Vampire is a hexacopter drone, i.e. unmanned rotorcraft with six rays and the same number of engines, which makes it a decent heavylift aerial vehicle. Operators working with it mostly deploy at dusk or midnight to make the most of its night vision camera, thus the name.
"Vampire is most effective at night because it's equipped with a thermal imager that performs quite well, and [because] it's less noticeable," says drone operator with call sign Bereza, in a video interview published by Ukrainian Air Assault Forces Command.
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The drone is versatile: from safely delivering supplies to an allied position in "the most difficult of spots" to remote mining of territories, fire support on the defensive or pinpoint strikes at locations where mortar or artillery fire would struggle to land a hit. Occasionally deployed for humanitarian purposes:
Exclusive footage from temporarily occupied left bank of the Dnipro. doesn’t evacuate residents from flooded areas or allow to do so. But technology comes to rescue. Our Vampire drone, which previously destroyed the occupiers, now delivers humanitarian aid.@United24media pic.twitter.com/oY0qS7WA8z— Mykhailo Fedorov (@FedorovMykhailo) June 14, 2023
For accomplishing any kind of mission, the drone can carry up to a maximum of 15 kg, although in practice, the effective payload is up to 12 kg. The "combat radius" is 8 to 12 km for a sortie to the designated point and back. The tactic is simple: reconnaissance units deploy smaller quadcopter camera drones to find targets, then a Vampire crew is called on the spot to deliver a strike.
From a few other videos of Ukrainian Armed Forces using this aerial vehicle, we can find out that the weapons it uses varies from primitive explosive devices like grenades with customly attached fins to blast anti-tank mines and shaped-charge munitions. In the footage shared by the Raroh and CODE 9.2 units, we can see a T-80 and a fuel warehouse destroyed by Vampires (in different times and places).
Bereza also recalls an intercepted russian radio conversation, the operators learned from it that some russian commander offered a reward for taking down a Vampire drone: over $500 and a seven-day vacation.
Side note, the hexacopter is one of the family of three "vampire" weapons of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Besides the drone, Ukraine operates the American Vampire anti-aircraft and land attack missile system that guides APKWS rockets with a laser beam, and the Czech RM-70 Vampir multiple rocket launcher, an upgraded version of the BM-21 Grad MLRS with an additional pack of artillery rockets to reload in the field.
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