The Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Service released a video taken by their drones. The Ukrainian army destroyed a Russian 1L260 “Zoo-1M” anti-artillery radar on the front line of Zaporozhye. We can see the first shells very clearly. It was precisely near the ground near the radar, and it exploded at a distance of about 2 or 3 meters from the ground. It destroyed the “Zoo-1M” radar in an instant, and then four shells fell one after another. The surrounding generators and other supporting systems were all destroyed, which showed the magical power of high-tech combat. It was later found out that Ukraine was using US-made 155MM “Excalibur” guided artillery shells.
Let’s talk about Russia’s most advanced anti-artillery radar first. The “Zoo-1M” can detect incoming artillery shells, calculate the position of artillery positions, and implement artillery units that are passed to their own anti-artillery to perform anti-artillery tasks to attack the opposing artillery systems. Because this radar uses phased array technology, it can track up to 12 targets at the same time, and it can calculate very accurately the artillery shells with fixed ballistics, such as howitzers, and for those with an S-shaped climbing ballistic in the front section.
“Zoo-1M” can not only locate the enemy’s artillery positions, but also provide this kind of calibration service for its own artillery, correct its explosion point and improve its own hit rate. It should be said that its battlefield role is still very large, and Russia also values this thing very much. Russia itself lacks this type of advanced battlefield perception equipment. As soon as it came, the loopholes and shortcomings of the Russian army were exposed. Second, it also severely damaged the morale of the Russian army, and was directly slapped in the face.
Let’s talk about the American “Excalibur” shell, which uses a GPS satellite guidance mechanism with a maximum range of 22 kilometers. The shooting accuracy and strike accuracy are within the range of 5 meters, which is quite accurate. Let’s just look at the combat strength of this battle. The first artillery shell exploded above the radar, which shows that the Ukrainian army has located the position of the Russian radar and the radar position has been very accurate. The “Excalibur” shell itself is indeed remarkable.
The anti-artillery radar is the “eye” of the artillery. It is really powerful. It can play a very important role on the battlefield, but its biggest weakness is that it is easy to find. This is equivalent to turning on a flashlight at night, you are looking at others, you are looking at other people very accurately, but they are also easy to be targeted by others, so after the anti-artillery radar is used, it often needs to change its position.
This time Ukraine has released such a video shot by their drone, which shows that Ukraine already has such small long-endurance reconnaissance drones, and the Ukrainian army fired 5 shells in a row at once. No fire calibration was carried out, which shows that Ukraine has mastered the exact position of the radar very accurately.
Now, we are looking at the Russian army, although they have done some countermeasures against the Ukrainian army in the early stage, but they did not even notice the drones flying in the sky, nor did they realize that this was the reconnaissance and detection process of the Ukrainian army. This is a serious problem, and the fact that they has kept their anti-artillery radar position in one place for such a long time, this loophole is big enough. Moreover, the Russian army also lacks good precision-guided weapons, and there is no such thing as satellite artillery shells.
After the Ukrainian army has now obtained a new type of UAV and guided artillery shells, they will develop a new style to attack high-value targets in the deep areas of the Russian army. The key to countering these tactics of the Ukrainian army lies in this that it is necessary for the Russian Army to destroy and suppress the small long-endurance drones that the Ukrainian army got from Turkey, so that these guided munitions can be accurately rendered useless, but in the current situation of the Russian army, this is quite difficult.