Drones and Other Stories
Over the last two years, Ukraine has grown its drone capacity. They can attack deep in Russia with domestically produced weapons. Overnight was one of those nights where even Moscow suffered from such hits.
Now, it’s raised essential questions. After all, Moscow, you would think, would be impervious to hitting hit. It seems air defense is not there. This is via Important Stories:
Air defense fails. The second mass drone attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in a month has caused fires and the death of a resident of the Moscow region. The target could have been the Gromov Flight Research Institute, the largest aircraft development center
At least 144 drones, according to the Defense Ministry, were launched in ten Russian regions, including the capital. This is the second massive attack of Ukrainian UAVs on Russia in 10 days — the first was on the night of September 1 and became the largest since the beginning of the war. The raid led to the death of a resident of the Moscow region for the first time — in a multi-story building in Ramenskoye. Three more people were injured. A fire broke out at Zhukovsky Airport.
MO, together with a military expert, looked into the goals of these attacks and what is wrong with the air defense
🔺 What are the purposes of drones in the Moscow region?
The drones’ intended targets are unknown, but they were unlikely to be residential buildings, military analyst Yan Matveyev told MO. “Zhukovsky Airport is located on the territory of the Gromov Flight Research Institute , which develops and tests military aircraft. It cannot be ruled out that the targets were in Moscow, and the drones specifically approached the city from this direction to avoid the Rublyovka area, which is densely populated with air defenses.” The MAKS air show was held on the territory of the Gromov Flight Research Institute; it has been postponed since 2022 “for security reasons.”🔺 Are these drones controllable?
According to eyewitness videos, Lyuty drones were used. They have been repeatedly used to attack Russian oil refineries and military facilities. They most likely have an inertial guidance system — the flight route and target are set before takeoff, the drone flies completely autonomously (has no connection with the operator). Such systems have the ability to correct using GPS data, but it is jammed in Moscow. Low flight altitude is needed to avoid detection by air defense systems, but because of this , drones often crash into tall buildings .🔺 What’s wrong with air defense?
Ukraine has established mass production of drones, but Russia’s problem with the lack of air defense has not been solved , says Matveyev. “The Russian military does not use, at least not on a large scale, the Ukrainian experience of fighting drones — mobile groups in vehicles with machine guns.”
I have seen some of those pickups with quad water-cooled maxim machine guns. They served the same exact role as American quad-50s during the Second World War. One unit near Kyiv is an all-women unit that has been very effective at shooting Shaheed drones.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Rumination's to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.