Rubber tires on Russian aircraft puzzled experts last year. Now a high-ranking US military official has commented on the issue.
In late summer 2023, Russia’s armed forces began covering some of their military aircraft with rubber tires. The reason for this was unclear for a long time. Now a high-ranking member of the US military may provide the answer to the mystery. According to Schuyler Moore, technical director at the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), the measure is intended to confuse the targeting of modern weapons.
“If you put tires on the wings, many computer vision models have difficulty recognizing that it is an airplane,” Moore said in a roundtable discussion at the US think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which was also broadcast online.
Modern precision-guided munitions are often equipped with target seekers that compare an image of their target with a previously created database. However, optical changes in the target object can deceive the system. That is why Moore advocates constantly training the target seekers with artificial intelligence so that they can react flexibly to changes.
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Tires as a protective shield against drones?
In September last year, the US company Maxar Technologies published satellite images of the Engels military airfield in southern Russia, showing two Tu-95 long-range bombers with rubber tires on their wings. Some experts speculated at the time that the tires could serve as an additional layer of protection against drone attacks. Engels airfield had been the target of Ukrainian attacks twice months earlier.
“We believe it is intended to protect against drones,” a NATO official told CNN at the time. However, it is not known whether the measure has any effect.
Note: This article first appeared on n-tv.de
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
