Another highly graphical and uncanny video showing the reality of modern war (or in fact, any war). An old Soviet F-1 grenade is dropped from civilian grade Ukrainian UAV onto a russian position, ended with half of soldier’s face blown off.
Apart from the obvious, this video raises serious concerns about the tactics on the modern battlefield. These civilian Mavic DJI type quad-copters are incredibly popular, easy to produce and cheap. And even though they alone can’t really change the favors of the war, they certainly can bring a lot of damage to the opposite side. Just imagine Iraq or Afghan insurgents having good amount of these during US led missions in these countries. The number of casualties would be multiple from what it was in our timeline.
There are two potential ways to deal with this problem. First of all, this war shows how practical field fortifications are. In fact, they are more practical than ever. Now every soldier on the front-line has to be under some cover, the thicker the better. Regular open-top trenches are no longer practical.
Another way is to improve the radio-electronic warfare to such level, that even a single soldier can be protected from such threat. Which proves to be a complicated task, as there are no publicly known passive ways of protection against small, civilian grade UAVs. But even with such devices, it would usually mean that soldiers can be protected in static position, but not necessary on the move. The well liked NATO tactics of foot patrols on the wide open areas will probably have to change.
Yet as of now, both Russian UAVs and Ukrainian UAV will continue dropping munitions on each other, especially on those who did not think about cover before going to sleep.
More on that topic:
Armored russian vehicle blows up on a mine
Combat footage from east of Ukraine showing russian casualties
Hidden problems with russian army infantry
