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4 December 2024

FPV interceptions of Russian UAVs: A new era of aerial combat.

Artem

In a first for modern warfare, the Ukrainian Defense Forces have been using FPV drones to intercept Russian surveillance drones and other UAVs. In recent months, a variety of published sources have included video evidence showing the considerable success Ukraine has had in doing so. This article examines aggregated open-source data on interceptions of Russian “fixed-wing” drones.

As a disclaimer, all materials used in this article have been meticulously collected from open sources, solely for the purpose of researching UAV interceptions. The offline map, table, video, and photographic materials are attached to this article with their own separate link. For those who wish to conduct further monitoring and fact-checking of this topic, please reference either source links or specific points in this article’s materials as a source.

The process of countering enemy UAVs of the “fixed-wing” type using FPV interceptors is not as challenging to understand as one might initially perceive. If one were to omit the stages which precede any interception, such as detection, target designation etc, one arrives at the event shown within video and single image souces: of an FPV interceptor approaching the enemy drone and disabling it by either the detonation of the drone’s warhead or by knocking the enemy drone out of the sky by ramming it.

The vast majority of interceptions occur through detonation of the warhead. In this case, post-interception assessments prove challenging since, along with its target, the FPV interceptor is also destroyed in any successful engagement. Therefore, we will further assume that each FPV interceptor approach to the enemy drone results in a successful engagement.

At the date of this research article’s publication, 870 UAV interceptions had been processed, with an expected share of unfiltered duplicates accounting for no more than 2%. It should be noted that this study does not include examples and video footage of Russian FPV interceptions; we note that the presently recorded ratio is 870:8 in this regard.

The individual parameters of this research’s recorded statistical data are herein grouped into two categories: ‘reliable’ and ‘requiring additional assumptions’.

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