Illustrative image.
The Russian military has successfully taken out another FrankenSAM air defense system of Kiev forces using a Gerbera drone.
Video footage of the strike, which took place in an unspecified part of the special military zone, surfaced online on April 18. The footage shows the air defense system being tacked by a reconnaissance drone before receiving a direct hit from a Gerbera.
The development of the FrankenSAM, which is based on the Soviet-made Buk-M1 medium range air defense system, began around two years ago in response to the mounting losses of Ukrainian air defenses.
The makeshift system can reportedly utilize three different American-made anti-aircraft missiles, the semi-active radar-guided RIM-7 Sea Sparrow missiles, active radar-guided Patriot missiles and modified infrared-guided AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. Not much is known about the operational range of the system and its performance.
The system hit by the Gerbera was apparently armed with RIM-7 missiles, which have a range of around 19 kilometers, way less than the 35 kilometer range of the Soviet-made 9М38M1 missile, the original armament of the Buk-M1.
Ukraine inherited some 70 Buk-M1 systems after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Many of these systems have been already destroyed or damaged by the Russian military, including several which had been upgraded to FrankenSAMs.
The Gerbera drone was unveiled last year. It was developed by Russia’s Gastello Design Bureau as a cheap multirole unmanned solution.
The drone features a simplistic design with an operational range of 300 kilometers and a speed of up to 150 kilometers per hour. It can be equipped for a variety of missions, from suicide attacks to reconnaissance, and electronic warfare. The extremely low price of the drone, reportedly less than $3,000, also allows it to be used as a decoy.
The Russian military intensified its SEAD – Suppression and Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses – operations across the special military operation zone over the last year, inflicting heavy losses on Ukrainian air defenses.
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frankensam meets gerberazilla.. frankensam looses.
titanus mosura will also have it’s day…
powderpuff bombs. there was a hit but took a long time to stop the vehicle and it is still not completely disabled. one sees ukr and eu and uk munition and they catastrophically devastate russian equip.