Ukrainian engineers claim they have designed a “people’s missile” that can be built in an average front garden with almost double the range of the US-supplied Himars rocket.
The missile, which uses the same technology as the German V1, is essentially a motor-powered steel tube attached to a pair of glider wings and fired from a catapult.
The anti-Russian Vidsich protest group behind the design, dubbed Trembita in Ukrainian, says it can be produced cheaply from everyday materials.
A graphic released explaining the technology shows up to three of the rockets fitting inside a one-car garage.
By Vidsich’s own admission, the “garage-made” missile will not be able to strike with the same precision as laser-guided rocket systems.
But in a swarm of 20 missiles, the new weapon will likely be able to “overcome enemy air defences and hit targets at a sufficient depth”, the group claimed.
Early videos of the weapon shared on social media appear to show its makers firing up a crude pulsating jet engine.
The use of gasoline as fuel could thrust the rocket some 140km from launch, the engineers claimed, around double the range of the powerful Himars.
Its warhead could contain a thermobaric charge or a combined 20kg high-explosive charge, capable of creating chaos amongst Russians near the target zone.
The Trembita would produce a thermal signal picked up by enemy air-defence systems, which would then fire expensive munitions to take it down, according to the developers.
“Our simple missile is incomparably cheaper than the shots of enemy anti-aircraft missile systems,” the developers said.
The 100 decibel engine would have an emotional impact on Russian troops, too, they claimed. The V1, or Doodlebug, terrorised Londoners during the Second World War with its distinctive whine.
“Improvised weapons can be very effective and the Ukrainians are very canny and the Russians pretty inept,” Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former Nato commander, said.
“They can be a massive force multiplier, especially to save using sophisticated Western weaponry.”
Ukraine devising novel solutions
Workshops across the war-torn country have already converted pick-up trucks into Grad rocket launchers and developed remote-controlled explosive devices.
After Russian forces were driven back from parts of eastern Ukraine by a Ukrainian counter-offensive last year, mines remained in many fields, making it perilous for farmers to sow grain for the next harvest.
On Tuesday, Oleksandr Kryvtsov, a farmer near the village of Hrakove, said he had devised a new way to remove the mines by kitting out his tractor with protective panels stripped from Russian tanks and operating it by remote control.
The tractor can withstand blasts and uses armour from damaged Russian military vehicles to protect its body. Mr Kryvtsov bought a system that would enable one of his team to operate the tractor remotely from a digger’s bucket suspended in the air nearby.
“We started doing this just because the crop-sowing time has come and we can’t do anything because the rescue services are very busy,” Mr Kryvtsov, a general manager at his agricultural company, said.
“We ran over an anti-tank mine. The protection got blown out [but] the tractor is safe,” he said.
“Everyone’s alive and safe. The equipment was restored and repaired.”
Improvised ground attack drones
Inspired by the Iranian-made suicide drones used by Moscow, Ukrainian engineers are also developing ground-based weapons to destroy armoured vehicles.
The ground attack drones, which resemble a large remote-controlled car, can be used to place an eight-kilogram mine under an enemy vehicle, triggering an explosion beneath its wheelbase.
“The main idea is that this RATEL is used as a mobile warhead carrying two TM-62 anti-tank mines, which is intended to be activated under a car or tank,” an analyst said, according to a Ukrainian military website.
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