The Vernadsky Research Base It is a Ukrainian scientific station in whose surroundings penguin colonies have been sighted. It happens that it is in Antarctica, not in Ukraine, an enclave where these creatures that live almost exclusively in the southern hemisphere and, in any case, rarely and naturally in the northern hemisphere do not exist.
However, in Ukraine they do not stop being sighted.
Penguins on the battlefield. Yes, on the Ukrainian front one of the most disconcerting images of this very technological war: Russian soldiers advancing alone through snowy fields covered in white thermal ponchos that, seen at first glance, make them look clearly giant penguins.
The logic behind this tactic is simple and desperate at the same time, since these ponchos (can be found by about 75 dollars), made with fabrics capable of retaining almost all body heat, seek to erase the thermal silhouette of the soldier in front of drones equipped with infrared cameras.
The “but”. In theory, the human body should blend in with the cold of the environment, disappearing for thermal sensors. In practice and how they have been managed to advertise Ukrainian forces, camouflage only works under very specific conditions and during the night, and their repeated use in broad daylight has turned these “penguins” into targets that are easily identifiable by optical drones, which detect them without difficulty before attacking them.
Camouflage as a mistake. The broadcast videos by Ukrainian operators show that the problem is not so much the garment as its tactical use. Ponchos can hide the heat of the torso, but they leave exposed parts like feet or create silhouettes artificially cold images that stand out against slightly warmer backgrounds, making target acquisition easier.
Furthermore, the lack of training exacerbates the problem, since many soldiers seem to be unaware how and when use this type of camouflage. The result is paradoxical: what was supposed to reduce visibility ends up generating black and perfectly delimited figures on the thermal screens of the drones, making the carriers even more detectable. Even so, Russian units insist in repeating the tacticagain and again sending isolated men to cross open terrain, with almost always lethal results against explosive-laden FPVs.
The battle of deception and decoys. It we have counted before. This extreme resource is not an isolated case, but part of a war of deception every time more sophisticated on both sides. While some soldiers literally try to disguise themselves to survive aerial surveillance, Ukraine has perfected the use of large-scale decoys, like inflatable F-16 fighters deployed at airfields.
These life-size models have reached attract loitering munitions guided by satellite, forcing the adversary to expend expensive and technically advanced drones against targets of no military value. Even from the Russian side it has been implicitly recognized that some of their supposed big blows have ended up destroying simple models, an assumed cost that, however, reveals the limits of intelligence and target identification in an environment saturated with sensors.
A drone war. If you like, all this costume exchange, thermal ponchos and plastic airplanes underlines a deeper and more repeated reality: the battlefield has been transformed into a permanent duel between detection and concealmentin which drones are responsible for the majority of casualties and set the pace of operations.
Improvised human camouflage tactics and elaborate lures Industrial companies are part of the same phenomenon, a war in which deceiving the sensor is almost as important as destroying the enemy. In that context, the somewhat surreal image of a “penguin” advancing through the snow is not so much an anecdote, but the extreme symptom of a conflict in which survival increasingly depends on outwitting a camera that never blinks.
Image | Telegram
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