Additional Footage Of "FPV" Multirotor Drones Attacking Electricity Transmission Facilities
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Viewing so-called “First Person Video” (“FPV”) drone footage from the Russia-Ukraine War is often a quite sordid affair. There are, however, several “genres” of “FPV” drone footage that are not only more palatable to non-sadistic audiences by virtue of not (directly) depicting the injuring or killing of any human beings but by offering a window into the new options—and new threats—enabled by technological change. One such “genre” is the employment of armed “FPV” drones, typically of the multirotor as opposed to the fixed-wing variety, against fixed—stationary—structures of various types. This dynamic is best characterized as the highly surgical micro-level targeting of fixed—stationary—sites, including critical infrastructure. While severely limited in terms of both range and destructive effects, technological change in the form of low-cost and plentiful armed “FPV” multirotor drones weighing just several kilograms allows militaries to attack an incredibly and unprecedentedly large and diverse (potential) target bank that was previously not possible due to the qualitative and/or quantitative limitations of strike capabilities broadly conceived.1
As armed “First Person Video” (“FPV”) multirotor drones, including those of the fiber optic (FO) uplink/downlink variety, become available in increasingly large numbers, the scope for using these inexpensive and plentiful uncrewed aircraft-turned-munitions against a broader range of targets increases. In a recent post, I covered the use of armed “FPV” multirotor drones against energy transmission infrastructure in the Kherson metropolitan area by a Russian Army drone group.
There is additional footage of such attacks on electricity transmission infrastructure.
While Ukraine has made efforts to harden its electric transmission sites, the unique all-aspect threat posed by armed “FPV” multirotor drones poses a major challenge, one that is compounded in cases in which it is not practical to simply encase a potential target in a protective structure such as a net. It bears emphasis that the above video features the employment of armed “FPV” multirotor drones of the radio frequency (RF) uplink/downlink variety. Those of the FO uplink/downlink variety can undertake very delicate maneuvers at a very low altitude and are, therefore, well-suited to maneuvering around protractive structures. Should the Russian Army be able to bring other Ukrainian cities, such as Kharkiv and Sumy, within the nominal maximum range of its armed “FPV” multirotor drones of both the RF and FO uplink/downlink variety, the targeting of energy transmission infrastructure with such inexpensive and plentiful uncrewed aircraft-turned strike munitions may become a regular occurrence.