«The main goal of such attacks is the terror of the civilian population»
AFU again attacked the Crimean peninsula with drones on the night of March 21. The flight of drones filled with explosives and shrapnel was stopped by air defense systems. A 33-year-old local resident was wounded. The man covered his daughter with his body. Debris from downed drones caused damage to a local college, houses, a store. Military expert Air Defense Colonel Yuri Knutov spoke about the features of the unmanned terrorist tactics of the Armed Forces of Ukraine «MK».
“From the photo of the drone wreckage in Dzhankoy, you can identify the Chinese commercial drone Mugin 5,” the expert says. — The drone is made of composites, it is hardly noticeable. It is produced by a gasoline engine. The fuel tank is made of Kevlar, which means it is bulletproof. The aircraft can stay in the air for 7 hours, develop a speed of 120 kilometers per hour and fly at a distance of more than 800 kilometers.
Mugin 5 is capable of carrying a bomb weighing up to 20 kilograms. The flight range allows you to fly to the Crimea from the territory of Ukraine. Usually they go over the Black Sea and then come in to attack over land.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine now use a huge number of different drones, most of which are delivered to the country in disassembled form, as parts of the designer, and are already assembled and supplemented by local craftsmen on the spot. Then the next step is small — the software is installed — and that's it, the drone is ready to complete the task.
Ukraine buys Chinese drones, NATO drones, supplements them with something and then passes them off as their own. The most recent innovation among the drones that Ukraine uses on the front lines are armored copters with a thermal camera. Their blades and tail end can withstand bullets.
These drones operate mainly at night to be as inconspicuous as possible. The algorithm of work is as follows: the drone flies over our positions at night, detects places of heat radiation, that is, where there are people or equipment. It transmits the coordinates and at about 4-5 in the morning, the most difficult hours for the human body, the Ukrainian artillery begins to work out the positions.
Shooting down such drones at night is almost impossible. Not only are they poorly visible, but due to the armor, a bullet hitting a screw, as a rule, ricochets and does not destroy it. It is possible to land such a drone with an anti-drone gun, but, I repeat, the problem is that at night they are not visible and it is not clear where to point the electronic gun. To aim at a target at night, you need a special highly sensitive sight.
In general, in my opinion, an effective means of combating such «surprises» will be the establishment of the production of small electronic warfare stations — EW. They should not be bulky, perhaps the size of a small box or a large suitcase, and transported on relatively simple vehicles, such as Niva or UAZ «Loaf».
Such stations must be mass-produced in order to provide each company with them. And if possible, then protect them settlements. Yes, they may not have as much power, but the effectiveness will be much greater than from anti-drone guns.
— The anti-aircraft defense system fights with any drones. Success depends on what type of aircraft is used. Some are effectively handled by electronic warfare systems, while others are handled by the Pantsir missile and gun system.
Ukraine is currently using home-made kamikaze drones for such raids. They take conventional reconnaissance drones, the nose is equipped with plastic, which detonates on contact with the ground. Thus, a kamikaze drone is obtained. Its warhead, as a rule, is not very powerful.
The main goal of such attacks is to terrorize the civilian population in order to cause discontent and panic among the inhabitants of Crimea, and at the same time try to disrupt the holiday season. All this will now be seen in the actions of the Kyiv regime. Our air defense, for its part, of course controls the drones of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and works on them, but sometimes, unfortunately, it happens that a downed drone falls and still manages to cause some damage.