Don's Weekly, 21 July 2025: Part 4 (Equipment & Magyar)

by Donald Hill

(…continued from Part 3…)

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Equipment

There is research and development, and there is testing on a firing range, and then there is actual use on a battlefield. Ukraine will allow foreign governments and companies to participate in testing their products in combat or they can provide online training and the Ukrainians can carry out independent evaluations while providing detailed reports. Equipment that is damaged can be donated to Ukraine or shipped back home.

Gerbera drones have a speed of 160 kph and a maximum altitude of 3000 meters. Shahed drones have a speed of 185 kph and a maximum altitude of about 4000 meters. Ukraine’s ODIN interceptor drones cruise at 200 kph and can reach speeds over 280 kph and fly for 7-10 minutes. They have now successfully destroyed Shahed-136 and Gerbera drones. Details on the number destroyed or the interception rate were not given for the ODIN, but a report says the Ukrainian interceptor drones hit their targets 70% of the time. Here is a video of some of the interceptions.

The Hydra 70 is a 70 mm unguided rocket that has been in use since the late 1940s with various upgrades and nine different warheads. It was mass produced in the 1960s and often fired from helicopters in the Korean, Vietnam and Desert Storm wars, and currently cost about $2800 each. Since 1996, four million rockets have been built. In 2012, a $20k laser guidance system was added to the rocket that gave it a 93% accuracy rate and it became the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS). Over 50,000 were built. In 2025, an IR seeker was added to the laser guidance system and it became the APKWS II. The IR seeker allows pilots to switch to the next target instead of continuously lasing the original target until destruction. F-16s have been using them to destroy Houthi drones since 2024. A single plane can hold one or two pods, each containing seven rockets. On testing grounds, the US destroyed a drone with an APKWS II fired from a TRV-150 drone that has a payload capability of 68 kg. An unknown number of rockets were sent to Ukraine in May 2023, and in February 2024, Ukraine posted footage of naval forces shooting down a Shahed over Odesa with an APKWS fired from a VAMPIRE counter-drone system. In June, Hegseth diverted 20,000 of these missiles to the middle east even though they were promised to Ukraine.

A Ukrainian company developed an AI visual recognition capability that flies the drone once it has been selected by the operator. Already in use, hundreds of thousands can be produced a month with only the cost to a drone increasing by a “relatively small percentage.” Any quadcopter drone can use it and most mass-produced drones already do. FPV terminal guidance was the priority and they are now working on a version for intercepting other drones, which is more difficult. Aerial targets move in three dimensions and the difficult piece isn’t target recognition but steering the drone in three dimensions at higher speeds in the thin air of high altitudes while dealing with the air turbulence behind the Shahed. They believe that with funding it would take at least four months to develop a solution.

Germany started building a factory in November 2024 to produce GEM-T Patriot missiles, an upgrade to the GEM missile that allows it to intercept ballistic missiles. The first missiles will be produced in late 2026 or early 2027. GEM-T missiles have a 160 km range. The PAC-3 MSE Patriot missile only has a range of 120 km but it is more effective against ballistic missiles.

At some undetermined point in the future there will be a counter to FPV drones that will make it easier to survive them. In the meantime, many solutions, including layered solutions, are being explored.

Rheinmetall created a discharger for smoke rounds that can create a cloud in 1.5 seconds that blocks the visual and infrared spectrum for 20 seconds. Called a last ditch defense against drones, it remains to be seen if it would stop drone attacks and buy time for other actions. If so, it would be a component in a layered defense. If the cloud was utilized by itself the drone operator would only have to wait 20 seconds.

The US army is buying microwaves to protect infrastructure from aerial threats by damaging their internal electronics, whether they are operated by radio waves, fiber optic cable or are autonomous. Two systems plus spare parts and testing services cost $43.55 million. The second-generation attempt is advertised to have a 2 km range and 30% more power and replaces four first-generation systems that were bought a year ago. The phased array architecture allows it to adjust the pattern of electromagnetic interference on multiple wavelengths. It can operate for 30 minutes on batteries.

The UK tested their own microwave weapon with a 1 km range against two drone swarms, tracking and disabling over 100 drones. Unlike jamming, which requires persistent efforts until control is lost, this directed energy weapon disables a drone instantly. They’ve invested £40 million so far and each engagement costs around 10 pence. They hope to make the system operational at the brigade level within ‘several years’.

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Magyar Speaks

Three years ago, Robert Brovdi was an infantry platoon leader in Kherson. Now he is the commander of Ukraine’s unmanned systems. He’s only left Ukraine twice since 2022. The second time was to share the stage in Germany last week with the likes of a senior representative of Rheinmetall, a two-star Ukrainian general and a US three-star general. He would be back in Ukraine the next day, but this is what he said:

Major Brovdi (far left) is the only panel member that didn’t speak fluent English so a Ukrainian colonel (from the SBU?) interpreted for him.

95% of the soldiers under Brovdi’s command were civilians in 2022. All the personnel in drone units make up 2% of the number of people in the Ukrainian army but they are responsible for 25% of the attacks on the Russian army and 33% of the Russians that are killed.

The first challenge to Ukraine is the number of Russian soldiers. Brovdi’s goal is to kill more Russians than they can send to Ukraine but they cannot achieve that goal at this time.

The second challenge is the Shahed drones that kill and injure civilians and damage the infrastructure.

The third challenge is that everyone that wants to join the army is already on the battlefield so there should be no expectations of an increase in the number of recruits.

There is not a single tank in the world that can survive drones that cost $3-500 and Ukrainian drones are the best in the world. Currently, drones have created kill zones of 25-30 km. Because of that, some feel that the infantry and logistics systems should be replaced by unmanned ground systems.

The next step is to build a drone wall that would stop anything trying to move through it on the ground or in the air. At one time, Russia was sending 100 Shahed drones a day and they were laughing at Putin when he said they will soon send 500 Shaheds a day. No one is laughing now since Russia is sending an average of 400 drones a day.

Ukraine’s experience is valuable to other countries since they haven’t gone through this kind of war. None of the cities in NATO can be defended against 500 Shaheds a day for seven days in a row so their national security doctrines should be changed and upgraded.

A year ago, Brovdi was visiting a large NATO base in Europe and was shown how it was defended. When asked what he thought, he said four Ukrainian drone teams 10 km away would fully destroy it in 15 minutes. It would look like the attack on Pearl Harbor in WW2. He wasn’t trying to frighten anyone, he was just reminding them that drones are cheap and easily acquired and terrorists can have a big impact on each and every country. This isn’t just Ukraine’s war, it is a war between civilization and terrorists.

Ukraine paid for their expertise with their lives but Ukraine can give NATO the expertise and support its allies in the same way the allies supported Ukraine.

When asked how he incentivises the fighting ability of his soldiers, he said the people that ask to join his units are already highly motivated to defend their country. The next step is to organize the unit as if it were a business. Everyone in the unit can be promoted based on their accomplishments, and everyone is encouraged to use their initiative to start a project that will increase a unit’s capabilities.

Brovdi is in charge of all of Ukraine’s drone operations but he is just a major, signifying that he wasn’t in the military before 2022. When he left his drone regiment, the person who replaced him was just a second lieutenant (instead of a colonel). Before the war, that lieutenant was training 2,000 children in tae kwan do and now he’s running a regiment with 2,000 personnel.

You should have competent people, the right equipment and the right tactics to run the unit and achieve the desired results. Drones are just the instruments his soldiers use to apply those principles.

When the panel was asked if there was still a place on the battlefield for tanks in an age of drones, the US general and Rheinmetall representative agreed that there was still a need for protected firepower when the conditions were set for offensive action, not attritional warfare. The general envisioned armored vehicles being preceded by aerial and ground drones to conduct automated reconnaissance instead using manned vehicles. The Rheinmetall representative believed that vehicles would need to be upgraded in capabilities to adapt to the changing battlefield. The Ukrainian two star general said that as an infantry commander he believes that armor is still valuable, but how they are used and protected needs to be reconsidered. He also thinks they should be an unmanned system.

The panel was asked what parting thought they would like to leave with the audience. The Rhinemetall representative said that Ukraine is fighting to protect our freedom and is paying the highest price while doing the hardest job and it is our obligation to learn what we can to improve products and technology in order to support Ukraine by any means necessary. The Ukrainian general wanted to thank everyone for their support but asked their governments to be more decisive. Brovdi said that Ukraine created a new modern warfare doctrine of unmanned systems forces and this modern doctrine should become part of everyone’s national security systems so their children won’t ask difficult questions, such as when their father is coming back.