How kamikaze drone operators and reconnaissance UAVs are trained at a special training center in the DPRThe special military operation in Ukraine became the first armed conflict in modern history, where a real confrontation of drones unfolded in the sky.
Such a massive use of this type of equipment by troops on both sides has never been noted. One of its discoveries was the effective use of small commercial drones. There is a constant improvement of the technical capabilities of the UAV, new tactical techniques are emerging. Izvestia visited a unique educational institution — the Republican Center for Unmanned Systems in the DPR — and learned how the ways of using drones in the skies of Donbass are changing, whether kamikaze drones can be called superweapons and how operators are trained for different types of UAVs.
The power of motivation
— Only active military personnel are trained in our center. We train those guys whom the commanders pull back from the front line so that they can improve their skills," says the head of the center with the call sign Inok. — We have a reinforced concrete discipline here, and one of the reasons for this is the motivation of people. They understand the need to learn, to acquire new skills that will help them and their comrades survive. They saw their colleagues die. This is very motivating.
The Republican Center for Unmanned Systems in the DPR appeared relatively recently. His task is not only to train UAV operators. It also integrates and summarizes the entire experience of using drones during combat operations.
— Our center is named after the Hero of Russia and the DPR, Colonel Vladimir Zhogi. When the SVO began, he sacrificed himself, covering the evacuation of civilians," the Monk explains to us.
The entire instructor staff of the center has a rich combat experience. Many of them have been defending Donbass since 2014.
— We regularly go to the front line for the combat use of UAVs. This allows instructors to master the current specifics of their use in an ever-changing environment and tactics of warfare. In addition, there is an exchange of experience at various levels. Many aspects of the use of UAVs are currently not well—established in the troops, they need to be developed and constantly adjusted," explains the specifics of the work of the instructors of the Inoc center.
Tactics based on experience
The center trains units of the Ministry of Defense, Rosgvardiya and other law enforcement agencies. The training course includes a wide range of subjects — from computer simulators to sapper training.
The drone operator does not exist by itself. It is important not only to be able to control various types of UAVs, but also to act harmoniously on the battlefield. Therefore, much attention is paid, for example, to modern tactical medicine. UAV operators should be able to help both themselves and each other.
The experience of a special military operation has shown that quadrocopter operators can become excellent military engineers. Now there are already ways to overcome minefields, conduct mining and even mine clearance using UAVs. In addition, serial ammunition for shock copters has not yet been produced in Russia. Therefore, operators need to be able to independently convert regular ammunition into weapons of destruction.
— The machine—gun direction is working in a trench with adjustments from a drone. Our machine gunners perform all actions with adjustments from a drone. Targeting, approach, detection of the enemy, control of its suppression, documentation, which is important in the work, — all this is done with the help of a drone, — says Enok about one of the non-standard areas of training.
In-depth study of machine gun systems and the disclosure of their capabilities were one of the distinguishing features of the Sparta unit during the fighting in the Donbass in 2014-2015.
Since small UAVs are a non-standard means, there is still no unified understanding of their place in the troops in the units. This issue is often discussed in the professional environment.
— There should be at least two people in the department who should have at least two drones with a stabilized camera. This concept has been cultivated by me since the very beginning of my career. Now many divisions have listened to her. They even form entire companies of technical means of reconnaissance (TSR). A drone is a tool, it is a TCP that allows you to conduct it objectively, remotely, safely, efficiently. Unfortunately, we do not yet have a military accounting specialty "external pilot", - explains the Foreign view, which was formed from the experience of using UAVs in the area of its own.
Myths from the first person
The Center for Unmanned Systems is also training operators for FPV drones. These machines provide the operator with a first-person view. As a rule, they are controlled with the help of special glasses. The operator receives a picture of them from the video cameras installed on the drone itself. The advantages of such drones, which originate in sports models, are speed, maneuverability and relative cheapness.
The minuses are technically interrelated with the pluses and in fact are their reverse side. The absence of internal automatic drone stabilization systems requires the operator to have serious piloting skills. Simply put, a large number of flight hours. Therefore, in the center, future operators first spend many hours at a realistic computer simulator, then master a real drone in a special enclosed space where it is not affected by the wind, and only then begin training at the training ground.
High speed and relatively low signal quality make such drones less effective in reconnaissance and fire correction. Sometimes a separate action camera is installed on such machines, which does not transmit data online, but records all information on a flash card. And already on earth, the received material is studied by specialists.
But the maximum fame came to FPV drones as a base for creating barrage ammunition - kamikaze drones.
— The evolution of conflicts tends to exclude the human factor from the process of using weapons, — explains the Monk. — In a shock FPV drone, almost 95% of the result depends on the human factor. The flaws of the system itself, the possibility of signal loss at low altitude, the short flight time during which you need to complete the task, the movement of the targets themselves, irritating factors that can greatly disturb the operator, such as explosions and shooting, all this greatly affects the result of work," explains Enok.
In the future, more automated systems will have to displace kamikaze drones. Already today, the experience of using such shock systems as the American Switchblade and the Russian Lancet shows the advantages of robotics, in which the operator performs only general flight control. Thus, the load on the personnel is also reduced.
Of course, such systems are currently more expensive and technologically more complex than FPV drones, which can be assembled from mass commercial components based on workshops. The very same FPV drones Inok compares with "guerrilla" weapons in the sense of the possibility of rapid saturation of troops in a short period.
Alexey Ramm
Dmitry Astrakhan
