Problems of Russian tanks in Ukraine: Part-3

How Are Armed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (SİHA) Used?

SİHAs:

In recent years, it has been seen in practice that SİHAs are important enough to determine who will be victorious on the battlefields. SİHAs are not new found weapons. It has been used for a long time by many armies, especially the US army. However, this usage was mostly in the form of hitting some point targets.

A new way of using SİHAs was applied by the Turkish army for the first time. I don't know for sure who thought of it, but this usage seems to have arisen out of necessity. After the well-known plane crash on the Syrian border, our relations with Russia became tense. Some time after this incident, probably Russian planes bombed our positions in Syria and many of our soldiers were killed or injured. When Russia did not take responsibility for this incident, the responsibility fell on Assad's army.

Turkey had to respond to this. However, since there were Russian soldiers in front of him, it was risky to carry out an operation from the land, as it could make the situation even more tense. Since Syrian airspace is controlled by Russia, using air force planes also had some risks and drawbacks. In this case, the most appropriate solution was to use SİHAs. Turkey has done this too. However, SİHAs were used collectively instead of individually to hit some critical targets, as was done until then. A large number of SİHAs took off at the same time and all Syrian targets detected on the ground were hit.

I do not have detailed information about the technical features of SİHAs and radars, but according to those who know, Russian-made Syrian air defense radars could not detect them, since SİHAs are small compared to aircraft and fly very slowly compared to aircraft. It is said that the electronic jamming systems in the Turkish army inventory are also effective in this.

Whatever the reason, SİHAs have been successful enough to surprise not only Syrians and Russians but the whole world. Thousands of Syrian soldiers were neutralized. Hundreds of tanks, armored vehicles, motor vehicles, artillery, mortars and other support weapons were shot down and destroyed. The most surprising thing was that self-propelled air defense weapons, which the Russians trusted and sold to many countries, were also shot down. No news has been published that these weapons shot down a single SİHA.

Although this success attracted the attention of the whole world, the importance of SİHAs could not be fully understood due to the thought that the Syrian army is a weak army. SİHAs showed the same success in Libya. But it was the Karabakh war that drew the attention of the whole world to SİHAs. When we look at the tanks and armored vehicles that were destroyed by the end of the war and were taken into the hands of the Azerbaijani army, it is understood that the Karabakh Armenians had as many tanks and armored vehicles as Azerbaijan and even more. Karabakh Armenians also had a large number of air defense weapons and systems.

As soon as the battles started, it became clear that the superiority of the armored units did not mean much anymore and how effective the SİHAs were. SİHAs successfully hit hundreds of Armenian tanks, armored vehicles, tactical wheeled vehicles, artillery, air, air defense weapons and even ballistic missile batteries. Not content with this, mass infantry targets were also hit effectively. This was so effective that it created great fear in the Armenian army.

As can be clearly seen in the video footage released by the Armenian by Russian journalists, the Armenian soldiers spent more time looking at the sky than looking ahead. When they saw that the vehicles were hit, they began to be afraid of getting into the vehicles and left all kinds of vehicles on the battlefield and fled on foot. Hearing the sound of an engine in the air, they shot helplessly into the air with rifles in hand, but it was useless.

Moreover, SİHAs did not destroy the targets by simply throwing the ammunition on them. They also acted as air forward lookouts. It transmits the coordinates of the Armenian targets they have located to the artillery units in full time, so that the artillery and multi-barreled rocket launchers (MLRA) in the Azerbaijani army could hit their targets quickly and accurately before the Armenian units had a chance to change their position.

This success left no doubt about how important weapons SİHAs are. Since there are Turkish SİHAs that have shown success, countries such as Ukraine and Poland, which felt the Russian threat on their backs, purchased a large number of SİHAs from Turkey. The Ukrainians immediately used these UAVs against the separatists in Donbas, taking advantage of the lessons learned from the Karabakh experience. When they achieved successful results from this, they deployed SİHAs to occupy an important place in their general defense plans.

In this way, they used SİHAs effectively after the Russian attack began. As a matter of fact, they published images of many Russian tanks and armored vehicles shot down by SİHAs. They used the SİHAs as forward air watchers, and they also set the Russian armored convoys under fire with rocket and artillery fire. Ukrainians also used SİHAs to shoot down Russian ships in the Black Sea. They shot down small vessels and helicopters with SİHAs. They sank Russia's two largest ships in the Black Sea with missiles fired from the shore by performing target detection and electronic scrambling with SİHAs.

This situation revealed how vulnerable not only tanks and armored vehicles but also ships are. Ships with many weapons and military systems, expressed in billions of dollars, were hit with vehicles and weapons worth millions of dollars. Thus, SİHAs proved to be not only effective but also cost-effective weapons. This was very welcomed in Ukraine. They even composed a song called "Bayraktar".

These developments caught the attention of the whole world. There were those who campaigned for Ukraine so that Bayraktar could buy it. Not only the success they showed, but also the fact that they showed this success at a very low cost was effective in this. Various figures were pronounced in the media about how much a Bayraktar TB-2 was worth. On a national channel, it was announced that two Bayraktar TB-2s cost 25 million dollars with 100 ammunition, ground control station and electronic defense systems. The highest figure I've heard regarding the price of this system. If this figure is correct, a UAV system consisting of two planes only needs to hit 8-10 Russian tanks with the cheapest price (the cheapest Russian tank costs around $2.5 million) to pay for itself. T-series tanks are much more expensive and Russians often use them.

Interim Evaluation:

When the first part of my article was published, I received comments from some readers that I was very generalist, that the destroyed Russian tanks were old generation tanks, that the problem was not caused by the tanks, but was caused by the mistakes of the Russian command staff. I cannot fully agree with these comments because Russia has put its latest generation, most modern tanks into use in Ukraine, and the Ukrainians continue to shoot these tanks.

As the most modern Russian tank, the T-90M was first introduced to the public in 2017. It has been reported that 60 to 70 of these tanks have been produced so far. Russia took this tank to the front in Ukraine, and the news that these tanks were also shot down was reflected to the public. In other words, SİHAs and other anti-tank weapons are also very successful against the most modern tanks.

Kamikaze UAV/Drons:

Although there have been long-standing reports that these will be produced and tested in Turkey, Israeli-made kamikaze SİHA/Drones were used in the Azerbaijani army in the Karabakh War. These weapons, which have explosives on them, are like ammunition that can be commanded remotely. These weapons, which are launched from portable platforms and can be easily used by tactical-level troops, can be controlled and managed with a hand-held control panel. When it flies to the target area and finds a suitable target, it quickly dives towards this target and when it touches the target, the explosive on it detonates. Thus, the target becomes ineffective.

The biggest advantage of this weapon is that it is very small and does not need an airport or runway. Therefore, it can be thrown out by going to the area closest to the front. Since many UAV/Dron can be launched from a platform, it is possible to hit multiple targets at the same time. It is very difficult for them to fall or be dropped without hitting the target in any way, but even if they do fall, it is not a big deal. Because they are disposable and very cheap. According to the media outlets of Azerbaijan and Turkey, it is worth $5,000. Let alone a tank or an armored vehicle, they can pay for themselves even if they hit an old jeep. Moreover, since these attack the target with kamikaze, they are very difficult to hit. The effects are the same as normal SİHAs.

Drones:

Although it is mentioned in the media that there are swarm drones, that they communicate with each other, that one of them is a control drone or a leader, that this system has been tested in Libya, no images have been published about what this system does on the battlefield. In Ukraine, it is mentioned that some small drones have bombs mounted under them and that they drop bombs while flying over Russian troops, but we could not find clear data that such practices were effective on tanks or armored units.

It is understood that drones are mostly used for surveillance purposes in Ukraine and are especially useful for guiding teams in forested areas and residential areas by tank destroyer teams. Therefore, it is not possible to say that drones have a significant direct effect on tanks and armored units.

(To be continued)