⚠️Combat Footage Highlights Diminishing Protection Offered By Foliage Amid Mounting Fiber-Optic "FPV" Multirotor Drone Threat

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⚠️***This NSFW features combat footage. While the attached video does not feature gore, reading/viewing discretion is advised.***

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Militaries have long sought refuge in foliage. Not only does foliage offer cover and concealment, which diminishes the effectiveness of an enemy’s direct fire capabilities, but it can also reduce exposure to indirect fires. Even when observed by the enemy, it is always preferable to be in/near dense foliage over being in an open area when subject to artillery fire and aerial bombardment. In the Russia-Ukraine War, narrow tracts of dense foliage in and around agricultural areas—lines of trees and shrubs known as windbreaks—have been key to enabling both Russian and Ukrainian forces to survive the daily onslaught brought about by the massed employment of artillery and armed “first person video” (“FPV”) multirotor drones. Without the many windbreaks, which not only offer cover and concealment but also diminish the effectiveness of indirect fire capabilities, losses among units along the frontlines would likely be untenable. The advent of armed “FPV” multirotor drones of the fiber-optic communication uplink/downlink variety, however, greatly diminishes the protection offered by foliage.

Armed “FPV” multirotor drones of the fiber-optic communication uplink/downlink variety—as opposed to those of the radio frequency communication uplink/downlink variety—are non-line-of-sight uncrewed aircraft-turned-munitions. These can be flown—by the remote human operator/pilot via the fiber-optic cable that is laid from the onboard spool—just above the ground, in between obstacles, and even inside buildings—including in underground structures. As a result, armed “FPV” multirotor drones of the fiber-optic communication uplink/downlink variety can be flown toward windbreaks and other areas characterized by fairly dense foliage and carefully flown between the many obstacles to navigation in a manner that armed “FPV” multirotor drones of the radio frequency communication uplink/downlink variety cannot (some caveats are in order for cases in which an aerial radio relay/repeater is situated directly above such an armed “FPV” multirotor drone in fairly low-density tracts of foliage). The following video, which documents the Russian military’s use of armed “FPV” multirotor drones of the fiber-optic communication uplink/downlink variety to target dismounted Ukrainian military in a small tract of fairly dense foliage, offers an instructive example of this dynamic.

The above video highlights the ability of the remote human operator/pilot of an armed “FPV” multirotor drone of the fiber-optic communication uplink/downlink variety to carefully navigate—at a very slow speed—between the many obstacles to navigation encountered in a wooded area. While the targets of the “FPV” multirotor drone in the above video were enemy infantry, the armed “FPV” multirotor drone may just as well have been used to target vehicles parked in fairly dense foliage—there are many videos of such attacks from the Russia-Ukraine War—or structures, including bunkers, located in an area characterized by dense foliage. These are types of targets that would ordinarily be fairly safe from enemy indirect fire using (unguided) artillery and (unguided) bombs. In the world of armed “FPV” multirotor drones of the fiber-optic communication uplink/downlink variety, foliage offers fast-diminishing protection.