More than a century has passed, but the practice has returned. Last week, a Ukrainian soldier flying a Yak-25 training plane built in the 1970s and belonging to the Voluntary Aviation Club of Ukraine staged a real aerial battle with a Russian Orlan drone in southern Ukraine. And very successfully that 100 thousand. shot down a costly Russian drone.
“This is not the first case on the Ukrainian front where tactics and technologies of the First World War are being recreated. Trench warfare is back. Also tanks-turtles and Maksim machine guns. But the “gunner vs. drone” air battle is possibly the most dramatic example of modern war taking place under brutal conditions in Ukraine,” writes Forbes.
The attack was filmed both in the air and on the ground. In the footage, the 1.5-ton plane circles the Orlan drone, gunshots are heard, and the shot drone falls down with its parachute fully deployed automatically.
Light propeller aircraft with gunners on board are a conscious choice to combat slow moving drones without spending too much money. A machine gun on the back of a helicopter or aircraft saves valuable air defense missiles.
“The cost of thousands (if not millions) of dollars for each missile that destroys a relatively inexpensive drone is an economic failure,” wrote Paul Maxwell, deputy director of the Army Cyber Institute at the United States Military Academy.
Saving their best air defense munitions is crucial for the Ukrainians in their third year of war. Ukraine still gets most of its missiles from its allies abroad, and the half-meter supply disruption from the United States means that Kyiv’s missile stockpile is currently very thin.
But inexpensive drone combat tactics are not as simple as they might appear at first glance: in order to shoot down a drone while sitting in the back of such an aircraft, the pilot has to fly very close to the target, and the shooter has to aim very well.
Ukraine announces on Monday that in the period from 2022 February 24 until 2024 April 29 the Russian occupying forces in Ukraine lost a total of 467,470 soldiers. In the last 24 hours alone, 1,320 enemies were killed or wounded on the battlefield, according to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Ukrinform reports.
Ukrainian defenders reportedly destroyed 7,285 enemy tanks (+6 in the last 24 hours), 14,007 armored fighting vehicles (+16), 11,985 artillery systems (+37), 1,051 missile launchers (+1), 778 air defense systems (+2), 348 warplanes, 325 helicopters, 9,528 drones (+21), 2,124 cruise missiles (+3), 26 warships/boats, 1 submarine, 16,109 vehicles (+44) , 1,974 units of special equipment (+3).
Data on enemy losses is constantly updated.
In the last 24 hours, 131 battles were reported across the front. The Ukrainian Air Force attacked thirteen places where Russian troops were concentrated.
