Since the start of the war in Ukraine, drones have often been used by Russian and Ukrainian forces on the battlefield.
The spectrum of different types of military drones is broad and they are used for different things. It is more common to use drones for reconnaissance, fire control and to create propaganda, but there are also drones that can be used as weapons. There have been more and more.
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The use of drones on the battlefield is nothing new. Russians and Ukrainians have been using it since 2014, explains Luftkrigsskolen principal, Lars Peder Haga.
– You’ve seen some development. At the start of the war, drones were used for reconnaissance and fire control. A little in the war, they started experimenting with attacking weapons like hand grenades and shotgun grenades on drones, Haga tells Nettavisen.
– Terrorist weapons
Videos of the war in Ukraine of drones throwing grenades at enemy tanks and soldiers are circulating on social media. However, the headmaster of the air warfare school believes that such drone strikes serve a particular function.
– It becomes more like a weapon of dread or dread that creates stress, because there is not much destructive power when you shoot with a small hand or a rifle grenade, so you have to hit very precisely to get something out of it, he says .
Haga finds it interesting the trend of videos of such successful drone attacks posted on social media shortly after they occurred.
– The use of drones to film and publish their victories has been pervasive. German researchers called it “war streaming”, which means showing war in real time. Then of course you post clips when you win and when the enemy seems incompetent and helpless. In this sense, one may perhaps have an exaggerated impression of how effective the use of drones is, since what is posted online is a video of when they do it, he says.
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Difficult to protect yourself
The widespread use of drones on the battlefield, as seen in Ukraine, testifies to the new military reality that has to be reckoned with there. This means that systems that previously provided good protection now don’t necessarily work as well.
– Toddlers are simply a problem to detect if you don’t have the right sensors. They fly high and quiet enough, so you may not hear or see them. Many of the anti-aircraft systems you have often have a filter on the radar, so they don’t attack birds further on. So they don’t even want to use a pocket drone, so that makes everything difficult, says Haga.
But it’s not just small drones that present challenges. Among the drones that have received the most attention in social networks and traditional media are the Turkish “Bayraktar drone” (Baykar Bayraktar TB2) and the Iranian “kamikaze drone” (HESA Shahed 136). Both are, or can be, what you call attack drones. The former was used by the Ukrainians, while the latter was used by the Russians.
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He thinks the use of “kamikaze drones” is a sign
Recently, there have been several Russian attacks on civilians in cities miles away from the front line in southern and eastern Ukraine. Here, the use of the Iranian “kamikaze drone” stole the headlines and sparked strong reactions.
The “Kamikaze drone”, or suicide drone as some call it, is equipped with a warhead and explodes when it hits the preprogrammed target. The small drone has a range of 2,500 kilometers. Despite its modest size, the drone apparently makes a lot of noise, like a moped or chainsaw, which means you can hear them from a great distance.
Haga says the main problem with the “kamikaze drone” is how low and slow it flies.
– When they enter radar coverage, you have very little time to react. You also need to have an anti-aircraft system where they arrive, you need to be in the right place at the right time to take them down. Technically, it is not very difficult to hit them, as they move very slowly.
Russia itself denies any kind of accusation of using Iranian drones.
– What do you think about the use of these “kamikaze drones”?
– It is a sign that the Russians are about to give up their more advanced long-range missile weapons. It is also a sign that they still believe in waging a punitive and terrorist war against Ukraine, inflicting pain on society by cutting off electricity supplies, killing and destroying civilian infrastructure. They think this will put pressure on the Ukrainian authorities.
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It can work against its purpose
From a purely military point of view, however, the head teacher of the Air Force Academy does not see any particular advantage in using the Iranian drones used by the Russians.
– The “Kamikaze drones”, which apparently do not go with surprisingly good accuracy against pre-selected targets, will only work against static targets. The most important military targets, you move them a little.
He also believes that it is worth asking the question for Russians of what effect it really has to try to pressure Ukrainian society in this way.
– In terms of experience, it tends to create more resistance with that kind of terrorist tactic.
Use antidrone weapons
To deny the Russians valuable information and insights, some Ukrainian forces have begun to use a somewhat special tool to interact with the invading drones; the anti-drone jammer developed in Lithuania EDM4S (Electronic Drone Mitigation 4 – System).
The device works in such a way that you can use it to aim at the drone in the air. You then pull the trigger, which causes the “weapon” to emit an electromagnetic pulse, which in turn interferes with the drone’s signals. The drone jammer should be able to interrupt and shoot down drones at a distance of up to five kilometers.
Haga says such portable drone jammers can help deny the opponent the ability to look at you and shoot at you.
– Of course they also want to fend off these little drones that throw hand grenades and the like. Even if in the big picture they are not the ones who win a war, it should not be underestimated that it is extremely unpleasant to wear them without being able to do anything about them, he says.
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In a video recently posted on Telegram by Ukrainian soldiers, rumored images of this anti-drone weapon used to shoot down a drone flying tens of meters above the ground can be seen.
The drone should be a DJI-type surveillance drone, and within seconds it descends from the air and onto the ground, where one of the soldiers gently receives it with his hand.
Watch the drone weapon video here:
It can be effective
The head of the air warfare school, Lars Peder Haga, can tell you that such drone jammers are nothing new and that they are used, among other things, for security in some airports.
– They work in different ways, by interrupting or suffocating the control signal received by the drone. Then the drone loses contact with the operator and therefore many drones will make an emergency landing or return to the operator. They can also be used to block the GPS signal that the drone uses to orient itself if, for example, it is flying on a preprogrammed route. So most drones will have a built-in defense mechanism, so it will make an emergency landing or roll back if that happens, he explains.
Haga says drone jammers work very well against commercial drones, as they aren’t protected against such things. This is not always the case with military drones.
– Military drones are often better protected against these kinds of effects, says the head teacher.
Cities exposed to drone attacks
In recent days, several Ukrainian cities have been the subject of drone attacks in which several civilians have lost their lives, infrastructures have been destroyed and buildings have been bombed. There are several videos of desperate people on the ground hearing drones flying nearby and then trying to get to safety.
Deputy Chief of the Ukrainian Patrol Police, Oleksiy Biloshytskiy, shared a video that he said was shot by a local police patrol in Kiev.
I video Police forces are seen firing guns at a drone flying above them, before presumably hitting the drone which then crashes to the ground and explodes.
Request air defense
Several Ukrainians referred to the video on social media to emphasize the need for increased air defense in Ukrainian cities.
If air defenses must be in place to protect against drone attacks, normal air defenses will not work.
– The software in air defense systems is not set up to identify something that flies so slowly and strangely – as a threat, and therefore is not even allowed to point weapons at them. There are things that can be done by adapting air defense systems, says Haga.
– So the ordinary type of air defense won’t work against this type of attack drones?
– Not necessarily right away. You have to make changes to how you use the radar and how you use the weapon, but it’s entirely possible to get it, she says.
