Buzz Bombs — What Ukraine Can Learn From London’s “Drone War” 80 Years Ago

Aerospace & Defense Buzz Bombs — What Ukraine Can Learn From London’s “Drone War” 80 Years Ago David Hambling Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. I’m a South London-based technology journalist, consultant and author Following New! Follow this author to stay notified about their latest stories. Got it! Oct 18, 2022, 08:42am EDT | New! Click on the conversation bubble to join the conversation Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Russia has increased the tempo of its campaign of long-range strikes against Ukraine, and as the UK government’s Defence Intelligence notes , Iranian-supplied Shahed-136 kamikaze drones (which they call “one-way attack uncrewed aerial vehicles”) are a major part of the offensive.

Many commentators are now pointing out the similarities with Hitler’s V-weapon campaign against London in 1944-45 and there may be some important lessons in this. The V-1 designer Fritz Gosslau had previously worked on remote-controlled drones , and the V-1 was referred to as the ‘ robot bomb’ or ‘robot aircraft’ because it flew itself with the help of a gyroscope and a compass , and required no human input after launch. A local resident sits outside a building destroyed by Russian, Iranian-made, drones after an .

. . [+] airstrike on Bila Tserkva, southwest of Kyiv, on October 5, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

– One person was injured in an attack with Iranian-made drones in the town of Bila Tserkva southwest of Kyiv, the region’s governor said October 5, 2022. “During the night, the enemy carried out strikes with Shahed-136 type kamikaze drones against Bila Tserkva,” governor Oleksiy Kuleba said on social media. (Photo by Sergei SUPINSKY / AFP) (Photo by SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP via Getty Images) AFP via Getty Images The V-1 was nicknamed the ‘buzz bomb’ because of the distinctive sound of its pulse jet engine firing fifty times a second; similarly the Ukrainians call the Shahed-136 ‘ moped ’ because of the sound of its engine.

Like the Luftwaffe in 1944, the Russian Air Force is not able to carry out effective attacks. Instead, an uncrewed alternative, in this case the Shahed-136, is being sent in. And like the V-1, instead of hitting military targets the attacks are causing civilian casualties and spreading terror.

“Attacks on civilians or civilian objects are war crimes and these attacks with loitering munitions and cruise missiles clearly are not directed at military objects,” Marc Garlasco , a former U. S. military advisor turned war crimes investigator told Forbes.

MORE FOR YOU They Inherited Billions Upon Billions: Meet America’s Richest Heirs Stock Market’s Recent Key Reversal Buy Signal Focusing On Unicorns Is The Wrong Approach In some ways this choice of target is puzzling, because while the V-1 could only hit within several miles of a given aim point , the Shahed-136 has GPS accuracy and should be able to strike a specific building. “I am shocked the Russians haven’t done a mass attack against something that actually matters,” says Garlasco. “It shows though it the absolute lack of Russian ISR [Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance] or intel understanding of targets.

They are popping off against targets of low or no military utility. It is a huge waste of a resource. ” However, this approach is entirely consistent with Russia’s previous approach with their own ballistic and cruise missiles which appear to have hit more civilian targets such as residential buildings than military ones.

Some Shahed-136s may be hitting infrastructure like this power plant near Kyiv but not military targets. The V-1 attacks on London were intended to weaken British morale, but did comparatively little damage and came far too late to have any effect on the course of the war. Again, Russia seems to have turned to the imported Iranian drones from desperation and they will not affect the military outcome.

Both the Germans and the Russian are also firing ballistic missiles — the Germans V-2s and Russia’s Iskanders – by by contrast the V-1 and Shahed-136 both fly low and slow, making them relatively easy to intercept. Roughly 60% of the 6,000 V-1s fired at London were brought down; about half of these were downed by fighters, and most of the rest by anti-aircraft guns, the remainder by barrage balloons. Similarly, Ukraine is bringing down many of the incoming Shahed-136s.

Some are being shot down by fighter jets , some with portable surface-to-air missiles and some by German-supplied Gepard mobile anti-aircraft cannon . Many people, including the police, are shooting at low-flying drones with Kalashnikovs when they see them. According to a tweet by Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko on Monday, Ukrainian Forces shot down 82% or 23 out of 28 Iranian Shahed-136 Kamikaze drones targeting the city that day.

V-1 German Missile Over English Town 1944 | Location: Southern England. Bettmann Archive There are calls for better air defenses for Ukraine to protect against the waves of Shahed-136s. However, any defence which can be supplied rapidly is still likely to be leaky.

The drones fly low and are difficult to spot at long range. Defenses like portable Stingers and Gepard anti-aircraft artillery have a very short range; huger numbers would be needed to defend a city like Kyiv and even then some would get through. An advanced, layered air defense system like Israel’s incredibly efficient Iron Dome would take much longer to put in place and still has a problem.

The Iron Dome’s Tamir interceptor missiles cost up to $100k each , but the Shahed-136 may be as cheap of $20k. According to a statement by Ukraine’s President Zelensky, Russia has already ordered 2,400 Shahed-136s from Iran, and many more may follow. The Shahed-136 is intended to be launched in large numbers so that some will get through.

The same applied to the V-1, which was designed to be cheap — about $30,000 a unit in modern money, whereas the V-2 rocket which carried the same warhead was twenty times as expensive and far more complex to produce. I write from South London, a few hundred yards from where V-weapons caused huge damage , and am only too aware of the challenge mass attacks pose. Although the average number of casualties dropped from one death per V-1 to one per three V-1s, no matter how many Spitfires and AA guns were deployed, snot every flying bomb could be brought down.

The threat was only ended by bombing the launch sites and by moving forward after D-Day and pushing German forces in France and Belgium back out of range. Attacks on launch sites, control centers and storage may be the best way of countering the stream of Shahed-136s and preventing further civilian casualties. But ultimately pushing Russia out of Ukraine and ending the war may be the only real answer.

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