A Ukrainian shotgun drone opens fire.
Foundation for Assistance to Defenders of Ukraine capture
Small drones are everywhere all the time all along the 800-mile front line of Russia’s 34-month wider war on Ukraine. They surveil for enemy movements, feed target coordinates to artillery and warplanes, drop supplies, mines and bombs and, in the case of explosive first-person-view drones, ram themselves into enemy troops and vehicles.
With Russia and Ukraine each producing around 100,000 small drones a month, defeating these drones is an urgent priority for both sides. Radio jammers can ground them. Screens and netting mounted on vehicles can catch them before they explode. Shotgun-armed soldiers can blast them from the sky.
More and more, the Ukrainians are going after Russian drones with drones of their own. We’ve seen Ukrainian drones ram Russian drones in mid-air—or drop nets on them from above. The latest counter-drone innovation might be the most impressive. To quote analyst Andrew Perpetua, “THE UKRAINIAN DRONE HAS TWO SHOTGUNS.”
Russian and Ukrainian technicians have been fitting guns to drones for a while now. But the dual shotgun armament seems to be a new development. The Foundation for Assistance to Defenders of Ukraine has been raising funds to buy more “Winchester” drones for Ukrainian brigades.
The design makes sense. Shotgun pellets lack the stopping power of, say, a rifle round. But drones tend to be flimsy—and nimble. The wide spread of a shotgun blast increases the chance of a hit. And it might take just a few pellets to catastrophically damage a drone.
It’s not for no reason that, during a recent panic over U.S. drone sightings, Wyoming state senator Charles Scott mused that “maybe a shotgun would be an appropriate legal weapon to take a drone with.”
He’s not wrong. Ukrainian and Russian infantry platoons increasingly march into battle with at least one shotgun at the ready. When government-issued shotguns are in short supply, some troops beg for supporters back home to send civilian models. “Please help us with pump-action shotguns,” one shell-shocked Russian soldier said in a video message to his friends and family back in the spring. “Any shit will do.”
The problem for the drone-harried infantry is proximity. Even when they’re adequately armed with shotguns, they might have mere seconds after spotting an incoming drone to take aim and shoot it down. By mounting twin shotguns to drones, the Ukrainians can hunt down Russian drones in mid-air—long before they pose any danger to troops on the ground.
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