Norwegian soldiers drop tennis balls on tanks to test drone tactics

SETERMOEN, Norway — The Norwegian Army has dropped tennis balls on tanks to test new attack strategies for drones, drawing on tactics seen on the battlefields of Ukraine.

Officials staged the evaluation as part of NATO exercise Joint Viking 2025, held in Northern Norway earlier this month. The idea was to test intelligence and surveillance tactics involving the deployment of different types of unmanned aerial vehicles.

Among them were first-person-view drones, or FPVs, used by Ukrainian and Russian forces to attack enemy positions or equipment. Skilled operators have been able to steer the remote-controlled drones into the open hatches of tanks and armored vehicles, blowing up their deadly charge inside.

In the context of the exercise, the drones carried tennis balls to simulate munitions hitting Norwegian armored vehicles, according to Maj. Tor Sellevold, who works for Combat Lab, the Norwegian Army’s land warfare centre testing unmanned technologies.

The Norwegian Army tested new surveillance and attack strategies for drones during the Joint Viking 2025 exercise in Northern Norway in March 2025.

“To simulate attacks on participating forces, tennis balls were dropped and FPVs were flown in dive attack patterns to simulate modern-day drone threats — the purpose was to provide insights to the participants of their own aerial signature, experience the threat from top-attack drones, and evaluate their standard operating procedures,” he told Defense News in an email.

Over 30 tennis balls were dropped during the ten sorties the FPVs carried out, he added. This represented the first time that the Norwegian Army conducted such testing with attack drones at that scale.

In Ukraine, cheap drones have proven increasingly capable of striking larger Russian platforms, such as combat helicopters, as a result of their fast-paced development, which now allows them to fly faster and further than at the start of the conflict.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense recently announced the creation of the Drone Line project , which seeks to establish a 15 kilometer unmanned “kill zone” along the front lines. The plan entails the deployment of a mix of surveillance and strike drones.

The Norwegian military has been paying close attention to all the developments ongoing in Ukraine regarding drone warfare.

As part of its operations, the Army’s military intelligence battalion plans to operate drones from further back from the battle space, an officer within the unit, who wished not to be named, told Defense News.

“Our unit [Norwegian Army’s military intelligence battalion] will not be operating them close to the frontlines, we will do so from a larger distance back with longer-ranges ones,” the officer said in an interview during Joint Viking.

Norway plans to acquire new drones that will be more suitable to operate in Arctic conditions, with “very long-range” cameras, the officer added.

During the exercise, another drone that the unit deployed to conduct surveillance missions was the U.S.-made Puma, manufactured by AeroVironment.

Elisabeth Gosselin-Malo was a Europe correspondent for Defense News. She covers a wide range of topics related to military procurement and international security, and specializes in reporting on the aviation sector. She is based in Milan, Italy.

挪威塞特莫恩——挪威军队向坦克投掷网球，以测试无人机的新攻击策略，借鉴了乌克兰战场上的战术。

此次评估是北约“联合维京2025”演习的一部分，该演习于本月初在挪威北部举行。其目的是测试涉及部署不同类型无人机的情报和监视战术。

其中包括乌克兰和俄罗斯军队用来攻击敌方阵地或装备的第一人称视角无人机（FPV）。熟练的操作员能够操控这些遥控无人机飞入坦克和装甲车的敞开舱门，引爆其内部的致命炸药。

据挪威陆军陆战中心“作战实验室”（Combat Lab）的托尔·塞勒沃尔德少校（Maj. Tor Sellevold）介绍，在这次演习中，无人机携带网球来模拟弹药击中挪威装甲车辆。“作战实验室”是挪威陆军测试无人技术的陆战中心。

2025年3月，挪威军队在挪威北部举行的“维京2025联合演习”中测试了无人机的新监视和攻击策略。

“为了模拟对参战部队的攻击，我们投放了网球，并驾驶FPV无人机进行俯冲攻击，以模拟现代无人机的威胁——目的是让参战人员了解他们自身的空中特征，体验来自攻击型无人机的威胁，并评估他们的标准操作程序，”他在一封发给《防务新闻》的电子邮件中说道。

他补充说，在FPV执行的十次飞行任务中，共投放了30多个网球。这标志着挪威陆军首次进行如此大规模的攻击型无人机测试。

在乌克兰，廉价无人机由于发展迅速，越来越有能力打击俄罗斯的大型平台，例如武装直升机，这使得它们现在的飞行速度和航程都比冲突开始时更快更远。

乌克兰国防部近日宣布启动“无人机防线”项目，旨在沿前线建立一条15公里长的无人“杀伤区”。该计划包括部署侦察无人机和攻击无人机。

挪威军方一直密切关注乌克兰无人机战争方面的所有事态发展。

据《防务新闻》报道，一名不愿透露姓名的陆军军事情报营军官表示，作为其行动的一部分，该营计划从距离战场更远的地方操作无人机。

“我们的部队（挪威陆军军事情报营）不会在前线附近操作这些武器，我们会从更远的距离使用远程武器进行操作，”这位军官在联合维京演习期间接受采访时说。

该官员补充说，挪威计划购置更适合在北极条件下作业的新型无人机，这些无人机将配备“超远程”摄像头。

演习期间，该部队部署的另一架用于执行侦察任务的无人机是美国制造的 Puma，由 AeroVironment 公司生产。

伊丽莎白·戈斯林-马洛曾任《防务新闻》欧洲通讯员。她的报道涵盖军事采购和国际安全等广泛领域，尤其擅长航空领域的报道。她常驻意大利米兰。