Tuesday, January 7, 2025

‘I’m Hit, I’m Going Down!’ – Naval Drone Downs Russian Helicopter

Must read

Today on its Telegram feed, Ukraine’s military intelligence service posted a video of an downing of a Russian Mi-8 helicopter.

According to the post: “On December 31, 2024, soldiers of the special unit of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine ‘Group 13’ hit an air target for the first time in history with the help of a Magura V5 naval attack drone equipped with missile weapons.”

Although not completely unexpected this is a significant step. Ukraine’s drone boats have already played a major part in driving the Russian fleet out of a large section of the Black Sea, opening up the sea route for Ukrainian grain exports. This latest success will make the boats even harder to stop.

A Triumph For ‘FrankenSAM’

Drone boats have already engaged Russian helicopters with machine guns, but the successful use of a surface-to-air missile is a first.

The Magura is one of Ukraine’s most advanced drone boats or Uncrewed Surface Vessels (USVs). Back in May one was displayed with what was called a FrankenSAM arrangement: a pair of AA-11 Archer air-to-air missiles in an improvised surface launcher. The AA-11, known in Russia as R-73, is an infra-red, heat-seeking missile roughly equivalent to the U.S. AIM-9 Sidewinder. It is normally carried by jet fighters for dogfights, with a range of around 20 miles.

It seems the Ukrainian decided that air-to-air combat was less of an issue than defending their drone boats, and adapted the AA-11 for naval use. This is one of several unorthodox but effective projects such as FrankenSAM Soviet launchers adapted to American missiles.

The shootdown proves that the concept works. Its success was far from certain: getting a missile to lock on from a rocking boat is very different to aiming from an aircraft, and will have required effective stabilization.

Sea Battles

The 1:47 video shows splashes as gunfire strikes the water around the Magura drone boat, suggesting that it was under attack. Helicopters armed with 23mm cannon or heavy machineguns can easily sink small boats, and they are the best method stopping kamikaze boats before they become a threat to shipping. However, in this case the hunter became the hunted.

The video shows a helicopter through a thermal imager, bright against the dark sky, and the firing of a missile. The video is indistinct and there is considerable movement from the rocking of the boat, but it appears to show the helicopter hit and plummeting down to crash into the sea.

The video goes on to show a second helicopter, this one launching infra-red flares to distract heatseeking missiles, and another surface-to-air missile launch.

According to Ukrainian intelligence: “

During the battle in the Black Sea near Cape Tarkhankut in the temporarily occupied Crimea, a Russian Mi-8 helicopter was destroyed as a result of the use of R-73 SeeDragon missiles. Another similar enemy helicopter suffered fire damage and was able to reach the home airfield.”

It is not clear from the video that the second helicopter was actually damaged but this seems plausible.

Intercepted radio communications reportedly include the pilot saying “482, I’M HIT, GOING DOWN!”

The intercept continues: “There was an explosion — I got hit. The launch came from the water. Then there was another flash. I didn’t see where it went, but the first one hit me directly and exploded nearby — I felt it on the helicopter. Some systems have failed.”

Cost Calculus

The main feature of drone boats like the Magura is their expendability. At around a quarter of a million dollars apiece, the boats cost less than an anti-ship missile and can be expended in kamikaze attacks. Putting guided missiles on them pushes the cost way up. While Ukraine may have had some surplus R-73s which they could repurpose, even the small shoulder-launched Stingers supplied by the U.S. cost around $480,000 each, or about twice as much as a Magura. Putting two on a Magura dwarfs the cost of the boat.

On this basis, it might seem obvious to buy more boats rather missiles. But fitting just a few of the attacking force with missiles turns it into a game of Russian Roulette for helicopter crews attempting to intercept them. Maybe the helicopters can shoot at the drones with impunity, but maybe they themselves will be shot down. This threat means than an entire attack force can be protected with a few missiles. Given that even a cheap secondhand Mi-8 costs something over $10m, the Russians are unlikely to gamble.

The Russian have already experimented with launching FPV attack drones from helicopters to tackle drone boats. These can strike from longer range, making the helicopters less vulnerable, but is not as quick and efficient as going in with automatic cannon. Taking out several boats speeding towards a target will be more of a challenge.

Naval warfare may be entering a new age, one which belongs to the drones.

(Interestingly, the U.S. Navy is already looking at drone boats with anti-aircraft missiles under a project called ‘Multi-domain Area Denial from Small-USV’ or MADS. This aims to integrate Stinger launchers on existing uncrewed boats to provide “low-cost, persistent anti-air and anti-surface maritime defense capability.” The aim is to deploy a large number of these MADS vessels making them too numerous to destroy.)

Latest article