Hezbollah Drone Strikes Continue to Take Heavy Toll on Israeli Armour
Middle East , Ground
The Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah has increased its drone strikes on Israeli Army armoured units using First Person View (FPV) drones, mirroring similar technological trends seen in the Ukrainian theatre, as part of a broader war effort to repel Israel’s invasion of Southern Lebanon. There are indications that Hezbollah has learned from Russian and Ukrainian experience in utilising fiber-optic guided drones to evade Israeli electronic interference, fuelling speculation that a sharing of experience between Hezbollah and Russian forces may have taken place. The paramilitary group operated closely alongside Russian forces in the 2010s as part of joint counterinsurgency operations in Syria, although the extent of defence ties outside the campaign or since its conclusion remain unknown.
Hezbollah has continued to release multiple videos showing FPV drones being used to attack Merkava IV main battle tanks, D9 Caterpillar armoured bulldozers, and Namer heavy infantry fighting vehicles. The Israel Defense Forces have not acknowledged the incidents, but on March 26 mentioned that several soldiers from the 7th Brigade were wounded, one of whom was killed. Fighting between Hezbollah and Israel is widely reported to be by far the most intensive in the history of the two parties’ decades long conflict. Hezbollah reported on the results of multiple ambushes launched against Israeli forces in southern Lebanon, with 21 Israeli Merkava main battle tanks reported on March 26 to have been destroyed within a 24 hour period.
Israeli sources have widely indicated that recent ground force losses have been unprecedented since at least the 1980s, when they faced the Syrian Arab Army and local paramilitary groups in Lebanon as part of a prior war effort. Israeli tanks are heavily optimised towards engagements with non-state actors, and in addition to integrating electronic warfare equipment designed to jam drone radio signals, several have also integrated the Trophy Active Protection System, which although originally designed to intercept anti-tank missiles and rocket launchers, has anti-drone capabilities in its latest iterations. While widespread use of radio- and fiber-optic controlled FPV drones has made mobile warfare exceptionally difficult for both sides in Ukraine, Hezbollah’s tactics merge guerrilla and conventional tactics, and are closely based on North Korean defensive tactics, resulting in relatively little reliance on armour. Hezbollah’s force structure instead relies on unmanned aviation and infantry with anti-tank capabilities, as well as a wide range of artillery, rocket artillery, and ballistic missile assets which are deployed in vast networks of underground fortifications.
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