Unmanned Aerial Vehicle The latest drone news
One Ukrainian anti-tank drone is more than 300 times cheaper than the Javelin anti-tank missile. And Ukrainians have a lot of drones, which is why they can spend several of them for one Russian tank. That’s exactly why the Russian anti-drone cages and nets simply don’t work.
The T-90M is one of the most modern tanks in the Russian stables. Image credit: Mil.ru via Wikimedia (CC BY 4.0)
The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, does not hide the fact that at one point, when the defenders of Ukraine were in dire need of artillery shells, it was the small FPV drones that helped them survive. Small drones made from cheap commercial components are destroying Russian soldiers and equipment. Only they helped the defenders of Ukraine to maintain the front lines when the Russians had incomparably more weapons and ammunition.
Russians defend their armoured equipment against drones with steel nets and grilles. They believe that a drone will explode further away from the armour and the vehicle will remain intact. Sometimes that does happen. But one cannot forget that Ukrainians have a lot of drones and they are cheap. One drone can destroy the cage, and the other will reach the armoured car through the newly opened hole. And those cages make it difficult for the Russian crews to evacuate once their tank is on fire.
There is also another way. A new video showed how the Ukrainian border guards stopped a Russian tank with several FPV drone blows near Bakhmut. You can see that the tracks of the Russian T-90M were broken. The crew then fled, leaving the hatches and the anti-drone fully open. Then a drone showed up with an RPG warhead and slowly and carefully manoeuvred itself into the tank, completely destroying it.
Note: the video can also be seen at this link.
These cages do not protect the tracks. Once the tank is immobile, it is pretty much primed for destruction. On the other hand, the crew at least survived and managed to evacuate.
The tank, by the way, was the T-90M, which Russians considered to be at least one the best main battle tanks in the world. Russia has been losing a lot of them in Ukraine lately. It is estimated that one T-90M costs about 4.5 million dollars. An anti-drone fence probably doesn’t cost anything because it’s made from scrap metal, and a Ukrainian drone with an RPG warhead is about $550. War finances are kind of weird.
By the way, take a look at that Russian anti-drone protection cage. How many components it has – fences, nets, camouflage, reactive armour protection tiles were cobbled together to make that. And the drone just slowly and carefully threads through the open hatch.
FPV drones will definitely change the warfare of the future. But it is difficult to believe that someday main battle tanks will look like that T-90M.
Written by Povilas M.
Sources: Special Kherson Cat Twitter, Wikipedia
