Russian Shaheds Sow Ukrainian Roads With Anti-Tank Mines As They Go

This pod, one of a pair found on a downed Shahed drone, dispenses a PTM-3 anti-tank mine

National Police of Ukraine

The Shahed attack drone is Russia’s main weapon in its continued assault on Ukrainian cities. Russia launches waves of Shaheds nightly, sometimes more than 700 in a 24-hour period. In yet another evolutionary twist, the drones are now dropping mines on Ukrainian highways on their way to attack targets.

Shahed Mutations

As previously noted, the original Iranian Shahed-136 first seen in Ukraine in 2022 has mutated rapidly. Now mass-produced in a giant new facility in Alabuga a thousand miles east of Moscow, the base version has diversified into a whole range of types. Some of these use the same SatNav guidance as before, although now with increasingly advanced jam resistant antennas, some are fitted with Ukrainian SIM cards so they can be controlled via the cellphone network, and some have cameras and U.S. made NVIDIA AI chips to locate and home in on targets.

Shahed warheads though have seen the biggest range of mutations, with a wide variety of different types discovered. The basic 110-pound blast-fragmentation version has been joined by shaped charge, fragmentation-incendiary, thermobaric and even what looks like a napalm version spreading a self-igniting liquid which is impossible to put out. There is also an extra-large 200-pound warhead which must significantly reduce the drone’s range.

A few months ago there were confusing reports about time-delay cluster bombs found near the sites of Shahed strikes. The new discovery of a minelaying accessory helps shed some light and shows how Shahed tactics are being refined to cause as much damage and disruption as possible.

Minelaying Accessories

Ukrainian news source United24 Media reported on the information shared by National Police sources, which included images of a Shahed drone with two underwing pods. Each pod contained a PTM-3 anti-tank mine and a small explosive charge to eject the mine on command.

The PTM-3 is a ten-pound munition about a foot long and three inches square. Dating from Soviet days it was designed to be scattered by automated minelaying vehicles.

The PTM-3 has a magnetic sensor, and the explosive shaped charge will disable a tank or destroy unarmored vehicles going over it. Ukrainian forces, notably the legendary 414^th Birds of Magyar, use multicopter drones to precisely place thousands of these mines on roads and tracks used by Russian supply vehicles. This has proved to be a highly effective means of interrupting logistics far behind enemy lines.

The Shahed based approach is cruder. A video shared on social media by Russian sources shows the view from several Shaheds flying over highways and dropping pairs of PTM-3, with the unlikely claim that they only target military supply routes. This method of miming looks pretty inaccurate, even when the Shahed is flying at relatively low altitude, and it is impossible to tell how many PTM-3s end up on a road, and how many survive landing.

Even with added weight of the dispenser pods Shaheds have significant payload capacity and might still carry a 110-pound warhead with reduced range. The aim is likely to give the Shahed an add-on which causes damage and disruption even if the drone is shot down before reaching its main target. Mining roads hundreds of miles inside Ukraine in random locations creates a new and unexpected danger.

Similar dispensers likely scatter the delayed action bomblets seen in other recent Shahed strikes. These are simply pipes packed with a couple of pounds of explosive with a time fuze. According to Ukrainian bomb disposal teams, these explode seemingly at random from one to twenty hours after the Shahed hits its target, complicating rescue and repair efforts. Again the aim is disruption rather than military damage.

Mass Attacks

The strength of attack drones like the Shaheds lies in their numbers. The warhead may be a fraction of the 900-pounds delivered by a Kh-101 cruise missile, but a wave of Shaheds is harder to shoot down and can be produced far more easily and cheaply than one missile.

A few mines on the roads will not cause much disruption. But with Russia planning to launch up to 2,000 Shaheds in one night according to German military intelligence, attacks could leave large numbers of mines on highways, overwhelming bomb disposal resources and causing gradual paralysis. This is in line with the rest of the Shahed campaign as an indiscriminate, attritional war.

Interceptor drones are bringing down increasing numbers of Shaheds. At just $2,500 and with a claimed success rate of 70%, the Sting interceptor made by Wild Hornets represents a viable way to stop ever-increasing attacks. Ukraine’s helicopter crews are also reportedly blasting large numbers of Shaheds out of the sky with machineguns and other weapons.

Ultimately though it would be better to stop the Shaheds before they can be launched. A Ukrainian drone hit the Shahed factory on August 9th. The facility is vast, and it will take many more hits to do real damage, but as Ukraine scales up its own drone offensive Alabuga is likely to be a prime target for precisions strikes rather than random minelaying.