Dressed in flip-flops and shorts, one of the best soldiers in the resistance against the military junta in Myanmar showed off his weapon. I’m sorry, mostly in pieces.
The rebel, Ko Shan Gyi, glued plastic sheets shaped with a 3D printer. Nearby, electrical components taken from Chinese-made drones used for agricultural purposes are displayed on the ground, wires exposed as if awaiting surgery.
Other parts needed to build homemade drones, including Styrofoam blocks attached to propellers, filled a pair of leaf-walled sheds. Together, they can be considered the arsenal of the Karenni National Defense Forces. A laser cutter is ready to engrave half of the flight controls. The generator that powers the workshop has stopped working. It’s unknown when the power will be restored.
Despite poor conditions, rebel drone units have managed to tip the balance of power in Myanmar. By most measures, the military that wrested power from the civilian government in Myanmar three years ago is much larger and better equipped than the hundreds of militias fighting to take back the country. The military government has Russian fighter jets and Chinese missiles at its disposal.
But with only instructions crowdsourced online and parts ordered from China, the resistance forces added force to what appeared to be an asymmetrical civil war. to the point of hopelessness. The techniques they are using are no longer unfamiliar to soldiers in Ukraine, Yemen or Sudan.
Around the world, new capabilities embedded in consumer technology are transforming conflict. Starlink connection provides internet. 3-D printers can mass produce parts. But no product is more important than cheap drones.
In Gaza last year, Hamas used cheap drones to blind checkpoints under Israeli surveillance. In Syria and Yemen, drones flew next to missiles, forcing the US military to make difficult decisions about whether to use expensive countermeasures to take down a $500 toy. USD or not. On both sides of the war in Ukraine, innovation has transformed humble drones into human-controlled missiles.
Weaker forces in the world often learn from each other. Drone pilots in Myanmar describe turning to groups on chat apps like Discord and Telegram to download 3-D printed blueprints for fixed-wing drones. They also better understand how hacking through the default software on commercial drones can reveal their location.
Many people also take advantage of the primary use of these hobby devices: the videos they record. In Ukraine and Myanmar, murder videos are set to upbeat music and spread on social networks to boost morale and help raise money.
“It’s exponential growth and it’s happening everywhere,” said Samuel Bendett, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security who studies drone warfare. “You can go on YouTube and learn how to assemble, on Telegram you can understand tactics and tips on pilot training.”
In Myanmar, both sides fear the hum of propellers vibrating the air above them. But without the regime’s air power, the resistance has had to rely more heavily on drones as they fight to overthrow the military and gain some form of civilian rule. Drones operated by rebels have helped seize Myanmar’s military outposts simply by flying overhead and causing soldiers to flee in panic. They terrorized the trenches. And they were able to carry out far-reaching attacks into military-controlled territory, targeting police stations and small military bases.
As the most skillful pilot in his rebel unit, Mr. Shan Gyi said he had carried out dozens of successful attacks by controlling the drone by tapping the joystick on the controller. video games. Larger homemade drones can carry nearly 70 pounds of bombs that can blow up a house. However, most are smaller and carry several 60mm mortar shells, enough to kill soldiers.
“I didn’t play video games when I was young,” Mr. Shan Gyi said. “When I hit the bull’s eye on the battlefield, I feel very happy.”
‘A technology breakthrough mindset’
The head of the militia’s drone unit – he’s nicknamed 3D for his success printing drone parts – appears to be an atypical rebel. As a graduate student in computer technology, 3D recalls the first time he assembled a 3-D printer during his college years.
“It’s not that difficult,” he said.
To take advantage of his skills while participating in the resistance movement, he first tried printing rifles. When they didn’t work well, he turned his attention to drones, which he read were redefining warfare in other parts of the world.
“They have a tech disruptor mindset,” said Richard Horsey, senior Myanmar adviser at the International Crisis Group. “A lot of innovation has happened.”
When 3D began building his fighting force, he had no training manual. Instead, he consulted with other young civilians to form similar units across Myanmar. After the coup and brutal repression of protests in 2021, young people who grew up in digitally connected Myanmar took to the jungle to fight.
Although none of the 10 pilots on his team had flown drones before the coup, they dug into online chat rooms, learning how to convert drones designed to use pesticides for a more lethal purpose – against humans.
“The Internet is very helpful,” 3D said. “If we wanted, we could talk to people everywhere, in Ukraine, Palestine, Syria.”
Dozens of drone units are scattered across Myanmar, and few are female. In 2022, Ma Htet Htet joined a militia fighting in central Myanmar.
“I was given the job of cooking because they were hesitant to send me to the front line just because I was a girl,” she said.
Last year, Ms. Htet Htet, now 19 years old, joined the drone unit. Her work has put her on the front lines as drone pilots operate in the heat of conflict zones. The 26-year-old commander of her unit is still recovering from shrapnel wounds she sustained in battle. The women made their own bombs, mixing TNT and aluminum powder, then stacking metal balls and gunpowder around the volatile core.
From October 2021 to June 2023, non-profit organization Information recovery center verified 1,400 online videos of drone flights carried out by groups opposing the Myanmar military, the majority of which were attacks. By early 2023, the group said it was recording 100 flights per month.
Over time, drone use has shifted from the off-the-shelf drones produced by companies like DJI to a broader mix, including Drive spontaneously like 3D created cars.
Cat and mouse game
3D has been on a shopping spree lately. He was searching in the trenches of Ukraine for a perfect solution to a problem he and his pilots were facing: a Russian-made jammer that could destroy drones by Block their signals.
Within months of establishing a 3D drone army, the government began using jamming technology from China and Russia to collect GPS signals to guide the drones. drive to the target.
3D has found every way to fight back. When Myanmar’s military sent its drones after rebel fighters, it had to pause its jamming, opening a door for him to also dispatch his own fleet of planes.
Newer first-person perspective drones, or FPVs, offer another potential solution to the problem of overcoming electronic defense systems. Hobbyist racing drones repurposed as human-piloted weapons, FPVs can be less susceptible to jamming because they are controlled manually rather than guided by GPS, and they can sometimes maneuvered around interference emitted by drone defense systems.
Newer drones have reshaped the conflict in Ukraine, and FPV manufacturing parts have been transferred to Myanmar rebels in recent months. But they are much harder to fly than conventional drones, operated using goggles that allow the pilot to see from the drone’s perspective. In Ukraine, pilots often train for hundreds of hours in flight simulators before getting the chance to fly in combat.
On a recent afternoon, with the rebels’ generators humming, a drone pilot, Ko Sai Laung, sat in a bamboo shack honing his skills on a laptop. The hand contains Ukrainian drone simulation software.
He held a joystick in his hand, occasionally wiping sweat from his face as he piloted a virtual drone over simulated Ukrainian farmland toward Russian tanks. He crashed and crashed again.
“I’m tired,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “But I have to keep practicing.”
Capital targeting
On April 4, Myanmar’s shadow government established by ousted lawmakers and others claimed that a fleet of drones launched by a pro-democracy armed group had attacked attacked three targets in Myanmar’s capital: army headquarters, an air force base and high-ranking homes. General Min Aung Hlaing, military leader.
Despite the shadow government’s excitement, no kamikaze drones caused significant damage that day. An analysis by The New York Times of satellite images found no clear evidence of smoke, fire or other signs of a successful attack.
However, the simple act of flying a drone too close to the headquarters of the Myanmar military is itself a powerful psychological weapon. Naypyidaw, the capital of Myanmar, was built in the early 2000s as a fortress city.
Dr. Sasa, a spokesman for the shadow government, said the goal of the drone strike on Naypyidaw was not to kill people but to send a signal to the authorities that they “should not feel comfortable.” roof when freely entering and exiting.
However, such operations are one-way missions for meticulously crafted drones and can require sacrificing dozens at a time in the hope that even one can get past the defense system. Opposition fighters lack ample financial resources and a reliable supply of components. The components and ammunition can be hand-assembled into a popular multi-rotor drone design that can carry heavier loads that costs more than $27,500, 3D said.
However, battles and casualties continued.
On March 20, Shan Gyi, the rebels’ star pilot, was flying a drone from a position on the front lines. Suddenly, a much more terrifying flying machine – an army fighter – screeched overhead. Its bombs were hit, 3D explained later, and Mr. Shan Gyi was killed in action. He is 22 years old.
Tomb of Nhat Tieu Report contributions.
