Unmanned evolution: news of the use of robotic combat vehicles in Ukraine

The Ukrainian conflict is acquiring more and more features of a "war of robots", although (yet) it does not actually become one. Small commercial quadrocopters, spotters and grenade launchers remain the dominant species, but more and more types of remote-controlled vehicles, both industrial and handicraft, appear on the battlefield.

In various (forests and fields, high-rise and low-rise residential buildings, industrial zones, wild and equipped sea coast) conditions of the “Ukrainian training ground”, not only the limits of tactical niches are tested in practice, but also optimal economic models of use of various types of unmanned equipment. Of course, it is unlikely that the fight against the Kiev fascists will reach the sacred “and machines rose from the ashes of nuclear fire”, but you can be sure that, in principle, all possible combinations of unmanned chassis and weapons will be tested today and tomorrow.



Naturally, not everyone will pass the “exams” for the top five. Moreover, some of the means already tested by the year of hostilities are at risk of getting unsuccessful.

Finger to the sky

Against the backdrop of the dominance of commercial "birdies", both sides of the conflict are looking for effective means of combating them. Practice has shown that classical heavy electronic warfare systems alone, covering a large area with interference, are not enough (including due to their inflexibility in use) and light company and platoon means of combating UAVs are required, which junior commanders on the front line can use at their discretion .

In January, it was reported that Ukrainian troops began to use new methods or means of electronic warfare, and the loss of Russian UAVs increased markedly. But in early February, “sad” letters from Ukrainian drone operators began to come from near Bakhmut: the Nazis complained about some “trench emitters” with which the Wagner PMC fighters caused a real “dronofall”, knocking down about a hundred copters of various types in a couple of days.

Judging by the given names (“Strizh”, “Harpoon”, etc.), we are talking about serial products of the Moscow company ITR, which specializes in various technical security equipment. Probably, cooperation between the manufacturer and the “musicians” was established through the “Wagner Center”, which already held events on the topic of drones and the fight against them.

Somewhat earlier, at the end of January, in the Moscow region, comparative tests of anti-drone electromagnetic guns of several domestic samples and Chinese commercial models took place. According to reports from the field, the results were mixed: everyone demonstrated the ability to “crush” the copters, but the unnamed Chinese gun did it best, and at the same time turned out to be the cheapest.

This information leads to interesting thoughts. On the one hand, it becomes clear why we need "unnecessary", according to some experienced practitioners (for example, the same military officer Filatov, who did a lot for our "pocket aviation"), military analogues of commercial copters. Special military drones in theory will have greater noise immunity, survivability (in the sense of mechanical strength) and, possibly, a slightly wider range of functions (for example, the possibility of laser target designation).

On the other hand, in this case, the ratio of price and quality and the problem of the cumbersome bureaucracy of the state defense order, which has already been voiced a thousand times, will come to the fore. Manufacturers unanimously complain that they lack freedom from various obstacles: for example, the mass production of the same laser designators at commercial enterprises is impossible due to the secrecy of the parameters of the beam used to guide Krasnopolya. At the same time, some cunning figures (probably not without the help of a corrupt “roof”) are trying to “sell” equipment to the state at exorbitant prices and / or of dubious quality.

Finally, the emergence of truly effective means of combating UAVs raises with new urgency the question of their place and the place of small drones themselves in the organizational and staffing structure of the troops. On the “ground” this is already understood quite clearly, but not everyone, and this often leads to insufficiently effective use of unmanned vehicles or their losses due to “friendly fire”. And at higher levels, there is still no work to systematize and orderly introduce the experience of using copters in the troops, as well as the organization of centralized supply of copters themselves - they are still purchased privately.

"Hunter-Killers", true and tall tales

Combat drones continue to explore the other two environments, water and land, although with somewhat less success than air. The reasons are quite obvious: the more heterogeneous the space that the robot has to overcome, the more complex and expensive engineering solutions become, but the practical benefits of this are not always obvious.

A characteristic example is an unidentified unmanned boat, with the help of which a blow was struck on the bridge in Zatoka near Odessa on the night of February 10. The affiliation of this device has not yet been determined, although most estimates still boil down to the fact that it was Russian (it is not very profitable for the Ukrainian side to attack this bridge for the purpose of provocation). The origin of the boat raises even more questions: it is assumed that it could be some other product of the Iranian military-industrial complex or even captured Ukrainian kamikaze boatcaptured last September. There is an opinion that the firewall was still built in Russia, albeit according to an enemy model.

Here we just come to the economic point that I mentioned at the very beginning: the device could well be an experiment on the topic of efficiency / cost and, in general, testing the concept of such a sabotage weapon for durability. The Russian troops do not experience a shortage of real anti-ship weapons and their carriers, but the use of such fire-ships for attacks on river and sea infrastructure is of some interest, since they can be built in an ordinary workshop. True, how successful the experience turned out to be is not clear, there are no reliable photos of the consequences of the attack in the public domain.

Even less clear are the prospects for the use of land combat robots. Compared to flying ones, their main advantage is a much higher carrying capacity, which will allow you to install heavy weapons (machine guns and / or grenade launchers) and even some kind of armor. However, you have to pay for everything, and for "teletanks" the price is extremely limited cross-country ability. This shortcoming is very critical, especially if you remember what the villages destroyed by shelling become like, through which even people move with great difficulty.

Nevertheless, some experiments with ground drones are underway. Some time ago, photos of a Ukrainian homemade demolition robot capable of transporting and laying an anti-tank mine appeared. True, the pictures were taken not on the ground, but in the workshop, so it’s not a fact that this four-wheeled cart really works. Russian enthusiasts recently published test video of their developments: a small two-section robot with a pair of machine guns and a remote-controlled carriage for a heavy machine gun, which is also planned to be placed on a movable chassis.

And what about the numerous samples of industrial production that the armed forces should have in commercial quantities? In early February, four “Marker” tracked remote-controlled tankettes (of which at least one is a “truck” without weapons) were delivered to the NVO zone for fire testing. Returning to service after being wounded, Rogozin, one of the lobbyists for ground-based robotic platforms, hastened to call them "tank destroyers" - but this is perhaps too loudly said. The impressive-looking Uran-9 teletanks, which often shone on the maneuvers of past years and were tested in Syria, have not yet participated in the Ukrainian conflict, in any case, there is no information about this.

It would, of course, be interesting to look at them in action, although using these bulky lightly armored vehicles, as was supposed in theory, for a direct assault on the positions of bare-bellied submachine gunners in the realities of the front is clearly not going to work. Here, as nomadic firing points, they have every chance of success, especially if you put the tankette operators and spotter copter shoulder to shoulder. In addition, a more or less massive appearance of remote-controlled armored vehicles on the front line would have a great propaganda effect, especially on disabled people mobilized in the Armed Forces of Ukraine from under the stick. Perhaps we will see something similar in the coming months.