(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Quick Explainer: Ukraine's FPV drones may be deadlier than people surmised [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-13 Forbes ran an article covering how one of Ukraine’s supplier of FPV suicide drones was revealed to be a UK based company called “One Way Aerospace.” They are believed to be one part of Ukraine’s $860M FPV drone initiative, and are in the process of ramping up production to “several thousand units per month.” One Way Aerospace produces FPV drones called the Scalpel, a $1000 per unit FPV drone capable of delivering a 2.5kg warhead and has been frequently been used by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) in various publicized videos. The Scalpel has a top speed of “over 100km/h” (60mph) and a range of “more than 10km.” It is described as highly maneuverable. Perhaps the feature that jumped out to me most was the fact the Scalpel has “terminal homing” ability. One common and effective way to defend against drone attacks is to jam the drone’s signal, so the operator loses the ability to communicate with the drone as it approaches. A drone with terminal homing ability has the ability to maintain course and direction as it makes its final approach on the target and detonate automatically. As long as the drone operator gets the drone “close enough” to a designated target and is on course to hit, if the operator loses control over the drone due to signal jamming, the drone takes over. The terminal homing drone will continue flying to the target and self-detonate. Jamming is expected to be a major and standard defensive measure against drones, so drones lacking terminal homing will be considerably less effective, particularly when attacking prepared Russian defensive positions. It was not clear that Ukrainian FPV drones had terminal homing capabilities (let alone on a drone as cheap as $1000 per unit), so this a very significant welcome revelation. The other detail I was glad to hear about was the size of the warhead that the Scalpel can carry. There was some speculation that due to the smaller size of FPV drones, they would only be capable of carrying a 1kg or smaller explosive. Such a limited weight restriction would sharply limit the types of warheads the drone could carry, making them ineffective against broad classes of armored vehicles (and reducing their effectiveness as antipersonnel weapons). But an approximately 2.5kg- carrying capacity would give the Scalpel the ability to carry warheads with a substantial punch. If I had to guess, a drone with an “approximate 2.5kg warhead” probably means that the Scalpel is often carrying the 2.6 kg PG-7VL antitank warhead for the RPG-7. The RPG-7 was introduced in the Soviet Army in 1961, and quickly became a ubiquitous and commonly deployed weapon among Soviet-aligned armed forces for decades. Afghan Mujahideen Insurgent armed with an RPG7 in the 1980s Extremely inexpensive, it could be afforded in bulk by almost any nation or insurgency—the USSR produced an estimated 9-10 million units. Just for comparison, the US Javelin missile was introduced in 1989, and just 45,000 units have ever been produced. The RPG-7 is popular because it is inexpensive, and extremely rugged and versatile in its design. It can be equipped with an antitank warhead, high explosive anti-building/facility warhead, fragmentation anti-personnel warhead, or even a small thermobaric warhead. It requires little training or expertise for use or maintenance, and carries quite a punch. An ISIL insurgent believed to have been armed with an RPG7 fired upon and struck a Turkish Leopard 2A4 during the Battle of al-Bab, penetrating the Leopard 2’s weak top turret armor, damaging and disabling the tank. If the RPG7 hits in the right spot, it remains capable of causing significant damage even to Western MBTs. The reason why the RPG7 is considered by Western Armies to be hopelessly outdated is not primarily due to its destructive capacity. Rather, it is because the RPG7 is an unguided rocket weapon, and has an effective range of only 300-400m (less than a quarter mile). Even older modern ATGMs (anti-tank guided missiles) have a range of at least 2000m-3000m, and more advanced ATGMs like the Javelin or the Russian Kornet can strike enemy vehicles from 4000m-5000m. And of course, they are guided missiles. This is why attaching RPG7 warheads to suicide drones makes a ton of sense. The problem with these warheads aren’t that they aren’t powerful enough to destroy Russian armored vehicles. The problem is that the short range and unguided nature of the rockets makes them very difficult to actually hit anything without getting killed first. RPG7 warheads are extremely cheap and abundant, widely available, and the Ukrainian Army is believed to have tens of thousands of units stockpiled. Equipped onto an FPV drone, with an operator trained to strike armored units in more vulnerable locations, Ukrainian FPV drone operators should pose a grave threat to broad classes of Russian armored vehicles. An FPV drone may pose a threat even to older Russian MBTs, if struck in the right location and and the MBT was not upgraded with reactive armor. Furthermore, if a Scalpel is equipped with an OG-7V warhead, it should pose a grave threat to Russian infantry in trenches. The OG-7V is a 2kg antipersonnel fragmentation warhead that has an effective lethal radius of 7m (23ft). There are already videos of FPV drones striking Russian infantry in trenches, and numerous Scalpel drones equipped with OG-7V warheads swooping into Russian trenches should represent a grave threat to trench-based Russian infantry defenses. In the interview, One War Aerospace mentions they are developing FPV drones capable of carrying larger warheads and longer ranges. if they can be expanded to even carry a 4.5kg explosive, the improved Scalpel could carry a far more powerful PG-7VR tandem charge antitank warhead or small thermobaric warheads, giving them more punch. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/13/2163703/-Quick-Explainer-Ukraine-s-FPV-drones-may-be-deadlier-than-people-surmised Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/