Drone: The Switchblades that Greece wants are changing the war in Ukraine since Russian air defenses cannot deal with them.
At the same time, if Athens takes them, they will… take walks in Turkey, with the problematic air defense unable to stop them.
Sarah Kreps is the Director of the Technology Policy Institute at Cornell University and a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute specializing in drone warfare.
Kreps, speaking to 19fortyfive.com, stressed that air defense systems are not ready or configured to deal with stray munitions.
“The Switchblade is difficult to defend against because it has a smaller radar cross section than the type of aircraft that a typical air defense system is aimed at,” he said.
According to Kreps, it is clear that “Russia was not ready for these kamikaze drones and even now we can see that it is difficult to stop them.”
Ukraine has many more Switchblades (Switchblade 300 and Switchblade 600 type) than the larger Bayraktar TB-2s, so even if some of them are shot down, others can get through (including the Russian air defense system) and give psychological and military advantage.
Over the weekend a similar type of drone struck the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet in Crimea.
It should be noted that the 40 km range of the Switchblade 600 is much better than the fire range of the Turkish Bayraktar, which does not exceed 15 km.
