At a secret workshop in Ukraine’s north-east, where about 20 people assemble hundreds of FPV (first person view) drones, there is a new design. Under the frame of the familiar quadcopter is a cylinder, the size of a forearm. Coiled up inside is fibre optic cable, 10km (6 miles) or even 20km long, to create a wired kamikaze drone.
Capt Yuriy Fedorenko, the commander of a specialist drone unit, the Achilles regiment, says fibre optic drones were an experimental response to battlefield jamming and rapidly took off late last year. With no radio connection, they cannot be jammed, are difficult to detect and able to fly in ways conventional FPV drones cannot.
“If pilots are experienced, they can fly these drones very low and between the trees in a forest or tree line. If you are flying with a regular drone, the trees block the signal unless you have a re-transmitter close,” he observes. Where tree lined supply roads were thought safer, fibre optic drones have been able to get through.
Another proof that wired connections are superior
I N P U T L A G
Wouldn’t the fiber lead directly back to the pilot, though? You’d have to constantly be moving locations, otherwise they could just follow the wire.
Edit: I know, I know, the more I’ve thought about it–and despite them actually proving it’s possible to do as mentioned in the article–it’s just not very practical to do in many situations. As one commenter mentioned below, after seeing pictures of some trees, numerous drones create a web among trees/bushes/etc. So tracing lines when drones are launched from multiple locations would be extremely difficult and they could even set up ambushed at certain points if they saw enemy scouts doing it.
From the article :
There are examples of drone operators from earlier this year being able to trace the cables back to the positions from where they were launched and target the enemy crews. But if this technique was a successful one, fibre optic drones would have disappeared as soon as they appeared on the battlefield, when – from presidents to workshops – all the talk is of increasing numbers.
This is not new tech. We have been using wires like this in the battlefield since the 70’s. I was a TOW gunner and shot plenty of missiles that have a wire like this drone. Except, ya know it’s a missile and it moves significantly faster. TOW stands for Tube launched Opitically Wire guided missile.
Ask away if you wanna know anything about em.
Well, since we’ve got you:
What would be the minimum reasonable distance to use a TOW (with accompanying operator control) vs something unguided (either the TOW or otherwise)?
Ooo minimum? Dont recall that exactly but I do remember the mechanism that arms the missile is activated by G force. Missile has to fly for a bit before it arms.
Second part of your question is pretty loaded. Theres tons of unguided systems that have wildly different arming mechanisms.
Really what you care about is stand off distance. Can I hit my enemy with my missile before they can get into range to shoot me?
I’m guessing the wired break down quickly?
Naw, that shit was super strong. If you caught your boot and pulled it would slice clean into your boot. But it was fragile enough to be cut with scissors. A little thicker than a strand of hair.
Lol, I doubt it. I’m guessing 1,000-2,000 years.
What kind of comms do the wires allow? Sending guidance and simultaneously receiving video?
What was the physicality of wires back then (and do you know what they are today)? Would it feel like walking into a spider’s web, or how sturdy were/are those wires?
How often would a write break, and would that mean total loss of control or is there some form of fall-back?
Curious minds want to know! Thank you.
People who play War Thunder want to know lol you can actually find cut outs that show the internals online. The TOW has been around for awhile.
But the wires were for X and Y navigation. Theres an IR beacon that flashes out the back of the missile. The camera sees the beacon and when you move the controls the missile will follow. Theres a Russian T90 tank that has a defense system that spoofs the beacon. Looks like headlights, called the Shtora-1 check it out.
Wire was made out of the thinnest, strongest metal I’ve ever seen. It would cut your boot if you snagged it and pulled, but it could be cut with scissors.
If you lost a wire the missile would go erratic and would lose control depending on which wire was lost. Really depened on what youre trying to shoot over if you broke a wire. Can’t shoot over buildings.
My favorite fact though, it flys above the tank! Search YouTube for a slow mo and you’ll see what i mean. Explodes from above.
Coolest thing you ever shot with a TOW? Man/building/vehicle etc
How many TOWs did you shoot over your career? What percentage missed intended target?
What’s the kill zone radius of the blast?
Thanks for your service mate.
Hurting people is wrong and should be avoided at all costs. Nothing cool about that.
But when a tank is also full of fuel and ammo, the boom is much bigger lol
I got lucky and shot around 15 to 20 for training. I lost track after 10. Some missilemen never get the chance to shoot one.
Interestingly, I had that kill zone question asked to me by another higher up (different job) and it took me a long time to come to a conclusion. The kill radius is actually not defined in the manuals. There are zones for the shooter to ensure you don’t get hit with back blast, but usually it’s assumed that the vehicle you hit will be destroyed.
Edit:
To explain further, the missile doesn’t hit the target. It flys above it and uses the munroe effect to cause an implosion (not an explosion) that makes the vehicle explode from the inside out. First munroe charge punches a hole into the vehicle, second charge gets sucked in and blow it up from inside. YouTube munroe effect to see how that shape charge works.
Aside from the silly ‘don’t hurt people’, thanks for the answers.
Perhaps they just pull it back real fast 😆
Couldn’t they just make it standard practice to reel in the wire after detonation? Sure, it could snap, but that would still be only partial direction information.
Could have controller-> radio -> base station-> fibre —> drone
I assume there are ways of doible backing in some unexpected direction first before flying out of one thicket into another and maybe then to the enemy? I am just guessing what is practical though
Sure, but not as quickly as you could triangulate artillery and they already have shoot and move tactics to avoid retaliation for that.
Next evolution, carrier drones. Larger fiber drones that carry smaller radio drones and can also act as a repeater when needed.
“Carrier has arrived.”
This is getting scary lol
Already exist.
This has been going on for a few months now. Why is this a “new threat” ?
There have even already been battlefield videos where you see tons of fibre optic in the air.
On the scale of human warfare, “a few months” is pretty new. Frankly, its fairly new on the timescale of the Ukraine war at this point.
What does that look like? Can’t imagine what tons of fiber in the air looks like, do you have a video you can share with the rest of the class
Imagine walking into a spider’s web, and you couldn’t just wipe it off your face.
It’s a minor concern when a nation’s existence is on the line, but I do wonder how all those wires will affect the fauna and environment.
I do wonder how all those wires will affect the fauna and environment.
I have actually no idea what the effects would be here. But when this land gets reclaimed by Ukraine they’ll need to clean it up regardless. There’s mines and other explosives, burned out cars, and even dead bodies to clear.
Reminds me of those old torpedos where the propeller was powered by pulling a cable.
There were some actual torpedoes that used miles-long wire to control
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this sounds so stupid but it might work
Like torpedos used to do.
At first I imagined the drone dragging its cable and that seemed terrible, but then I realized they’re carrying a spool and they let cable out as they go. That’s actually brilliant and absolutely could work. 12 miles of cable. Only thing is it adds weight so you can’t deliver as much explosive payload.
Mankind invents their own problems… fantastic… 🙄
Huh, I remember one of the few draw backs of fiber optic cables being that you had to be very careful with them, because bending them could easily cause them to crack and no longer work. I’m guessing that must no longer be an issue!
The fiber we use at our datacenter is quite flexible but still gets damaged if you bend it too far. To roll it like they describe you would still want to have a fairly large drum (probably like 3-4 inches in diameter) which would make it pretty bulky for a small drone.
They literally describe it as “the size of a forearm” so that about tracks with 3-4 inches diameter.
“Secret workshop”? Why are they talking openly to the press then?
Because the secret is where it is, not that it exists.
Why talk about it at all though? What military benefits from telling the press about its newest weapons?
The tech itself isn’t secret, both sides use it. With Russia being ahead apparently. From the article:
A video from a Russian military Telegram channel from last month demonstrates their ominous capability. A fibre optic drone, the nose of the yellow cylinder housing the coil clearly visible, flies with precision a few centimetres from the ground, to strike a Ukrainian howitzer concealed in a barn, a location clearly previously considered safe.
But as Fedorenko acknowledges, it is Russia that, at least for now, “is well ahead of us” – largely because Moscow has had greater access to fibre optic cabling, with Ukraine scrambling to catch up.
Y’all answering “what” to a “why” question.
It’s news about how the current battlefield works. Recently Ukraine even explained how they were finding and ambushing Russian drone operators. As soon as Russia is aware of the tactics and methods, it’s not a secret anymore and it can be shared. There’s tons of reporters that are always looking around for news about the war.
It’s a flying nightmare, until somebody figures out how to cut the cable in flight.
Knowing how fragile fibre cable is especially when bent at weird angles (which is prone to happen in flight), this doesn’t sound like the most genius idea. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Fibre cable is a lot stronger and more flexible than you’d think. The old days of very fragile cable are gone. You can use it and treat it in pretty much the same way you’d treat copper CAT6 cable in terms of bend radius.
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Its not brand new stuff. It works, no need to wait and see at all.
It has been in use for a few months already and has proven to be very reliant. Force upon the cable seems to unroll the spool before breaking the cable.
And there’s even more fun stuff. Ukrainian drones are currently playing around with visual target locking in case of signal loss. It works very well for tank mounted scramblers.
That’s actually cool to know. Thanks for the info
