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"These are decoys,β Vector explained during the broadcast. βWe have sent hundreds of them. Some are empty, some carry a combat load. The combat payload is small, but it is enough to destroy air defense systems.β
So they send up "decoys" that are still armed. Not really a decoy then. I'd say they have specialized AA hunters in every launch. No wonder they are fucking up the Russians defenses. Everytime the AA goes active, the "decoys" start hunting them.
The decoy ones just have a very very small payload, so that the operators must deal with them. Brilliant actually.
Everytime the AA goes active, the "decoys" start hunting them.
This is why losing the air battle is such a snowballing process, the cost of a long range aerial munition is inherently more than a shorter range interceptor so it is economically difficult to flood enemy air defenses on a cost basis under normal conditions.
However, once you have done enough SEAD the battle changes into a new state and paradigm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppression_of_enemy_air_defenses
Under suppressed enemy air defense conditions with constant waves of probing attacks continually putting pressure on the enemy, every actually effective functional air defense system paradoxically feels to the enemy like a liability because it takes so much focus and planning to keep it alive as it is swarmed from all directions. The enemy can barely establish any initiative because they are constantly "firefighting" problems being created from failing air defenses.
From the perspective of a strike asset, when air defenses are abundant there isn't much that can be done to avoid contact or focus power on a specific air defense position and destroy it, but when a crucial threshold of overwhelm is reached airborne strike assets can begin hunting and surrounding pockets of enemy air defenses... which quickly accelerates into a losing process since war never favors the side that continually draws further and further in.
From reading, it seems that there are a varied mix of all 3 types: full payload, small payload specifically for the air defence rather than the target asset the air defence is protecting, and no explosive payload.
You can make an argument that only the 3rd type is the only true dummy decoy, but the 2nd one is still intended to trick the air defence that it is a threat to the asset it is protecting rather than only a threat to the air defence system itself.
2 different airframes.
The full payload like the FP-1 made out of more durable materials and designed travel long distances and blow shit up
The "decoy" is made as cheaply as possible with a radar signature designed to look the same as the full-payload. They can travel long distances as well.
By daylight they look different, at night on radar they look very similar. A good radar technician might be able to spot the difference and not waste the ammo on a decoy.
So Ukraine puts explosives on the decoys and turns them into AA hunters. This forces the AA to fire on all contacts, expending their ammo rapidly. It also gives Ukraine a swarm of armed "decoys" to target any AA. Oh what's better, announcing that they are doing it makes it MORE effective. The only thing that AA crews can do to avoid becoming a target is to NOT fire.