The 30-round drum on the Saiga fits well too. In my opinion, the concern lies in the weight of the shotgun plus ammo versus agility.
Bullpups tend to be heavier than normal weapons of the same type, but also tend to have the centre of gravity to the rear, which means they are barrel light, which should equate to easy to swing around and point.
I would say a 10 round magazine would be better in terms of weight vs fire power... with experience you would quickly work out what type of round works best and might be able to switch to that type only. Having to use two types of ammo means a 10 shot mag or a 25-30 shot mag can only engage 5 to 12-15 targets before needing a reload.
Now that is a lot, but it would be better if you had the right ammo that killed with one shot so you could kill 10 or 25-30 targets per mag.
The advantage of the #4 buckshot is that it is a ball bearing about 7mm diameter so it is lethal to humans at decent distances whereas number 3 or number 4 shot is rather smaller 3-4mm which might not be lethal without getting multiple hits.
Of course these are lead so even soft body armour will perform well against it.
A diving FPV drone moves at around 30m/s, leaving little time for reloading. However, agility is crucial.
Training should be quite straight forward though... a clay bird launcher pointed at you and you defend yourself... nothing like practise to get your eye in.
I appreciate your suggestion regarding the 40mm "canister shot" with high density over a large area. Perhaps two barrels are even better than a drum-fed system.
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There is the 6 shot revolver grenade launcher for 40mm underbarrel rounds and there is also the 4 shot GM pump action 43mm grenade launcher too.
The point is that an explosive projected wall of projectiles would be moving rather faster than from any shotgun barrel so its anti human performance would be rather astounding too. A round you can load up if the enemy decides to charge your position would be devastating... even a downward facing launcher mounted on the belly of a drone that can launch projectiles at low altitudes (or standard grenades from higher altitudes). Grenades for high flying drones and shotgun claymore type rounds for clearing soldiers off vehicles at lower altitudes... to be followed by a HEAT charge round.
The 30mm APDP round for the Apache can penetrate 50mm of armour so a 40mm grenade should be able to do as well or better...
Russia is much better at counter insurgency and they have an extensive spy network they can rely on. The message to the west can be simple, back down or Russia will start aiding every terror group in the West.
But Russia wont because it is not a criminal organisation the west depicts it as being, and also you are ignoring the much larger force the Russians would need to send in to actually take all that territory which would massively add to the available targets for the west and the Kiev scum.
The Russian losses will massively increase but the Ukrainian losses might even go down as they surrender.
The Russian military has worked out its options and this is the options and tactics they have chosen. You can claim to know better but when this conflict started and the final plans and tactics had to be finalised there was no intent to add to Russian Federation territory so there was no interest in occupying regions that were not involved.
As western weapon deliveries extended the range of Kievs potential for attacks then Russian interest in taking out enemy forces further afield has become an issue... as they introduce longer ranged systems then the distance from new Russian territory has to be cleared and neutralised. As they get longer and longer ranged systems the fate of non Russian Ukraine is being sealed... how stupid are they?
Odessa is not really an ethnic Ukrainian city; it is located on the territory of the former New Serbia.
These are not pro-Russian Ukrainians, these are ethnic Russians and other non-Ukrainians from the New Serbia.
I suspect over time more and more people who would normally be identified as Ukrainian because of where they were born will identify less and less as Ukrainian... because Kiev and the west have made it a dirty word. Much like western actions in Russia in the 1990s made democracy a dirty word too... it means asset stripping and theft and murder.
JDAM would love to be as good as UMPK.
The cost of components would match ruble for US dollar... JDAM 1 million dollars, UMPK 1 million rubles.... (1 million dollars US vs $10,000 dollars US...)
Those circuit boards are made in Russia so they don't need to buy them off the black market to make more... why fund their enemy?
The issue with the drones is amusing because the western equivalent to these Russian drones are vastly more expensive.... American light small drones are $20K plus per model and so against some armoured vehicles they cost more that the targets they are hitting.
The Russian drones are cheap in comparison and are more effective because they seem to be less effected by EW equipment and jamming systems.
But the west is about to put new tanks into mass serial production while the Russians are likely to perfect their drones to carry custom designed top attack warheads instead of duct taped old RPG-7 warheads that can take out the most powerful modern tank when directed at the turret roof armour... they are not even using their more powerful warheads.
They probably have millions of old model RPG-7 warheads in storage too... they would be fine for use against western BMPs and BTRs, but with drones they can also take out the most expensive western tank too... this is hilarious.
All that extra weight and cost of those super western tanks and they are just as vulnerable as any other lighter cheaper tank when it comes to drones or the newest Russian ATGMs... ground or aircraft launched.