The war in Ukraine has been dominated by repurposed technology, like hobby quadcopters used for reconnaissance and FPV racing drones turned into miniature guided missiles. This type of hack, in which technology is put to new and unintended uses, is the essence of cyberpunk, a dystopian science fiction genre characterized high-tech low life.
“The street finds its own uses for things,” a line coined by William Gibson his 1982 science fiction short story Burning Chrome, is one of cyberpunk’s foundational slogans.
This is the reality in Ukraine, where people living on the edge have survived by smart use of available tech. Garage-built robots transport supplies and evacuate casualties. Tablets become battlefield information nodes. Smartphone microphones drive a drone detection network.
One neglected aspect is how U.S. high-tech weapons designed for a very different type of war have been repurposed for the current drone-saturated conflict. This is cyberpunk in action, showing a mindset where any available hardware is put to new and unexpected used.
STASH: Unleashing Hellfire On Drones
The AGM-114 Hellfire – supposedly from “HELicopter Launched FIRE and forget missile” — was first deployed in the 1980s as a counter to Soviet armor. The 100-pound, laser-guided supersonic missile has a hefty warhead capable of taking out the heaviest tank and is carried by AH-64 Apache gunships.
The AGM-114L, or Longbow Hellfire, entered production a decade later. This has a millimeter-wave radar seeker, with the laser designation replaced by a link to the AH-64D Apache’s distinctive mast-mounted radar.
Due to air defenses, helicopters in Ukraine rarely get close enough to launch missiles. Abundant FPVs mean tanks are not a big problem, but Shahed drones are. One solution: turn Hellfire missiles into Shahed killers.
STASH teams the AGM-114L with an Israeli-made RADA radar, custom made to detect and track small aerial targets. The warhead is likely a shrapnel version with a proximity fuse which only needs to get close to a drone to destroy it. (The design may be based on U.S. company V2X’s proposed Tempest system).
Early versions of STASH were seen on trailers and a Ford F-350 pickup truck–very cyberpunk. The latest version, operated by Ukraine’s 302nd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade is on a DAF YA 4442, a Dutch-made military truck.
The combination works: one STASH launcher sports around 70 Shahed kill marks.
Arguably this is not an efficient way of shooting down drones. Hellfires likely cost more than the Shaheds they are taking out and interceptor drones are a tiny fraction of the price. But not shooting down those Shaheds might cost a lot more, including human lives.
And crucially STASH with its high-speed missiles can take out the newer jet-powered Shaheds which are too fast for electric interceptor drones.
CLU-ed In: Supercooled Night Vision
The U.S supplied Ukraine with around 10,000 Javelin missiles early on in the conflict, maybe a third of the total stockpile. Replacing those missiles will take years, and Ukraine is unlikely to get more. Also, at $202,000 a shot they are now outranged by FPV drones costing under $1,000.
That leaves Ukraine with a stock of Command Launch Units (CLUs), the reusable controller and sight that the Javelin launch tube attaches to. The CLU can be used on its own without a missile, as it has a powerful thermal imager. In the past, a missile team would typically use the 14-pound CLU to find a target before attaching a 35-pound missile tube to carry out an attack, as it is easier to maneuver the CLU without a munition attached.
In Ukraine though, according to a report by think-tank RUSI, Special Forces are equipped with Javelin CLUs without missiles. While most units rely on drone reconnaissance, Special Forces get within eyeball range of the enemy and the CLUs are good for spotting opponents.
The CLU imager is a second-generation system from the 1990s with a resolution of 240×240. This is less even than low-cost third-generation imagers in expendable FPV drones, like the 640×480 imager from Ukrainian makers Odd Systems. But it has a major advantage.
The CLU is big, heavy and expensive because of its a cryogenic cooled sensor. This is chilled right down to around -320F, cold enough to damp out the thermal noise generated by the imager itself. Low-cost, uncooled imagers are sensitive to heat differences of around 50 mK; the CLU is likely at least three times as sensitive.
Unlike low-cost sensors, the CLU has x9 magnification so the operator can zoom in on objects of interest. So while it may not produce such a crisp image, the CLU can detect hidden people or vehicles that other thermal imagers miss.
Lugging the 14-pound, $100k CLU rather than night-vision goggles to spot Russian infiltrators a few hundred yards away might seem excessive. Again though, this is life-saving technology which would otherwise be sitting in storage. So the street finds a use for it.
Killing Tanks From A New Angle
A Ukrainian soldier carefully disassembles a 120mm M830A1 round, ammunition for the main gun of the U.S.-supplied M1 Abrams tank. While the tank is best known for “silver bullet” hypervelocity M829 rounds firing a depleted uranium dart, it also has the M830A1. This does not rely on speed but has a shaped charge warhead which drives a jet of metal through its target.
Ukraine’s Abrams tanks are rarely seen except in offensive operations when an area can be cleared of Russian drones. There is an urgent need for drone bombs though, which is why we see M830A1s being dismantled. It is likely that these are damaged or nonfunctional rounds but with warheads which can be repurposed.
The entire cartridge, including the casing and propellant, weighs around 50 pounds, the actual projectile is around 25 pounds of that. This is the section that is being extracted for use as a drone bomb.
“We’re going to remake them a little bit and they are going to bring happiness and joy to our guests,” says the soldier.
25 pounds is too much for an FPV, but just right for heavy bomber multicopters. A shaped charge like the M830A1 can penetrate over 400mm of steel plate meaning it can take out the heaviest tanks by going through thin top armor.
The tank round costs something over $8,000, far more than other drone bombs. But it is also more reliable and better engineered, and it is better to use it than leave it in storage when there are targets to hit. Elsewhere we have seen AT4 anti-tank weapons, 82mm recoilless gun rounds, NLAW rockets and others adapted as drone munitions. The drones are hungry for bombs and anything that explodes can be useful.
Fight With What You Have, However You Can
Tanks may not be obsolete quite yet. But these cyberpunk adaptations point to traditional anti-tank systems looking for new jobs. The Hellfire and Javelin anti-tank missiles and the M830A1 anti-tank round may have been eclipsed in their intended roles, but they can still be useful.
The cyberpunk mentality means finding ways of using for what you have, wherever it came from and without respect for its intended use. The ability to adapt rapidly and adopt whatever technology comes along, rather than sticking to tried and tested but possibly outdated ways, may be the key to survival in a world which is changing fast. Learning from Ukraine is not just a matter of copying their equipment, but learning their way of thinking.