On March 16, the United States urgently approved a new round of military aid to Ukraine, which is similar to the aid it provided before. The majority of this batch of military aid are still various anti-tank weapons, such as two thousand "Jaberfin" anti-tank missiles, thousands of AT-4 and M141 rocket launchers, and portable air defense missiles, , mainly "stinger" missiles. In addition, there is a batch of light weapons , with thousands of guns, tens of millions of bullets, hundreds of grenade launchers , etc. In general, there is no heavy equipment, but as much light equipment as you give as much as you want. With these things, you Ukrainian is the same as Russian tanks, go to your life.
However, in addition to these cheap goods, this time the Americans did give some novel things. For example, among the supplies to Ukraine, the Americans specially gave 100 "switchblade" cruise missiles. Many people say that this "switchblade" cruise missile is small in size and light in weight. A cruise missile weighs only 2.5 kilograms, and it is estimated that the weight is no more than 5 kilograms, and a soldier can walk when he lifts it up; It is very convenient to use. If there is an open space, you can fight. After the game, you can use your mobile phone to operate it. Just like playing with a drone, let it fly over to find the target by itself. It is said that it can fly for 2 to 5 minutes and 10 to 20 kilometers to find the target. The attack can be attacked independently, or it can be operated by humans. Just find the target and stalk directly. It is said that it has a small warhead, which can strike targets such as light armored vehicles, and can even carry out "decapitation operations" on the front line, specifically used to deal with important figures such as enemy officers.
I heard that the United States gave Ukraine such an advanced thing, and I don’t know how many people were "happy" and thought that the heavenly soldiers have really arrived. After Ukraine got the advanced patrol missile, it took the head of the Russian tanks thousands of miles in minutes. No, twenty miles away, let alone five Russian major generals, and fifty Russian major generals will be killed by the patrol missiles given by the United States in minutes.
So, is this "switchblade" cruise missile that Ukraine got this time really so useful? Well, let’s take a look at the quality of this “cruise missile”. We all know that the lethality of any kind of weapon and equipment is restricted by its weight. For example, the missile , the missile must have a shell, control equipment, engine, and fuel compartment. Remove all the messy things, and the weight of the warhead is truly lethal.
From the weight of the missile warhead, such as the United States' " Harpoon " and France's "Flying Fish" anti-ship missile . These missiles weigh about 700 kilograms, but the warhead weighs only 200 kilograms, which means that most of the weight is occupied by missile shells, engines, etc. This cruise missile is no exception. Its total weight is only 2.5 kilograms. You have to remove its shell weight first. After all, the shell of the missile cannot be paper-paste; then remove its engine, after all, the cruise missile engine plus the battery should be a big head of weight; then there is also its search system. The cruise missile's head should have a small infrared camera, and a wireless transmission device should be able to transmit signals to the controller for remote control; as for the cruise missile's wings, the control motor that controls the wings, and the core components that control its flight, let alone, this has to be counted in the mass of the entire missile.After removing such a lot of things, it is estimated that the weight of the warhead of the "Springblade" cruise missile is only about 600 grams. For comparison, the Soviet Union was generally equipped in the 1960s. A few days ago, the Russian army seized more than 10,000 boxes of F1 grenades in Kelsson . Its total weight is 600 grams, and it contains about 100 grams of TNT explosives. After all, "Spring" "The drone is blowing so hard, but in fact it is just like an grenade, . This lethality is definitely no chance to fight a tank. It is definitely not good to fight an armored vehicle, , and it may be a threat. Either soldiers stay outside and don't wear bulletproof vests, or they don't have much protection and transport to trucks. Of course, how much lethal a grenade can cause to the truck, it also needs to be questioned.
This is not counting. Although the "switchblade" drone is said to be able to use the autonomous attack mode, everyone knows that the autonomous attack mode is unreliable. After all, in this chaotic battlefield, the clothes worn by both the enemy and us are similar, the guns they hold are similar, and even the tanks they drive are of similar models. If you release the missiles, you are confused and beat your own family? Therefore, after the "switchblade" is released, it must adopt manual manipulation. In terms of the term, it means that the "switchblade" is flying in front, and while flying, it uses its own camera to shoot underneath, and the things are transmitted to the back through the antenna. There was a soldier behind him holding a tablet with a large screen and watching, monitoring where the "switchblade" flew. If he found the target, he would then control the cruise missile to fly over and plunge his head to complete the entire attack process.
seems to be foolproof, but if you have experience playing drones, especially shuttles, you will know that the "switchblade" is similar to a relatively fast shuttle drone, which can fly about 180 kilometers per hour. At such a high speed and such a low altitude, everything is swinging through the screen. It is extremely difficult to find the target. At the same time, the battery life of the "switchblade" is not too strong. It is said that when flying at a speed of 180 kilometers per hour, it can only fly for 3 minutes and then run out of power. Even when flying at a speed of 90 kilometers per hour, it can only fly for less than 10 minutes, which means that its radius of activity is only 10 to 15 kilometers. With such a small activity radius and such a short time to stay, the flight speed is quite fast. Even if you are looking for experts who play shuttles to fly over and want to complete the entire program of taking off, flying, finding the target, judging the nature of the target, and finally attacking the target in the chaotic battlefield, especially in the woods and swamps in Ukraine, you can think about it yourself, how troublesome is this.
As for the "switchblade" drones to "behead" the opponent's senior officers, it is even more unreliable. Although Ukraine always releases great battle reports and says that there are many major generals of the Russian army killed, from the Ukrainian base camp warships that the Russian warships were sunk, the sinking Russian warship returned to the port without any damage, it can be seen that the Ukrainian base camp warships were indeed sufficient. After all, from the perspective of normal combat command, it has long passed the era when generals come to the front line to command the battle. People stay safely in the command post in the rear. Even if they come to the front, they are still sitting in the command vehicle transformed by armored vehicles to avoid losing command and control of the troops. So this returns to the original question: Can the "Switchblade" cruise missiles be able to defeat tanks and armored vehicles? The conclusion is that they cannot be defeated. So, what confidence does the Ukrainian army have? Can it be "beheaded" with such a thing that is not much better than DJI drones?
Therefore, if we want to summarize the 100 "switchblades" that the Ukrainian army got this time, we can only say this: we got 100 grenades that can fly 10 kilometers. To put it bluntly, this thing is a real trick and looks good. Maybe we can blow up a few more Russian transport vehicles, but if you say that 100 grenades that can fly can turn the situation around, this... is probably the mystery of army blind .
