Feb 16, 2024
RUSSIAN STATE MEDIA CAPTURE
When Russia-aligned Republicans in the U.S. Congress began blocking U.S. aid to Ukraine starting in October, they deprived Ukrainian forces of one of their main sources of artillery ammunition.
The Ukrainians adapted as best as they could, tapping the growing domestic supply of two-pound first-person-view drones, each packing a pound of explosives. By December, workers in Ukraine were building around 50,000 FPVs a month at a cost of a few hundred dollars apiece.
Ranging as far as two miles from their operators, the tiny drones plink Russian vehicles and even chase down, and blow up, individual Russian soldiers who swat at them with rifles and sticks.
Today the FPV might be the most casualty-producing weapon in the Ukrainian inventory. And the Russians know it. It’s not for no reason they’re bolting radio-jammers onto more and more vehicles. In theory, a jammer should block the radio signal between an FPV and its operator, throwing the drone off course.
The problem, for the Russians, is that their jammers simply don’t work. The first generation of battlefield jammer, the RP-377, mostly failed to stop FPVs. Now the second-generation Volnorez jammer is failing, too.
It’s an open question whether a third generation of jammer, the Saniya, might improve on its predecessors. It’s fair to say it’s an existential question for many Russian troops in Ukraine.
As FPV drones replaced artillery as the most serious threat to Russian ground forces late last year, the Russian military responded by attaching, to its armored vehicles, whatever radio-jammers it had on hand.
At first, that meant RP-377 man-portable jammers, which the Kremlin developed to protect its troops in Syria from radio-detonated bombs. The RP-377 had the advantage of being available in fairly large numbers.
There was some risk the jammers would thwart Ukrainian drone operations. “I saw the spectrograms,” Ukrainian drone expert Serhii Beskrestnov wrote after inspecting a captured RP-377. “The interference is very high quality.”
But “the price for this is a small range of protection,” Beskrestnov added. The RP-377 usually is a backpack system: it draws power from portable batteries rather than from a vehicle’s engine. So when an RP-377 tries to jam multiple frequencies—a power-hungry mode of operation—it sacrifices range.
«Волнорез» (https://t.co/HjUx9cuRUO) на Т-90М pic.twitter.com/0IDrQxrPk8
— Andrei_bt (@AndreiBtvt) October 2, 2023
Yes, a Ukrainian FPV might go blind as it barrels toward its target. But it goes blind when it’s already on course for a crippling hit. The RP-377 works, but it doesn’t work far enough. How far, exactly? Maybe just tens of yards.
This apparently was the weakness in Russian jamming that Ukrainian drone-operators exploited late last year and early this year as they flew their FPVs right through the electromagnetic interference. It’s to their credit that they figured out the RP-377’s vulnerability in time to take advantage of it.
But the Ukrainians’ advantage looked like it might end as the Russians adapted. When the RP-377’s flaws became apparent, the Kremlin began installing more and more purpose-built, vehicle-mounted Volnorez jammers that reportedly have a range of half a mile.
But a Volnorez is useless if it isn’t built right. And by now it’s apparent many of them are very badly made. “Dismantling several burnt-out Volnorez products led to discoveries that left the experts completely surprised,” a Russian blogger wrote in a missive translated by @wartranslated.
“Absolutely poor build quality,” the blogger complained. “The mean time between failures is the same as in children’s transistors.”
Equally troubling, the Volnorez jammers tend to overheat. And their antennae leave a dead zone in a cone above the jammers—a vulnerability “Ukrainians spoke about,” according to the blogger.
So now the Russians are moving on from their practically brand-new Volnorez jammers, which were state of the art mere months ago, and replacing them with even newer Saniya jammers theoretically ranging nearly a mile.
The stakes couldn’t be higher. If the Saniyas are well-made and adequately-powered and actually offer reliable protection, they could begin to blunt Ukraine’s drone advantage, which is one of its few advantages as Russia’s wider war grinds into its third year and Republicans continue to deprive Ukrainian forces of artillery ammunition.
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“Absolutely poor build quality,” the blogger complained. “The mean time between failures is the same as in children’s transistors.”
Isn’t mafia land using child labor to build drones and other gear? Then it makes sense that their stuff is of poor quality.
Let’s hope that mafia land either can’t produce an effective drone jammer or that Ukraine receives enough artillery ammo very soon to negate the importance of drones as roach roasters.
Do you remember that article about a powerful high explosive that could be effective for small drones that I linked you to? You mentioned that you’d bring it up with your contact. Was it of use?
Winning the drone war is as important as winning the artillery war for Ukraine. They intend to put 1m drones in the air this year.
Since piloting a drone requires a different skill set to fighting, there must be thousands of job opportunities for gamers and intelligent nerdy kids?
I hope the Ukrainians have a huge supply of such people. They will need them.
They know all about explosives, Scradge, from black powder to the most recent developments.