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Ukraine is Now 3D-Printing Bombs to Keep Up with Demand
Dropping grenades from consumer drones is just one of the many battlefield innovations that Ukraine pioneered to combat Russian soldiers.
But typical American-made hand grenades have a problem — at 400 grams per grenade (180 grams of explosive) they are a little light on killing power.
An amateur weapons maker based out of Kyiv recently told The Economist, “After one goes off, targeted Russian soldiers often just keep running”.
This light weight is important when soldiers use grenades as intended: thrown by hand at a group of enemies or a bunker. But for dropping explosives from drones, the Ukrainians realized that there must be a better way.
Now, the Ukrainians have threaded the needle between dropping a larger explosive payload and still having a bomb light enough to be carried by a DJI Mavik videography drone.
The weapons maker’s nickname is “Lyosha” and three months ago, he and a group of friends designed an alternative to NATO hand grenades: an 800-gram anti-personnel bomb called the “зайчик”, or “Bunny”.
The Bunny casing is 3D-printed and then packed with C4 explosives, along with pieces of jagged steel to act as shrapnel.
I’ve said it before, but Ukraine’s MacGyver army is the gold standard for battlefield innovation. They prove the old proverb that ‘necessity is the mother of all invention.’
Another volunteer group made up of non-Ukrainians recently developed a 27-centimeter-high bomb, (called the ‘Big Egg’) which involves a nose cone, body, and tail, and is also 3D-printed for $3.85 each.
To date, nearly 65,000 3D-printed bombshells have been shipped into Ukraine from international sources with Ukrainian customs allowing entry by (wink wink) classifying the casings as children’s toys or candle holders.
Inside Ukraine, Lyosha’s team prints about 1,000 shells a week, but their military contact is asking for 1,500 a day — such is the rate of consumption at the front.
Improvised munitions are nothing new: In America’s Global War on Terror, enemy combatants routinely made use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) as a way to attack, harass, and distract U.S. forces.
