Last-chance weapon! Ukrainian army's best chance against Russian drones

Ukrainian soldiers use the lowest-tech weapon - rifles - to combat optical drones. These are long-barreled weapons that can fire a devastating stream of shells. A common type is the 12th caliber, writes Business Inside, quoted by Focus.

Fiber-optic drones cannot be stopped or diverted from their course by jamming and other forms of electronic warfare, so the only thing left for Ukrainian fighters is to shoot them down physically.

Vitaly Pervak, CEO of Karlsson, Karas & Associates, a drone training school in Ukraine, says that "the best way to counter drones is to use kinetic force, and a rifle is the best option".

Dmitry Zhluktenko, a drone operator with the Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces, says that's why his unit always carries a 12-gauge rifle on every mission.

A rifle is the most reliable way to take down a fiber-optic drone, but even with conventional UAVs, if the electronic warfare equipment fails, the rifle becomes a "weapon of last resort".

""A drone with explosives is flying at you and you can't jam it," Zhluktenko shares. "That's why you shoot it down."

Dmitry Sledyuk, head of training at Dronarium, a drone operator training school, points out that "unfortunately, there are no special means against fiber-optic drones", which means there are no sophisticated means to stop them.

Instead, soldiers "can counter them with fairly cheap and simple means," he notes.

A U.S. veteran who previously fought in Ukraine said that "FPVs, especially fiber-optic FPVs, are resistant to jamming, almost undetectable, flying at over a hundred miles per hour".

"If you don't have a rifle or one of the newer network weapons at hand, it's terrible," he says.

Pervak points out that rifles can be very "effective against any type of drone. It doesn't matter what size the drone is, what frequencies it has, or whether it has fiber optics".

"The effectiveness of the rifle depends on the training of the operator," he added.

However, Dmitry Marcylenko, a spokesman for the 33rd Assault Regiment of Ukraine, is much less sure of the weapon's value against drones. According to him, there is still not enough data to assess the effectiveness of using a rifle against drones, since there is not enough experience:

"However, they are already practicing using rifles against drones at training grounds. And every unit is equipped with a rifle."