On April 3, Iranian forces shot down a U.S. Air Force Boeing F-15E Strike Eagle fighter over mountainous Isfahan Province in central Iran. Rescuers quickly found the pilot of the two-seat warplane, but the backseat crewman proved harder to reach.

After a few hours and a lot of little vehicular mayhem, commandos fetched the crewman and escaped with no loss of life on the American side.

But the rescue op very nearly failed, and it resulted in the destruction of seven additional U.S. manned aircraft, together worth about $350 million. Rather than proving U.S. dominance, the rescue underscores a critical vulnerability for the United States and European powers at a time when unmanned aircraft are poised to supplant manned aircraft in strike missions deep inside defended airspace.

Ground-based air defenses, even when degraded and suppressed like Iran’s, are still a serious problem for Western warplanes that must penetrate enemy airspace to deliver their ordnance. And every single shoot-down is a potential diplomatic disaster if the crew is lucky enough to survive. Beaten and bloodied prisoners of war reading enemy scripts to the camera is a favored tactic of dictatorships, since they shock the home audience.

Iran very nearly captured an American pilot on April 3. He would’ve been a powerful bargaining chip for the Iranian regime in Pres. Donald Trump’s on-again, off-again efforts to negotiate an end to the U.S.-Israeli war. How long should the world’s leading powers accept that kind of risk when all the same powers are also actively developing fast, long-range armed drones?

The rescue op isn’t an argument for more manned air power. It’s an argument against it.

Read the rest at Europe’s Edge.

On Sunday, a pair of Russian helicopters—a Mil Mi-17 transport and a Mil Mi-28 gunship—landed at an improvised base in Voronezh Oblast, in western Russia as far as 110 miles from the border with Ukraine.

The Russian crews apparently assumed they and their helicopters were fairly safe so deep inside Russia. They were wrong.

The USF’s 429th Regiment, working in conjunction with Ukrainian special forces and the Ukrainian army’s 43rd Artillery Brigade, flew a surveillance drone all the way to Vorenzh to surveil the forward arming and refueling point. Fixed-wing one-way attack drones soon followed.

“After clarifying the target coordinates, the operators delivered consecutive UAV strikes,” the USF stated. “As a result of the hits, both targets were struck.” Drone video feeds seem to confirm the nearly simultaneous hits.

Both rotorcraft may be write-offs. And there are surely casualties, too. In one attack drone’s video feed, a Russian maintainer is visible working on the Mi-17 moments before the drone strikes the helicopter. Other Russians can be seen running away from the incoming drones.

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Ukraine’s Fire Point FP-1 and FP-2 drones are precise, inexpensive and flexible. The $50,000 FP-1 trades explosive payload for fuel in order to range farther. The similarly priced FP-2 trades fuel for explosives in order to hit harder.

But even the big boom FP-2 has a problem. With a warhead maxing out at just 350 pounds and a top speed of around 200 miles per hour over its 130-mile range, the drone lacks the penetrating power of, say, a 2,000-pound gravity bomb with a BLU-109 penetrating warhead.

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Increasingly unconstrained by Russia’s collapsing air defenses, Ukrainian forces are doing a little clean-up in occupied Crimea. A barrage of long-range first-person-view attack drones—including, it seems, Fire Point FP-1s or FP-2s—struck Russian bases and a radar and plinked an apparent decoy Mikoyan MiG-31 interceptor.

The drones also ran down three warships belonging to the depleted Black Sea Fleet, two of which the Ukrainians have been trying to sink for a few years now. Captures from the attacking drones imply they at least came close to hitting the ships. It may take time to confirm any actual damage.

The Ukrainian state security service, the SBU, claimed its Alpha drone group hit Sevastopol—the Black Sea Fleet’s former home port—and Belbek air base, damaging or destroying:

• the landing ship Yamal,

• the landing ship Filchenkov,

• the reconnaissance ship Ivan Hurs,

• the Lukoka training center,

• an air defense headquarters,

• an MRS-10M1 radar,

• a MiG-31 aircraft at Belbek and

• the “technical and operational part” of Belbek.

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An explosive first-person-view drone likely wiped out an entire Russian infantry squad in a single strike apparently near Zaliznychne in southeastern Ukraine in recent days.

Shrugging off heavy losses in and around that village, the Russians are advancing, however. The main Ukrainian unit the area, the 225th Assault Regiment, may be showing signs of exhaustion nearly three months after Ukrainian forces launched a southeastern counteroffensive.

The FPV strike by the Feniks Unmanned Regiment of Border Guards was unusually bloody. The Russians did Feniks a favor by cramming 11 soldiers into the open bed of an unarmored cargo truck and rolling that truck within FPV range in broad daylight.

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Ukraine is surging more explosive drones into Russia’s vulnerable logistical zone, aiming to weaken Russian regiments before the regiments can attack.

At least two Ukrainian units, the 12th Azov Brigade and the 20th Unmanned Systems Brigade, are deploying the new SETH mid-range drone for these raids in the logistical zone, which stretches from around 10 km to around 200 km behind the disputed gray zone where most of the direct ground combat takes place.

Recent video montages from the two Ukrainian units depict SETH strikes on Russian trucks, vans and motorcycles. “We cut off the enemy’s logistics, we destroy them before they even reach the front line,” the 20th Unmanned Systems Brigade stated.

Read the rest at Euromaidan Press.

Ratcheting up the pressure on Russian forces in southeastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian 225th Assault Regiment is flying drones into buildings—and hunting for any Russian armored vehicles tucked inside.

The goal: to knock out the vehicles before the Russians can deploy them for a fresh push toward Zaporizhzhia city, 75 km to the west of the disputed gray zone threading south from Dnipropetrovsk Oblast through Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

The vehicles the Ukrainian drones operators are finding and destroying in their indoor shelters are some of the oldest and weirdest in Russia’s 50-month wider war on Ukraine. Blasting awkwardly up-armored T-55 tanks from the 1950s, the Ukrainians are discovering just how poorly equipped some of the Russian regiments and brigades in the southeast actually are.

That the Russian 5th and 36th Combined Arms Armies in Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts ride in geriatric T-55s among other aged vehicles doesn’t mean the CAAs—part of the Eastern Group of Forces—can’t advance toward Zaporizhzhia. It does mean they may struggle. Especially given the increasing density of Ukrainian drones and other defenses in the area.

A recent montage of first-person-view drone strikes, circulated by the 225th Assault Regiment, depicts regimental FPV pilots deftly maneuvering through narrow gaps between the walls and roofs of sheds, garages and warehouses somewhere in the regiment’s sector, which stretches between the Ukrainian base in Verkhnia Tersa and the Russian base in Zelene, 8 km to the east. The logistical hub of Huliaipole, captured by the Russians back in December, lies a few kilometers to the south.

Read the rest at Euromaidan Press.

Japan is re-arming powerfully—but Taiwan can’t rely on its help. The island must prepare to hold out alone against a Chinese attempt at subjugating it, at least until international help can be marshaled.

Reinforcement of the Japanese military includes powerful warships, sophisticated air defenses and new missiles capable of sinking ships and striking air and missile bases, headquarters and supply lines deep inside enemy territory.

Viewed from Taiwan, that looks like a suite of high-tech weaponry that could help save the island in the event of attempted subjugation by China, whether using invasion or blockade. The problem is that Japan may not race to Taiwan’s defense. Tokyo is acquiring all those new ships and missiles for the defense of Japan, which doesn’t necessarily mean also defending Taiwan.

If the U.S. wouldn’t or couldn’t come to Taiwan’s aid, Japan wouldn’t either. Nor, most likely, would Australia, the Philippines or any other country. Yes, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said in November that a Chinese armed attempt to seize Taiwan could be an example of ‘survival-threatening situations’ for Japan – those that allow the country to engage in collective self-defense with U.S. But Taipei still should prepare for the worst or at least prepare to hold out for as long as it can.

Fighting alone, Taiwanese forces could blunt a Chinese attack and delay defeat, buying time for diplomacy that might belatedly draw reluctant allies into the war. The U.S. would have to come first. Japan might follow. So might others.

Read the rest at The Strategist.

Ukraine’s slow-burn campaign to suppress Russian air defenses in occupied Ukraine has cleared the air over wide swathes of the battlefield, allowing Ukrainian air force manned fighters to penetrate deeper inside what was once Russian-controlled air space to deliver precision glide bombs.

The same campaign—at least 492 strikes on air defenses between June and early March—is also clearing the way for Ukraine’s escalating drone raids targeting headquarters, drone teams, supply convoys and, yes, any surviving air defenses in the logistical zone stretching around 150 miles behind the no-man’s-land

Drones suppress Russian air defenses, enabling manned and unmanned aircraft to strike harder and more frequently, further degrading those air defenses in the process. It’s a virtuous cycle for Ukrainian deep strike forces—and a death spiral for Russian forces in occupied territory.

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Sometime late last year, some enterprising Ukrainian volunteers mounted a 7.62-millimeter minigun to the port fuselage hatch of an Antonov An-28 light turboprop transport—and went hunting for Russian Shahed attack drones.

By mid-October, the crew reported shooting down around 70 Shaheds. Four months later, French media followed up—and the same crew claimed they’d racked up 150 total kills. By late April, kills reportedly exceeded 220.

That’s 150 Shaheds in probably 20ish major air raids between mid-October and late April. In other words, around seven Shaheds per raid. Given that an An-28 costs a few thousand dollars per flight hour and minigun ammunition is also cheap, the civilian-operated transport probably ranks among the most efficient Shahed-killers.

And it just got a lot better, albeit somewhat more expensive. As depicted in a new video montage, the same An-28 is now launching 3D-printed SkyFall P1-Sun interceptor drones from an underwing hardpoint.

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U.S. Air Force heavy bombers flying from the United States and firing AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Strike Missiles in what amounts to an aerial conveyor belt could rain so much precision firepower on a Chinese invasion force that the defense of Taiwan could be an “almost uncomplicated exercise,” according to a 2023 report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

But CSIS assumed U.S. Indo-Pacific Command would have access to the entire inventory of JASSMs and similar Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles—around 4,000 missiles in all.

The think tank didn’t anticipate that U.S. forces would expend around 1,000 JASSMs plus thousands of other precision munitions in a costly war on Iran that has no clear objective and has, if anything, only emboldened the Iranian regime to advance its nuclear weapons program and tighten its grip on the Strait of Hormuz.

That alarming munitions wastage is why the successful testing of a new cheap cruise missile is so important. Yes, Lockheed Martin is already producing more than 700 JASSMs a year—and has plans to boost output to 2,000 a year. But it takes four years from the signing of a contract to deliver a batch of JASSMs.

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The first few generations of Shahed one-way attack drones that Russia deployed in its ongoing campaign of deep strikes targeting Ukrainian cities and power plants navigated just one way. They used satellite positioning to hit pre-designated targets.

That’s changing—and for obvious reasons. Ukraine’s wide-area strategic jammers can throw off the satellite-guided drones. Ukrainian air defenses teams can shoot them down as they motor along predictable flight paths at medium altitude.

Four years into the deep strike campaign, just 10% of Shaheds normally get through Ukrainian defenses, even when the Russians 500 or more of the 440-pound explosive drones in a single barrage.

Now more and more of Russia’s Shaheds are directly controlled by a distant operator. This makes them much more maneuverable and responsive. They can dodge ground fire—and even strike back at the air defenders on the ground.

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Blowing up Russia’s wireless repeaters, Ukraine is working to prolong its connectivity advantage.

Recent footage of Ukrainian drone strikes on tower-mounter repeaters underscores the value of the repeaters—and their vulnerability. The repeaters, fixed to the tallest tower in a given area, can extend wireless signals across the war zone and allow drone operators to stay connected to their drones even as the drones fly over the horizon.

But the repeaters aren’t hard to find and strike. When the Russians began climbing towers to install repeaters, the Ukrainians sortied drones to hunt them down. The poor radio troops are easy targets, as montages of Ukrainian drone strikes attest. (See at top.)

In blasting Russian repeaters and their installers, Ukrainian forces complicate Russian forces’ efforts to restore their disrupted front-line communications and get their drones back in the air.

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The ruins of Chasiv Yar are the eastern doorway to Konstantynivka, a Ukrainian stronghold in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast.

Capture Konstantynivka, and the Russians will have a clearer shot at the last major free cities in Donetsk: Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, 12 miles north of Konstantynivka. Fail to capture Konstantynivka, and the Russians’ march toward Kramatorsk and Sloviansk could be much costlier.

But Chasiv Yar holds—well, at least the westernmost parts of it—almost exactly two years after the Russians arrived at the eastern outskirts. Two days in a row starting Saturday, the Russian 70th Motor Rifle Division attacked. Two days in a row, the Ukrainian 24th Mechanized Brigade fought back with drones, artillery and infantry.

“The enemy achieved no success,” the Ukrainian brigade reported.

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The collapse of Russian air defenses means Ukrainian drones can attack with greater freedom. Now Ukrainian forces are flying a new A.I.-assisted attack drone over Donetsk city in order to strike at critical logistical targets.

That Ukrainian drones can range over Donetsk with near impunity is further evidence of the deep degradation of Russian air defenses. A process that itself is being hastened along by Ukrainian drone strikes.

The fixed-wing Hornet drone, built by U.S.-based Swift Beat, boasts an internal algorithm that scrutinizes the image from the drone’s forward-looking camera, and automatically recognizes military targets. The A.I. can steer the explosive drone to a precision hit even when the distant human operator loses contact with the drone due to interference from weather, terrain or Russian jamming.

The Hornet is a recent addition to the Ukrainian arsenal, and a powerful one.

Read more at Euromaidan Press.

Ukraine is developing an air-launched ballistic missile in the same class as the Russian Kinzhal.

If the air-launched version of Fire Point’s FP-9 missile actually works, it could significantly expand the area of Russia where Ukrainian forces can inflict lasting damage on air bases, factories, oil refineries and other strategic targets.

Fire Point has been working on the FP-9 for many months. But it wasn’t until recently that Fire Point chief engineer Denys Shtilerman revealed that the ground-launched ballistic missile could eventually evolve into an air-launched ballistic missile akin to the 4,300-kg Kinzhal.

Ranging as far as 850 km with an 800-kg warhead, the precision-guided FP-9 is a bigger version of Fire Point’s FP-7 ground-launched ballistic missile, which ranges 200 km with a 150-kg warhead. The FP-7 is already in testing. Fire Point plans to begin testing of the FP-9 as early as this summer.

Read more at Euromaidan Press.

Ukraine is striking deeper inside Russian-controlled territory—with manned jets hauling hard-hitting glide bombs.

The Ukrainian air force struck a reported Russian drone storage site at the Donetsk airport in eastern Ukraine on April 14, apparently heavily damaging the site and potentially suppressing Russian drone strikes until new production can make good whatever drones the Russians lost in the strike.

That the Ukrainians targeted a Russian drone depot isn’t surprising. Ukrainian forces frequently target Russian drones before they even reach the front line. There were at least two major raids on drone storage at Donetsk airport last month.

What’s surprising is how the Ukrainians targeted the depot just northwest of Donetsk city, some 40 km from the front line. According to one observer, the attack involved a mix of SCALP-EG cruise missiles and GBU-39 glide bombs.

Read more at Euromaidan Press.

Ukraine has been lobbing rockets into space.

The launches, at least two since February 2022, could lead to wider space capabilities, a Ukrainian lawmaker revealed to RBC-Ukraine. At least twice since Russia widened its war on Ukraine in February 2022, the intelligence directorate has launched rockets as high as 200 km. Space begins at 100 km.

One launch took place in mid-air. A transport plane carried the rocket to an altitude of 8 km before releasing it.

That’s a new capability for Ukraine but it’s not a new concept. For a period of time beginning in the late 1980s, the Dnipro-based Yuzhnoye State Design Office developed multi-stage space launch vehicles that could be launched by military aircraft.

Launching a rocket from an airplane in mid-air reduces the thrust a rocket must produce to reach the edge of the atmosphere.

Revived for use in the current war, the mid-air rocket launches could—along with the ground launches—help transform Ukraine into a regional space power.

Read more at Euromaidan Press.

After capturing the ruins of Pokrovsk and neighboring Myrnohrad late last year, the Russian Center Group of Forces—tens of thousands of troops and thousands of vehicles—is poised to march on Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the last free cities in Donetsk Oblast.

But that march requires supplies, lots of them, all shipped by trucks and Buhanka vans from railheads farther to the east along the highways leading to and through Donetsk City and then toward Pokrovsk, 25 miles to the northwest.

The truck routes are critical chokepoints. The Russians know it. Which is why they’ve blanketed the routes in radio jamming signals meant to ground incoming drones. But jamming only works against munitions that rely on external aids for navigation and targeting: positioning satellites or some remote human operator.

So the Ukrainian 1st Azov Corps and presumably other units deployed a new secret weapon: the Hornet, an inertially guided, A.I.-assisted attack drone developed by U.S. firm Swift Beat, founded by former Google chief Eric Schmidt.

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