Since russia has started using the aerostats with radar reflectors, Ukrainian information space is full of thoughts to use such aircraft as well.
There is a historical analogy. Great Britain had a campaign to attack energy system of Germany and German-occupied Europe during the Second World War. Almost 100 thousand free-flying balloons with explosive materials were launched.
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British had been launching from 500 to 2000 balloons every day in 1942-1944. The official cost was 100 thousand pounds sterling, documented enemy’s loss was 10 million pounds sterling, mostly because of power lines damages.
There were a number of payload designs designated: “wire” – a wire to break the lines, “beer” – a white phosphorus grenade in a cylindrical metal container, “jelly” – a can of incendiary jelly, “sock” – long thin canvas bag of incendiary material weighing about 2,7 kg, “lemon” – small land mine.
The first and most important point of the project implementation is resources. Taking into account the inflation index, Great Britain couldn’t afford such campaign now. Moreover, it takes a great deal of nylon and explosives to create such aircraft.
And the production scaling is required, as these balloons are almost uncontrollable and may not always reach the target.
Furthermore, russian can intensify the usage of their aircraft to strike at Ukrainian infrastructure in response.
It is known that russia have different types of soviet aerostats with various payloads. For instance, the Au-23 type aerostats with radar reflectors can serve only as targets for the air defence forces or an auxiliary tool for surveillance. The AN-S1 and the VAL-120 types aerostats can even carry small-caliber aerial bombs.
So the production and usage of the aerostats isn’t rational move for Ukraine. There are more reliable options, such as unmanned aerial vehicles with significant flight range.
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