Turkish drones are operating with impunity against Armenian targets. It's a calamity. What happened to Russian-sourced AD in Armenia military, TOR, S-300, etc.?
Turkish drones are not operating with impunity they are using
swarm tactics to overwhelm the nearly none existent Armenian air defenses. But nevertheless, a number of Azeri/Turkish/Israeli drones have been shot down. This is not to say that the drone strikes have not caused considerable losses to Armenian forces. Those drones are in fact very effective.
The problem is that most of the more capably Armenian SAMs are guarding high value assets such as military bases and the capital. The remaining air defenses are primitive and made up of
limited 9K33 Osa’s and Maybe some Tor and Buk systems? It’s unlikely those air defenses can cover all of Armenia anyways, there are always gaps and weak spots such as mountain that drones can exploit.
The Azeris and probably Turks have used sworm drone attacks as mentioned earlier. Any air defenses can be overwhelmed with enough swarm attacks, in the case of Armenian air defenses. They are hardly considered capable due to the very limited numbers and mostly old systems spread out over the country. For any air defenses to work well the defenses have to be layered. This provides a better and more spread out umbrella of protection. If one battery is out of munitions, malfunctions or has an incompetent crew then another neighboring battery can engage the threat.
The biggest threat is smaller loitering drones like the Harpy. It’s very small thus it’s difficult to detect to begin with; moreover, many radars simply disregard the Harpy as clutter since its speed and altitude is similar to a bird. It can also fly low enough and or use mountains to hid from radars altogether.
The things is in the past Armenian have destroyed many Azeri drones including Harpys. This is the difference between swarm attacks and casual crossing the LOC.
Here is proof:
The Azeris are using heavy artillery, MLRS and drone swarming to overwhelm Armenians and its working pretty well. It’s believed that Turkey has also used F-16s, transported Jihadists from Syria and is supplying weapons and possibly even using drones themselves. The main problem the Azeris have is that they have very poor soldiers that seem demotivated and have been filmed retreating on several occasions. The Armenians seem to have much superior infantry that are highly motivated. Despite the overwhelming manpower, armor, air power and technological gap the Azeris can’t break the Armenians will. At least not yet.
The Azeris have been launching a push or something like a pincer from two directions, maybe one is a diversion or it’s just meant to spread out Armenians thin. This is not looking good for Armenians but some reports say the Armenians have caused the Azeris to fall back. Armenia needs drones to even the playing field. Also if enough Russian/Ukrainian and possibly Georgian or Belorussian volunteers come this may change the outcome. Russian/Ukrainian volunteers with Russian advisers have held off the Ukrainian military for 5 years and even encircled and destroyed entire Ukrainian battalions. Azeris have little fight in them and will rely on drones rather then soldiers.