6 ms·

I am neither American nor a gun nerd, but from what I "overheard" on the internet a single Phalanx system should be able to take out drone swarms at incredible

by fho 5y ago

I am neither American nor a gun nerd, but from what I "overheard" on the internet a single Phalanx system should be able to take out drone swarms at incredible rates?

sbierwagen 5y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27440924 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27440924 >>The Block 1A and newer (pneumatic driven) CIWS mounts fire at a rate of 4,500 rounds per minute with a 1,550-round magazine. >>Shells fired by the Phalanx cost around $30 each and the gun typically fires 100 or more when engaging a target.[14] >So it's about three grand to zap one drone, and you get 15 shootdowns before a human needs to shovel more ammo into the turret. That would make it vulnerable to a saturation attack. You could imagine firing fewer rounds per salvo, but that only slightly mitigates it. Against drone swarms you kinda want directed energy weapons, either microwave or laser. Which don't exist, currently. Also note that Phalanx is radar based, leaving it open to the usual suite of radar jamming/ECW/antiradiation attacks. You can tip the odds back in your favor by emplacing more Phalanx systems, but at ten million bucks each, that limits you to stuff like defending small-size/high-value targets like the White House, rather than numerous and sprawling US military bases.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  I think for drones of this kind you can set up mini phalanxes. They don’t quite move at the speed that a missile moves, and the caliber necessary to destroy a drone is much lower than that necessary to disable a missile.
  - fho 5y ago
    And [load them up with birdshot](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28757668 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28757668) ... or even salt. I guess most props won't handle any impact well.
- m4rtink 5y ago
  Actually proximity fuzed rounds should work the best, each taking outv many swarm memvers. Its not like these things could be armored rather than as light as possible.
  - WJW 5y ago
    Proximity fused rounds do have the significant downside that using them near built up areas will cause significant collateral damage. For example, if a drone swarm attacks an election rally somewhere in the US then you can't really detonate airburst shells above the crowd to take out the drones, since you would do more harm than good with that.
    - m4rtink 5y ago
      Hmm, a slightly Rube Goldberg type idea - what about firing proximity fuzed "airbag rounds" ? A Kevlar bag + car airbag style gas generator. If fuzed and timed just right it could potentially punch the drone from the sky, either breaking it or casing enough flight path distortion it migh not recover. Or maybe release a bunch nylon filaments that will entangle any propellers and make the thing fall down ?
    - Aeolun 5y ago
      Would you? What if the drones are carrying grenades? I mean, I can see how it’s less than ideal, but I don’t think it’s safe to assume you’d do more harm than good.
      - WJW 5y ago
        If you can say for certain beforehand that the drones are carrying grenades, then _maybe_. But if they are "just" carrying a sharpened stick to try and skewer whichever politician is holding the rally with, then killing a large amount of the audience will be really unpopular Also, not killing them but allowing the politician to be killed will be really unpopular too. Lasers on the other hand don't run out of ammo, cause much less collateral damage and are quite effective against lightweight drones. (Of course by the time you have to guard political rallies so much that "grenade attacks by drone swarms" becomes a reasonable threat scenario, you may have to rethink things and probably just cancel the rally for now.)
- fho 5y ago
  > shells fired by the Phalanx cost around $30 each That's pretty crazy to think of ... I guess the only justification for that is that the assets that are protected by such a system are worth more than that. > You could imagine firing fewer rounds per salvo If I learned anything from games, it's that you want AoE damage for swarming enemies ;-)
  - bigiain 5y ago
    Phalanx was designed to protect battleships and aircraft carriers from cruise missiles. Emptying 6 or 8 4500 round Phalanx turrets at the half dozen cruise missile locked onto your aircraft carrier seems like a pretty sensible way to spend a million bucks.
  - yissp 5y ago
    it costs $27,000 to fire this weapon... for 12 seconds.
    - maxgashkov 5y ago
      Still less expensive than NAT gateway though /s
- bigiain 5y ago
  > Against drone swarms you kinda want directed energy weapons, either microwave or laser. Which don't exist, currently. These guys reckon they can detect, locate, and take down drones and drone swarms by jamming them with directed RF (not energy weapons as such): https://www.droneshield.com https://www.droneshield.com These guys build "remotely operated weapons" that include 5.56mm up to 30mm cannons (as well as grenade launchers and missile launchers), and a "Counter Drone Defence System" that can drive them: https://www.eos-aus.com/defence/ https://www.eos-aus.com/defence/ I don't know it this works anything like as well on moving targets, but what you see at about 30 secs in this video looks like it'd take down most significanbtly-smaller-than-Predator drones pretty reliably at 900m out: https://vimeo.com/429825806 https://vimeo.com/429825806 And I suspect 7.65 or 5.56 would probably work just as well as 50cal for that (though perhaps less accurately at long range?) Not anything like as vicious as Phalanx, but if you're trying to protect against quadcopter or fixed wing drone swarms instead of cruise missiles, I'd bet they're remarkably more cost effective.
- hansel_der 5y ago
  and this is not even taking into account the difficulty to actually hit a target this small with a projectile weapon.
- yodelshady 5y ago
  It should certainly be possible to develop and use a cheaper anti-drone system than a Phalanx, but that requires a static specification to develop against. The attacker's advantage seems to be that defenders doesn't have that yet.

by fho 5y ago

I am neither American nor a gun nerd, but from what I "overheard" on the internet a single Phalanx system should be able to take out drone swarms at incredible rates?

sbierwagen 5y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27440924 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27440924 >>The Block 1A and newer (pneumatic driven) CIWS mounts fire at a rate of 4,500 rounds per minute with a 1,550-round magazine. >>Shells fired by the Phalanx cost around $30 each and the gun typically fires 100 or more when engaging a target.[14] >So it's about three grand to zap one drone, and you get 15 shootdowns before a human needs to shovel more ammo into the turret. That would make it vulnerable to a saturation attack. You could imagine firing fewer rounds per salvo, but that only slightly mitigates it. Against drone swarms you kinda want directed energy weapons, either microwave or laser. Which don't exist, currently. Also note that Phalanx is radar based, leaving it open to the usual suite of radar jamming/ECW/antiradiation attacks. You can tip the odds back in your favor by emplacing more Phalanx systems, but at ten million bucks each, that limits you to stuff like defending small-size/high-value targets like the White House, rather than numerous and sprawling US military bases.

Aeolun 5y ago
I think for drones of this kind you can set up mini phalanxes. They don’t quite move at the speed that a missile moves, and the caliber necessary to destroy a drone is much lower than that necessary to disable a missile.
- fho 5y ago
  And [load them up with birdshot](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28757668 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28757668) ... or even salt. I guess most props won't handle any impact well.
m4rtink 5y ago
Actually proximity fuzed rounds should work the best, each taking outv many swarm memvers. Its not like these things could be armored rather than as light as possible.
- WJW 5y ago
  Proximity fused rounds do have the significant downside that using them near built up areas will cause significant collateral damage. For example, if a drone swarm attacks an election rally somewhere in the US then you can't really detonate airburst shells above the crowd to take out the drones, since you would do more harm than good with that.
  - m4rtink 5y ago
    Hmm, a slightly Rube Goldberg type idea - what about firing proximity fuzed "airbag rounds" ? A Kevlar bag + car airbag style gas generator. If fuzed and timed just right it could potentially punch the drone from the sky, either breaking it or casing enough flight path distortion it migh not recover. Or maybe release a bunch nylon filaments that will entangle any propellers and make the thing fall down ?
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    Would you? What if the drones are carrying grenades? I mean, I can see how it’s less than ideal, but I don’t think it’s safe to assume you’d do more harm than good.
    - WJW 5y ago
      If you can say for certain beforehand that the drones are carrying grenades, then _maybe_. But if they are "just" carrying a sharpened stick to try and skewer whichever politician is holding the rally with, then killing a large amount of the audience will be really unpopular Also, not killing them but allowing the politician to be killed will be really unpopular too. Lasers on the other hand don't run out of ammo, cause much less collateral damage and are quite effective against lightweight drones. (Of course by the time you have to guard political rallies so much that "grenade attacks by drone swarms" becomes a reasonable threat scenario, you may have to rethink things and probably just cancel the rally for now.)
fho 5y ago
> shells fired by the Phalanx cost around $30 each That's pretty crazy to think of ... I guess the only justification for that is that the assets that are protected by such a system are worth more than that. > You could imagine firing fewer rounds per salvo If I learned anything from games, it's that you want AoE damage for swarming enemies ;-)
- bigiain 5y ago
  Phalanx was designed to protect battleships and aircraft carriers from cruise missiles. Emptying 6 or 8 4500 round Phalanx turrets at the half dozen cruise missile locked onto your aircraft carrier seems like a pretty sensible way to spend a million bucks.
- yissp 5y ago
  it costs $27,000 to fire this weapon... for 12 seconds.
  - maxgashkov 5y ago
    Still less expensive than NAT gateway though /s
bigiain 5y ago
> Against drone swarms you kinda want directed energy weapons, either microwave or laser. Which don't exist, currently. These guys reckon they can detect, locate, and take down drones and drone swarms by jamming them with directed RF (not energy weapons as such): https://www.droneshield.com https://www.droneshield.com These guys build "remotely operated weapons" that include 5.56mm up to 30mm cannons (as well as grenade launchers and missile launchers), and a "Counter Drone Defence System" that can drive them: https://www.eos-aus.com/defence/ https://www.eos-aus.com/defence/ I don't know it this works anything like as well on moving targets, but what you see at about 30 secs in this video looks like it'd take down most significanbtly-smaller-than-Predator drones pretty reliably at 900m out: https://vimeo.com/429825806 https://vimeo.com/429825806 And I suspect 7.65 or 5.56 would probably work just as well as 50cal for that (though perhaps less accurately at long range?) Not anything like as vicious as Phalanx, but if you're trying to protect against quadcopter or fixed wing drone swarms instead of cruise missiles, I'd bet they're remarkably more cost effective.
hansel_der 5y ago
and this is not even taking into account the difficulty to actually hit a target this small with a projectile weapon.
yodelshady 5y ago
It should certainly be possible to develop and use a cheaper anti-drone system than a Phalanx, but that requires a static specification to develop against. The attacker's advantage seems to be that defenders doesn't have that yet.