Drone warfare in Ukraine: Innovations and economic strategies
The war in Ukraine, unlike any other before, has become an arena for drone combat, taking forms that were recently considered theoretical. One of these is the use of drones to ram other drones.
In Ukraine, drones are used for a wide range of tasks, the most important of which are surveillance of the battlefield and guiding their own artillery to the detected enemy's position.
The second most popular task is kinetic attacks on vehicles or individual soldiers, led by one-acre FPV drones or reusable heavier bombing constructions known as "Baba Yaga".
Economic methods of combating drones - there are several, but your drone is also an option
This has necessitated the development of a cheap and effective method of combating drones. The simplest method is electronic warfare systems, which, depending on the power and complexity, can create a bubble with a diameter of tens of metres or even a few kilometres where the drone's control signal is unavailable.
However, it is not a solution without flaws. If the opponent changes the control signal frequency or develops attacking drones in offline mode, jammers can become useless, which has already happened. A more reliable method is the physical elimination of the drone, which is difficult to achieve at a low cost.
For vehicles, a good solution is an automatic cannon with programmable ammunition and a sound target detection system such as Skynex. However, this system is expensive and very scarce in Ukraine. Lower down, we have personal equipment for soldiers in the form of, for example, weapon modules like SMASH, which allow the effective elimination of drones at a distance of 200-500 metres, depending on the calibre of the firearm.
These are also not very widespread. In principle, the most available weapon in Ukraine is smoothbore shotguns, which, with standard ammunition, allow for shooting down drones at a distance of up to 30-40 metres. The situation looks better with new anti-drone ammunition, which increases the range to about 100 metres.
However, this is still not enough, and the open question remains: how can a drone be cheaply eliminated if it is located, for example, 800 metres away? It turned out that a pretty decent method here was to get rid of the opponent's drone with the help of another drone. When successfully rammed, this one can destroy the rotor blades of the target, causing it to crash, as seen in the video below.
