Thread by @sambendett

1/ THREAD: Russia's Starshe Eddy Telegram channel discussed a recent battle near Antonovsky bridge involving drones and FPVs that was considered "a prototype of the war that we will see in the near future." Main points translated below. https://t.co/OLBkv5pVtKt.me/vysokygovorit/…

2/ "A group of our (Rusian) special forces... was clearing the territory them from the enemy. From the opposite high bank, that is, from Kherson, the enemy discovered this group and opened fire from a tank. Two guys were wounded, a group with the wounded took cover, but..."

3/ "...the Ukrainian forces were flying quadcopters over their location, which rotated constantly as the drone batteries ran out and responded with mortars for every attempt (by Rus soldiers) to leave the shelter. In fact, our guys were trapped and..."

4/ "...it was almost impossible to get out. (Ukr military) was anticipating that they would destroy our guys, and dropped grenades on them from a quadcopter, and our soldiers had to either run several hundred meters with the wounded in their arms under continuous fire, or..."

5/ "...stay in place until dark, without providing normal medical care. Enemy mortars could not be located, and the Ukr military continued to operate. At that moment, a group of our kamikaze drone operators, having approached as close as possible to the water's edge..."

6/ "...launched an attack with the goal of, if not destroying, then at least suppressing the enemy's mortar fire and giving our guys the opportunity to escape the death trap. Kamikaze drones flew over us, a voice was heard over the radio: the drones are above and are heading..."

7/ "...north. These are ours (drones), now they will cover you and you will escape, hold on. The first three drones flew over the possible location of enemy observers on our bank of the Dnieper, then the rest of the FPVs flew to Kherson, one flew..."

8/ "...under the northern part of the Antonovsky bridge and a powerful explosion sounded, apparently one of the Ukrainian mortar crews was located there. At the same time, our (Rus) mortars began firing and the guys, along with the wounded, were able to escape the trap..."

9/ "... and they were picked up by the evacuation group. Interestingly, in the skies over this extremely small patch of land were more than a dozen drones that observed, dropped grenades and hit people with a kamikaze strikes."

10/ "After getting hit by drones, the Ukr forces stopped firing their mortars and did not climb out until they were finally convinced that the «Упыри» (Ghouls - Rus volunteer-provided FPV drone variant) were no longer flying above and were not looking for Ukr locations."

11/ "The massive use of drones, among other things, has a powerful psychological effect, and no one in their right mind can be and operate in the open spaces when death is buzzing over you with electric motors."

12/ What this Starshe Eddy channel described was also covered earlier this year as the Russian soldiers encountered a Ukrainian tactic of trapping them in place with quadcopters - see this thread:

https://twitter.com/SamBendett/status/1620771074681245697

13/ The "Ghoul" FPV drone mentioned earlier is a Russian volunteer project, one of many FPV variants donated to the Russian forces. More on the Ghoul drone:

https://twitter.com/sambendett/status/1654089795553902593

14/ And more info on this FPV drone in this thread:

https://twitter.com/sambendett/status/1687457238745493504?s=20

15/ Such extensive FPV drone use goes both ways - just recently, Russian forces complained about Ukrainian FPV drones and their improving tactics that target Russian forces:

https://twitter.com/sambendett/status/1690335888671211520?s=20

16/ The Russians are now also concerned that Ukrainians are operating FPV drones at night: "If in daytime, having heard these drones, you can still have time to react and understand where it flies visually, and decide (if the personnel are on vehicles) where to jump off to reduce… https://t.co/Vmr7q9NzB9twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

17/ The combat scenario described by Starshe Eddy is a perfect set up for the impending mass-scale use of drones in swarms enabled by AI for recon, comms, guidance, target recognition and other functions - something both sides are working on and pledged to field soon.

18/ One aspect of this battle not covered by Starshe Eddy was EW and CUAS - how different would this outcome be if the Russian soldiers initially had such defenses? Or if the Ukrainian forces were able to neutralize FPVs with with this tech? Both sides are now fielding such… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…