Russians Painted Houses on Project 1331-M Ships to Protect Against Drones

Russia’s Baltic Fleet has applied unusual camouflage to its ships to mislead drones equipped with artificial intelligence.

Massimo Frantarelli published a photograph of one of the ships in the new camouflage.

The Project 1331-M small anti-submarine ships based in Kronstadt have been given this atypical paint scheme.

Two ships were painted in camouflage resembling a mixture of a building facade and a waterfront.

Meanwhile, the ships’ artillery mounts were given a distinctive tiger-stripe pattern.

Part of the hull was painted black to “break up” the ship’s silhouette.

Other ships have been given a zebra-like pattern, as well as homemade anti-drone protection in the form of nets on the conning tower and torpedo tubes.

The Russian Navy likely expects this camouflage to complicate, to some extent, the operation of drone guidance systems, particularly those that use artificial intelligence algorithms for target recognition.

However, the effectiveness of this camouflage against modern guidance systems has not yet been tested in combat conditions.

Project 1331-M ships began entering service with the fleet in 1986. A total of 12 ships of this type were built.

They are equipped with AK-176 and AK-630M artillery systems, as well as Smerch-2 rocket launchers and torpedo tubes.

The Russians are also experimenting with vehicles featuring Dazzle camouflage and continue applying camouflage to ships of the Black Sea Fleet to protect them from drones.