The Russian bear that was to have run over Ukraine has been stopped by a swarm of bees. Such are the aerial drones, produced by the tens of thousands every week, according to the Wall Street Journal. Ukraine may not be able to kill the bear with drones but has been able to hold it at bay. We read about Russian soldiers afraid to venture out of bunkers, fleeing at the first sound of a drone. In one video shown to the reporter, two soldiers jump into an outhouse to escape, but a drone no bigger than a dinner plate flies through an impossible opening and blows them to bits. Russian soldiers are pleading for their lives as drones swoop down on them. In one particularly harrowing video, a soldier with legs made useless by grenades dropped from drones, in a field set on fire by drones, put a rifle barrel in his mouth and blows his brains out.
Drone pilots create fear as do the deadliest of snipers. One drone operator in Clear Eyes, a drone group operating in Ukraine, counts over 300 kills. Others have more. By comparison, Chris Kyle, the American Navy SEAL played by Bradley Cooper in American Sniper, had 160 confirmed kills.
Drone warfare, as is conducted by Ukraine, is more ingenuity and resourcefulness than high tech. Ukrainians have adapted consumer drones and improvised to make them into weapons. A small drone can carry as much as 9 lbs of explosives. We read about Soviet-era artillery shells dismantled, their explosive material melted in slow cookers and poured into plastic shells so they could piggyback on quadcopters.
Drone operators are a far cry from the swaggering fighter pilots shown in Hollywood movies like Top Gun or super macho test pilots in The Right Stuff. With their nimble thumbs and race-car fast reflexes, they fit more into the gamer genre. With their POV (point of view) headsets, they can be seen propelling their acrobatic aircraft through courses in arenas such as the FAI World Drone Racing championships, the Super Bowl of drone games, reaching speeds of up to 90 mph.
The fun and games of drones turn into not just life and death but intergalactic war science fiction in Ender’s Game, where a teenage game whiz is tricked into joining the planet’s military, all the time thinking he was only playing a video game.
Back to the Real Battlefield
Ukraine uses civilians as drone operators and embeds them with regular military units. While one drone operator expresses guilt for killing humans as if playing a game, most are more than up to the task, intoxicated at the idea of killing Russians in defense of their country.
The drones have a range of 12 miles, longer and more accurate than artillery shells. They cost about $500. Their Achilles heel is they have to be guided towards the target. The Russians are getting better at jamming the signal. It’s a cat-and-mouse game. Then they are overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of drones.
Still, the bear does not retreat. The makeshift nature of drone manufacturing, the malfunctioning, the limits of battery life, all that which cause many drones to simply crash harmlessly to Earth, with only a third of aerial drones hitting their targets, is good news for the bear.
