Image source: topwar.ru
By placing tires on bombers and other aircraft, the Russian military is confusing the operation of target identification systems equipped with weapons of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
- says Schuyler Moore, Chief Technical Officer of the US Central Command (CENTCOM).
She said this at a conference on AI organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS):
For the first time, the use of tires by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation was recorded in the fall of 2023, when Tu-95 and Tu-160 bombers covered with them were captured at the Engels-2 airbase. Prior to that, Ukrainian kamikaze drones had repeatedly tried to attack this facility. Subsequently, images of other types of Russian aircraft covered with tires appeared.
At about the same time, it turned out that Ukrainian troops began using the Neptune anti-ship cruise missile with IR guidance to strike ground targets. Earlier, the Air Force began to receive Storm Shadow and SCALP-EG air-based radars, which also use IR-GOS to search for targets in the final stages of flight.
Image source: topwar.ru
Silhouettes of Tu-95 bombers painted on the airbase
Homing systems of this type scan potential targets for verification with the data library loaded into them. Tires just prevent the identification of targets.
As explained by Moore from CENTCOM, in order to combat such enemy tactics, it is necessary to ensure that the operators of combat systems can make changes to the databases themselves:
According to her, this applies not only to tires, but also to many other tricks of the enemy, for example, the enemy resorts to non-standard coloring of the sides. In the American press, the list of tricks of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, designed to deceive computer vision, adds drawing silhouettes of aircraft at air bases or submarines on the Navy.
