Shocking creativity of Russians. "Volleyball nets" as anti-drone defense
12:54 PM EDT, September 27, 2023, updated: 9:17 AM EDT, October 5, 2023
The war in Ukraine is full of astonishing events and solutions known so far from post-apocalyptic fiction. A good example here is the use of nets stretched between poles across roads to protect Russians from drones. We explain whether this can work.
Videos appear on the internet showing attacks by Ukrainian commercial "kamikaze" drones (improvised circling ammunition) on Russian vehicles. You can see nets suspended between poles across the road that are theoretically supposed to provide protection against drones.
It's hard to predict what the Russians want to achieve in this way, especially since drone pilots are simply able to bypass these obstacles that look like volleyball nets. Additionally, in the second recording, you can see that the nets are torn near the destroyed vehicle. If the net were hung horizontally over the entire road, then this method would have a slim chance of working.
Use of nets as anti-drone protection in Ukraine
Garden nets used correctly can indeed work against simple drones. Both the Russians and Ukrainians use them for protection, for instance, of artillery positions, where garden nets are stretched over the howitzer or trenches.
These are capable of providing protection against drones with a single shaped charge, as they cause its premature detonation. It should be noted that the shaped charge jet has an enormous potential in burning through armor, but its range is very limited.
In this way, detonating for example a warhead of an RPG-7 grenade with a penetration of about 500 mm of armored steel 60 cm from the proper armor ensures effective protection. However, over time, tandem warheads were created, where a smaller warhead was added to make a "gap" for the larger one and a net, rod armor or even single-layer reactive are defenseless against such a solution.
It should also be mentioned that the net stretched over the position does not protect against fragmentary warheads or incendiary weapons in the form of, among others, Molotov cocktails dropped from drones.
