2 weeks ago

Ukrainian drones wiped out US Army armored brigade in exercise

Ukrainian drones wiped out US Army armored brigade in exercise
In military exercise, Ukrainian drones wiped out US Army armoured brigade: Report · firstpost.com

Soldiers sometimes practice fighting without using real weapons, and that practice is called a military exercise.

Ukrainian pilots who fly small drones took part in an exercise in Germany against American soldiers.

The Americans brought big armored vehicles and lots of soldiers to the game.

The Ukrainian drone pilots kept finding the American vehicles and locking their targeting systems onto them.

In a war game, when a drone locks onto a target, that target counts as destroyed.

The Americans kept running out of vehicles before the exercise was supposed to end.

The people running the exercise had to send in replacement vehicles, like players respawning in a video game, so the game could continue.

The Ukrainians are so good at flying drones because they have been practicing in a real war with Russia for the past four years.

The Americans got better during the two weeks by learning to spread out and hide their vehicles.

In the exercise, the drone pilots showed that small, cheap drones can beat big and expensive armored vehicles.

Key facts

Reported by
The Wall Street Journal
Exercise
Combined Resolve (semiannual)
Location
Germany
US unit
US Army 3rd Armored Brigade
Ukrainian unit
412th Regiment of Unmanned Systems Forces
Duration
Two weeks
Drone types used
Explosive-dropping drones and first-person-view (FPV) suicide drones
Other militaries that lost to Ukraine
British, Estonian, and Swedish

Quotes

Ukrainian drone operator

Self‑identified Ukrainian drone operator involved in the exercise

“Ukrainian drones located and locked on to US vehicles so quickly that they had to be sent back into the exercises —or 'respawn' in the language of war games— to keep the exercise going”
firstpost.com

Sources

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