Ukraine’s armed forces are leading the world in real-time battlefield drone innovations. It wasn’t long ago that Straight Arrow News reported on Ukraine’s all-drone ground attack force, the first in history. Now, Ukraine is strapping shotgun-style cannons to first-person view drones to counter the unmanned aerial threat from Russia.
Video released on social media purports to show the first recorded case of what is being dubbed “Winchester Drones” intercepting a Russian Mavic drone that was looking to drop a grenade on Ukrainian soldiers.
The first-person-view unmanned aerial vehicle is equipped with a pair of small cannons that apparently operate similarly to shotguns, firing a spread of small pellets as opposed to single projectiles like rifles or pistols do.
Using shotguns to counter drones is not a new tactic. Soldiers on both the Ukrainian and Russian sides of the frontlines employ them. When the Kremlin could not get enough shotguns to its soldiers, many Russians took to social media asking friends and family to send them.
Ukraine has also used other methods to intercept Russian drones, like dropping nets or grenades on them or just ramming them.
But the dual-shotgun-style cannon approach is new and means Ukraine’s drone operators could get multiple interceptions during a single mission.
Another new technology Ukraine is trying is flying drones that are linked to their operators through a spool of fiber-optic cable.
Ukraine posted a video of one such drone on the hunt for Russian tanks. Because of the cable, the drone is much more resilient to signal jamming, which makes payload delivery more likely.
When Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, it was home to a lot of the weapons production and development Moscow relied on to build its empire. Now that Ukraine is independent and fighting for its future, it really shouldn’t be all that surprising to see so many wartime innovations coming out of the former Soviet Bloc nation.
