Jan 14, 2025
United24
FPV drones, small racing quadcopters typically armed with warheads scavenged from RPGs, have been the signature weapon of the conflict in Ukraine. Ukraine made more than a million last year, and Russia is not far behind. But as electronic jammers proliferate, some have suggested that the gloss is wearing off and FPVs are becoming less effective.
In June, French Army Chief of Staff Gen. Schill suggested that 75% of FPVs were being brought down by electronic warfare and that number was rising. He said that the success of drones against tanks early in the war was a mere “a moment in history” and armor would soon resume its rightful place.
A brief survey indicates that the “moment” is not over. FPVs are still extremely effective at taking out even the toughest Russian tanks. In fact, we may just be starting to see what they can do and their impact may be rising rather than falling.
Save The T-90M! New Armor, Nets, Jammers…
As we previously discussed, the only way to establish the proportion of kills are scored by one type of weapon system is to look at all confirmed kills and to establish where credit goes for each. Doing this for all Russian armored vehicles would take a prohibitive amount of time, so here we are looking at one specific type, the T-90M ‘Breakthrough’ tank.
Declared by Putin to be the best tank in the world, the T-90M is Russia’s newest and most advanced tank. In particular, during the ‘special military operation’ (the Russian term for the invasion of Ukraine), the T-90M has had multiple upgrades to protect it against new threats, in particular FPV drones.
T-90Ms coming from the factory have roof screens, rubber shielding protecting the turret rear, additional reactive armor, and radio-frequency jammers as standard. The newest will also have the Arena active protection system designed to intercept incoming threats. These are high-value assets and everything possible is being done to protect them.
Russian MoD via Twitter/X
In addition, the levels of electronic warfare have steadily increased, and Russian forces are now well supplied with devices to detect and jam FPV communications. In some areas it is reportedly impossible to fly drones close to the front line due to the density of jammers, with as many as one every 100 yards.
In this environment and against such targets, the proportion of FPV kills would be expected to decline. We would expect a greater proportion if kills to be scored heavier traditional weapons — anti-tank missiles, unguided rockets, artillery, and by other tanks.
But that is not what the data shows.
Quarterly Toll
In the last quarter of 2024, both the indefatigable analysts at Oryx recorded a total of 10 visually confirmed T-90M losses, a number confirmed by their colleagues at Warspotting. There may be other, unrecorded losses, but as tanks are typically knocked out close to the front line and as T-90Ms are rare and notable, this likely represents most if not all T-90M combat losses.
In some Oryx imagery, the kill is clearly scored by an FPV, such as this one from October. Indications include the way that the video is taken from extremely close to the tank at low level, and the operator display which is typical of FPVs rather than scouts. This analysis is confirmed on viewing the original video, published on YouTube which shows the entire attack and its results.
Images of a second destroyed T-90M from 29th October are more ambiguous. Again, a fuller sequence of images displayed by WarSpotting, confirm the destruction was the work of a Ukrainian FPV. Similarly a T-90M seen destroyed on 11th November with no obvious cause is again found to be the victim of FPVs in the full sequence posted on WarSpotting.
A T-90M recorded on 24th October is seen from a similar angle. This is likely taken a turret hit from an FPV, but this is impossible to confirm. This one remains a possible only.
In two cases the T-90M’s are definitely destroyed not by FPVs but by bomber drones from above, one on 4th November and one on 16th December. The size of the bombs indicates the attackers were Ukrainian ‘Baba Yaga’ heavy bombers.
A T-90M from 13th November suffered a more unusual fate. In what looks like a simple driver error, while traveling alongside ditch, the tank goes over the edge and rolls upside down. Shortly afterwards it is hit by two FPVs which have the unusual opportunity of going through the thin belly armor. This is a legitimate, opportunistic FPV kill.
The most dramatic destruction occurred on 22nd November a T-90M experienced ‘turret toss’ – an internal explosion so violent that the turret was thrown high into the air. This is the result of stored ammunition exploding, and far more common in older Soviet T-tanks. The Oryx images do not indicate what caused the explosion only the aftermath.
An official Ukrainian Ministry of Defense post a few days later indicated that the kills was scored with a U.S. supplied Switchblade 600 loitering munition. Video of the event shows the tank seen from close range by an FPV (distinguished by rotor blades in the field of view at :02- :05 seconds). FPVs are typically deployed in teams with a follow up to confirm the results of a strike or finish the job, in this case the FPV was apparently following a Switchblade rather than another FPV.
Another kill from 17th November gives no clue, but again a full sequence of images from WarSpotting indicates this was destroyed by one or more FPVs.
Finally, a destroyed vehicle seen on 27th December has lost a track, a strong indication it struck an anti-tank mine. Further damage may also have been caused by the mine or by follow-up attacks, but there is no further information.
In summary then: out of ten cases we have five definite FPVs, one possible FPV kill, two bombers, one Switchblade 600 one anti-tank mine. Or 50% FPV, 20% bombers, 20% other and 10% unknown. Of course a wider survey is needed to confirm the results, but they do point strongly in one direction.
This is a higher proportion of FPV kills than we saw that the last survey a year ago where FPVs killed less than half. At the very least this indicates that FPVs are currently destroying as many T-90Ms as every other weapon system put together.
The Shape Of Drones To Come
There is some question about whether some of the T-90Ms might have been damaged or disabled by other weapon systems first, but this is impossible to determine. The lack of, for example, shell craters nearby makes artillery strikes unlikely.
‘Kriegsforscher‘, fighting with the Ukrainian marines, notes that in his section of the front armored vehicles are mainly stopped by missiles and mines. Many of these are finished off by FPVs after they are damaged, but he says only 10-15% of moving vehicles are destroyed by FPVs. We do not know whether the same applies in other areas, but it is worth consideration.
In the examples above some of the tanks were moving at the start of the engagement, and in some cases stationary vehicles had hatches closed, indicating they were still occupied as fleeing Russians usually leave tank hatches open. In other cases the vehicles do look abandoned. It is possible that guided missiles or other weapons were involved in some cases…but more evidence would be needed to support this claim. In any case, if follow-up FPVs are needed, the missiles/mines themselves are clearly not solely responsible for the kill.
It is notable that none of these kills were around defensive positions: the Russian tanks were on the offensive and out of the protective umbrella of trench jammers and other static EW systems.
This suggests that jamming may be effective in defence but is not shielding attacking forces. And as Ukraine fields increasing numbers of unjammable fiber-optic guided drones we may start to see a rise in kills. It may be the jammer that has had its brief day of success rather than the FPV.
As for the T-90M armor upgrades, these may have saved some tanks, but there is no good evidence of this. The lack of images of damaged-but-not-destroyed T-90Ms which the Oryx site also records suggests otherwise. Rather it suggests that it may take several FPVs to destroy a tank, but once they start, there are always enough to complete the job. On current evidence , nothing works well enough. T-90Ms piled with triple-decker armor resembling a wedding cake (aka ‘Tsar Barbecue’) and sporting multiple jammers still fell victim to the small drones.
Western tanks are far more survivable for the crew, are not much more resistant. When the Ukrainians recently had to destroy one its own M1 Abrams to prevent it falling into Russian hands, they used an FPV to do it.
This all indicates that FPVs are likely to dominate tank killing. A Ukrainian drone pilot writing in the British Army Review in December commented that “FPV drones .. can now be described as the Ukrainian army’s principal anti-tank weapon,” and the numbers support this claim.
As Ukraine build more FPVs are equips them with jam-proof fiber optic guidance and AI target seeking, FPVs may become even more dominant in 2025.
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“T-90Ms piled with triple-decker armor resembling a wedding cake (aka ‘Tsar Barbecue’) and sporting multiple jammers still fell victim to the small drones.”
Until an effective protection system is developed against drones, they will remain being a primary weapon against the enemy, regardless of what the target is. This is the truth of modern combat in the 21st century … so far.