New video released by the Ministry of Defense of the United Kingdom shows some footage of a drone by Malloy Aeronautics that is coming with the ongoing military aid batch from Great Britain to Ukraine.
The footage depicts an evacuation of a wounded soldier performed by a drone as one of the multiple roles this UAV can perform on the battlefield.
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Indeed, the Malloy T400 with its declared payload capacity of 400 pounds, or 180 kg can lift and transport an injured person to a safe place, however, we should always keep in mind that even the minimum personal equipment of a Ukrainian soldier is around 30 kg of additional weight.
In fact, drones from London-based Malloy Aeronautics have previously been supplied to Ukraine. Although the exact series was never detailed by officials, multiple media reports suggest that Ukrainians already received the Malloy T150 – a smaller version of this drone with a capacity of 68 kg. This we can confirm from the very few photos of this UAV from the war zone.
As we can see, the payload is a weapon, as suggested by online communities, an 82mm mortar shell is attached to the release mechanism.
And here it is important to not confuse the versions of this drone as the footage of the British Ministry of Defense features the T400. There could be two explanations for this disparity: one is a simple mistake by the press service showing some footage from the drone evacuation tests held by the Royal Navy in November 2022.
The second is that a new type of drone is coming to Ukraine. The initial news of Ukraine getting "heavy-lift drones" was back in May 2022, announced by now-former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. That is when the Ukrainians were most likely to get the smaller T150 version.
Then in summer 2022, Great Britain initiated the International Fund for Ukraine aimed to procure priority military assistance for the Ukrainian Army. It was supported by Norway, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, and Lithuania.
The funding program was divided into several so-called Urgent Bidding Rounds, each aiming to provide particular capabilities to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The first round sought to supply unmanned aerial systems, for that, 10 manufacturers were selected by 15th February 2023. Malloy Aeronautics was among them.
The delivery of drones under the first Urgent Bidding Round was estimated by the end of July 2023. Having already proven the Malloy T150 in battle, a request for a larger T400 would be justified.
Malloy T400 is a dual-use UAV suited for both civilian and military purposes but the company promotes it primarily as a military drone. Apart from lifting up to 180 kg of cargo, it features a high level of automation: can automatically take off and land, travel by pre-programmed waypoints in rough weather conditions, etc.
It also implements Distributed Electric Propulsion feature: the aerial vehicle has eight propellers and eight rotors in four places which enable it to maintain a stable flight even if one of the propellers is out of order.
So, why is it important that we don't confuse the versions of this UAV provided to Ukraine? This is to correctly understand the role of these unmanned systems on the battlefield. In the U.S. Army, for instance, the Malloy T150 is called TRV-150 Tactical Resupply Vehicle, as the name suggests, it is used for the delivery of goods. Meanwhile, the UK is pushing to develop a human-transport capability for the evacuation of personnel.
However, Ukraine is a war theater of high-intensity electronic warfare. The russian invasion forces use various means of suppressing Ukrainian drones, from jamming the UAV-to-pilot communication and satellite navigation to intercepting the control and bluntly shooting them down with rifles.
In these conditions, the lifespan of a commercial drone on the battlefield is three to six sorties generally, for a specialized military vehicle is may be a little longer due to endurance and EW resistance. For that reason, one would think twice before deploying a drone for an aerial evacuation mission, and for the same reason, Ukraine has received so many armored medical vehicles.
Instead, quadcopter drones are highly valued as tools for reconnaissance and for dropping primitive explosives, which is especially true for larger heavy-lift drones. Although an additional thermal camera would be a good addition to all the "military" specs of the T400.
In a dedicated article, Royals Blue suggested that the medium-sized T150 can easily carry not only mortar bombs but an FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank or an FIM-92 Stinger anti-aircraft missile. A heftier T400 could take a Brimstone or a Hellfire missile, or deliver ammunition amounting roughly to 1,000 rounds for an M2 Browning machine gun or 300 rounds for an Mk19 grenade launcher.
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