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Ukrainian Troops Bring Down Russian Spotter Drone with Small Arms Fire
Published 1 years ago
Ukrainian troops manning a fighting position open fire on a low-flying Russian drone that is being used to spot their positions for a Russian artillery unit. They manage to bring it down with small arms fire.
Since the first time I saw a member of the Free Syrian Army bring down a drone with an archaic AK-47 in a pair of flip flops back in 2016, I've been saying that this is probably the first and best line of defense against drones on the battlefield. The individual shooter can be trained to obscenely high levels of marksmanship, and while it's easy to discount situations like the one seen in this video as pure luck, I can assure you that it's an obtainable skill.
There is a reason that professional trap and skeet shooters are capable of hitting multiple high speed clays during stressful competitions. It's because they train to that standard. While it may be more difficult to shoot down mobile maneuvering drones with rifles, it's not something that is outside of the realm of capabilities for a qualified marksman. The time and ammunition investment simply has to be made into individual shooters.
If you want to squash the drone threat, take individual shooters out to a trap range and let them shoot until they're physically incapable of missing. Then, take them out and let them train them on miniature drones piloted by AI systems that mimic a human pilot's movements. I bet we would quickly find that in under a month of constant and consistent practice, a shooter can be caught up to speed and trained to reliably take down commercial drones with their service rifle.
