Ukraine The US military appears to be using a fleet of fire-breathing “dragon drones” in its war against Russian invaders, putting a modern twist on a munition used to horrific effect in both world wars.
A series of videos posted on social media, including on Telegram by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry on Wednesday, show low-flying drones dropping torrents of fire – actually molten metal – on Russian-held positions in tree lines.
The white-hot mixture of aluminum powder and iron oxide, called thermite, burns at temperatures of up to 2,200 degrees Celsius. It can quickly burn through trees and vegetation that provide cover for Russian troops, even killing or incapacitating them outright.
As thermite falls from the drone, it resembles fire coming out of the mythical dragon’s mouth, giving the drones their nickname.
“Strike drones are our wings of vengeance, shooting straight from the sky!” reads a message posted on social media by the 60th Mechanized Brigade of Ukraine.
“They become a real threat to the enemy, burning his positions with a precision that no other weapon can achieve,” the message continues.
“When our ‘Vidar’ works, the Russian woman never sleeps,” he added. Vidar is the Norse god of vengeance.
Creating this kind of fear is probably the main effect of the Ukrainian thermite drones, according to Nicholas Drummond, a defense industry analyst specializing in land warfare and a former British army officer.
“It’s a very nasty thing. Using a drone to deliver it is quite innovative. But used in this way, its effect will have been more psychological than physical,” Drummond told CNN.
“I understand that Ukraine has only a limited capability to produce thermite, so this is a niche capability rather than a new mass-market weapon,” he said.
But he recognizes the terror that thermite can create.
“I would not have liked to be the target of these attacks,” Drummond said.
Incendiary weapons in war
Thermite can easily burn almost anything, including metal, so there is little protection against it.
It was discovered by a German chemist in the 1890s and was originally used to weld railroad tracks.
But its military power soon became evident, with the Germans dropping it from Zeppelins as bombs on Britain during World War I, according to a historical report from McGill University in Montreal.
Both Germany and the Allies used thermite aerial bombs during World War II, and they also used it to disable captured artillery pieces, by placing thermite in the breech and melting the weapon from the inside.
According to Action against armed violence (AOAV), A British anti-war group, Ukraine has already used drone-dropped thermite to permanently disable Russian tanks.
Thermite is dropped “directly through the hatches, where the intense heat quickly ignites and destroys everything inside,” an AOAV report says.
“This precision, combined with the drone’s ability to bypass traditional defenses, makes thermite…
