The D Brief: Russia’s foreign-made drones; Ukraine’s EW-hardened drones; China’s $50B littoral buildup; US soldiers rescue sailors at sea; And just a bit more.
Ukrainian UAV wars: Russia launched 2,023 attacks against Ukraine using Iranian-designed drones last month, Ukrainian officials announced Friday. Those drones would have required an estimated 170,000 “foreign components,” including microchips, microcontrollers, processors, voltage regulators, and transceivers. “Without them, the Shaheds wouldn’t fly,” one official wrote on social media.
The makers of those components include U.S.-based Texas Instruments, Analog Devices, CTS Electronic Components, and Maxim Integrated. Other components came from Switzerland’s STMicroelectronics and U-Blox; China’s Bixinda, and Ireland’s Taoglas—all of which suggests the current sanctions regime isn’t quite working as intended, the official said.
Ukraine is now using U.S.-made, special-purpose drones built to withstand electronic interference, Defense One’s Patrick Tucker reported Thursday after speaking with Brandon Tseng, president and co-founder of Shield AI, based in San Diego.
How they worked: “They launched from about 40 kilometers from the front, flew 100 kilometers past the front line of troops and then found these SA-11 surface-to-air missiles [on] 11 Buks, targeted them, called in HIMARS airburst rounds,” Tseng explained.
Why it matters: The ability to pass data quickly back to an artillery platform like a howitzer or Lockheed Martin HIMARS, is essential to taking out Russian positions, said Tseng. “We flew within 1,000 meters of these jammers. No impact to our aircraft. It was wildly successful,” he said.
Next steps: Ukraine wants a lot more of these drones. Continue reading, here.
A Ukrainian firm just built a new FPV drone designed specifically for intercepting Russian reconnaissance drones which spy target locations for Russian artillery, Kyiv-based United24 Media reported Friday. The new drone is called the Flamingo VB140; it has about a 30-mile range, and can fly in the dark as well as in the daytime.
This week in drone adaptations, researcher Sam Bendett on Thursday flagged a “Mad Max”-looking Russian tank with multiple layers of protection against small Ukrainian FPV drones.
“The first layer is a net that initiates the drone’s warhead or makes it get entangled. The second layer is the frame itself made of additional armor that reduces the impact, and the third layer is the main tank armor with dynamic protection, with ‘everything else piled on top,’” he writes.
North Korean deployment update: About 3,000 North Korean military personnel are in Russia’s Kursk Oblast and an unspecified number of North Korean engineers have allegedly deployed to Ukraine’s occupied Donetsk Oblast, Ukrainian officials said Thursday.
Stateside reax: The use of North Korean troops inside Ukraine may be “more of a strategic messaging thing” than a practical added benefit, said Mark Montgomery, retired U.S. Navy rear admiral and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington. He recently returned from a trip to Ukraine and spoke to Defense One about his observations.
On the one hand, the message from Russia “could kind of accidentally be, you know, we’re starting to reach our own limitations” in terms of manpower and casualties on the battlefield, Montgomery said.
However, North Korean artillery shells are a much more effective weapon in this conflict, he argued. “The provision of the—it’s hard to say how many, but—five to six million rounds of varying sizes up to 162, millimeter artillery? That’s, I think, much more impactful on the battlefield” than North Korean special forces. “That’s decades worth of U.S. production provided by North Korea to the Russians.”
“I understand there might be some issues with some of the ammunition,” he continued, “but you know, quantity does have a quality all its own there. And if you’re allowed to feed the Russians such artillery such that they can maintain a seven to eight to one outgoing to incoming ratio? That’s a significant tactical operational impact. So to me, the ammunition has the biggest impact. [Whereas] Operationally, tactically—I think the troops are more of a strategic messaging thing.”
“I would put the North Korean artillery in front of the [Iran-designed] Shahed [drones], and the Shaheds in front of the North Korean infantry in terms of tactical or operational relevance,” he said. “But again, this is about strategic messaging.”
Montgomery’s advice for the U.S. in terms of improving support to Ukraine: Send AMRAAM and Patriot air defense interceptor rounds as promptly as possible.
The U.S. also needs to provide Ukraine targeting data (satellite imagery, e.g.) much faster than it has been, he said. That means as fresh as “eight or 12 minutes, or, you know, at least in the under a half hour kind of range” instead of eight or 12 hours, as is often the case. “I would not use that in combat,” he said.
The White House should also extend the range at which Ukraine can target Russian positions “within a reasonable distance of Ukraine’s traditional borders.” When asked what range he would recommend, he replied, “Three to 400 kilometers. And if they want to strike something beyond that,” they can use one of their domestically-manufactured long-range drones, which have targeted Russian oil facilities, for example.
Stay tuned for a new podcast episode later today featuring our full conversation with Montgomery following his recent trip to Ukraine.
Additional reading:
Welcome to this Friday edition of The D Brief, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. Share your newsletter tips, reading recommendations, or feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1952, the U.S. detonated its first thermonuclear device at the Eniwetok atoll in the Marshall Islands.
Around the Defense Department
Marine aviator blamed for ejecting from an F-35 that flew on for 11 minutes. “The pilot incorrectly diagnosed an out-of-controlled flight emergency and ejected from a flyable aircraft, albeit during a heavy rainstorm compounded with aircraft electrical and display malfunctions,” says the unclassified findings of the Marine Corps’ investigation into the Sept. 17, 2023, crash of an F-35B jet near Joint Base Charleston.
Those “malfunctions” affected: both radios, the transponder, the tactical air navigation system, and the instrument landing system—and: “The helmet-mounted display—the pilot’s primary display system—and the panoramic cockpit display were not operational at least three times, the investigation said, which caused the pilot to become disoriented during the heavy rainstorm,” wrote Defense One’s Audrey Decker. Read more, here.
Pentagon audit says Boeing overcharged for Air Force parts, including soap dispensers marked up 8X. “The Defense Department’s auditor reviewed prices paid for 46 spare parts on the C-17 from 2018 to 2022 and found that 12 were overpriced and nine seemed reasonably priced. It couldn’t determine the fairness of prices on the other 25 items,” writes D1 alumna Tara Copp of the Associated Press.
Related reading:
Pacific region
China’s $50 billion military stronghold in the South China Sea. The Washington Post has a detailed interactive report on China’s buildup on Hainan Island and numerous reefs. Check it out, here.
If war broke out, the U.S. military would ride into theater on commercial ships. The Pentagon’s “limited capacity to support a potential China conflict forces planners to tap private cargo companies,” writes the Wall Street Journal. And who owns the world’s cargo ships? “Beijing isn’t just Washington’s biggest military rival. It is also by far the world’s biggest logistics operation.” Read on, here.
Etc.
Lastly this week: Read the untold story of Trump’s failed attempt to overthrow Venezuela’s president. According to WIRED, “In 2019, the Trump admin ordered a reluctant CIA to help overthrow Venezuelan autocrat Nicolas Maduro. Among other actions, CIA conducted a cyberattack to sabotage the digital payments system used by the Venezuelan military.” Quite a story from reporter Zach Dorfman, here.
That does it for us. Have a safe weekend, and you can catch us again on Monday!
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