Ukraine's One-Way Attack Drones Aren't One-Way Anymore
Fire Point FP-1/2s can fire rockets now
This story was commissioned by Euromaidan Press. Since Substack pays only around a fifth of my bills, I have no choice but to take on a lot of freelance work. I still want my Substack audience to know where to read those freelance stories, however. Hence this excerpt.
Ukraine’s Fire Point FP-1/2 one-way attack drones, designed to fly into their targets and explode on impact, now have the option of attacking and then returning to base to reload.
That’s because at least one Ukrainian drone unit has equipped its propeller-driven FP-1/2s with underwing air-to-surface rockets. A video of an FP-1/2 firing a rocket has circulated online.
It’s a surprise development, but potentially a welcome one among Ukrainian drone operators as they scale up their air campaign over occupied Ukraine and adjacent Russian oblasts.
For certain target sets, Ukrainian drone operators wouldn’t need to expend their FP-1/2s. Instead, they could attack with underwing munitions and then bring the drone back for future use. Or an FP-1/2 could attack with rockets and then follow-up by slamming itself into the same target for maximal damage.
Reusability is appealing. The more often operators can fly their drones before the drones are destroyed, the more targets they can strike, overall. Ukrainian industry builds thousands of one-way attack drones every month; reusing some of them effectively increases the inventory—and at low cost.
Read the rest at Euromaidan Press.