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I recently read statements from an Azov brigade commander in Ukraine that Russian Orlan-10 observation UAVs are a major problem. Russia is producing a lot of t

I recently read statements from an Azov brigade commander in Ukraine that Russian Orlan-10 observation UAVs are a major problem. Russia is producing a lot of these UAVs and has been using them more heavily and effectively. Orlan-10s reveal targets for Lancet UAVs and other weapons. This leads to Ukrainian crews and weapons being destroyed and forces SPGs and other artillery away from effective positions. Orlan-10 is a vulnerable system. It's slow, low altitude, easily detected and fragile; basically just a militarized model airplane. A fast UAV designed to detect and kill Orlan-10 would be a huge asset. At the moment Ukraine is using precious and costly AA missiles for this. I'm thinking this tracking improvement would be a major help for anti-armor UAVs as well. One of the problems UAV operators have when attacking armor is losing FPV signal as the UAV gets close to the ground. If the terminal phase could be handed off to an onboard tracker it would vastly improve these weapons.

SoftTalker 3y ago
How about soldiers on the ground with shotguns? Or are they too high for that?
- topspin 3y ago
  "Low altitude" in this case is 1-2km. Small arms can't deal with that. Shotguns have been used to counter Lancet in terminal phase. But that's a desperation tactic. The goal would be that Lancet et al. is useless because the Russians are blind.
  - empyrrhicist 3y ago
    Wouldn't old school AA guns be perfect for that sort of thing?
    - topspin 3y ago
      No. The front is a huge; tens of kilometers deep and hundreds of kilometers long. You would need a stupid number of AA guns and crews to cover it all. The idea is fast hunter UAV that could sweep large areas and respond quickly to enemy UAVs.
    - LarsDu88 3y ago
      AUTONOMOUS AA guns would be perfect for that sort of thing The US military has had Phalanx CIWS for decades to handle this type of threat what both Russia and Ukraine could use are cheaper lower caliber versions of this
      - pixl97 3y ago
        And then the attackers will locate these expensive systems and attack with a cheap drone swarm of 10-15 drones at once. Doesn't matter if you lose 9, if one gets past you're likely in trouble.
        LarsDu88 3y ago
        Exactly, so what is needed is a cheaper version of these weapons. A cheap drone swarm versus a cheap turret swarm built off the browning 50.cal rather than some complex 20 mm chain gun.
        greedo 3y ago
        Most of the AA systems coming on line can easily handle a swarm of 15 drones. Watch a video of Skyranger with proximity fuses wiping the gnats out of the sky. The problem is that each system can only handle a small area of the battle front.
        vGPU 3y ago
        The problem is that each 30mm projectile costs ~5k. Not a good trade off if you swarm it with $300 Chinese drones. And as soon as it starts firing, artillery will start raining down on it. Plus, the Russians have already demonstrated the ability to attack AA systems from multiple sides to get through the blind spots. Any attempt to cluster multiple AA guns or radar systems will make for an incredibly attractive target. Modern production lines can make what, a few hundred of them a year at best? Russia has purchased several thousand drones from Iran alone last year, and they have supposedly produced several hundred thousand lancets. The US desperately needs to stop feeding the MIC and Wall Street and to reindustrialize the US economy, because we are simply not able to produce anywhere near as much missiles, shells, tanks, etc to fight the war the US wants to fight. The current combined yearly shell production capacity of Germany and the US is less than half of Russia’s alleged production capability, and they just signed a deal with NK that will likely increase their production capacity by a good 50% at least.
    - myself248 3y ago
      My understanding is that AA guns work best against targets the size of a fighter or bomber. As the target shrinks, so do your odds of a hit. Here's an Orlan-10 on its launch mount. Perspective means it appears larger than it actually is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlan-10#/media/File:SlavicBrotherhood2018-13.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlan-10#/media/File:SlavicBro... So, no, not perfect. Probably not even within an order of magnitude of the same effectiveness. Possibly not even two orders.
    - Arrath 3y ago
      With radar directed[0] gunnery and proximity fuzed rounds, absolutely. For SHORAD, or short range air defense. You'd need a lot of guns parceled out over a lot of frontage to protect your positions. [0]Which, of course, means it has emissions that can be tracked, pinpointed, and targeted.
    - vGPU 3y ago
      Too expensive in terms of cost, materials, and time. Also too vulnerable to swarm attacks. A gepard costs what, 400k? Lancets are 20-40k. I can almost guarantee that it won’t take anywhere near 10-20 lancets to kill one, maybe 3-5. And a non-SPAAG AA gun is a non-starter with modern ISR.
- paganel 3y ago
  The only reasonable counter-tactic against cheap drones have been EW measures. They're by no means perfect but it's the best any of the two sides has at this moment (yes, it's better than the AA weaponry they have at their disposal). Here's a video [1] of a Ukrainian drone hitting Russian EW equipment on a tower and here's a Russian video [2] presenting their EW works against incoming Ukrainian drones. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/17fbxoz/ua_pov_fpv_drone_hits_russian_ew_equipment_on_a/ https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/17fbxo... [2] https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/17gnnae/ru_pov_how_electronic_warfare_saves_soldiers_from/ https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/17gnna...
  - FlyingBears 3y ago
    Easy to defeat with automatic target recognition and tracking. You only need to get in the general vicinity and let the drone figure it out, which is what I suspect new Lancet is doing.
    - paganel 3y ago
      Yeah, even cheaper and lighter batteries will allow for even more processing to be carried out "locally", on the drone itself, with reasonable good automatic target recognition becoming viable.
- Modified3019 3y ago
  Not for the larger surveillance drones, no. Those are a km up, you are unlikely to even know it’s there. For small drones a shotgun is great… if it’s semi or full auto, if the soldier knows exactly where a drone coming right at him is, and has time to prepare while it’s still around 50 yards out. Outside of those conditions, still not great. Shotguns are roughly “effective” up to 100yards with slugs, and half of that with buckshot. Drones dropping grenades are generally well above 200 yards up, generally more like 500. So it’s really only the suicide ones that can be reasonable targets. The problem is a purpose build FPV drone typically used in suicide runs can haul ass, and cover 50yards in a second, are hard to see and predict the path of, even when you know one is there. Consumer drones can generally cover 50 yards in roughly 2-4 seconds. Trying to shoot one moving across your view dive bombing on something else is going to have you more likely accidentally shooting the drones target or something unintended rather than the drone itself. I do anticipate vehicle mounted scattergun systems meant for close in defense of drones though, as well as quickly/auto launched anti-drone drones for further off defense. More powerful drones would be needed for dealing with stuff 1km up and beyond though, the smaller stuff will struggle getting close to that.
spanktheuser 3y ago
This puzzle is really starting to fit together nicely but SO FRUSTRATING that I still can’t tell whether it’s an image of Skynet or Big Brother. Perhaps if I add one more piece…
- konschubert 3y ago
  Maybe you should rather worry how to help the people who are fighting for their lives.
  - topspin 3y ago
    We should worry about both. What we shouldn't do is let allies get slaughtered because Russia can make a lot of model airplanes, or bankrupt ourselves killing them with million dollar AA missiles. There must be a better way.
    - greedo 3y ago
      The best way to counter the smaller UAVs that operated with roughly a 6k-10k range is via EW. Jam their control links and they either land right where they are or RTB. Either way they're out of the picture. Unfortunately, that also tends to jam your own UAVs as well (at least the commercial ones converted for spotting and FPV attacks.) Radar doesn't work that well since the RCS of these craft are so small and the radar systems have gate filters that exclude slow moving aircraft. If you tweak this lower, then you end up with a far shorter range with a lot more noise. And if you broadcast too much, you end up eating a KH-58. It's not a trivial problem to solve. Eventually things like better acoustic and vision sensor processing will help. Despite the US wanting to ignore the impact of these drones, they really are a game changer. Cheap, distributed ISR via drones is invaluable. And imagine in a few years when the control systems use frequency hopping etc. I'm also envisioning a drone controlled via fiber optic cable. It won't be able to go far, but it can go high and act as a spotter, limited only by its cameras. It won't be jammable, nor limited by bandwidth. Kind of like how balloons were used in the Civil War and WW1 to adjust artillery fire. And if the invasion of Ukraine has shown anything at all, it's that if you get spotted, you die.
zyang 3y ago
The best way to kill drone is with better drones. We are at the dawn of a new arms race.
- nradov 3y ago
  That remains to be seen. Cannons, lower-cost missiles, or directed energy weapons might end up being more effective at killing drones. This is a rapidly evolving field and I don't think anyone can reliably predict the outcome. The big problem is target detection. Small quadcopters may be able to track nearby targets, but they lack the sensors needed to detect targets at useful ranges. At a minimum defensive systems will still need large, expensive sensors mounted on ground platforms, aerostats, or larger fixed-wing drones.
  - PeterisP 3y ago
    I believe currently most 'kills' of small drones are because of EW ('electronic warfare' i.e. jamming and spoofing, both for the control link and for GPS navigation), which causes them to crash or land in enemy-controlled location.
  - topspin 3y ago
    > The big problem is target detection. Generally yes, detection is hard. The Orlan-10 case, however, is easier. They can often be seen and/or heard from the ground and they are transmitting a live video feed, so their RF profile is a dead giveaway. If a fast, fox hunter counter UAV could be directed to the vicinity and then pick up the target efficiently a small crew could cover wide areas. I imagine something like a fast, traditional airplane form with directional antennae in the wings for long range tracking, and visual tracking (as per the linked story) at short range. The actual weapon would be a small firearm: the targets are fragile.
- vGPU 3y ago
  No, the best way to kill a drone is with a cheaper better drone that you can make more of.
  - 3y ago
FlyingBears 3y ago
Russian Lancet new generation already uses target locking. I suspect if it is possible to clone a piece of equipment, the only answer is an economy of scale because neither side will have technological advantage.
runlaszlorun 3y ago
Anyone know of any good sources on the topic to stay up on the recent developments?
- greedo 3y ago
  Watch the four million videos on YT that come from Telegram, and follow the OSINT crowd on X.
detritus 3y ago
Just because it's along the lines of what I've been thinking- such drones could have longish lengths of 'fishing wire' trailing them, and perhaps some sort of expansive spiders web, so that their engagement with such drones in a counter drone environment might aid bringing them down by snagging the aggressor's propellor
_visgean 3y ago
> At the moment Ukraine is using precious and costly AA missiles for this. Apparently gepards seem to have quite a success against shaheds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PWJ97KcnmA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PWJ97KcnmA In the video one of the soldiers mentions that usually 3 rounds are enough, according to this: https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2023/09/05/germany-ships-first-batch-of-new-gepard-ammo-to-ukraine/ https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2023/09/05/germany... the price per one round is 181000000 / 300000 = 603 USD. I am pretty sure that contract will involve other things to make the restart of production viable so the total cost per round will probably be lower in following contracts.. But 1800 to down the drone does seem super cheap compared to rockets... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb5_F4_Eod8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb5_F4_Eod8 this is the next version of the same concept. But it seems that the laser mounted next to it will be even cheaper in the long run https://www.airforce-technology.com/contractors/air-defence/rheinmerallair/pressreleases/pressrheinmetall-tests-50kw-laser-weapon/ https://www.airforce-technology.com/contractors/air-defence/...
- topspin 3y ago
  Yes, the Gepard platform has been a real success. Gepard has been most effective defending high value fixed assets from simple minded long range UAVs and cruise missiles. When dealing with Orlan-10 however, the problem is different. Here you must defend mobile forces, close the the front from observation and attack UAVS that are remotely piloted. It's a whole different problem and there will never be enough Gepards and Gepard crews to sweep the skies of Orlan-10, and if there were they would become targets themselves.
  - icegreentea2 3y ago
    Your problem statement (protect mobile forces close to the front) is exactly the original mission set of Gepard and similar platforms (ZSU 23 for example). There's a reason they are tracked AFVs. Ukraines current situation is that Gepards are more valuable in static defence roles, and they don't have enough platforms to employ them everywhere they want. And you don't need enough AA sweep the skies clean. You just need enough to add sufficient friction to typical operations, and enough to concentrate together when needed to ensure l that you can locally sweep the skies when needed.
eagleinparadise 3y ago
What's going on with Anduril ? Isn't this literally their product market fit?
stult 3y ago
The US has developed both low-cost interceptors like you suggest and Directed Energy Weapons for a counter-UAS role. https://www.army.mil/article/268403/army_joint_force_work_to_counter_evolving_small_unmanned_aircraft_threat https://www.army.mil/article/268403/army_joint_force_work_to... DEWs are likely to win out in the long term (at least for defensive purposes) because the cost per interception is extremely low when compared even to the price for the 30mm autocannon ammo used by Gepard and similar SPAAGs, never mind when compared to the price of a guided drone or missile. DEWs are also capable of intercepting a broader range of targets, including mortar and artillery rounds. With increased power levels, DEWs should be able to defeat ballistic and hypersonic missiles as well. The US DoD has already developed DEWs more than capable of the 50kW power levels required to destroy a small-UAS like an Orlan and is in the process of integrating them with Strykers and other armored platforms so they can be deployed en masse, but these systems are still in development and thus have not yet been made available to the Ukrainians. e.g., for a system that is already production ready: https://www.rtx.com/raytheon/what-we-do/integrated-air-and-missile-defense/lasers https://www.rtx.com/raytheon/what-we-do/integrated-air-and-m... But that's why you don't hear much about re-establishing SPAAG production lines or scaling up interceptor drone production. Everyone knows something cheaper and more capable is coming very soon. Interceptor drones may play a role in clearing out enemy-controlled airspace prior to an offensive action when there is a need to destroy drones that are out of line of sight (although I expect DEWs mounted on attack helicopters or large drones to fulfill that role longer term), but defensively nothing will be able to compete with DEWs on cost and capability in the very near future.
rasz 3y ago
Speaking of Orlan-10, its manufacturer is ZALA Aero Group. https://www.sensusq.com/blog/sensusq-analysis-on-the-zala-421-16e-zala-421-16e2-and-zala-421-16em-reconnaissance-uavs https://www.sensusq.com/blog/sensusq-analysis-on-the-zala-42... Son of the de facto owner/ceo of the company currently works at UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) in Geneva. UN is so useless its not even funny.

SoftTalker 3y ago

How about soldiers on the ground with shotguns? Or are they too high for that?

topspin 3y ago
"Low altitude" in this case is 1-2km. Small arms can't deal with that. Shotguns have been used to counter Lancet in terminal phase. But that's a desperation tactic. The goal would be that Lancet et al. is useless because the Russians are blind.
- empyrrhicist 3y ago
  Wouldn't old school AA guns be perfect for that sort of thing?
  - topspin 3y ago
    No. The front is a huge; tens of kilometers deep and hundreds of kilometers long. You would need a stupid number of AA guns and crews to cover it all. The idea is fast hunter UAV that could sweep large areas and respond quickly to enemy UAVs.
  - LarsDu88 3y ago
    AUTONOMOUS AA guns would be perfect for that sort of thing The US military has had Phalanx CIWS for decades to handle this type of threat what both Russia and Ukraine could use are cheaper lower caliber versions of this
    - pixl97 3y ago
      And then the attackers will locate these expensive systems and attack with a cheap drone swarm of 10-15 drones at once. Doesn't matter if you lose 9, if one gets past you're likely in trouble.
      - LarsDu88 3y ago
        Exactly, so what is needed is a cheaper version of these weapons. A cheap drone swarm versus a cheap turret swarm built off the browning 50.cal rather than some complex 20 mm chain gun.
      - greedo 3y ago
        Most of the AA systems coming on line can easily handle a swarm of 15 drones. Watch a video of Skyranger with proximity fuses wiping the gnats out of the sky. The problem is that each system can only handle a small area of the battle front.
        vGPU 3y ago
        The problem is that each 30mm projectile costs ~5k. Not a good trade off if you swarm it with $300 Chinese drones. And as soon as it starts firing, artillery will start raining down on it. Plus, the Russians have already demonstrated the ability to attack AA systems from multiple sides to get through the blind spots. Any attempt to cluster multiple AA guns or radar systems will make for an incredibly attractive target. Modern production lines can make what, a few hundred of them a year at best? Russia has purchased several thousand drones from Iran alone last year, and they have supposedly produced several hundred thousand lancets. The US desperately needs to stop feeding the MIC and Wall Street and to reindustrialize the US economy, because we are simply not able to produce anywhere near as much missiles, shells, tanks, etc to fight the war the US wants to fight. The current combined yearly shell production capacity of Germany and the US is less than half of Russia’s alleged production capability, and they just signed a deal with NK that will likely increase their production capacity by a good 50% at least.
  - myself248 3y ago
    My understanding is that AA guns work best against targets the size of a fighter or bomber. As the target shrinks, so do your odds of a hit. Here's an Orlan-10 on its launch mount. Perspective means it appears larger than it actually is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlan-10#/media/File:SlavicBrotherhood2018-13.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlan-10#/media/File:SlavicBro... So, no, not perfect. Probably not even within an order of magnitude of the same effectiveness. Possibly not even two orders.
  - Arrath 3y ago
    With radar directed[0] gunnery and proximity fuzed rounds, absolutely. For SHORAD, or short range air defense. You'd need a lot of guns parceled out over a lot of frontage to protect your positions. [0]Which, of course, means it has emissions that can be tracked, pinpointed, and targeted.
  - vGPU 3y ago
    Too expensive in terms of cost, materials, and time. Also too vulnerable to swarm attacks. A gepard costs what, 400k? Lancets are 20-40k. I can almost guarantee that it won’t take anywhere near 10-20 lancets to kill one, maybe 3-5. And a non-SPAAG AA gun is a non-starter with modern ISR.
paganel 3y ago
The only reasonable counter-tactic against cheap drones have been EW measures. They're by no means perfect but it's the best any of the two sides has at this moment (yes, it's better than the AA weaponry they have at their disposal). Here's a video [1] of a Ukrainian drone hitting Russian EW equipment on a tower and here's a Russian video [2] presenting their EW works against incoming Ukrainian drones. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/17fbxoz/ua_pov_fpv_drone_hits_russian_ew_equipment_on_a/ https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/17fbxo... [2] https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/17gnnae/ru_pov_how_electronic_warfare_saves_soldiers_from/ https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/17gnna...
- FlyingBears 3y ago
  Easy to defeat with automatic target recognition and tracking. You only need to get in the general vicinity and let the drone figure it out, which is what I suspect new Lancet is doing.
  - paganel 3y ago
    Yeah, even cheaper and lighter batteries will allow for even more processing to be carried out "locally", on the drone itself, with reasonable good automatic target recognition becoming viable.
Modified3019 3y ago
Not for the larger surveillance drones, no. Those are a km up, you are unlikely to even know it’s there. For small drones a shotgun is great… if it’s semi or full auto, if the soldier knows exactly where a drone coming right at him is, and has time to prepare while it’s still around 50 yards out. Outside of those conditions, still not great. Shotguns are roughly “effective” up to 100yards with slugs, and half of that with buckshot. Drones dropping grenades are generally well above 200 yards up, generally more like 500. So it’s really only the suicide ones that can be reasonable targets. The problem is a purpose build FPV drone typically used in suicide runs can haul ass, and cover 50yards in a second, are hard to see and predict the path of, even when you know one is there. Consumer drones can generally cover 50 yards in roughly 2-4 seconds. Trying to shoot one moving across your view dive bombing on something else is going to have you more likely accidentally shooting the drones target or something unintended rather than the drone itself. I do anticipate vehicle mounted scattergun systems meant for close in defense of drones though, as well as quickly/auto launched anti-drone drones for further off defense. More powerful drones would be needed for dealing with stuff 1km up and beyond though, the smaller stuff will struggle getting close to that.

spanktheuser 3y ago

This puzzle is really starting to fit together nicely but SO FRUSTRATING that I still can’t tell whether it’s an image of Skynet or Big Brother. Perhaps if I add one more piece…

konschubert 3y ago
Maybe you should rather worry how to help the people who are fighting for their lives.
- topspin 3y ago
  We should worry about both. What we shouldn't do is let allies get slaughtered because Russia can make a lot of model airplanes, or bankrupt ourselves killing them with million dollar AA missiles. There must be a better way.
  - greedo 3y ago
    The best way to counter the smaller UAVs that operated with roughly a 6k-10k range is via EW. Jam their control links and they either land right where they are or RTB. Either way they're out of the picture. Unfortunately, that also tends to jam your own UAVs as well (at least the commercial ones converted for spotting and FPV attacks.) Radar doesn't work that well since the RCS of these craft are so small and the radar systems have gate filters that exclude slow moving aircraft. If you tweak this lower, then you end up with a far shorter range with a lot more noise. And if you broadcast too much, you end up eating a KH-58. It's not a trivial problem to solve. Eventually things like better acoustic and vision sensor processing will help. Despite the US wanting to ignore the impact of these drones, they really are a game changer. Cheap, distributed ISR via drones is invaluable. And imagine in a few years when the control systems use frequency hopping etc. I'm also envisioning a drone controlled via fiber optic cable. It won't be able to go far, but it can go high and act as a spotter, limited only by its cameras. It won't be jammable, nor limited by bandwidth. Kind of like how balloons were used in the Civil War and WW1 to adjust artillery fire. And if the invasion of Ukraine has shown anything at all, it's that if you get spotted, you die.

zyang 3y ago

The best way to kill drone is with better drones. We are at the dawn of a new arms race.

nradov 3y ago
That remains to be seen. Cannons, lower-cost missiles, or directed energy weapons might end up being more effective at killing drones. This is a rapidly evolving field and I don't think anyone can reliably predict the outcome. The big problem is target detection. Small quadcopters may be able to track nearby targets, but they lack the sensors needed to detect targets at useful ranges. At a minimum defensive systems will still need large, expensive sensors mounted on ground platforms, aerostats, or larger fixed-wing drones.
- PeterisP 3y ago
  I believe currently most 'kills' of small drones are because of EW ('electronic warfare' i.e. jamming and spoofing, both for the control link and for GPS navigation), which causes them to crash or land in enemy-controlled location.
- topspin 3y ago
  > The big problem is target detection. Generally yes, detection is hard. The Orlan-10 case, however, is easier. They can often be seen and/or heard from the ground and they are transmitting a live video feed, so their RF profile is a dead giveaway. If a fast, fox hunter counter UAV could be directed to the vicinity and then pick up the target efficiently a small crew could cover wide areas. I imagine something like a fast, traditional airplane form with directional antennae in the wings for long range tracking, and visual tracking (as per the linked story) at short range. The actual weapon would be a small firearm: the targets are fragile.
vGPU 3y ago
No, the best way to kill a drone is with a cheaper better drone that you can make more of.
- 3y ago

FlyingBears 3y ago

Russian Lancet new generation already uses target locking. I suspect if it is possible to clone a piece of equipment, the only answer is an economy of scale because neither side will have technological advantage.

runlaszlorun 3y ago

Anyone know of any good sources on the topic to stay up on the recent developments?

greedo 3y ago
Watch the four million videos on YT that come from Telegram, and follow the OSINT crowd on X.

detritus 3y ago

Just because it's along the lines of what I've been thinking- such drones could have longish lengths of 'fishing wire' trailing them, and perhaps some sort of expansive spiders web, so that their engagement with such drones in a counter drone environment might aid bringing them down by snagging the aggressor's propellor

_visgean 3y ago

> At the moment Ukraine is using precious and costly AA missiles for this. Apparently gepards seem to have quite a success against shaheds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PWJ97KcnmA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PWJ97KcnmA In the video one of the soldiers mentions that usually 3 rounds are enough, according to this: https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2023/09/05/germany-ships-first-batch-of-new-gepard-ammo-to-ukraine/ https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2023/09/05/germany... the price per one round is 181000000 / 300000 = 603 USD. I am pretty sure that contract will involve other things to make the restart of production viable so the total cost per round will probably be lower in following contracts.. But 1800 to down the drone does seem super cheap compared to rockets... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb5_F4_Eod8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb5_F4_Eod8 this is the next version of the same concept. But it seems that the laser mounted next to it will be even cheaper in the long run https://www.airforce-technology.com/contractors/air-defence/rheinmerallair/pressreleases/pressrheinmetall-tests-50kw-laser-weapon/ https://www.airforce-technology.com/contractors/air-defence/...

topspin 3y ago
Yes, the Gepard platform has been a real success. Gepard has been most effective defending high value fixed assets from simple minded long range UAVs and cruise missiles. When dealing with Orlan-10 however, the problem is different. Here you must defend mobile forces, close the the front from observation and attack UAVS that are remotely piloted. It's a whole different problem and there will never be enough Gepards and Gepard crews to sweep the skies of Orlan-10, and if there were they would become targets themselves.
- icegreentea2 3y ago
  Your problem statement (protect mobile forces close to the front) is exactly the original mission set of Gepard and similar platforms (ZSU 23 for example). There's a reason they are tracked AFVs. Ukraines current situation is that Gepards are more valuable in static defence roles, and they don't have enough platforms to employ them everywhere they want. And you don't need enough AA sweep the skies clean. You just need enough to add sufficient friction to typical operations, and enough to concentrate together when needed to ensure l that you can locally sweep the skies when needed.

eagleinparadise 3y ago

What's going on with Anduril ? Isn't this literally their product market fit?

stult 3y ago

The US has developed both low-cost interceptors like you suggest and Directed Energy Weapons for a counter-UAS role. https://www.army.mil/article/268403/army_joint_force_work_to_counter_evolving_small_unmanned_aircraft_threat https://www.army.mil/article/268403/army_joint_force_work_to... DEWs are likely to win out in the long term (at least for defensive purposes) because the cost per interception is extremely low when compared even to the price for the 30mm autocannon ammo used by Gepard and similar SPAAGs, never mind when compared to the price of a guided drone or missile. DEWs are also capable of intercepting a broader range of targets, including mortar and artillery rounds. With increased power levels, DEWs should be able to defeat ballistic and hypersonic missiles as well. The US DoD has already developed DEWs more than capable of the 50kW power levels required to destroy a small-UAS like an Orlan and is in the process of integrating them with Strykers and other armored platforms so they can be deployed en masse, but these systems are still in development and thus have not yet been made available to the Ukrainians. e.g., for a system that is already production ready: https://www.rtx.com/raytheon/what-we-do/integrated-air-and-missile-defense/lasers https://www.rtx.com/raytheon/what-we-do/integrated-air-and-m... But that's why you don't hear much about re-establishing SPAAG production lines or scaling up interceptor drone production. Everyone knows something cheaper and more capable is coming very soon. Interceptor drones may play a role in clearing out enemy-controlled airspace prior to an offensive action when there is a need to destroy drones that are out of line of sight (although I expect DEWs mounted on attack helicopters or large drones to fulfill that role longer term), but defensively nothing will be able to compete with DEWs on cost and capability in the very near future.

rasz 3y ago

Speaking of Orlan-10, its manufacturer is ZALA Aero Group. https://www.sensusq.com/blog/sensusq-analysis-on-the-zala-421-16e-zala-421-16e2-and-zala-421-16em-reconnaissance-uavs https://www.sensusq.com/blog/sensusq-analysis-on-the-zala-42... Son of the de facto owner/ceo of the company currently works at UN Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) in Geneva. UN is so useless its not even funny.