Russian Boat Marines Blast Their Way Through FPV Barrage With Shotguns

Three Russian marines on an assault boat engage an incoming drone

Russian MoD

A dramatic Russian video of boat operations on the Dnipro River shows the crew using shotguns to ward off repeated attacks by FPV drones.

On the surface the video, shared on X by Canadian OSINT analyst Roy, seems to show that a team of well-trained, well-equipped shooters can survive even in a zone of intense FPV activity. A closer look at the video suggests things are not quite so straightforward.

A Deadly Thrill Ride

The 2:49 video was taken by a marine with a helmet-mounted camera. After 20 seconds of establishing shots of the boat traveling at speed down narrow channels, there is an almost continuous series of separate engagements edited together.

At least three troops with semi-automatic shotguns, one with an automatic rifle and one with a belt-fed machinegun engage a steady stream of incoming drones. 13 drones are seen to be destroyed, two of them in very near misses on or next to the boat. These may have injured crew members – we do not see the results.

In several engagements the crew fire into the sky at invisible drones, in other cases an FPV passes close enough to be identified, one falling out of the sky just a few feet from the boat.

While the video is edited to look like one eventful mission, there are some giveaways that this is not the case. One is that the sky goes from cloudy, to blue, to overcast, to blue again and then back to cloudy. There may have been changeable conditions, or several operations from different days have been edited together.

It is also not clear how many of the incoming drones are brought down by fire and how many by radio-frequency electronic warfare (EW). Jamming antennas, carried by most Russian combat vehicles, are visible on the boat superstructure.

“The Russian boat had a whole array of EW jammers that likely accounted for some of the downed Ukrainian FPVs, especially those that fell at a distance beyond effective shotgun range,” Roy told me.

Small jammers typically have an effective range of 50-100 metres and cause the operator to lose control, so the drone tends to follow a ballistic trajectory until it crashes. Being fused, FPV warheads explode on impact whether or not the operator is in control.

It is notable that unlike the usual poorly-equipped ‘Mobiks’ sent on ground assaults with a few weeks training, the boat marines look like an elite unit.

“The Russians marines were much better equipped than regular line units, and like other elite units were very likely trained with the use of shotguns,” says Roy.

Posters have noted one marine with a tourniquet already in position around his thigh, to be tightened to stop bleeding if he is hit by shrapnel. Cleary, he believed there was a high probability of being injured on the mission.

“The tourniquets were modern windlass types that are much more effective than the standard issue of rubber bands,” says Roy. Again, this suggests an elite unit.

At 2:47 the boat stopping to pick up a group of other Russian marines, wading through the water. One of them is injured; Roy’s best guess is that these are the survivors from another boat which has been hit by drones. The lead marine carries an assault rifle in one hand and a shotgun in the other.

The Lifesaving Shotgun Vs Survivor Bias

Clearly it is possible to take out an FPV at close range with a shotgun, and this certainly saves lives. Both sides have adopted shotguns on a large scale and frequently issue appeals for them. This week a donor from the Netherlands gifted Ukrainian forces with over 700 Husan MKA1919 semi-automatic shotguns with red dot sights for rapid aiming and 20,000 rounds of ammunition.

“The favorite weapon of anti-aircraft gunners at air defence sites and in hunting groups is an automatic shotgun with a large magazine,” notes one Russian blogger. “Assault rifles and machine guns…are much less effective against FPV drones.”

Russian media have also carried stories about anti-FPV shotgun training, sometimes carried out by Olympic champion shooters. The expert shooters note that shooting FPVs is harder than skeet, even without the added stress of imminent death, but feasible.

Shotgun makers are moving to supply this new market. Benelli’s M4 A.I. Drone Guardian is purpose-built for taking down small drones with special tungsten ammunition.

It would be a mistake to think that carrying a shotgun makes you immune to drone attacks. The video tends to promote ‘survivorship bias,’ We tend not so see the videos where the defenders are killed.

We do have some videos from survivors of shotgun fails, like this Russian who failed to protect his patrol from an incoming FPV. There are also accounts like one from a Russian soldier who described how his team shot down several FPVs attacking his vehicle one after another…until they ran out of ammo and the sixth drone hit the vehicle, disabling it fire and injuring several of the occupants. Those in the second boat might also tell a different story about the effectiveness of shotguns.

We also have many videos seen from attacking FPVs, in which soldiers

with shotguns are targeted. Again this is vulnerable to survivorship bias from the other side, as we do not know how many drones they have shot down first. But we do know how the story ends.

And this is an important lesson. A shotgun against FPVs is a last-ditch defensive measure. The drones cost a few hundred dollars each and are now being fielded literally by the million, a shotgun may buy you some more time…just not much.