I was trying to recall where I heard of Gerbera and then I realised: the lovely daisy-like flowers that adorn the beds of old English gardens. And it appears the Russians just mailed a bunch to NATO to see how it would react. But I worked in Gdansk for a while with an airline whose name sounds like a synonym for a PISS; it was there WW2 broke out when Germany launched shells ~ and not the pretty ones ~ at the Polish redoubt of Westerplatte.
One defence publication caught my eye, saying that Russia depends on China even when it comes to producing foam-and-plywood drones. This is a little harsh, for as we have seen the UK depends on Ukrainian companies when it comes to producing drones costing less than a half-million dollars... and on China for everything else.
And on closer inspection the Gerbera is built around a plywood box section to which injection-moulded foamed-plastic parts are attached, like with the Airfix models of my childhood. The machines required to produce such parts are the size of a small house and decidedly expensive outside of China; all in all not the sort of thing you'd want to move around the battle-front.
It gets more entertaining because aside from a DLE engine from the same source ~ and what a waste of a fine unit, launching it over the horizon never to return ~ the chips providing for guidance are all sourced in the West... but at least we're getting them back.
What is most fascinating however is that the way modern wars are being waged is all based on RC modellers: the people in anoraks flying scale aircraft around in the rain. For the Gerbera's airframe is produced by a company that will sell you similar models, should you wake one day with the urge to invade Poland.
DLE's motor was designed not so much for one-way drones, as for aircraft built and flown by the likes of the Large Model Association whose ranks of old men in baseball caps are undermining the West dressed as nuns.
There is even a DLE Owners Facebook page...
... honorary president V. Putin, 97 Acacia Avenue, Moscow.
(Ed. Put the lid back on that Novichok please, before someone gets hurt?)
