Among the many most notable developments within the warfare in Ukraine is the ubiquity of First Individual View (FPV) drones, a extremely maneuverable loitering munition each side are utilizing to devastating impact. They’re now dominating the battlefield to a level. We’ve got showcased quite a few movies of the FPV drones damaging or destroying tanks, vehicles and even particular person troopers. Much less generally seen are incidents by which automobiles survive a number of such assaults.
That was the story, nevertheless, behind a fortunate T-80BVM tank crew not too long ago. The video under exhibits the tank because it runs for its life whereas coming beneath sustained assault by a succession of explosive-laden FPV drones.
https://twitter.com/RALee85/standing/1735054305982398507 https://twitter.com/OSINTua/standing/1735049223605784645
As to who the tank belongs to, that is is not completely clear. Rob Lee (@RALee85), Senior Fellow on the Overseas Coverage Analysis Institute, says it’s a Russian tank based mostly on feedback from @OSINTua. The Pristanishche VK Telegram channel, which orignally posted the video, says the tank is Ukrainian.
The video opens with the tank rumbling down a street, sporting a “cope cage” roof display screen to guard in opposition to drone assaults from above and spewing a smoke display screen. A couple of seconds into it, there may be the intense flash of an explosion by an obvious FPV drone.
Because the tank continues down the street, it manages to keep away from hits from a number of extra FPV drones, in addition to taking one immediately. We counted half a dozen FPV drones that tried to take the tank out within the brief video.
The video ends with the tank passing that rapid FPV gauntlet because it retains on spewing smoke.
One other tweet locates the tank driving towards the town of Krasnohorivka within the Donetsk area of japanese Ukraine.
https://twitter.com/moklasen/standing/1735051064892645858
After holding a large benefit on the subject of fielding giant quantities of FPV drones, Ukraine is now discovering itself more and more outgunned on this regard. Russia has as much as seven occasions extra FPV drones than Ukraine and has grow to be adept at repurposing civilian drones for army use, in response to Ukrainian military commander Yuriy Fedorenko in an interview with Suspilne public broadcaster on December 12.
“In precedence frontline sectors, we’ve got the next ratio: one in all our drones to 5 or seven enemy drones,” Fedorenko mentioned.
https://twitter.com/RALee85/standing/1734716836657123422
Either side are in an all-out push to construct as many FPV assault drones as doable as quick as they’ll as these techniques at the moment are being portrayed as rivaling artillery on the battlefield.
No matter how the stability of FPV drone functionality on the battlefield in Ukraine shakes out, this video serves as stark and considerably terrifying instance of the place warfare is headed. It is one thing The Conflict Zone has warned of for a few years — a significant factor of who wins or loses future fights will likely be what number of low-end drones they’ll deploy throughout the battlefield.
Defending in opposition to such a quite a few and resilient onslaught has rapidly grow to be a prime tactical downside of our age.
Contact the writer: howard@thewarzone.com
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