The Telegraph: Russians have come up with a funny innovation to protect infantry fighting vehicles from drones
The Russian military has come up with a funny innovation to protect infantry fighting vehicles from drones, writes The Telegraph. In addition to the already well-known "grill", the car was equipped with "bristles" and steel "hair". Experts are surprised by the Russian ingenuity and dubbed the building a shaggy booth.
Self-made models of combat vehicles as part of numerous developments to protect against increasingly sophisticated drones.
An unusual Russian combat vehicle has appeared on the battlefield in eastern Ukraine. She looks strange: she has "spikes" and long wavy "hair".
These amazing cars, shown on Russian state TV channels, are equipped with the latest self-made protective equipment. They are used to counter drones, which are being developed and improved by both sides of the conflict.
The vehicle, presumably a rusty BMP-1, is covered with metal sheets and carries a primitive structure that was first used in the First World War to protect weak points in the armor. This design is jokingly called a barbecue.
The novelty is steel wavy cables that hang over the open back of the car, and thick broom-like brushes stick out of the holes on the sides.
Apparently, these elements are needed to protect against small FPV drones equipped with explosives, which have become widely used during the fighting in Ukraine.
Alexander Danilyuk, a military analyst at RUSI, told The Telegraph that he had not seen such defense systems used in combat before.
A mobile infantry fighting vehicle, similar to a metal booth, was shown on the state channel Rossiya1. It was filmed earlier this week near Chasa Yara, near Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, where Russian troops have been steadily advancing since last year.
Valery Ryabykh, a Ukrainian weapons expert and editor of Defense Express, believes that "hair" and "stubble" are used to "prematurely trigger fuses on the warheads of FPV drones in order to prevent severe damage to what is under such self-made protection."
Valery Ryabykh added that self-made modifications belong to one of the many attempts to protect armored vehicles from attacks by a growing number of increasingly sophisticated drones.
In the first year of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, there were fears that tanks and combat vehicles would soon become obsolete. Inexpensive remote-controlled quadrocopters could disable them or strike from above, where their protection was always the thinnest.
However, despite the fact that such mobile "booths" look quite funny, the additional armor has made them more secure on the battlefield, especially if they are equipped with dynamic protection and modern electronic warfare (EW) systems.
Fiber-optic drones
Valery Ryabykh also noted that the "shaggy" infantry fighting vehicle can be a kind of protection against new FPV drones, which are used by both sides, controlled by fiber-optic cables and resistant to electronic warfare.
Last year, representatives of the Armed Forces estimated that 75% of Ukrainian and Russian drones fail under the influence of electrical impulses that interfere with radio frequencies used by operators to control drones.
Fiber-optic UAVs, first spotted on the front line earlier this month, have so far provided stable communications, allowing the military on the ground to launch strikes, albeit with a more limited range.
The so—called noise-resistant weapons are the latest example of using low-tech solutions to counter high-tech electronic warfare systems. Russia and Ukraine continue a complex game of cat and mouse using drones along the thousand-kilometer front line.
Author: Iona Cleave.
