Click to see full-size image, source: the internet
On April 4, a Russian Orlan-10 drone crashed in the northern countryside of Syria’s Idlib, a few kilometers away from the Turkish border.
Opposition sources said the drone crashed near the town of Mashhad Ruhin. The drone was not targeted. It reportedly crashed as a result of a technical failure. The wreckage was recovered by the militants.
The Orlan-10 has a flight duration of 16 hours and a range of 140 km. The drone can be equipped with several types of sensors to carry out different missions including reconnaissance, 3D-mapping, electronic warfare and communication relay.
This was the third confirmed loss of a Russian drone in the northwestern Syrian region of Greater Idlib where a number of terrorist groups are active.
- On February 7, an Orlan-10 drone crashed in the al-Zawiya Mount in the southern part of Greater Idlib.
- On March 10, a Forpost drone crashed near the town of Tal Adeh in the northern part of the region.
Russian forces keep a close eye at the different terrorist groups in Greater Idlib to collect intelligence and prevent any attacks. Drones are the go-to platform for reconnaissance.
Im sorry but 3 drones “crashing” within a short period of each other?, bullsh*t this is enemy action being camouflaged as “accidents”, the turks have probably equiped their terrorists with electronic warfare equipment to target Russian drones flying overhead.
i would even go further than your suggestion and say this is nato sabotaging drones and collecting them for both reverse engineering aswell as deciphering
There could be many reasons for drones “crashing”.
It also could be by Russian design; the drones have a positioning device and when collected by the terrorists it gives away their home base and are then bombed. Theory only.
One drone lost every month, mmm, is that bad engineering, normal performance, or hints of E-war activity, mmm, I’m undecided, but they do have a pretty good performance history so I am leaning towards E-war. I wonder what all these drones are doing though, locating targets, eavesdropping, jamming, mapping terrain, they’re busy little bees for sure.
Doubt they are jamming. Not enough electric power to do that on that size of drone.
They were very effective jamming Ukrainian telecommunications where mobile phone use was the prime form of communication, and here in Idlib and Aleppo it’s virtually the only form of rebel communication. And I’m pretty sure they’re capable of jamming other types of communication systems as well.
“Russia’s new drone-based electronic-warfare system, the Leer-3 RB-341V combines jammers and Orlan-10 unmanned aerial vehicles to disable cellular networks, and allow the Russian military to send fake messages to subscribers.
“The Leer-3 UAV can effectively turn into a ‘virtual cellular station’ by sending messages and totally controlling a subscriber’s devices once it replaces a base station,” according to the U.S. Army’s Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO), which translates Russian media reports. “If it manages to take the place of a cellular communications tower, it can also send audio messages and small video clips to subscribers.”
The Leer-3 RB-341V was used in Syria to send instant messages to rebel factions, containing application forms for an armistice, said Lt. Gen. Sergey Kuralenko, the Chief of the Center for the Reconciliation of the Opposing Sides in Syria.
“It thus appears to have some psychological warfare mission implications, if it can do all of these tasks,” the FMSO notes. “The Leer-3 can reportedly block enemy mobile telephones while simultaneously not impeding the operation of friendly mobiles phones. The systems can collect telephone numbers and call these numbers while blocking other people’s signals. It may also be able to remotely connect user devices as well.”
“The modernization of Russia’s unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) continues to impress foreign observers,” the FMSO concludes.
According to a TASS news agency article translated by FMSO, “The Leer-3 complex is composed of three Orlan-10 UAVs and a command and control post on a KamAZ-5350 truck. The unmanned aerial vehicles’ primary mission is to suppress cellular communication towers. To do this, special ‘jammers’ have been installed onboard the Orlan-10 UAVs, and also disposable jammers, which they drop onto the ground. Having jammed the base stations, the old Orlan-10 UAVs were able to send instant messages to subscribers under certain conditions…But the new flying drones can easily handle those targets. They ‘jam’ base stations and take their place, while becoming virtual cellular stations.”
The initial Leer-3 systems, which were deployed in 2015, were designed to disable Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) cellular networks. “But until recently, the complexes were not always capable of working with networks where 3G and 4G generations of information transmission technologies are being used,” TASS reported.”
Good info. I was thinking RF jammers when we were discussing EW which require a lot of power. Cell signals are different and I wasn’t aware they installed these systems on the Orlan. Thanks!
Equip a drone with a tracking device, crashing it in the militants territory, then send an artillery strike in the position of the moved drone. Normally, they move it to their headquarters to better study it. It is called “intelligence gathering”.