chrisl

That started decades ago: ABL
That got cancelled, but as higher power lasers have gotten smaller and less demanding of input power I suspect it's come back in various forms.
 

I don't work in defence, but I do live in a Procurement world, and this guy's analysis is dead on, though some here might find it wonky.

The thing I’ve been wondering is where they would do such a test.  The main Soviet test range was in Kazakhstan, but I bet they aren’t interested in renting it back out to Vlad.  

Well yes but the encouraging thing about the incident when examined through the prism of "we're going to nuke London" and similar threats that have been bandied around since the get go is that Russia could have reacted very differently to this e.g., "the aircraft was spying on Russian forces and was in airspace close to a warzone ahem ... special military operation zone that improved its chances of doing so and was; therefore, operating at risk," or something even more bellicose followed up by announcing an exclusion zone on pain of being shot down over the Black Sea for NATO military aircraft.

I'm not sure it's a limitation intrinsic to drones, so much as the current implementations, and particularly the Russian implementations.  I think it falls under @The_Capt's scalability and communication parts of precision.  In a sense you can consider the conscripts on the ground as Russia's version of dumb drones with poor comms and integration - they can see what they can see, but they can't relay it anywhere and they aren't under any kind of consistent command and control for scouting particular areas and reporting back information to integrate.  They sometimes have scale (a bunch of conscripts) but they're missing the rest.
When things come together for Russia, they can use drones effectively for calling in and correcting arty to at least the precision and accuracy of their guns. The thing that's missing is their ability to do this at scale.  It's possible to do at scale if you have a lot of drones with good comms and integration. It's even arguable that a a system like that would let you see below the tree canopy as well as or better than boots on the ground - a compact drone with multispectral imaging can see over that next rise, or quietly cruise through the upper levels (or on the ground for a UGV) of a forested area to scout things out and relay information back better than a person whose eyes are 6 or 10' off the ground and limited to walking speed.  And you can make a lot of them cheap and not feel too bad when they're destroyed.

If Putin decides to continue upping the nuclear rhetoric, my guess is that he'll nuke Russia first.
In other words, a full-up "system test"/demonstration, either air or artillery delivered onto a target *within Russia*. An atmospheric "test" would still be breaking a decades long taboo, but since they just nuked themselves ... what are you gonna do?
They implicit message, of course, would be "See? We have nukes, they work, so do our delivery systems, and we are clearly prepared to break nuclear taboos. So, are you feeling lucky?"

I'm not sure it's a limitation intrinsic to drones, so much as the current implementations, and particularly the Russian implementations.  I think it falls under @The_Capt's scalability and communication parts of precision.  In a sense you can consider the conscripts on the ground as Russia's version of dumb drones with poor comms and integration - they can see what they can see, but they can't relay it anywhere and they aren't under any kind of consistent command and control for scouting particular areas and reporting back information to integrate.  They sometimes have scale (a bunch of conscripts) but they're missing the rest.
When things come together for Russia, they can use drones effectively for calling in and correcting arty to at least the precision and accuracy of their guns. The thing that's missing is their ability to do this at scale.  It's possible to do at scale if you have a lot of drones with good comms and integration. It's even arguable that a a system like that would let you see below the tree canopy as well as or better than boots on the ground - a compact drone with multispectral imaging can see over that next rise, or quietly cruise through the upper levels (or on the ground for a UGV) of a forested area to scout things out and relay information back better than a person whose eyes are 6 or 10' off the ground and limited to walking speed.  And you can make a lot of them cheap and not feel too bad when they're destroyed.

Exactly.  
Precision has at least three key components: Knowledge, Control, and Time, and you need all three, and just about everything "precision" Russia is using is deficient in all three areas.
Knowledge is the ability to know where your stuff is and where your target is.  With functioning GPS you can know whre your stuff is to a meter or so without a lot of difficulty.  There are other ways as well.  You can use knowledge of your own stuff's locations to use it to figure out where your targets are.  Russia has some ability to get precision knowledge with drones, but it's less reliable than the ISR web that Ukraine has available.
Once you know where your target is, you have to have something that you can control with the same precision (and implied in that is accuracy, as well) to get your rockets and artillery shells there to hit it.   Russia really suffers here.  None of their "precision" stuff seems to have anything vaguely like modern precision control - the can sometimes hit power plants, which are not small targets and don't move around.
The last element is time.  You need to be able to respond with your precision control within some time frame where you still have precision knowledge of where the target is, rather than where it was.  This is where all the RU cruise missiles/buzz bombs/drones really lack. They're slow, so they can only target things that can't move, even if they had 1 m precision and accuracy.  You can make up for time by doing things like using precision to get you to the neighborhood and autonomous guidance to find the target's current precise location.  Anti-ship missiles do this, as do some of the clustered AT bombs/missiles.  With HIMARS, the crew can get a call, drive out to a new launch site, launch, and be drinking tea at a new location before the missile lands.
If you don't have all three, you can't hit anything that can move around unless you just get lucky.

Lots of sanctionable components.

Some facts about Shakhed-131 (smaller brother of 136 with 10-15 kg warhead) and -136 after their remains research by UKR engineers:
1. Engine (in Shaked-136).  German-develped Limbach L550E for small aircrafts. Clones produce in China and Iran (likely China was a source). This is air-cooled 4-cylynder horyzontally-opposed two stroke engine with displacement 548 cc and 50 hp
2. Navigation. Drones are not guided, they fly by coordinates and have GPS (CRPA) and inertial navigation system. GPS is default. It has protection against GPS-jammers/spoofing. If drone is losing GPS signal, inertial system is turning on and the drone continue a flight, but can have course errror 5% of traveled route. When GPS signal is renewed, GPS-navigation turning on again and drone is conducting course correction
3. Electronics. Flight control block of Shakhed-131 composed from five boards with processors TMS320, F28335 from Texas Instruments. Shakhed-136 - CPU marking is removed, but due to architecture it matched to Altera/Intel product. Some types of Korean chips are present of Shakhed-136 board
4. Manufactiring. One of factories, which produce theese drones (as well as Mohajer-6) was built in Tajikistan by China, use Chineese technology and controlled by Chineese
Sources:  https://en.defence-ua.com/weapon_and_tech/an_advanced_radio_communication_device_on_american_processors_found_in_the_shahed_136-4446.html (in English)
  https://techno.nv.ua/innovations/drony-kamikadze-shahed-136-50277597.html 
https://defence-ua.com/weapon_and_tech/ne_tilki_shahed_136_zjavilos_detalne_doslidzhennja_sche_odnogo_iranskogo_drona_kamikadze_jakij_vikoristovuje_rf-9033.html (here pdf file with detailed report with photos of Shakhed-131 components)
Communication board of Shakhed-136

This is really good. I would add Scalability, you can have the other three but if the weapon you are using is not scalable to the effect you want on the target you get over or under kill.  Taking this above the tactical one needs the ability to Communicate effectively in order to hand off Knowledge to other systems for better prosecution.  Finally you need unified and timely informed Authority or Command to ensure that prosecution meets the Time requirement and you are synchronized laterally towards a common objective.  
And now that we are on it, the Russians do not have advantage in any of these areas either.  So vertical integration of Knowledge, Time and Control (maybe Scalability is part of this) and horizontal integration of Communication and Command are all lagging in the Russian system.  
So what?  They are relying on mass which has a much lower vertical and horizontal integration requirement when compared to precision.  However mass runs into a final component Capacity.  One needs it at the back end for either precision or mass, but mass is far more vulnerable.

Exactly.  
Precision has at least three key components: Knowledge, Control, and Time, and you need all three, and just about everything "precision" Russia is using is deficient in all three areas.
Knowledge is the ability to know where your stuff is and where your target is.  With functioning GPS you can know whre your stuff is to a meter or so without a lot of difficulty.  There are other ways as well.  You can use knowledge of your own stuff's locations to use it to figure out where your targets are.  Russia has some ability to get precision knowledge with drones, but it's less reliable than the ISR web that Ukraine has available.
Once you know where your target is, you have to have something that you can control with the same precision (and implied in that is accuracy, as well) to get your rockets and artillery shells there to hit it.   Russia really suffers here.  None of their "precision" stuff seems to have anything vaguely like modern precision control - the can sometimes hit power plants, which are not small targets and don't move around.
The last element is time.  You need to be able to respond with your precision control within some time frame where you still have precision knowledge of where the target is, rather than where it was.  This is where all the RU cruise missiles/buzz bombs/drones really lack. They're slow, so they can only target things that can't move, even if they had 1 m precision and accuracy.  You can make up for time by doing things like using precision to get you to the neighborhood and autonomous guidance to find the target's current precise location.  Anti-ship missiles do this, as do some of the clustered AT bombs/missiles.  With HIMARS, the crew can get a call, drive out to a new launch site, launch, and be drinking tea at a new location before the missile lands.
If you don't have all three, you can't hit anything that can move around unless you just get lucky.

Shakheds don't fit for HIMARS hunting. They suitable only for stationery object attacks. There were dozen cases when they appeared on frontline, when they destroyed some number of our atrillery pieces and trucks, but all theese strikes were successfull only because targets were found as long-time standing. HIMARSes either move, or hide. 

I caught this interview with LTG Hertling, I tend to stop and listen to him as he always has an interesting perspective. His opinion seems to mirror the observations here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=We8ANNRBZ38
 

Yes, but to my amazement in ww2 barrage balloons were rather succesfull against V1's (Wiki).
Those were bigger than drones, but still, balloons - perhaps with some form of netting - could be a rather cheap (temporary) solution.
I have no doubt the Ukranians are already thinking about something similar.

Back to barrage balloons?

Anti-drone drones seems like the most reliable approach.  
A big piece of capital equipment, whether directed energy or kinetic, is just a big target, and once it's gone the opponent has free rein over the area.
Anti-drone drones can be cheaper than attack drones - they don't even need to have any kind of weapon other than themselves, and have the option of being explody or not.  A bunch of kevlar string can foul propellers - they can dangle strings or throw nets like gladiators, and one drone could carry multiple "fouling weapons".  They can run entirely autonomously once launched - if they don't need comm then they can't be jammed.  The tricky part is having an IFF system that works effectively (and isn't spoofable) in swarms where there might be a mix of friends and enemies.

Don't we all?

Don't we all?

Anti-drone drones seems like the most reliable approach.  
A big piece of capital equipment, whether directed energy or kinetic, is just a big target, and once it's gone the opponent has free rein over the area.
Anti-drone drones can be cheaper than attack drones - they don't even need to have any kind of weapon other than themselves, and have the option of being explody or not.  A bunch of kevlar string can foul propellers - they can dangle strings or throw nets like gladiators, and one drone could carry multiple "fouling weapons".  They can run entirely autonomously once launched - if they don't need comm then they can't be jammed.  The tricky part is having an IFF system that works effectively (and isn't spoofable) in swarms where there might be a mix of friends and enemies.

Anti-drone drones seems like the most reliable approach.  
A big piece of capital equipment, whether directed energy or kinetic, is just a big target, and once it's gone the opponent has free rein over the area.
Anti-drone drones can be cheaper than attack drones - they don't even need to have any kind of weapon other than themselves, and have the option of being explody or not.  A bunch of kevlar string can foul propellers - they can dangle strings or throw nets like gladiators, and one drone could carry multiple "fouling weapons".  They can run entirely autonomously once launched - if they don't need comm then they can't be jammed.  The tricky part is having an IFF system that works effectively (and isn't spoofable) in swarms where there might be a mix of friends and enemies.

Anti-drone drones seems like the most reliable approach.  
A big piece of capital equipment, whether directed energy or kinetic, is just a big target, and once it's gone the opponent has free rein over the area.
Anti-drone drones can be cheaper than attack drones - they don't even need to have any kind of weapon other than themselves, and have the option of being explody or not.  A bunch of kevlar string can foul propellers - they can dangle strings or throw nets like gladiators, and one drone could carry multiple "fouling weapons".  They can run entirely autonomously once launched - if they don't need comm then they can't be jammed.  The tricky part is having an IFF system that works effectively (and isn't spoofable) in swarms where there might be a mix of friends and enemies.

We can confidently say that it was not a detonation on board the drone, but an explosion from outside. It is clearly seen that the detonation starts away from the drone. This thread claims it was a MANPADS missile:
 

The satellites themselves are actually *very* cheap.  A few articles are suggesting costs in the $250K/unit cost, with launch costs of $30M or less per block of ~50 satellites.  There's a bunch of ground costs on top of that, and I'd guess that the limiting factor on subscribers is bandwidth to the fat pipes on the ground.  They could probably sell quite a lot more subscriptions if they let performance degrade somewhat, but it's probably better for them in the long run to maintain a high level of performance over a limited number of areas so that as they open regions they get big blasts of subscribers.
I suspect a few things:
1) Elon has no clue about the details of the economics of them supplying Ukraine with bandwidth.  He's a loud AW who says all sorts of random things that may or may not correlate to reality.  It's common for engineers at his companies to found out about new "requirements" from his public tweets.  That they can deliver on a lot of them is a testament to their engineering capability and willingness to work in the chaos.
2) Starlink is raking in money and even if they're taking a loss right now, they aren't going to go the way of Iridium.  Iridium was a nice idea but was too early and had too limited capability - there wasn't enough demand for poor phone service over the vast amounts of unpopulated space on the surface of the earth.  There *is* demand for high bandwidth data connections in the middle of nowhere.
I've actually dealt with trying to debug hardware that was near the north pole while I was in California.  The people with the hardware had an iridium phone and they could call, or they could email, but they couldn't do both - if we wanted a picture of something, they had to hang up, create a data connection, send (slowly) then call back.  At probably a buck a minute or something.  If they'd had 10 Mbps for $100/month it would have been a *lot* less painful.  There's a lot of inexpensive environmental monitoring equipment that you can put out in the middle of nowhere that's cost effective at Starlink prices.  Or even a few times Starlink prices.
3) People don't talk about it, but Starlink has the potential to offer to high school kids building cubesats a capability that was until recently really only available to the US government (SDS, TDRS).  The data relay system was arguably a bigger secret (and easier to keep secret) than the KH-11 telescopes (although their digital imaging that took advantage of the SDS was also secret).  Anybody who's ever read  the first couple chapters of an optics text can figure out the resolution possible with a telescope of a given size at a particular distance, but the data rates and speed of return are a big deal.  Starlink can potentially sell space nodes to anybody building a satellite and they can get realtime, high bandwidth data returned to the ground for a few hundred $K. That's going to be a very valuable market.

A little bit stupid question but why are Shahed actually called drones? They function like just another cruise missile as far as I know, based on GPS and inertial guidance.