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The Military

The Drone Operators Who Halted Russian Convoy Headed For Kyiv (theguardian.com) 122

Posted by BeauHD from the geeks-on-bikes-FTW dept.
"Ukrainian special forces teamed up with IT professionals on ATV four-wheelers to target the infamous Kiev convoy," writes longtime Slashdot reader darkseid. "Every Help Desk Geek's Walter Mitty fantasy!" The Guardian reports: One week into its invasion of Ukraine, Russia massed a 40-mile mechanized column in order to mount an overwhelming attack on Kyiv from the north. But the convoy of armored vehicles and supply trucks ground to a halt within days, and the offensive failed, in significant part because of a series of night ambushes carried out by a team of 30 Ukrainian special forces and drone operators on quad bikes, according to a Ukrainian commander.

The drone operators were drawn from an air reconnaissance unit, Aerorozvidka, which began eight years ago as a group of volunteer IT specialists and hobbyists designing their own machines and has evolved into an essential element in Ukraine's successful David-and-Goliath resistance. [...] The unit's commander, Lt Col Yaroslav Honchar, gave an account of the ambush near the town of Ivankiv that helped stop the vast, lumbering Russian offensive in its tracks. He said the Ukrainian fighters on quad bikes were able to approach the advancing Russian column at night by riding through the forest on either side of the road leading south towards Kyiv from the direction of Chernobyl.

The Ukrainian soldiers were equipped with night vision goggles, sniper rifles, remotely detonated mines, drones equipped with thermal imaging cameras and others capable of dropping small 1.5kg bombs. "This one little unit in the night destroyed two or three vehicles at the head of this convoy, and after that it was stuck. They stayed there two more nights, and [destroyed] many vehicles," Honchar said. The Russians broke the column into smaller units to try to make headway towards the Ukrainian capital, but the same assault team was able to mount an attack on its supply depot, he claimed, crippling the Russians' capacity to advance. "The first echelon of the Russian force was stuck without heat, without oil, without bombs and without gas. And it all happened because of the work of 30 people," Honchar said. "The Aerorozvidka unit also claims to have helped defeat a Russian airborne attack on Hostomel airport, just north-west of Kyiv, in the first day of the war," adds the Guardian. Similar to the convoy ambush, they "[used] drones to locate, target and shell about 200 Russian paratroopers concealed at one end of the airfield."
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The Drone Operators Who Halted Russian Convoy Headed For Kyiv More

The Drone Operators Who Halted Russian Convoy Headed For Kyiv

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  • History repeating itself.

    • History repeating itself.

      A mouse that is roaring.

      And one of the unintended consequenses is that the world is seeing that Russia is no where near the superpower that they used to be.

      • Russia is starting to lay landmines along the southern coast between Crimea and Mariupol. They are sending their troops there. They plan on stealing all that land. Sorry, I meant to say they plan on giving that land to the free people of the Donbas region.

        • We need these drone-techs to come up with a cure for landmines now

          • Ardupilot + captured russian armor, with mine flails attached = remotely piloted/autonomous minesweepers.

            See Mine Flail:
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

            • Mine flails work because the armor of the vehicle using them can at least sustain repeated indirect fire. What we are seeing from a lot of Russian armor is even an indirect hit often cripples their vehicles...

              • The mine flails are on the front, and the thick armor is on the front. The difference between front armor and side armor is enormous, literally. It's not surprising if a tank gets disabled by an "indirect" hit. The whole drivetrain is pretty fragile, not compared to a pickup truck maybe, but definitely compared to any of the armor. And the munitions we've sent Ukraine are absolutely top notch stuff. If a Javelin hits anywhere but cage armor or front armor it's probably going to penetrate.

          • The American military doctrine would say to send a recon marine around the minefield, figure out where the enemy units are, and then bomb them to death.

            • The American military doctrine would say to send a recon marine around the minefield, figure out where the enemy units are, and then bomb them to death.

              Or some places use these adorable little guys to take care of minefields. https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/25... [cnn.com]

      • I watched a great interview with a retired quartermaster auditor

        He pointed out the rotted and deflated tires on the russian vehicles and noted how it showed the commander in charge has gone cheap on materials (tires themselves and the auto-inflation systems)

        Apparently when the leadership of the country lines their pockets with stolen funds, the people under them do as well

        Snake rots form the head and all that

        He also noted that the russian army relies heavily on rail transport and plan on driving their vehic

        • The rise of inexpensive semi-intelligent devices to counter standard war machines in effect is a variation of the self-destructive Japanese kamikaze that sacrifices a human to destroy an enemy and is in the same class as the bazooka where one soldier can destroy a tank. I wonder if, for instance, massive clouds of simple cheap drones might be effective against enemy aircraft by not attempting to out-fly them with complex missile systems but simply attack them where they are most vulnerable since their engin

          • seems like this would have significant environmental downsides and if released in the air might be considered a chemical attack.

            just give them a large net and make them explode under certain g-force. any craft hitting the net would trigger the explosions and decide to produce flak, your aircraft will likely be fucked, not to mention how the net would likely inhibit many things such as pilots ejecting. Again fly them in large groups to screen areas.

            • Just a rough idea and I agree it might have problems. Any length of cable supported by balloons might work as well against helicopters. Even a bunch of cheap simple anti-aircraft rockets with cables attached could be a problem for attacking aircrafts. These are so obvious they must have been attempted.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Viol8 ( 599362 )

                ". Any length of cable supported by balloons might work as well against helicopters"

                " These are so obvious they must have been attempted."

                Google barrage balloons. The ideas been around for over 100 years and didn't even work very well back then because the balloons can be see from miles away and shot down at a pilots leaisure.

                • I well remember the barrage balloons over London in WWII but today we can launch anti-aircraft inexpensive massive numbers of cheap rockets and drones carrying cables or corrosive clouds of particles to foul up jet engines of attacking aircraft.

              • Didn't the UK use balloons with cable attached in WW2. I think these can be affect except balloons have a pretty big radar signature, so you can likely detect easily where deployed and use some kind of munition to remove the obstacle. plus you can fly a lot higher now, so that may impact their effectiveness.

                Following the missile idea, I wonder if you could make something like a Basilisk firing many bolts into the air with attached wires. This could be reusable but requires an appropriate place to easily ret

                • Large numbers of smaller balloons or small cheap drones or rockets that reach a range of altitudes cannot be deposed of easily as an attack approaches , The balloons around London that I remember from WWII were easy to destroy.

          • Clouds of plastic pellets filled with hydrofluoric or even sulfuric acid released in the paths of enemy aircraft possibly could easily destroy their engines rather quickly and easily comprise traps o clouds of balloons. I am no expert but the thought is seductive.

            Not hydrofluoric! Ball bearings would suffice. HF acid would create a real humanitarian issue. That stuff is right out of a horror movie.

            • I encountered HF in Stuyvesant Hugh School chemistry class with Mr Lieberman back in 1939 when we learned about etching glass, so I was aware but I thought something rather nasty might be impressive. Ball bearings are acceptable.

              • I encountered HF in Stuyvesant Hugh School chemistry class with Mr Lieberman back in 1939 when we learned about etching glass, so I was aware but I thought something rather nasty might be impressive. Ball bearings are acceptable.

                There is a horror story about a man at a Pennsylvania Corning glass factory, but I can't find it any more. He got doused after a hose ruptured, and it was all downhill from there.

                About all you can do for it is kinda "bait it" with calcium based goop to try to attract it to the goop rather than your bones.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by torkus ( 1133985 )

              Thinking further on ball bearings...

              You're running through a high strength engine under extreme stress. all you need to do is create some weak points - fractures or scratches or similar - in the turbine blades to trash the engine and (at a minimum) require a complete overhaul. I'd imagine something like carbide chips or any ultra-hard ceramic ... leftover garbage would suffice.

              One could probably create a cheap ceramic-based flack shell - it wouldn't do much to the jet aside from a direct hit, but a bunch

              • Thinking further on ball bearings...

                You're running through a high strength engine under extreme stress. all you need to do is create some weak points - fractures or scratches or similar - in the turbine blades to trash the engine and (at a minimum) require a complete overhaul. I'd imagine something like carbide chips or any ultra-hard ceramic ... leftover garbage would suffice.

                One could probably create a cheap ceramic-based flack shell - it wouldn't do much to the jet aside from a direct hit, but a bunch of chips floating down into the jet's flight path could eat the engine.

                Or a chicken for that matter. Yeah, ceramic chips would wreak havoc in a jet turbine. Get enough of them, and a lot of the turbine blades will become shrapnel.

                You might not stop the jet on it's *current* mission but instead make the ongoing support unsustainable. Things like this work best in asymmetric warfare...letting a jet complete it's mission will cost you something negligible but if you can cost them a multi-million dollar jet engine each time they quickly run out of jets.

                There have been cases of jet engines failing after flying through the clouds formed by erupting volcanos. often ending badly. There was one case where the engines failed because the volcanic dust melted and adhered to the blades in the hot parts of the engine. Miraculously after descending as powerless plans are wont to do, the cooling engines caused

        • It's more than that. The ruling elite are part of the internal security state, not the military. The Russian military is seen as a possible threat to the existing power structure so everything possible is done to neuter them. Successful generals are quickly given medals and retired into irrelevancy. The existing military structure is kept in a perpetual state of dog eat dog, where nobody trusts anyone else enough to organize any effective resistance to the ruling powers. The morale is deliberately kept

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by gtall ( 79522 )

            I agree with that. It strikes me that another influence on the Great Putini is that his military has embarrassed him by their performance. Leaving them where they are only makes him look worse. Now that he probably realizes he hasn't got squat except the big nasty weapons, he'll settle for boobie prize of pieces of Ukraine. His military are probably sufficient to act as storm troopers for those regions. He might find the Ukrainians won't be satisfied with losing their most mineral rich provinces and continu

            • I'm Ukrainian, and nobody wanted a war. Now that the 8 year war is in a very intense phase and everyone is shooting, Ukrainians won't settle for the stalemate they were grudgingly tolerating just a month ago. There's even talk about pushing all the way back to the Caspian sea, which was Ukrainian territory that was conquered and ethnically cleansed by Russia generations ago. This is just the latest episode of a centuries long fight to the death between two very old civilizations, one European and one Asi

        • I watched a great interview with a retired quartermaster auditor

          He pointed out the rotted and deflated tires on the russian vehicles and noted how it showed the commander in charge has gone cheap on materials (tires themselves and the auto-inflation systems)

          Apparently when the leadership of the country lines their pockets with stolen funds, the people under them do as well

          Snake rots form the head and all that

          I hope that US politicians are paying attention. Russia's military is suffering from Oligarchy, a system that at least one of our political parties is trying to enact here.

          If one group makes themselves incredibly wealthy through any means available, then sacrifices social and military strength, because "Why should I build a military when I can add billions to my bank account." this is what we see.

          The problem is an end game one. Putin and his minions are trying to relive a dream of Soviet glory, with a

          • To be honest, I think that we already have a bit of that here, namely Starve the Beast [wikipedia.org] :
            "Starving the beast" is a political strategy employed by American conservatives to limit government spending by cutting taxes, in order to deprive the federal government of revenue in a deliberate effort to force it to reduce spending.

            imo, this was apparent during the early phases of the Gulf War when US forces were put into the battle in HumVees that provided little or no armor protection

            US forces started their own Hill [wikipedia.org]

            • To be honest, I think that we already have a bit of that here, namely Starve the Beast [wikipedia.org] : "Starving the beast" is a political strategy employed by American conservatives to limit government spending by cutting taxes, in order to deprive the federal government of revenue in a deliberate effort to force it to reduce spending.

              imo, this was apparent during the early phases of the Gulf War when US forces were put into the battle in HumVees that provided little or no armor protection

              US forces started their own Hillbilly Armor [wikipedia.org] efforts long before US politicians rubbed Rumsfeld's face in it and the armed forces received direction to field UpArmored Humvees and (eventually) a new series of hull-armored MRAPS

              Slightly different than going to battle with rotted tires, but thousands of US servicemen were put at significant risk due to poor battle planning due to budget considerations.

              I forgot about the Hillbilly Armor thing. At least we did something about it. Rumsfeld was another of those big mouth, little man people. His not going to war with the army you want, but with the Army you have (paraphrased, no doubt) really rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.

    • They will make a movie from this as well

    • You can say that again!

  • Kind of interesting how a weapon once vilified when used by the Americans is now the savior of the Ukrainian people.

    • It's just a tool. What matters is how you use it. Obama used it for extrajudicial killings.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gtall ( 79522 )

        Yes, the alternative was to catch the perps and bring them back to the U.S. to face trial. You tell them, maybe they'll believe you and decide that el Shabab in Somalia or al Qaeda in Afghanistan or Daesh in Iraq are really common criminals who deserve their rights. Come to think of it, the Iranian nutjobs are certainly deserving of criminal trials here in the U.S.

        What is it about them declaring war on the U.S. that you do not understand?

        • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

          American citizens deserve trials.

        • Just because a podunk group of poppy farmers declares war on the US doesn't mean it's OK to bomb their village. Many civilians or just incorrect targets have been killed with drone strikes. If a particular terrorist is worth taking out, send a precision black ops team. It's been done before with success, and in the meantime there are ways of securing the homeland from attack without bombs.

        • I believe above was referring to this:

          https://www.aclu.org/video/acl... [aclu.org]

          Killing US citizens with no judicial oversight is a different thing than foreign citizens who are waging war against your country.

      • It's just a tool. What matters is how you use it. Obama used it for extrajudicial killings.

        And the orange faced goon was kiling so many civilians he ordered the Pentagon to stop reporting civilian casualties [businessinsider.com] because it might him look bad.

        Your point?

        • My point is it's just a tool. What matters is how you use it.

          Obviously you saw the word "Obama" and got triggered so you didn't see the point.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ljw1004 ( 764174 )

      Kind of interesting how a weapon once vilified when used by the Americans is now the savior of the Ukrainian people.

      Which weapon?

      US: predator or reaper drones at $30m per aircraft and $150k/missile controlled remotely from the other side of the world. Used for targeted extrajudicial assassinations of people in countries with whom the US isn't at war.

      Ukraine in this story: $1000 DJI-mavic with thermal imaging camera controlled by an operator who rode a quad-bike into the forest right next to his target. Used for military operations during a war.

      I don't think the two scenarios are remotely comparable. It has largely been t

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gtall ( 79522 )

        Tell you what, the U.S. should wait until Daesh or al Qaeda get their own state so the U.S. can then declare war and then and only then will the U.S. be justified in fighting them.

        • That would actually make things much simpler (and justified), but most likely it wouldn't even get to that point since the locals don't want to live under their rule either. Look to Syria as an example. Better to let countries solve their own problems and not get involved.

      • >> Used for targeted extrajudicial assassinations of people in countries with whom the US isn't at war.

        War crime right there.... from your armchair in Ramstein.

    • Kind of interesting how a weapon once vilified when used by the Americans is now the savior of the Ukrainian people.

      Nope nothing interesting about it. The weapon was never vilified based on who used it. Only for what purpose.
      Defending your country during an invasion = good.
      Droning the ever-loving fuck out of your own citizens in a foreign country extra judicially, or simply assassinating generals of other countries = bad.

      See how I framed the reason it was vilified without ever mentioning America? Don't be so self important. No one gives a fuck who is using a weapon, they care about how.

    • Oh, we didn't vilify the weapons -- we vilified the assholes using them. The weapons had nothing to do with it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AvitarX ( 172628 )

      I think the difference is location.

      The US used them outside their borders and even in theoretically allied countries (Pakistan).

      There's also a big difference between "precision" strikes killing civilians and attacks on a military column (whatever the borders).

      The criticism of the US was that they were assassinations with collateral damage.

  • Sure sounds neat tho, almost like a movie!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You're right. The Russians probably blew up their own convoy.

  • Back in my day, tanks didn't have to just drive on roads. They could actually go around, even go off the road--because they were tanks!

    Kids these days! Afraid to get a ticket by overtaking the tank in front of you!

    • Back in my day, tanks didn't have to just drive on roads. They could actually go around, even go off the road--because they were tanks!

      Kids these days! Afraid to get a ticket by overtaking the tank in front of you!

      It wasn't just tanks, supply trucks as well which have more trouble going through ditches.

      And once you've stopped the other vehicles become that much easier to hit, and once they're hit they're new obstacles.

      Of course, it shouldn't have presented an insurmountable obstacle. But this is the Russian army we're talking about so...

      • Russia didn't imagine it would have any resistance. The way in which this convoy was managed was heinous. Some general probably ate a bullet over this. There is no reason so many resources should of been committed in this manner as such a blatant blunder. We talk about the 5 generations of warfare. Russia basically used 1st generation tactics and Ukraine 3rd/4th. This was epically stupid and there is no other nation with a modern military I could imagine being so arrogant as to not see the single point of f

      • They're still pulling newly discovered tanks found in the fields of Europe that sank in the muddy seasons of WW2. For some reason Putin chose to invade during the well known season in parts of Europe where only the roads are safe for tanks to drive on, and sometimes not even those. The rest essentially turns to swamp when anything heavy puts weight on it. It's great for agriculture and any defensive war and not much else. If the rumours are true that China was in on the plans and demanded Putin invade a

      • > Of course, it shouldn't have presented an insurmountable obstacle.

        Err.. where are the bulldozer blades on the front of the tanks - just push through.
        How f'n incompetent.

        Just search "tank with bulldozer blade" .. FFS

    • Napoleon and Hitler found their armies drowning in the mud and now the russian had a go at it.

      https://twitter.com/JimmySecUK... [twitter.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      Mud. Big problem during WWII, you may have heard of it.

    • Rasputitsa....

    • Most of the tanks we've seen being towed away by farmers weren't stuck in mud, they ran out of fuel and had to be abandoned.

      The underlying issue is that tanks don't go at it alone and rely on far less offroad-capable support vehicles carrying fuel, ammo, maintenance crews and, importantly, infantry support. Tanks don't just fight other tanks, they support and are supported by infantry that fight other infantry and tanks. Russia's screw-up began by them not having infantry support, usually carried by equa

  • I flew my DJI Spark over the local Walmart behind my home. Didn't see any Russians, just the usual panhandlers standing by the plaza entrance and lots of empty cardboard boxes stacked up at the rear of the store (possible WMD storage??).

    I'm pretty sure it's a war crime to order an airstrike on Walmart though, so I just let them be.

    • I'm pretty sure it's a war crime to order an airstrike on Walmart though, so I just let them be.

      Walmart is itself a crime against humanity, so there are no winners here.

  • Putin - evil AND stupid (Score:3)

    by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Wednesday March 30, 2022 @04:27AM (#62402117) Homepage

    Not only did he repeat hitlers mistake of sending his army in at the wrong time of year but if he'd waited another few months not only would the ground have dried out so his tanks wouldn't have had to stick to the roads, but nordstream 2 would have been up and running and Germany - thanks to that prize clown Merkel - would have been his bitch.

    • Opening Northstream II would not change anything regarding Germany. Or do you think we would magically suddenly need more gas, just because more gas is theoretically available?

    • 1) Merkel is gone; you are out of date.

      2) the pipeline was an upgrade to the old one; they still are using the old one - it would have simply replaced the old one not done anything new. Many in Germany were opposed to building a replacement when the old one should scrape bye until nothing was needed... or more likely it was not worth continuing it's use and repair as they met their climate goals.

      3) You mean to tell me it was warm and swampy over there in February? Their plan was to be done in a week; befor

  • The FAA is going to take one look at this and ban drones. "There's no reason for civilians to own weapons of war during peacetime."

  • This is what happens when one army still thinks they're fighting WW II and the other is fighting in the 21st century. The Russians would be better off (literally) on horseback.

  • Look at where the convoy was at per intelligence sources and then look at a map where they say they ambushed them. The ambush supposedly takes place on the north-east of Kyiv just south of Chernihiv and the 40 mile convoy was on the other side of Kyiv to the north-west by Hostomel.

    It couldn't possibly be a true story and like most Ukrainian propaganda it doesn't withstand even remedial scrutiny.
    • As a slight revision to this comment-- there are two towns in Ukraine with the same name and only minor variance in transliteration and its not clear which one they're speaking about. However, its more or less irrelevant because its no where close to the front of where the convoy stopped-- which occurs somewhere between 20-40 miles to the south of the supposed ambush.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Klaxton ( 609696 )

        It does seem kind of far-fetched. Do you have a link to the map where they say they ambushed them?

  • A "bike" has 2 wheels.
    A "trike" has 3 wheels
    A four-wheeled vehicle is often called a "quad"

  • The technology is accessible today on a pocket-change budget to create autonomous drones that can travel to a general GPS coordinate of a landing field, survey for parked aircraft, and fly a small explosive payload to detonate near engine components and elsewhere that would render the target inoperable. The craft could be repaired, but this type of harassment could easily bog down a military force in the manner we're seeing in Ukraine.

    Countermeasures such as autonomous machine gun turrets to take out

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