A military blogger in Russia said Ukraine is preparing to launch a fleet of armed drones numbering in the tens of thousands. The fleet is mostly made up of smaller racing drones and could overwhelm Russia’s air defenses.
https://twitter.com/PaulJawin/status/1619695661997514753
Russian social media is flooded with posts about the impending Ukrainian aerial attack, according to Forbes. The pro-Russian military blogger, the Russian Engineer, posted about the rumored attack on Telegram. That post currently has about 2 million views.
In 2022, Ukraine started outfitting small but powerful first-person view (FPV) drones with warheads from RPGs. The FPV drones are designed for racing. They are highly maneuverable, but powerful enough to carry explosive devices. When used in concert with loitering drones, the Ukrainians are dealing death and destruction to the Russians at 100 miles per hour.
In addition to larger military-grade drones, both Russia and Ukraine have used modified, commercially available components in their drones during the war. Ukraine has a bit of an edge since the country isn’t dealing with crippling Western sanctions.
Commercial drones are also cheaper. The FPVs Ukraine is outfitting cost a few hundred dollars. The Russian Engineer posted the Ukrainian Armed Forces bought every FPV drone component China had on the market. It’s enough to field between 50,000 and 100,000 units.
All those FPV drones are likely being outfitted with some form of munition and will be deployed by one of Ukraine’s new drone assault companies formed in January. But all 50,000 drones won’t fly at once. Based on current specs, each FPV drone requires a pilot to operate it. Also, limitations on the number of control channels will likewise limit the number of drones in each attacking wave.
But the Russians are clearly worried about the potential onslaught of 50,000 to 100,000 armed attack drones. On March 22, the Russian defense minister announced the deployment of several new air defense units in the Russian military. Russia may even be delaying delivery of some foreign purchases to bolster its own air defenses.
However, confidence in those systems is waning. The Russians already failed to stop several suspected Ukrainian drones from hitting targets deep behind Russian lines.
The most obvious defense against drones is signal jamming, another area where Russia has struggled. According to the Russian Engineer, frontline fighters said shotguns may be the best defense against the fast-moving FPVs, but that would definitely be a last option.
#Ukraine: The 93rd Brigade of Ukraine showed the use of a very interesting cheap commercial drone converted to kamikaze role. Such drones carry a very small payload and are used mostly against personnel.
Note that the operator is receiving video output via special FPV goggles. pic.twitter.com/j06zU6nZk4— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) July 29, 2022
Hitting a drone moving 100 miles per hour with a shotgun requires some advanced marksmanship. While there are many videos of FPV drones hitting their targets, there are no videos of a soldier shooting one down with a shotgun.
