FUTURISTIC MILITARY SCI FI NOVEL FEATURING TANKS SET IN AFRICA

Drones also cost less to manufacture and can be sent in ever-increasing numbers. Although that’s a small number relative to the thousands of missiles bombarding the country, intercepting drones flying in bunches can be more difficult.

Intelligence officials say that Russia has sent 400 Iranian-made attack drones since August.

In October, Ukraine estimated that it was shooting down 70 percent or more of the Shaheds, but the ones they missed were enough to debilitate the nation’s electrical grid. If launched in bunches, as the Russians have been doing, enough are able to evade even the best defenses to do substantial damage. They fly low and slow enough to be mistaken on radar for migrating birds. Preprogrammed with a target and released in groups of five, the triangular, propeller-driven drones are relatively easy to destroy-if you can find them. Small, cheap, relatively slow-moving, carrying far less of a wallop than a cruise missile or a 500-pound bomb, the Shaheds in particular have bedeviled Ukraine’s otherwise excellent air defenses. In response to that and other successful attacks, Russia has retaliated with scores of missiles and Iranian-built Shahed-136 drones aimed at electrical and water systems throughout Ukraine.ĭespite daily reports of lands taken or lands liberated in the nine-month war, the conflict has been largely fought in the air, with artillery shells, rockets, cruise missiles, and, increasingly, drones. Purportedly launched by Ukraine, no one knows how much damage was done, but video shot by the attacking drones showed that the vessels were unable to avoid being hit. On Saturday, October 29, a Russian fleet on the Black Sea near Sevastopol was attacked by 16 drones-nine in the air and seven in the water.

FUTURISTIC MILITARY SCI FI NOVEL FEATURING TANKS SET IN AFRICA