Trent Telenko Profile picture
Married father of four great kids, Retired US DoD Civil Servant, Section 22 Special Interest Group list admin, Chicagoboyz-dot-net history blogger

Sep 1, 2024, 8 tweets

It appears the Ukrainian Kusk incursion has been accompanied by a new Security Service of Ukraine fixed wing FPV drone called the Gray Widow-1 that has a range of 50 km to stop Russian road & rail traffic.

AFU's Cut Rate Lancet in Kursk🧵
1/


The twin engine Gray Widow-2 was shown in the same article.

It is unclear what the range/payload of the FPV/loitering munition will be, but something significantly over 52 km is a good guess.

2/
mil.in.ua/en/news/a-batc…

The video of the Gray Widow-1 operations make clear it is now in service.

It's an easy to use munition that is logistically simpler to move and set up than a 60mm mortar and outranges a M109A6 155mm/L39 Cal gun firing an Excalibur GPS guided shell.

3/

This may be the FPV drone that Russia has complained about vociferously as having severed the E-38 highway connecting Kursk City with Rylsk.

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A stop capture from the video shows Gray Widow-1 also comes with an explosively formed penetrator warhead option.

No pre-1979 tank or AFV design can survive such a top attack.

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A 52 km range from Ukraine's frontline positions means electric rail and electrical grid power sub stations between Lgov to Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk & Oryol are in range and severable at Ukraine's will.

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If the Gray Widow-2 has a 70 km(+) range, as is likely. Then all road & rail links into Kursk proper are now under AFU's drone interdiction footprint.

That logistical reality will utterly unhing all modes of Russian ground lines of communications going into Donbas.😈

7/7

@threadreaderapp unroll please.

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