Ukraine Rocket Drones Hunt Russian Mobile Anti-Drone Teams

Rise Of The Mobile Fire Group

Long range strike drones, like the Russian Shahed and the Ukrainian Fire Point FP-1, have the same sort of performance as aircraft from WW1. Shooting them down with surface-to-air missiles is impractical as there as far too many and the supply of million-dollar missiles gets exhausted quickly against $50,000 drones.

Ukraine was the first to deploy mobile fire groups, teams armed with automatic cannon or anti-aircraft machine guns. These move rapidly to sites under threat of drone attack and provide effective short-range defence. The drones, which tend to fly in a straight line at low altitude and no more than 120 mph, can be shot down even with the most basic weapons, including ancient WW1 Maxim Guns.

Russia has copied Ukraine, and now many Russian sites are defended by squads of soldiers with Soviet-era anti-aircraft weapons, motivated by generous bonuses to shoot down drones. (This can backfire when they deliberately shoot down Russian drones for the reward). While Russia appears to have been much less successful in downing drones – many videos show drones cruising towards and into targets with no sign of opposition – the mobile fire groups are clearly having some effect.

So they have become a target.

Rocket Attack

The 4-second video shows a rocket launched from what looks like an FP-1 drone. It is impossible to tell what the weapon is, but other imagery from Russian sources indicate that the drone was armed with two four-round pods of 57mm unguided S-5 rockets.

The S-5, developed in the 1940s from the German WWII R4M, is a folding-fin rocket similar to the US 2.75” rocket. It weighs around 10 pounds with a 2-pound warhead, typically a blast/fragmentation type throwing out pre-formed metal shards. Effective range is around 2 miles, and the rockets were used extensively in Afghanistan and Chechnya.

In Ukraine, unguided rockets are generally fired from helicopters in lofting attacks, in which the helicopter dives down then pulls back, firing the rockets upwards at a steep angle for maximum range before breaking away. This indirect fire allows pilots to loose weapons while staying out of sight of anti-aircraft weapons. it also results in wide dispersion with the rockets landing across a broad area. There is little chance of hitting a specific target like a vehicle, but may be effective at causing casualties among infantry moving out in the open or other “area targets.”

In contrast, direct rocket fire can be highly accurate. The original S5 rocket had a claimed dispersion of 3.5 mrad, which means it can hit within 3.5 meters of the aim point from a range of one kilometer. In Vietnam, pods of rockets were mainly fired in salvoes for area effect, but some skilled helicopter gunners could hit point targets on the ground by “walking” successive rockets towards them.

A key question, especially for the mobile fire teams, is whether the rocket-firing drones have any chance of hitting them. A drone flying straight and level at low speed should be a stable firing platform, and the full load of eight rockets gives plenty of chances. An automated aiming system might also help if this is installed; similar systems have greatly improved drone bombing accuracy.

However, the rocket does not need to hit the fire team, it just needs to alarm them. Suppressive fire is the technical term for fire which forces opponents to stay down and prevents them from taking effective action. Keeping a fire team out of the fight and more worried about their own survival so other drones can get through may be the main aim here.

The combined weight of two rocket pods would take up the FP-1’s entire payload (a modified, shorter range version called the FP-2 has twice the payload). The drone may carry little or no warhead, and suggests that its main role is as a specialist Suppression of Enemy Air Defense (SEAD) platform.

Ukraine also reportedly uses FPVs launched from FP-1s to attack mobile fire groups., but this will not have the dramatic effect of a salvo of rockets.

Sea, Land And Air

The appearance of a SEAD drone is not a complete surprise, as we have seen parallel developments in other domains.

Ukraine’s highly successful fleet of Uncrewed Surface Vessels (USVs) has dominated the Black Sea since 2023. The initial versions were boats packed with explosives for suicide attacks. These were later supplemented by versions armed with machine guns and rockets. The purpose of the later types is to deliver suppressive fire on Russian warships, preventing the crews from stopping the kamikaze boats.

On the ground, Ukraine has long deployed numbers Uncrewed Ground Vehicles in combat. Again, early versions simply carried explosives to Russian positions. These slow-moving vehicles are vulnerable to enemy fire, and they are now supported by versions fitted with machine guns and other weapons. As seen in a recent action in Kupiansk, machine-gun robots can provide suppressive fire so the others can get through.

So a suppressive fire version of the FP-1 is in some ways an obvious development.

There may be other explanations for rocket drones. This may be a test drive for a weapon intended for a wide variety of targets. Eight rockets rather than a single warhead means one drone can deliver multiple strikes against vulnerable targets such as oil storage tanks. In WWII, rocket-armed fighters were lethal against locomotives and other mobile targets.

Ukrainian aircraft and helicopters are not able to effectively use S-5 rockets in this conflict due to the density of Russian air defenses. That leaves stockpiles of unused rockets just waiting to be used. Putting them on drones could turn these forgotten munitions into a major problem for those same Russian air defenses–and make drone strikes even more effective.