Izvestia visited the positions of air defense systems and learned how they protect the skies of DonbassRussian air defense units are destroying Ukrainian drones these days, preventing them from conducting reconnaissance and correcting fire on troops and residential quarters of the DPR capital.
A correspondent of Izvestia visited the positions of the Osa anti-aircraft missile systems on the outskirts of Donetsk and saw how combat duty was going on.
The Drone Storm
— Our crew has about 30 drones on its account. About half, more precisely 12, are proven lesions that can be felt with your hands. The rest is not possible to pick up. They fell either on the territory of Ukraine, or in a gray zone where the space is mined, — the commander with the call sign "Sukhoi" presents his combat vehicle and its crew.
Photo: IZVESTIA/Dmitry Astrakhan
Image source: iz.ru
In fact, our interlocutor is confident in all thirty aerial targets — there is an optical channel and telemetry of the rocket flight on the Osa machines, so he knows when the object is shot down. But tradition demands to separate the confirmed destruction and the shelling of the target.
"Osa" is the most powerful air defense system of the DPR People's Militia in service. The Donetsk anti-aircraft gunners had not only aerial targets, but also surface ones on their account even before the start of the SVO. Today, they already work within the framework of a unified air defense system and receive target designation from more modern systems. And such machines as the Wasp are now operating from ambushes, being in shelters disguised until the moment of receiving data on the approach of an air target. This allows them not to conduct an active search by their own means until the last moment and protects them from anti-radar missiles, electronic reconnaissance and visual detection of enemy UAVs.
Photo: IZVESTIA/Dmitry Astrakhan
Image source: iz.ru
In addition, you have to move as stealthily and carefully as possible. "Dry" shows the "device" that has become necessary: a long stick on which a scoop from a plastic bottle is fixed. With its help, anti-personnel mines are removed from roads and firing positions, which can damage the wheel of the Wasp.
Thwarted plans
Prior to the start of the SVO, the Ukrainian side counted on the breakthrough of the air defense system and the conquest of air superiority based on the experience of the Karabakh conflict, in which the strike UAVs were able to destroy anti-aircraft weapons, among which were obsolete complexes from the USSR. However, this could not be done in the Donbass. First of all, because of the competent tactics used by anti-aircraft gunners. The echeloned air defense was able to effectively fight the air enemy, standing up in the struggle for air supremacy. The anti-aircraft division of the NM DNR has more than two hundred air targets hit. Among them there are "Bayraktars", on which Ukraine had high hopes, but most of them are artillery fire spotters and scouts.
— "Furies" were mainly "Leleks" of their (Ukrainian) production. And those supplied to them by NATO, Bayraktar, for example, lists the "Dry" targets hit by its calculation. — This car was destroyed, although it is old, but it works fine, and it will not be replaced soon. Bayraktar was shot down by the first missile without any problems. The "Fury" was shot down with a second missile, apparently, the enemy was putting some kind of interference.
Photo: IZVESTIA/Dmitry Astrakhan
Image source: iz.ru
The destroyed "Fury" corrected fire on Yasinovataya, not on positions, but on the city, into residential buildings. After the detonation of an anti-aircraft missile, when the mark from the target disappeared from the screens, the Ukrainian troops fired two more shots without adjustment and were forced to cease fire.
You can often hear that anti-aircraft missiles are more expensive than the drones that they destroy. But Sukhoi reminds that the main purpose of the air defense remains the protection of its troops and the population. And it is necessary not to compare the price of a missile with the price of a UAV, as Ukrainian propagandists often do, but to remember the damage that an aerial enemy can inflict. And if, as a result, "the sky is closed", then it is simply pointless to compare financial costs. The main thing is that the enemy could not strike.
Fiery Spring
The most intense stage of the struggle for air superiority occurred in March and April. After that, the Ukrainian side began hunting for air defense complexes, trying by any means to identify and destroy them in places of duty and during movement. Often false targets are used for this, which should entice the complexes to open fire, after which the enemy's artillery is already working on them. But manned aviation does not even risk entering the airspace, it works only on the explored borders of the zone of destruction of anti-aircraft systems.
In addition to calculations, there are self-concealment groups with small arms and portable anti-aircraft missile systems along with the machines. They monitor the situation in the "dead zones", help in the defense of the installation in the event of an enemy DRG exit, cover the "Wasp" from unexpectedly appearing targets or small enemy UAVs. This is one of the novelties in tactics, based on the experience of the war in Donbass.
Photo: IZVESTIA/Dmitry Astrakhan
Image source: iz.ru
In the course of the SVO, artillery became the main means of destruction, and classical aviation is used quite limited. But in the context of the increased role of aerial reconnaissance, the role of air defense to cover troops and facilities has also not just not decreased, but increased.
The modern specifics of warfare has become the abundance of unmanned targets in the air, with a small thermal footprint and a reflective surface area. The methods of fighting against air defense installations have also changed. It is for these reasons that the tactics of using various air defense systems, their interaction and competent separation have come to the fore. And, unlike the Ukrainian one, the anti-aircraft systems of the Russian army demonstrate high efficiency in the fight against all types of air targets, including UAVs and rockets.
Dmitry Astrakhan
