this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2025
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Not-so-fun fact: Surveillance drones, that we know of, go back as far as the Vietnam War.
The first UAV attacks date back to the middle of the 1800's.
No they don’t.
The first UAV in the 1800s were incendiary balloons, Austrian attack on Venice.
A. M. Low was a pioneer in rocket guidance systems, planes, etc. In 1917 the "flying bomb" (a controlled airplane) was developed, and later developed into the Kettering Bug - a bomb with wings - which had a terrible success rate and never got used in combat. You can see a reproduction in Dayton, Ohio, at the museum for the Air Force.
Target drones (training drones for military pilots) were made by Radioplane and sold to the Army in the 1940s. That led to the SD-2 Overseer in the 1950s.
Which led to the Lightning Bug, based on target drone designs, used to monitor the Chinese, then Vietnam. They would deploy a parachute so they could be picked up mid-air so they wouldn't fall into foreign hands. China shot down a few of them and set the shot them down and set those drones up for public display.
Drones have a much longer history than you'd think!
Soviet surveillance drones, which Ukraine has used a few times as suicide drones, were not much more complex than a radiola. Had a flight program in the form of perforated tin disc, if I remember correctly, and an electro-mechanical system of following those instructions (not a computer). They'd be just sent on preprogrammed routes, make photos, those retrieved and analyzed on return. No radio communications, stealthy enough for their purpose.
Cool stuff those balloons
https://warhistory.org/@msw/article/1845-austria-drops-balloon-bombs-on-venice