Shooting down a kamikaze drone with a machine gun is not easy and is often fatally risky for the fighters themselves
In order to maximally protect critical infrastructure objects from Iranian Shahed kamikaze drones, which on Monday, October 17, attacked Kyiv and hit, among other things, a residential building, the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine ordered to send volunteers to the locations of electrical substations, thermal power plants, water canals, etc., so that they could shoot down enemy drones with the help of small arms. However, as the former People's Deputy and ex-advisor to the commander of the Armed Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Vitaliy Kupriy, notes, all the risks of such work for themselves were not explained to the military and they were not prepared to shoot down such objects.
“Task: try to shoot down enemy drones with the help of small arms and prevent the destruction of these objects. It seems that everything is fine, but solving this problem in this way is currently problematic and even dangerous for the fighters of the voluntary formations of territorial communities. It turns out that no one explained to the volunteers, who in many cases do not have experience in combat operations, how to do it effectively, safely, and did not provide them with the proper weapons,” Kupriy emphasizes.
Yes, firstly, the presence of fighters right next to the objects targeted by the drone attack exposes them to danger.
“It is extremely difficult to shoot down a kamikaze drone at the final stage of the flight, when it is already diving towards the target. But when you shoot at a drone that is approaching you and hit the target, you should still remember that it can still fall on you due to its inertia. Therefore, as a rule, it is necessary to knock them down from the sides or behind. You cannot do this while being in the immediate vicinity of the object you are defending. This is suicide!”, – he emphasizes the riskiness of the idea.
Secondly, according to him, in order to successfully shoot down a drone the direction from which it flies must be known , the estimated time of arrival, and this notification system is currently still ineffective.
Yes, the drone must be shot down in advance and so that at that time it is not over a population center or another place that may be affected by an explosion after being shot down . Since the combat part of the Iranian-made Shahed 136 kamikaze drone weighs approximately 20-40 kilograms, and the radius of destruction by debris is at least a hundred meters and high and destructive power.
Thirdly,notes Kupriy, in order to more effectively shoot down drones appropriate small arms are necessary, at least a machine gun with a large magazine capacity.
“However, Teroboron volunteers are mostly issued only 5.45 mm Kalashnikov assault rifles. To shoot down a drone with such a weapon, you need to guess exactly where it will fly and make a dense fire, 4-5 machine gunners at least. It's not easy,” the ex-deputy states.
Another important point – to see where the bullets from an automatic or machine gun fire are flying, you need to to provide the fighters precisely with tracer bullets. Also, to increase the probability of destroying a drone in the air, it is desirable to provide fighters with armor-piercing and incendiary bullets. However, this is not done.
Fifth, if the drone attack takes place in the dark part of the day, then shooting at the sound without a thermal imager is generally ineffective. And their presence is now a rarity, for example for many DFTG in the northern part of the country.
“The following conclusion suggests itself. In order to properly protect our critical infrastructure objects from Iranian kamikaze drones with the help of ground defense volunteers, it is necessary, in addition to issuing combat orders, to properly prepare them and provide them with the necessary weapons,” he emphasized. Kuprii.
Read also: Zelensky showed a video of a drone attack on Kyiv: “The enemy will not be able to break us”
It should be noted that Shahed-136 kamikaze drones, which Russia purchased from Iran, have been actively terrorizing and attacking Ukrainian cities lately. Only this night in the south of the country, the air defense forces shot down fifteen such drones.
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At the beginning of the war, the territorial defense became one of the first to protect the regions where the invaders invaded. However, today there are obvious threatening trends towards the disarmament of members of the DFTG, as, for example, it is happening in Kyiv region, Sumy region, etc. How to save ТРО and bring victory closer, read in the material of the People's Deputy of Ukraine of the 8th convocation, ex-adviser of the ТРО forces commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Vitaliy Kupriya “ТРО needs immediate reform”.
See special topic: During the drone attack on Kyiv, energy facilities were also damaged – the prime minister The authorities call on Ukrainians to control the use of electricity, especially during peak hours. RF troops shelled four districts of the Kharkiv region with artillery: there are dead and wounded Among the wounded is a 16-year-old boy. The occupiers released the mayor of Kherson from captivity – mass media According to unofficial data, he left the city. As a result of the drone attack on Kyiv, one person died One more person is under the rubble. Russia has launched a secret military satellite The details of the mission and the technical characteristics of the device have not been disclosed.
