From first person view drones to the mass deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles at night – the war in Ukraine has long since become a “war of drones”. “War of Drones” has long since become a “war of drones”. And this “war of drones” is likely to become even more intense in 2024. A preview of current trends and developments.
A few weeks from now will mark the second anniversary of Russia’s attack on Ukraine and the Ukraine war enters its third year. From the first weeks of the war, images of large armored formations remain in the memory. Attempts to influence the situation with mobile warfare were replaced by the ever-increasing use of artillery. The fact that large areas changed hands within a few days as a result of rapid advances remained the exception from the beginning of the war. In addition, the increasing scarcity of large-caliber ammunition on both sides and the loss and wear and tear of artillery have now led to a significant reduction in the use of artillery. For some time now, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which are much cheaper and can be produced in larger numbers, have therefore dominated the battlefield – and also the rear area. Ubiquitous reconnaissance drones and other modern surveillance technology make the operational area transparent for both sides. Movements, right down to the level of the individual soldier, can no longer be concealed from the enemy. Air support in the form of armed drones is available at all times, day and night. What happens above the soldiers’ heads determines what happens. And in all likelihood, this development will continue to manifest itself in the coming months – as our look at the trends and known figures shows. https://militaeraktuell.at/neue-investitionen-in-die-ab212-helis-geplant/ FPV
The first trials with “First Person View” drones were undertaken by the Ukrainians back in the summer of 2022. During the combat trials at the time, large-scale FPV drones from Chinese manufacturer DJI were introduced. The video documents reconnaissance flights and a practical test in which an FPV equipped with a warhead was used as a kamikaze drone against a Russian dugout.
In autumn 2022, the first images of cheaper, considerably more powerful, but also much more sophisticated home-made FPV drones based on model-making components for hobby and sports use came from Ukraine. The successes were “resounding” in the true sense of the word and schools and training programs were set up by the armed forces in Ukraine to generate young pilots. The supply of FPV UAVs continued to come from private workshops organized on a small scale, largely financed by donations.
The result was a proliferation of similar devices, each with different electronic and flying characteristics. Russia followed suit, although the initiative there was initially much more private than in Ukraine. The Russian army was initially not very receptive to the development, and the troops were hesitant to accept this new means of combat. In the meantime, however, both sides have switched to large-scale production and the widespread use of FPV drones. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vWuEKhE6Xc Both sides claim for themselves and their opponents that monthly production figures have now gone from the five-digit to the six-digit range.
Of course, this cannot be verified, but even taking into account that for various reasons only between 10 and 30 percent of FPV flights can be classified as militarily effective, there is a growing discrepancy between the alleged production figures and published videos from both sides. While both sides speak of a Russian monthly production of 300,000 FPV drones, there is evidence-based evidence (published videos, figures on detected and intercepted enemy drones) of only a few hundred missions per month. However, this is undoubtedly a clear upward trend. And there have been enough FPV drones for some time now to use them against individual soldiers. The absolute number remains in the dark, but the number of missions is constantly increasing. Drones at night
However, there is definite evidence that FPV drones are now also being used at night with the help of thermal imaging cameras. Russia has been a pioneer here and Ukraine is now following suit. Only time will tell whether this will lead to Ukraine abandoning its current – and long-standing – practice of using the large and considerably more expensive Baba Yaga copter drones (wingspan of more than two meters and payload of more than five kilograms) in the dark. Although there are videos from Russia on the subject of large copter drones about the repair and testing of prey equipment, Russia has not yet deployed this type of drone on a large scale. There is no evidence of anything more than Russian fact-finding missions to China, where this type of drone – derived from civilian agricultural drones – is also produced. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSvful-j7Sw
In any case, there is a discernible trend towards specific day and night models in drone warfare – presumably for cost reasons and also due to limited availability. The smaller numbers of drones with the more expensive thermal imaging modules remain on the ground during the day, as they are much more difficult for the troops to replace. Mass versus diversity
Ukraine continues to rely on a much greater variety of drones than Russia. It is unclear whether Ukraine is making a virtue of necessity here, deliberately giving this freedom in order to be able to assess the effectiveness of the individual devices in practice, or whether this is possibly a concept to repeatedly present the Russian air and electronic defense with the challenge of changing signatures and frequencies. Russian electronic warfare specialists publish a catalog of Ukrainian drones in use on a relatively regular basis. However, even this list, which now includes more than 70 devices in eleven classes, is highly incomplete. https://militaeraktuell.at/operation-entebbe-%e2%80%92-the-israeli-hussar-unit/ The fact that new models, which are presented to the public for propaganda purposes, are actually used often only becomes apparent months later when the other side presents photos of downed or crashed systems. Both sides repeatedly achieve spectacular successes with their means and all too often the costs, development and production times of the UAVs are almost abstractly marginal compared to the highly complex, expensive weapon systems that can only be produced with a long lead time and which are destroyed by drones. While Ukraine is still forced to organize its drone production in a decentralized and small-scale manner – the entire country is within range of Russian missiles – Russia has set up and expanded large production facilities. The Russian version of the Iranian Shahed-136 (Geran-2), for example, is produced in a special economic zone in Yelabuga near Kazan. The production figures are not known, but a high three-digit number per month has probably already been reached. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ6x9SWUyo4
At LLC STC (Special Technology Center) in St. Petersburg, the Orlan drone is being produced in ever larger quantities. It is something like the “Swiss army knife” of Russian drones and can be adapted to a variety of tasks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5FrnqB16wk The Zala Aero Group also produces its Lancet drones far outside the Ukrainian sphere of influence in a former shopping center in Izhevsk in the east of Kazan. Here, too, the production rate is at least in the three-digit range per month. Jet and AI
Looking at the production details of the drones, two major developments are emerging: On the propulsion side, electric motors with propellers appear to be gaining ground for short-haul flights. On the other hand, piston engines with propellers are mainly used for mission times of well over 90 minutes to two hours and mission radii that significantly exceed 100 kilometers. In the meantime, Ukraine has developed the UAV types UJ-23 and UJ-25 drones, which use a small turbojet for propulsion. The ranges of the models with piston engines cannot be achieved, but they can reach significantly higher speeds than would be possible with propellers. Russia could follow suit here, at least that is what is expected with the presentation of the Shahed-238 in Iran. Russian television has spoken of top speeds of between 600 km/h and 800 km/h. Compared to the Shahed-131 (Geran-1) and Shahed-136 models, which are powered by piston engines, a significantly reduced range must also be assumed here, but this is still at least 200 kilometers, possibly even more than 300 kilometers. As far as the use of artificial intelligence (AI) is concerned, the question is no longer “if”, but only “when”. The drones are to become partially independent of operator and control signals. Before take-off, the target area and images/signature of priority target objects are loaded into the memory, for example an air defense system versus an artillery unit. If the control signal is interrupted – previously synonymous with a crash and total loss of the drone – the drone then independently carries out a further search and a possible attack according to the stored signature. With this in mind, the Lancet manufacturer Zala has been developing and testing a new model, called Product 55, for some time. In contrast to the previous models, which were assembled by hand by the operators and launched by catapult, Product 55 will be launched from a container, comparable to an anti-aircraft missile. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02l4In7P97s
Ukraine, which has long been looking for a means of defense and an answer to Lancet, is now preparing to produce a UAV that will significantly outperform the Russian model. French journalist Xavier Tytelman was granted an insight into this work. The drone is to be equipped with an electric motor for shorter ranges and a piston engine for longer ranges. And like Russia, Ukraine is preparing for the use of object recognition in conjunction with autonomous attack capability. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ihZTTFOXVE&t=424s
EloKa
Radio-electronic reconnaissance and radio-electronic warfare have long been part of warfare. The drone war has given them another playing field. Both sides are working hard to enable their own forces to use the radio-electronic spectrum and to deny it to the enemy. A wide range of technology is being used, from systems that can be carried and operated by a single soldier to high-performance systems integrated into vehicles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQHG_3jbybM
As with drones, the range starts with fairly simple, civilian products that are designed in terms of size and cost for the protection of industrial facilities, for example. There are also purely military products, which are in a different category in terms of both effectiveness and cost. The efforts on both sides to automatically protect individual vehicles can be described as mixed. At least the test vehicles that have been documented photographically from time to time have not yet met with any noticeable success – successful FPV attacks on vehicles are constantly on the rise. https://youtu.be/7gjWhNpU5QI?si=RTUGCN_LDjIz330t
Even if there are no clearly verifiable figures, the mentions of the use of EloKa rifles and large devices called “domes”, such as Bukovel-AD, for larger areas already give the impression that a certain degree of protection against drone attacks can be achieved with whining. The Russians and Ukrainians rely on both variants to varying degrees. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GPLsJ4FLuA
As recently as October, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valery Fedorovych Zaluzhnyi, called for a capacity build-up to monitor the radio-electronic situation and improve existing and develop new domestic EloKa complexes to conduct “electromagnetic warfare” across the entire “electromagnetic spectrum”.
