Ukraine War
Drone Army
Low Cost Air Warfare
Introduction
Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov regards drones as the future of modern warfare. Ukraine is setting up drone assault companies[1] within its armed forces that will be equipped with Elon Musk’s SpaceX company manufactured and widely used Starlink satellite communications, as it presses ahead with an idea to build up an "army of drones". An outlay of approx $550 million for procurement of drones has been catered for in 2023. The Army of Drones is a joint project of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the State Special Communications Service and the Ministry of Digital Transformation.
The “drone movement” was spearheaded by United24 from 01 July 2022, coining the word “Dronation” for crowd funding the project. As per latest available information[2] 1577 drones have been procured and 928 drones have been handed over to the Armed Forces. Maritime “uncrewed surface vessels” USV have also been used against the Russian base in Sevastopol.
Drone in Operations
The Ukraine war has demonstrated to the world how innovatively drones were employed in two major operations against Russian Naval and Air assets.
- Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drone by Ukraine was co-opted in firing the anti ship Ukrainian R 360 Neptune Missile to sink Russia's flagship Black Sea missile cruiser, the Moskva.
- One Russian A-50 surveillance aircraft was damaged in a drone attack at an airfield near the Belarusian capital of Minsk
Once an innocuous ISR device in the Tactical Battle Area, drones are now increasingly being integrated in accurate and prompt direction of artillery fire and also for undertaking independent missions, by both sides. Russian Kamikaze drones, which dive on to their target, have a large operating range, have been directed mostly on civilian infrastructure such as gas and power stations since mid October 22, forcing power outages.
Targeting Pattern
Both sides are using indigenous and imported drones for executing strikes at military and civilian targets. The components retrieved from damaged drones on both sides indicate use of components manufactured by US companies such as Maxim and Microchip. The targeting pattern so far has been as follows.
Russia
- Russia has been using Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones (Geran 2) for Kamikaze type ops. Packed with about 50 Kg of explosive, a swarm of drones have damaged military and civilian targets since sept 22.
- The Orlan-10 has proved to be one of its most effective drones. Flying above the MANPAD ceiling, it makes counter drone ops economically non viable. It has been deployed in a traditional manner for ISTAR , Electronic Warfare and direction of fire, mostly supplementing battlefield transparency.
- Swarms of Russian and Iranian-made Shaheed drones inflicted heavy damage on Ukrainian servicemen, key infrastructure, and residential areas.
Ukraine
From the targeting pattern it emerges that Ukraine foresees a wider and more meaningful employment of Drones for shaping the outcome of their operations. Apart from the exponential gains mentioned above, the swarms of drones ventured deep in Russian airspace
Military Targets.
- In Crimea, drones destroyed airplanes, arms depot in 2022. Lately on 01 Mar, a drone attack in Crimea was repelled.
- Drone Boats. 18-foot radio-controlled boats apparently have been prowling the Black Sea for months. A swarm of the 50-mile-per-hour robotic vessels assaulted the main Black Sea Fleet anchorage in October 22.
Civil Targets.
- Power stations (in Belgorod, less than 40 km from the border),
- In westernmost Russian regions such as Belgorod, Kursk, Bryansk and Orlov destroyed housing, injured and even killed civilians.
- One drone carrying explosives fell some 100 km southeast of Moscow, but caused no damage.
- One shot down over the nearby Bryansk region.
Counter Drone Operations
Countering drones is an evolving strategy on both sides. Cost to benefit analysis does not favour employment of conventional anti aircraft resources such as missiles etc.
Ukraine
The Ukrainian President states that the Russian intention is to exhaust their response mechanism and resistance will power.
Anti drone measures employed are at best, makeshift using non specialised equipment:
- Small arms fire, heavy machine guns, portable anti-air missiles and electronic jamming devices.
Russia
- Stupor rifle, which shoots electromagnetic pulses
- Aeroscope, drone detection system
- EW Systems for anti drone ops. The electronic suppression of Ukraine’s unmanned aerial vehicles blunted one of Kyiv’s biggest advantages in the early months of the war. EW eqpt:
- They included TORN and SB-636 Svet-KU signals-intelligence systems that can pinpoint Ukrainian units by tracing their radio signals.
- RB-341V Leer-3s that combine Orlan-10 drones carrying cellular-jamming payloads with a command post on a KamAZ-5350 truck, R-934B Sinitsa radio-jammers and R-330Zh Zhitels that block satellite links.
Ukraine war has heralded the use of drones beyond its traditional use of ISR and successfully employed them for engagement of military and civilian targets. Both sides have used drones of target acquisition and direction of Artillery fire. Drones have reduced the response time and increased the accuracy of engagement by artillery. Krasnopol ammunition used by Russian has been accurately directed against several military and civilian targets in Ukraine.
On the other hand, Ukraine has ratcheted up the scope to include targeting strategic Russian assets. Ukraine is not restricting drone employment to targets on land, but is even using air and sea drones against maritime targets.
Ukraine drones have taken the war closer to Moscow and Petersburg city and made the Russians realise that the warfront is closer home than they thought, undermining the National narrative weaved by the Putin administration.
Having gained experience and with the realisation that the future holds great promise for drone employment, Ukraine has embarked upon institutionalising drones in its arsenal by creating battalions armed with drones which will carry out independent missions. Employment in swarms saturates the Air Defence of the enemy, makes retaliation cost prohibitive and forces military and civilian targets in depth to undertake preventive measures. This form of counter offensive by Ukraine against Russia, is something the latter is not prepared for. Now some part of the Russian war effort will be directed to defensive measures on the Russian soil for ensuring safety of military and civilian assets.
Drones - Indian context
The Northern and Eastern fronts of Indian borders are mostly high altitude areas which rule out the use of drones. However the western front and the maritime borders offer immense scope for offensive employment of drones against military and civilian targets. Use of drones for direction of artillery fire is also implementable against targets on the western front.
More importantly, counter measures against drones are lacking across all fronts as of now. While military targets are hardened to sustain and recover from a drone attack, our civilian infrastructure remains vulnerable to enemy drone swarms. Critical and valuable infra needs to be provided with its own standalone anti drone defence sys. For the civilian areas, the civil defence may need to take on the responsibility of protection against drone swarms.
