Drones are an ongoing part of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Drones are generally small, fast and cheap. They can give eyes to a fighter on the battlefield or bring death to their enemies. If someone shoots them, you lose the machine and not the soldier. But they are difficult to shoot and the Russian military is trying everything, including custom rounds for the AK-74 rifle.
DIY AK-74 buckshot first appeared on Russian Telegram channels covering the war earlier this year. The Armourer’s Bench reporters covered all of this happening.
Drones are ubiquitous in the war between Russia and Ukraine and both sides recognize their importance. After years of importing equipment, both have increased domestic production. On Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said his country’s production capacity could reach 4 million drones by 2025. In September, Putin said Russia would increase its 2024 production ten times over 2023.
Defending against machines is difficult, but not impossible. The most effective way is to combine them. Choose the right frequency and the machines will simply go off the air. But the average soldier does not have access to that kind of technology on the battlefield. They don’t have, most of the time, a gun.
Using a gun to shoot down a flying plane is a nightmare. Soldiers must stand still, aim, and pray to hit the flying plane before it hits them. The gun is popular because of the idea that the gun, which is much more spread out than a standard handgun round, can easily hit and destroy a drone. But not everyone can get a gun on the battlefield.
Russian troops on the ground in Ukraine have developed a different method of operation: custom buckshot rounds that fit into a standard AK-74 magazine. There are several different ways to make this happen. In a July Telegram video, a Russian soldier demonstrated how to make a custom cartridge.
First, they removed the projectile from the standard 5.45x39mm round. Then they stuffed several balls into the sleeve of the wire. When the sleeve was filled with seven or more balls, he used a candle to heat the sleeve and crumple it over the ball bearings. Then he put that in the hollow of the shell, ran it over the candle again, and put it in his hand.
If this sounds like a strange and dangerous tactic, you’re right. Armourer’s Bench saw the July video but saw nothing else from Russian sources until November when there was a sudden burst of activity about the program. Throughout November and early December, reporters tracked down several Telegram channels that shared videos of both how to make AK-74 buckshot rounds, and how to improve their performance. There is even a video that shows a soldier shooting a drone from the sky using rounds, although it looks staged and it is impossible to know which holes the soldier is firing his gun through.
AK-74s are not intended to fire rounds made of ball bearings and melted plastic. They are reliable and durable guns, but balls and anything that carries them in the shell can leave residue in the barrel of the gun when fired. That residue could throw off the next shot someone takes or it could cause the weapon to misfire.
Homemade gun rounds are a new battlefield approach that speaks to the fear and despair of drones. There are hundreds of videos of FPV drones killing Russian soldiers on the internet. Sometimes they drop bombs on them, sometimes they just fly into their lines and explode. In one iconic video, a desperate Russian soldier takes several shots at incoming drones, misses, and throws all of his ammunition into the machine gun. The gun hit the truth, even if the bullets didn’t explode and the drone exploded.
Guns are the weapon of choice against drones, but the dark truth is that guns usually don’t work. Even with a wide spread, it is difficult to hit a fast-moving target like an airplane. The problem is so big that many companies have taken it. There are several different types of buckshot loaded with “nets,” the idea being that a wide spread shot from the end of the gun can bring down an incoming drone.
In the US, anyone can buy Skynet cycles. Thirty-nine bucks will buy you three custom guns that grow into a net when fired. A Russian company is working on a similar bullet-like gun round. The aim is for the rope to wrap around the propellers of the toy plane and get it out of the air.
In the US, a defense company backed by a16z is testing a more expensive solution to the problem. ZeroMark’s “Iron Dome” seeks to transform an ordinary gun into a self-propelled machine that makes a soldier’s goal. ZeroMark technology consists of a number of rotors attached to a standard gun stock and sensors in the barrel.
A soldier who sees a drone crossing them will just need to aim vaguely at the drone and let the machines do the rest. ZeroMark bets that a computer is better at tracking a fast-moving target than a human. It’s an expensive effort to keep the military safe from drones, but it’s not as funny as stuffing ball bears into an AK-74.
Source link