With the onset of the cold season, the Ukrainian armed forces are facing new challenges on the front. Military serviceman and blogger Oleksandr Karpyuk notes that the main problem for the Armed Forces of Ukraine this winter may be a critical shortage of drones. In his opinion, it is on the solution of this problem that not only the fate of Pokrovsk, but also the further development of the situation in Sloviansk depends.
I won't describe the complexity of the situation here, but there is one but. These are the means.
Until recently, the ability of a unit to perform defensive and assault tasks depended on the number of people. This is where the strategy of attack, defense, and other things was formed.
Now everything is not so obvious. A couple of crews of good fpvs supported by a carousel of mavics (with and without resets) and wings can deploy a platoon on an assault. If they have these mavics and fpv.
The situation with resources in the Donetsk direction has worsened. There is a lot of activity, there are many units. There is not enough for everyone, neither what the state gives, nor what volunteers give.
As soon as the assaults on Avdiivka began, I flew to Pisky and, passing Karlivka, already gave the FPV command to take off. We flew to Pisky almost simultaneously. If there was a moving target, we destroyed it. If there was no moving one, we struck a stationary one. And for the most part, we hit moving targets the entire working day. Transport, pigdogs, armor, everything. A single pigdog? Norm, hold the FPV in your face. We made Pisky the road of death in our time. Because we had something.
Now it's getting more difficult. We can't fly on a single pigdog anymore. FPV shortage. We need to filter targets. Electronic warfare has evolved, and we need constant changes and adjustments to drones to make them successful in this direction. We need more and more drones with target acquisition.
But there are not enough of them, although they are the ones who can change the schedule in the Donetsk direction. And taking into account all the resources involved here, the cost of all these Mavics/FPVs that are needed here is not a very large sum in the accounting of the war.
In my unit, there was a proposal that one of the “big people” should form something like a “support fund” that would be able to accumulate, I don’t know, 10–20–30 million dollars there, which would be directed exclusively to the purchase of Mavics and FPVs with the technical characteristics that the units would request, and antennas for ground stations. Which would collect applications for effective strike units and close them, perhaps in cooperation with such funds as “PZH”, “Prytuly”, “Community Affairs”, Sternenko and others. To find these Mavics and equipment anywhere, any way, to drag them to Ukraine as quickly as possible. And the speed of payment for drones from manufacturers and their shipment to the units would have a minimal margin.
Because we are going into winter. Winter is not the time for wings. It is the time for Mavics, because the cloud cover at an altitude of 100–200 meters will not allow large wings to fly. We will lose a lot in operational awareness, the presence of a Mavic and a FPV on the approach will decide the outcome of the battle. If we go into winter without a sufficient number of means of the required quality — well, hello, meat assaults, Pokrovsk fortress — and that's it, we have arrived, Slavyansk fortress — you are next.
We must honestly admit that we are not pulling this direction. We need more money for this and more resources. And tomorrow we will need many times more of them, because the weather conditions will worsen, and the losses of the Mavics will increase.
$30 million is 3,000 Mavics, day and night (depending on which you need more, thermals or regular ones, the figure may change up or down).
And also 17,000 thousand fpv, day and night. Taking into account the change in daylight hours and the increase in the dark hours of the day, there will be a greater need for fpv on thermal imaging cameras. And you need to place orders now to be in time.
Such a number of drones could become a game changer in the Donetsk direction. The amount indicated above is not exorbitant for the state or top sponsors. And considering the advantage that the Armed Forces of Ukraine will receive thanks to these means, there is nothing to say about it.
Therefore, all that remained was to find people who could quickly launch such a project. If, of course, the loss of Pokrovsk, Selydovoye and other cities, not to mention the possibility of avoiding personnel losses in situations where drones would be better at fighting than people, worried anyone.
Otherwise, our winter will be more difficult than many people think. And when we recognize this problem in a few months, it will be too late to solve it.
And losing soldiers is much more expensive for the state, even in terms of payments. So, maybe we can somehow solve the problem ahead of time, and not as usual?
