Ukrainian Drones Are Carpet-Bombing The Russians

Look out down below! Ukraine’s tiny, terrifying DIY drones are carpet-bombing Russian forces.

Videos that have appeared online in recent weeks depict locally-made R-18 quadcopters carrying as many as 10 Soviet-style RKG-3 grenades. One video also depicts at least two Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles, operating as a swarm, dropping a whole lot of grenades on one Russian armored vehicle, apparently destroying it.

The videos speak to the Ukrainians’ ingenuity as Russia’s wider war on Ukraine grinds toward its sixth month. Ukrainian troops have been using drones—everything from 1,500-pound, missile-armed TB-2s down to off-the-shelf quadcopters weighing just a few pounds—to scout for the enemy, direct artillery fire and drop grenades.

Drones also have doubled as cruise missiles in Ukrainian service. Strap high-explosives to a UAV and crash it into, or land it next to, a Russian installation.

One recent modification to some quad- and octocopter UAVs—including the signature R-18 flown by Aerorozvidka, Ukraine’s volunteer drone air force—allows them to carry as many two-pound grenades as their payload allows. Around 10 in the case of the R-18.

The modification, possibly assisted by 3D-printing, adds to the drone what amounts to an open bomb bay.

The extra firepower sometimes is necessary. An RKG-3 grenade packs around a pound of explosives. A half-pound, U.S.-made M430 grenade has around a quarter-pound of explosives. A solid hit with either type might punch through an inch of steel armor.

Or it might not. A video that appeared online over the weekend, depicting a multi-drone assault on a Russian BTR-82 armored personnel carrier, underscores just how difficult it is to knock out a 15-ton vehicle. Unless, of course, you get lucky and drop a grenade directly into an open hatch.

The quadcopters swarming the BTR-82 dropped a dozen M430s before finally setting ablaze the wheeled APC. It’s unclear how many grenades each of the drones carried.

The BTR crew, which does not appear in the video and may have fled before the attack, actually assisted the Ukrainians by stowing ammunition atop the APC. The ammo began cooking off after the second grenade strike.

As Ukraine’s DIY drones grow more lethal, the Russian army is deploying more systems specifically for countering the UAVs, including radio-jammers that in theory can sever the command signal by which operators on the ground control their drones.

But jamming is easier said than done. You’ve got to know your enemy’s frequencies and overpower their signals. And you can bet that your anti-drone system is going to be a top target for … the very drones you’re trying to ground.

It’s not for no reason that, in Russian army practice, short-range air-defense systems often travel with smoke-generators. The smoke obscures the launchers as they take aim at enemy drones, in order to prevent the drones from striking back.

Consider what happened to one Russian counter-drone system—a Silok, a ROSC-1 or a combination of the two—reportedly somewhere in eastern Ukraine in early August. Ukrainian drones not only spotted the system, they were able to hover overhead and drop at least three grenades on it, damaging if not destroying it.