FVP drones: A new threat to Russia's prized Ka‑52 Alligators
The war in Ukraine is marked by astonishing events that are and will be discussed at military academies for decades to come. One of the more intriguing cases involves attempts to target assault helicopters with FPV drones costing a mere fraction, against helicopters valued at tens of millions of pounds. We present a case of a Russian Ka-52 Alligator narrowly avoiding a hit.
Ukrainians first demonstrated the use of FPV drones to hunt helicopters during an operation in the Kursk region. The first drone victim was a Mi-28N helicopter, and the second was a transport helicopter, the Mi-8AMTSh.
In the meantime, a few more helicopters have been added to the list, but it doesn't include Russia's latest helicopter, the Ka-52 Alligator. These are very rare and valuable machines, each individual loss of which poses a huge problem. In the video below, you can see how a Ka-52 Alligator narrowly missed an FPV drone nicknamed "Glovo".
FPV drones as anti-aircraft weapons
FPV drones are gaining significance among Ukrainian and Russian forces as a low-cost alternative to guided weapons. These unmanned aerial vehicles, along with appropriate striking means, cost only around £1,500 to £2,300 and can destroy equipment worth millions of pounds.
The simplest way to incapacitate a helicopter is to strike the tail boom or tail rotor, which counters the main rotor's torque. After such damage, the aircraft begins to spin uncontrollably, leading to a crash. Only the Russian Ka-52 Alligator, equipped with coaxial main rotors, is resistant to this attack and can only be disabled by a hit to the engines or main rotor.
A significant problem is that helicopters reach speeds exceeding 200 km/h, which are unattainable for FPV drones. As a result, drone pilots must attack from the side, predicting where the target will be. Although this task is challenging, it is feasible and poses a serious threat to pilots since helicopters are often not equipped with radars for early threat detection.
The only form of protection may be electronic warfare pods that can create a defensive bubble around the helicopter with a 300-metre diameter, in which control signals do not work. However, the operators never know if these pods will always be effective, and some types of drones using deployable fibre optics or artificial intelligence algorithms completely resist them.
Ka-52 Alligator — a Russian unique endangered
The Ka-52 Alligator is a modernised version of the Ka-50 helicopter developed in 1991. Its unique design results from the use of coaxial main rotors and the side-by-side seating arrangement of the pilots, which differs from the classic tandem arrangement in other combat helicopters, such as the American AH-1Z Viper, where the pilots sit one behind the other.
Typically, the Ka-52 Alligator is armed with a 30 mm 2A42 automatic cannon mounted on the side of the fuselage and six pylons on the stub wings. The two outer pylons are often used for mounting electronic warfare pods or 9K38 Igla anti-aircraft missiles, while the four inner ones are intended for heavier munitions.
Onboard this helicopter, you can find, among other things, AT-12 Vikhr anti-tank missiles with a laser guidance system, Kh-25MP anti-radar missiles, bombs and unguided S-8 rockets. Furthermore, the helicopters have L-370P2 Vitebsk defence systems designed to jam radars and blind incoming missiles using lasers. The price of one Alligator unit is about £13 million.
