Russia's Use of Barrage Balloons Against Drones

Over in Russia, in an effort to combat the persistent

threat of Ukrainian

drones, they are looking back to the tactics of

1941 when barrage

balloons were deployed to protect the skies over the capital from incoming

German

bombers, and by all historical accounts, they actually did a remarkably effective

job.

Moving into the spot right now. It is looking good.

And at this very moment, they are testing a barrage system utilizing two

small one

hundred and fifty cubic meter balloons.

We're lowering it down gently now. Go ahead and hook the net up.

Make sure the net is fully secured. Raise it up to twenty meters.

Like massive graceful sky whales, these balloons rise in perfect sync to

their

target altitude. Believe it or not, this was the world's first operational air

defense system. It predates modern anti-aircraft guns

or even sophisticated

surface-to-air missiles.

Uh, if you look, yeah, you'll see two balloons with a heavy cable

stretched out

between them, and hanging down from that cable are special Kevlar cords,

which are

what actually provide the necessary protection.

Back during the First World War, these specific types of aerial defense,

uh, aerial

defenses were commonly referred to as aprons.

Later on, they began incorporating nets into the

design as well.

Essentially, it functions as a trap system.

It was specifically engineered for the rear area protection of vital critical

infrastructure.

To effectively stop those Ukrainian drones,

hanging vertical cords at intervals of

one meter should be more than enough to do the job.

This advanced composite cable is three to four times stronger

and much lighter than

steel. It is fully capable of handling an eight

hundred kilogram load.

The distance between the cables can be adjusted to be wider or narrower depending

on the specific size of the target object.

During testing, a drone got the cable tangled in its

propeller and hung there

helplessly like a fly in a spider web.

The enemy has been captured by us.

Several Russian companies have announced they are developing barrage balloons, but

only the Spetsradio Research and Production Enterprise has been able to

successfully demonstrate a fully operational system in action.

Exactly how many of these balloons would it take to completely cover the entire

Kapotnya Oil Refinery complex?

Uh, well, to provide, uh,

adequate protection for such a large area, you would certainly need, well, at the

very least ten of these balloon complexes to block the flight of all these

unmanned aerial vehicles.

Ideally, the way this drone trap is supposed to function is as follows.

First, the Gepard radar system precisely

determines the exact altitude of the

incoming enemy drone, and then the balloon's automatic winches

will dynamically

adjust the height of the entire barrage system, ensuring that the steel cables are

positioned directly in the flight path of the approaching kamikaze drone.

The only issue we are currently facing is that there simply aren't enough of

these

balloons available yet to cover all of our vital strategic sites.

They need to be manufactured with extreme urgency to meet our current requirements.

Going as far back as the late 1930s, the Red Army command already fully

understood

that these barrage balloons were not just effective,

but might soon come in quite

handy for us in the near future indeed.

They were originally created for the sake of our country's own defense, and our

pilots were carefully trained for potential encounters with such traps

located in

the rear