2023-06-22 12:31:38
The “marching war” is raging, those small military units that have turned into one of the most important tools of modern warfare. It is a multi-tasking weapon that can deliver painful blows to the enemy at a low cost.
Reconnaissance, espionage, monitoring and targeting missions made the marches play a decisive role in the air and military strategies of the major and minor powers. Those planes are more like amusement games than a party is sufficiently prepared to confront them, and despite that, everyone wants to acquire them, or even to manufacture them.
How do these marches redraw the map of wars amid the ease of exporting and conducting them? And how did they put decisive air sovereignty within the reach of powers that they never dreamed of?
Ukraine swarms marches
History has not witnessed a military conflict in which parades were used more than the war in Ukraine, although their use dates back to World War I in monitoring and reconnaissance missions carried out by Britain and the United States.
After more than a century, the territory of Ukraine has turned into a laboratory for drones carrying explosive messages, forming one of the most important military phenomena for decades to come. Only a few Ukrainian cities were spared the swarms of marches launched by both Russia and Ukraine since the beginning of the war.
Loss of 10,000 marches per month
It is noteworthy that the war of the marches has a high cost, as Ukraine alone loses in its attacks every month regarding 10 thousand drones, including surveillance and suicide marches, or what is known as “kamikaze”.
Drone Army campaign organizers say they have built or purchased an additional 3,300 drones.
These marches were also used to strike Russian targets on several fronts in Ukraine, including the port of Sevastopol in the Crimea, and even increasingly reached the Russian interior, some of which were repelled and others hit their targets.
Russia, in turn, rained down Ukraine with a barrage of drones, which terrified many cities, led by the capital, Kiev, often accompanied by missile attacks.
Washington.. High-ceiling bets on the marches
Until the end of the 1990s, marches were a tool for espionage and reconnaissance, but Washington was the first to realize 22 years ago its ability to change military and political equations.
And the United States realized in 2001 that the difficult geographical nature in Afghanistan necessitated the use of drones, and Washington adopted the MQ1 Predator drones in counter-terrorism operations, known as the Predator MQ1, as a main weapon in its operations once morest Al Qaeda and the Taliban. And I used it once more in Yemen on counter-terrorism missions, as well as in Iraq two decades ago.
It was believed that these aircraft at the time hit targets by mistake, despite their advanced technologies and their ability to collect intelligence information.
“MQ1 Predator” .. the most prominent features
Its weight is 1020 kg. A loaded MQ1 weighs more than a ton. It is one of the most dangerous heavy drones, due to the nature of the tasks assigned to it. It is able to fly at an altitude of regarding 7,620 meters. It can be armed with two guided missiles. Its speed is regarding 130 km / h, and its range is 1100 km. Its cost is 40 million dollars.
Bayraktar TB2“..the magic wand
The use of this type of march remained limited to a few well-off countries. But with the development of navigation systems and wireless technologies, another type of military drone has appeared, not in Washington this time, but in Istanbul.
Turkey resorted to the world in 2014, when the Bayraktar TB2 march entered service, in the middle category, to use this march in limited attack or suicide operations.
And “Bayraktar TB2” began to gain a wider reputation outside Turkey in 2020 when Turkey sent shipments of it to Azerbaijan, which it used once morest Armenian forces in the disputed “Nagorno-Karabakh” region, which allowed it to achieve gains on the ground.
These Turkish marches also had an impact on the course of the conflict in Ethiopia in favor of the Ethiopian forces once morest the Tigray Liberation Front, according to the American New York Times in 2021.
And in the war in Ukraine, where Ukrainian companies were producing engines before the war. In an article, the French newspaper “La Croix” described Bayraktar’s march as the magic wand that enabled the Ukrainians to block the advance of the Russians, as the marches helped the Ukrainian army to stand firm on some fronts in a way that surprised the Ukrainians themselves, in the face of the second most powerful army in the world, despite the fact that the Russian air defense systems Many of them have been destroyed since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.
Bayraktar specifications TB2“
Bayraktar TB2 is capable of flying at an altitude of regarding 9 km. Its maximum take-off weight is 700 kg and it can carry 150 kg of explosives. Able to fly 24 hours a day. It can be equipped with armor-piercing and laser-guided missiles. Its cost ranges from one million to five million dollars.
Iranian Shahed-136 drones
And just as the Turkish marches contributed to supporting Ukraine in the course of the war, the Iranian marches were working in the interest of Russia.
In August 2022, Iran sent a shipment of its drones for use in Ukraine, according to the Washington Post.
The following month, Ukraine announced for the first time that an Iranian drone belonging to Russian forces had been shot down in Kharkiv Province.
Despite the Iranian government’s denial of supplying the Russian army with drones, the Ukrainian and Western narrative speaks of Russia using the “Shahed-136” and “Muhajir-6” models, among other drones, in the Ukraine war.
The Iranian Shahed-136 drone
It is a suicide march of the light category, its aim is to get close to the target and explode in front of it. Its range reaches 2500 km. It weighs regarding 200 kg. Its speed is regarding 185 km / h. It ranges between 20 and 50 thousand dollars. Its most prominent feature is that it is low in cost, between 20 and 50 thousand dollars, and saves Russia, in some cases, from resorting to “cruise” missiles, which cost regarding two million dollars, according to military experts.
The Iranian Mohajer-6 march
Capable of carrying 40 kg smart bombs. Its speed is 200 km/h. Capable of flying for 12 hours straight.
China supports Russia in making parades
The Wall Street Journal, quoting international investigators, may talk regarding a role for China in helping Iran supply drones to Russia. The Russian-Iranian military partnership was translated into cooperation that transferred it from importation to industrialization on Russian territory.
The White House itself also confirmed that Russia is receiving materials from Iran to build a drone factory on its soil that will operate at full capacity in early 2024.
The plant is located in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone, at a distance of regarding 900 km east of Moscow.
The Russian “Zala Lancet” march… the nightmare of the Ukrainians
Russia relies mainly on light suicide marches, carriers of mobile munitions in the skies of Ukraine.
The Russian march, the Zala Lancet, was considered a nightmare for the Ukrainians, as it reaches a speed of 300 km / h, is agile, has a range of 40 km, and carries a high-explosive, lethal, high-explosive warhead, up to 300 kg.
It is also a surprise, according to the Russian army, because its electric motor allows it to reduce the noise level, which enhances the element of surprise for the enemy.
Commercial Chinese routers
According to military sources, it was confirmed that Ukraine had shot down a Mugin-5, manufactured by a Chinese company, in the Donbass region, and was used by the Russian army following its modernization.
Manufactured in Xiamen, the drones are known as “Alibaba planes” and are available for sale for as much as $15,000 on online shopping platforms.
According to the New York Times, China has sold Russia drones and drone parts for more than $12 million since the beginning of the Ukraine war.
Ukraine, in turn, resorted to low-cost combat marches and developed dozens of aircraft locally, most notably the “Khrush” march with a range of between 10 and 20 kilometers. It cost 2,000 euros, according to the British Telegraph newspaper.
The American “MQ-9 Ripper” march…the most powerful march
In the war in Ukraine, two Russian Su-27 fighters intercepted an American MQ-9 Reaper over the Black Sea, in the most serious military confrontation between Russia and the United States since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. Which led to the fall of the American march.
The MQ-9 Reaper is considered one of the most recent American drones, and it has carried out missions over Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and other countries, and the US Army is one of its most prominent users.
And there were reports that it was used to kill the commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Qassem Soleimani, in Baghdad in 2020.
It was also used to kill al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in the Afghan capital in 2022, which reflects a radical change in the strategy of ground confrontation and in the method of assassinating the most wanted men by the United States.
MQ-9 Reaper.. the most expensive march
It is the most expensive march in the world, with a price tag of $30 million. The MQ-9 can carry up to 8 laser-guided missiles and 16 Hellfire missiles. Its weight reaches 5 tons, while its top speed exceeds 300 km / h. It can fly more than two thousand kilometers without refueling. Capable of flying for more than 40 hours.
marchedCH-5mighty China
In the face of American superiority in this field, China has stormed the world of manufacturing marches in recent years with marches, most notably the “CH-5”, which is similar in design to the mighty American march “MQ-9”.
It has the advantages of modern combat marches, with a maximum speed of 480 km per hour.
Its full payload exceeds two tons, including 900 kg of weapons, and its range is 10 km. Its cost is regarding $17 million dollars.
Last year, China delivered 220 marches to 16 countries, the most important of which were the “Wing Loong 1 and 2” marches, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, and these marches are much cheaper than their American counterparts.
The expansion of the use of marches in military operations raises questions regarding the future of this industry, which has grown significantly over the past five years.
A war of marches between Russia and Ukraine awaits, loitering ammunition, that has not yet entered the front line.
Russian “Kamikaze Brevet-82”.
A small weapon whose Russian developers say it is tiring Ukrainian air defenses more than other suicide marches do. Its range is up to 30 kilometers. It can reach speeds of 140 kilometers per hour. Its cost does not exceed 1300 dollars. It is capable of carrying a warhead weighing regarding 600 kg.
The battlefields will also be on a date with the Turkish plane “Bayraktar Qizil Elma”, which recorded its name in the history of aviation as the first drone fighter to fly in the air accompanied by F-16 fighters, to be the first drone fighter to fly in a squadron with other manned fighters, according to the Turkish manufacturer “Baykar”. she has.
As for China, it is close to launching a supersonic spy drone. The WZ-8, which flies at three times the speed of sound, will give it a quality control advantage in any possible military confrontation with Taiwan, according to a leaked US military assessment, where small pieces of death are still fighting the fiercest wars since World War II. In the largest country in Eastern Europe, and with the participation of powers that were without a prominent presence on the map of the traditional arms market.
Has this loitering ammunition changed the nature of wars irreversibly by outweighing missiles that are 100 times more expensive than them?
And how will it open the door to an arms race with anti-defense systems that occupy arms laboratories in creating monitoring, jamming and projection systems, turning them into a useless tool?
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