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A Ukrainian battalion has printed a video of a shotgun-mounted drone destroying dozens of targets.
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It is one of many greatest footage collections of drones taking pictures down different drones.
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The tech is probably going primarily based on a World Struggle I recoilless gun, which fires from each ends of a barrel.
Propellers whirring over the frost-laden panorama, the Ukrainian drone approaches, twin barrels creeping towards the enemy bomber.
A flash erupts on its connected first-person view digicam, and the goal — a DJI Mavic drone — falls lifelessly to the bottom.
Dozens of different assaults play in speedy succession, every displaying the ends of two barrels blasting Mavics out of the sky.
The video was posted on Sunday by the 2nd Motorized Battalion of Ukraine’s thirtieth Mechanized Brigade, which is preventing close to Bakhmut. Its accompanying caption was easy. “Taking pictures down enemy drones is likely one of the priorities of the 2nd Battalion of the thirtieth Mechanized Brigade,” the battalion wrote on its Telegram channel.
These clips type a part of one of many largest recorded collections made public of a comparatively novel idea in motion — drones taking pictures down different drones.
The follow additionally carries implications for a way battlefield know-how is evolving extra broadly within the struggle, as Ukrainian and Russian items have experimented with attaching firearms and even molten thermite to drones, basically creating flying weapons and flame-spewers.
In Sunday’s put up, the double-barreled shotgun drone primarily focused what look like Mavics. These light-weight, industrial Chinese language-made drones are costly and, due to this fact, usually reserved for scouting or bombing missions by each side.
Inspiration from World Struggle I
Ukraine’s Presidential Brigade, which has items preventing in Luhansk, publicized an equivalent creation to the shotgun drone in early March.
Footage confirmed a recoilless gun idea, the place a quadcopter is fitted with lengthy barrels designed to fireplace from each ends. One facet goals on the goal, whereas the alternative finish fires to offer counter-recoil and hold the drone secure.
“The influence issue is robust. You do not want precision; the unfold impact is what issues,” a brigade member advised the digicam.
The brigade printed a clip of the drone firing at a goal board, its twin barrels roaring. Because the drone was not seen with a reload mechanism, the shotgun will seemingly need to return for guide reloading.
The identical concept was seen in Ukraine as early as late December, when a Ukrainian charity, LesiaUA, posted clips of what it mentioned have been shotgun-mounted drones it had helped to fund. Visually, the drone seems to be the identical kind because the thirtieth Mechanized Brigade’s.
Russian drone producers had already been testing the idea as early as September. State media outlet RIA Novosti printed an article that month masking the design of a single barrel mounted on a drone that would fireplace in each instructions concurrently.
“It operates on the precept of the Davis plane cannon from World Struggle I,” the outlet wrote.
Designed from experiments by US Navy Commander Cleland Davis in 1910, the gun supplied militaries with a strategy to scale back recoil however was cumbersome to reload. It noticed restricted use in World Struggle I.
Drone growth strikes shortly in Ukraine largely as a result of industry’s decentralized nature. Volunteers, items, and producers usually work on particular person initiatives and promote them to one another.
Many creations, equivalent to fiber optic drones, have more and more featured legacy know-how used to beat extra fashionable gear. Within the West, it is prompted issues amongst some protection analysts that the NATO military-industrial advanced has positioned too much emphasis on developing advanced weaponry, with out contemplating the need for quantity or the potential of lower-tech options.
Learn the unique article on Business Insider
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