sure Ukraine has brought down a heck of a lot more than four drones with ground fire - there is plenty of video posted. The newer "AI" controlled turrets seem to be helpful though that's more anecdotal AFAICT.

Shooting unarmed drones still poses high risk but when they're carrying warheads the risk/benefit calculation changes a lot.

@cstross "Bullets basically bring down planes only when the weight of lead fired exceeds their maximum takeoff weight."

Obviously, the solution is to build anti-aircraft trebuchets that lob massive bullets shaped like cows or trojan rabbits.

@cstross The converse of that is "A new aircraft is not permitted to fly until the weight of the documentation exceeds the weight of the aircraft."

@cstross I seem to recall that for anti-aircraft weapons in WWII, the effective solution was to make explosive shells fitted with (top secret) proximity fuses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximity_fuze

@cstross This is a fact I didn't know but in retrospect doesn't surprise me. It sounds like in the guns vs planes/drones match it's better to just not bother since the guns side is expensive, dangerous to everyone but the plane, and basically pointless. (Might be different for autotargeted guns like the phalanx, but for people with bang-sticks... yeah, no)