Russia sends kamikaze drones to slow Ukraine progress

Videos and reports from the front line show that Russia is make heavy use of stray ammunition To slow down Ukraine’s counter-offensive, especially in small FPV [‘First Person View’] improvised kamikaze. It is no great surprise that even modern armor such as the German-supplied Leopard 2 tank and the US-supplied Bradley infantry fighting vehicle are vulnerable to these weapons. But while Ukraine reportedly has a stockpile of tens of thousands of kamikaze drones, it is unclear whether Russia could deploy them in large numbers. Will it matter to them?

“Russian Telegram channels report that the Airborne Forces are using FPV drones to counter the Ukrainian army,” says Sam Bendet, expert on Russian uncrewed systems and advisor to the CNA and CNAS thinktanks. “Even if this is part of official propaganda, there was a recent massive push by Russian troops and volunteers to train and adapt FPV drones for combat.”

There are two main types of vagrant munitions: larger, military versions, such as the US Phoenix Ghost and the Russian Lancet-3M, and smaller, improvised FPVs made from modified racing drones. Both work in the same way; The operator, wearing immersive video goggles, flies the drone to the known location of the enemy vehicle, locates it, and engages the drone with its anti-armor warhead at the target.

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a video Date June 10^th A Leopard is claimed to have been hit and destroyed by a 2A6 Lancet, while another collection shows Three more apparent hits on Leopard by FPV drone. Significantly they do not show the result. Note that there are only about 70 Leopard-2 in Ukraine. Videos collected by Rob Leea senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, also shows an apparent FPV hit on a MRAP, Humvee and Truck as well as M113 and Bradley All in the last few days.

Stray ammunition presented a fundamentally different threat to previous anti-tank weapons available to infantry, making them much more difficult to counter. For decades, infantrymen have relied on two types of weapons: shoulder-fired rockets, such as the Russian RPG
rpg
series and descendants of WWII bazookas such as the M4 Carl Gustav, and larger guided missiles such as Russia’s Kornet and Ukraine’s Stugna-P. The standard way of dealing with both is twofold. Suppressive fire on defensive positions, artillery and machine gun fire, would prevent anti-tank gunners from hitting targets, and the use of smoke screens, either by artillery or from smoke grenade launchers on a vehicle, would prevent vehicles from advancing .

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Neither of these methods work against ammunition. The operator may be a few kilometers away, may be hiding in a bunker, and may not be targeted for suppressive fire, unlike someone using a rocket launcher or guided missile, which needs to be within line-of-sight. Needed And stray ammunition can circle around or strike from above, rendering smoke screens useless.

In addition, stray weapons have a much greater range than conventional infantry weapons. Even a basic FPV drone can hit a target ten kilometers away, and the Lancet-3 has a reported range of 40 kilometers, allowing it to find and hit any force over a wide area. Is.

Jamming, which can be an effective defense against small commercial drones, is also limited to line-of-sight and markedly less effective against drones approaching at very low altitudes.

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However, while Ukraine in particular has wholeheartedly embraced the use of FPV attack drones, with both volunteer groups such as Escadrone and commercial companies such as One Way producing them at a rate of thousands per month, the response in Russia has been more piecemeal and improvised. has been, and against official opposition.

“Russian Telegram channels are posting that FPV drone use is ‘systematic’ and ‘rather contrary to the MoD,’” says Bendet.

In fact, the development of attack drones in Russia is underway in parallel with the suppliers of the Ministry of Defense. And volunteer efforts have been thwarted by a Soviet-legacy command structure that does not welcome outside initiatives or see any need for change.

“We ourselves manufactured the (FPV) drone with the ammunition and most importantly developed the strategy for using this weapon by the soldiers,” said one. Russian blogger on Telegram in March, “We tried to negotiate with military units that could test our drones. Unfortunately, what is understood at the tactical level is not always understood at the top of the command chain … One of the wiser division commanders For the couple, there will always be someone higher up who will not only spoil all initiatives, but will ensure that there are no such initiatives.”

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However, Bendet notes that obstruction by the military appears to be diminishing.

“They [FPV drones] Bendet told Forbes, really embracing more on a strategic level. “It’s not clear to what extent the high command is on board, but at least it doesn’t seem to be on the way.”

Bendet points to a Recently Posted Videos Russian social media shows about three hundred FPV attack drones assembled by the Revenge Swarm project. It is unclear how effective these are against armored vehicles. Most only have a small weapon, about two pounds, and both Escadron and One Way mention the need for larger weapons to guarantee kills against heavily armored vehicles such as tanks. However, some pictures show large russian fpv attack drone With the KZ-6, a seven-pound warhead was fitted into the Lancet. and at least one video of a small Ukrainian FPV Russian T-80 completely destroyed can be shown.

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According to Bendet, the Russian reports would have included a large element of propaganda, and many of the alleged killings would have done little or no harm.

In one notable case, a video posted on Russian social media appears to show Lancet’s strike is considered successful The target was shown by a Ukrainian video on a Leopard tank actually a wooden dummyWith the happy builder laughing beside the burning remains. Unlike other weapons, stray ammunition provides the operator with a close view of the target, they can still be fooled.

Stray ammunition is an unwanted addition to Russia’s arsenal. But while they may be taking casualties, there is no sign they are stopping the Ukrainian advance just yet. And, frankly, we haven’t seen large-scale FPV attacks from the Ukrainians, even though they now have a veritable army of drones, including dedicated drone attack units. These could be held in reserve for a later phase, either to break the defenses or to take advantage of fast-moving conditions when a breakthrough became possible and could show whether this new weapon would be able to defend itself. Gives more crime advantage. Either way, it could have a more dramatic effect than what we’ve seen from the Russians.