Drones and how to kill them?

Scott Kenny said:
The problem is that medium sized drones (professional quadcopters and Shaheds) aren't easily damaged by flak. At least not damaged enough to knock them out of the sky.

Yes, there's always the golden BB to the control circuit boards, but general damage to props or wing surfaces is basically not going to stop one. You need a hit solid enough to break the airframe. Break the main wing spar, blow the rudders off, break the rotor support arms.




By jamming the cellphone network, which also announces an attack. And the jammer is actively emitting for your artillery to smash.
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Flak has been doing that sort of damage to targets built a lot sturdier than a quadcopter for a long time. As always you just need to get the explosion close enough to the target.
Considering just the huge variety in drone size and capability there is no one-size fits all solution, but I think autocannons with airburst ammunition are going to have to play a very important part.
 
Regarding infantry protection against sUAS, I think one item as old as the times has been discarded way too easily: the shield.

Ballistic resistant ones can be improved and trade the extra weights that burden soldiers with a bit of fancy gimmicks that would benefit the integrated force structure.

Here are some of the plausible benefits (some are exclusives):
- Ballistic
- Thermal shielding (anti-IR)
- visual/adaptive cammo
- HUD
- Radio antenna
- GMTI Shielding
- Direct Energy attack protection
- Emergency Stretcher (think at the expected causality rates of modern warfare)

Hence, Protect, Assist, Conceal.
 
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Five O’Clock Yuri…

Solar Drones
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Ultra-thin, flexible solar cells demonstrate their promise in a commercial quadcopter drone

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Flying lotus
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Paper power: Origami technology makes its way into quadcopters

Over the past decade, researchers all around the world have been finding new and exciting use cases for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Commonly called "drones," UAVs have proved their worth across many fields, including photography, agriculture, land surveying, disaster management, and even...
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Dance!
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Researchers use ChatGPT for choreographies with flying robots

Prof. Angela Schoellig from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) uses ChatGPT to develop choreographies for swarms of drones to perform along to music. An additional safety filter prevents mid-air collisions. The researcher's results demonstrate the first time that large language models...
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Autonomous flight after power failure
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Learning from birds
phys.org

How do birds flock? Researchers do the math to reveal previously unknown aerodynamic phenomenon

In looking up at the sky during these early weeks of spring, you may very well see a flock of birds moving in unison as they migrate north. But how do these creatures fly in such a coordinated and seemingly effortless fashion?
phys.org phys.org
www.nature.com

Flow interactions lead to self-organized flight formations disrupted by self-amplifying waves - Nature Communications

Schools, flocks and related forms of collective behavior and collective locomotion involve complicated fluid dynamical interactions. Here, using a “mock flock" of robotic flappers, authors report that the interaction between leaders and followers is similar to one-way springs, leading to...
www.nature.com www.nature.com

The team named these new types of waves "flonons," which is based on the similar concept of phonons that refer to vibrational waves in systems of masses linked by springs and which are used to model the motions of atoms or molecules in crystals or other materials.

"Our findings therefore raise some interesting connections to material physics in which birds in an orderly flock are analogous to atoms in a regular crystal," Newbolt adds.
 
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Dilandu said:
Just use rockets...
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Agreed. APKWS or CRV7-PG, and give it the heavy flechette warhead. WDU-4/A for Hydras, WDU-500X/B "General Purpose Flechette" for CRV7. 96 or 80 darts, so even if the laser goes off target the spread of flechettes will take out the Shahed.

Actually, CRV7-PG with that GPF warhead is a wicked short range laser-guided AAM or SAM. High speed, only 30lbs...
 
Sineva said:
You can see how difficult it is for the kamov to knock this thing out just using what I`m` assuming to be a door gunner.In the end they practically have to get right on top of this thing to take it out.
I`m honestly surprised that they`re not using a dedicated attack helo,tho these might all be needed at the front.
Barring that using something like the AT-6 atgm would seem to be the better less risky choice,imho anyway.
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Don't the Russians have two or three different rocket calibers they use on helicopters?

*wikidive*

Ah, yeah, S-5 series, S-8 series, and S-24 series. I'd want to send an S-8 at the drone.
 
www.twz.com

Super Hornets Now Flying With Nine Air-To-Air Missiles To Counter Houthi Drones

Thanks to a recent upgrade, five AIM-120s, four AIM-9Xs and an ATFLIR pod offer considerable ‘magazine depth’ for tackling Houthi drones.
www.twz.com www.twz.com

breakingdefense.com

Elbit's new Red Sky air defense system goes public with first customer - Breaking Defense

The system includes a radar, as well as links to a 30mm gun and missile system for downing threats within ranges of seven kilometers and 15,000 feet, according to a company executive.
breakingdefense.com breakingdefense.com

How does the turret move?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1788148643280675247
View: https://x.com/Archer83Able/status/1788148643280675247
 
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Im wondering if you could stuff an APKWS type guidance system into a 25mm grenade/round or at least into a 40mm grenade. Plenty of 40mm grenade launchers available and a 40mm round should do a number on small drones.
 
Desertfox said:
Im wondering if you could stuff an APKWS type guidance system into a 25mm grenade/round or at least into a 40mm grenade. Plenty of 40mm grenade launchers available and a 40mm round should do a number on small drones.
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APKWS adds quite a bit of length to a rocket.

The US EAWS(?) C-RAM system is the smallest fully guided cannon round I've seen, and it was 50x330mm. IIRC, basically the Bofors 40mm L70 round expanded up to 50mm to have space for guidance and a decent payload.
 
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"Pull!"

https://twitter.com/x/status/1790162003362726246
View: https://x.com/AirPowerNEW1/status/1790162003362726246
After decades of research and development, the U.S. military is officially using laser weapons in combat zones overseas.

The U.S. Army recently disclosed that the service had not only deployed a pair of 20-kilowatt palletized high-energy laser (P-HEL) systems—built on Virginia-based defense contractor BlueHalo’s Locust Laser Weapon System—abroad to protect U.S. troops from hostile drones in recent months, but that those systems had proven successful against incoming threats in the Middle East in the first-ever use of laser weapons in combat.
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Desertfox said:
Im wondering if you could stuff an APKWS type guidance system into a 25mm grenade/round or at least into a 40mm grenade. Plenty of 40mm grenade launchers available and a 40mm round should do a number on small drones.
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Why?

It would be easier to give the 40mm a fire control system and have it automatically engage air defense threats with VT fused ammo. Ranging could be done by some sort of automatic target tracking and a laser rangefinder, or more esoteric methods of passive rangefinding, like in ATFLIR. A burst of a few VT/"PABM" rounds should shred any sort of FPV kamikaze.
 
Kat Tsun said:
Why?

It would be easier to give the 40mm a fire control system and have it automatically engage air defense threats with VT fused ammo. Ranging could be done by some sort of automatic target tracking and a laser rangefinder, or more esoteric methods of passive rangefinding, like in ATFLIR. A burst of a few VT/"PABM" rounds should shred any sort of FPV kamikaze.
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I was thinking of the XM25 or the underbarrel grenade launchers. You're not putting a fire control system into that.
 
I honestlybwonder if a modernize version of tge XM29 be useful.

Even with just the Time Grenade it be a fairly credit threat to drones as shown by the Shotgun marine.

Add in Darpa Exacto Round tech with a multi lidar system on the scope for targeting?

One man AA turret.
 
Desertfox said:
I was thinking of the XM25 or the underbarrel grenade launchers. You're not putting a fire control system into that.
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What are you talking about? All of those have fire control systems sufficient to hit moving UAS. The Israelis just use rifle fire to kill them. A Mk 19 or something with a stabilized RWS mount and a fire control system using an APS radar as a warning sensor can easily kill an FPV drone. That seems to be what the Panther is using for the job.
 
Good ol shrapnel shells could make a return but it would require advanced ranging equipment. Organ guns could also become a thing again but it could be costly. How effective are proxy fuzes against the average plastic drone?
 
Scott Kenny said:
Gigawatt?

Must be pulsing pretty hard, like 1600W for a fraction of a second.
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Yeah, I've been meaning to look into that. A GW is a hell of a lot unless it's only for a very short time. This is all I could find. It's probably 1kJ over a microsecond or something.


blockhaj said:
Good ol shrapnel shells could make a return but it would require advanced ranging equipment. Organ guns could also become a thing again but it could be costly. How effective are proxy fuzes against the average plastic drone?
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Sometimes I think the best defence is simply more drones and preferably more autonomous ones to hunt down and kill the people launching these things, as well as more long range strike weapons to blow up the people and places responsible for manufacturing them, as well as any supporting industries, plus their logistics routes to the front lines. As usual the best defence is more offence.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1790771347859112335
View: https://x.com/AirPowerNEW1/status/1790771347859112335

https://twitter.com/x/status/1790878167667704038
View: https://x.com/AirPowerNEW1/status/1790878167667704038


https://twitter.com/x/status/1790890073782698217
View: https://x.com/AirPowerNEW1/status/1790890073782698217
 
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Forest Green said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1790322386803274027
View: https://x.com/AirPowerNEW1/status/1790322386803274027

View attachment 728832
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A microwave blunderbuss..”Honey, I cooked the kids!”

Pure Captain Video.

Other drone killing arrays look like sheet rock covered road signs…

Drones may just have gotten deadlier
techxplore.com

New advance in wireless communications could help precisely pinpoint the locations of people and objects

Engineers from University of Glasgow and colleagues from the U.K. and Australia are behind a research breakthrough in a developing form of wireless communications could help precisely pinpoint the locations of people and objects indoors.
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Gee, thanks a bunch Big Brother…

Yikes
hackaday.com

New Quadcopter Speed World Record Set At Nearly 500 Km/h

Making a quadcopter go fast would seem to be quite simple: just strap on powerful motors, aim the quadcopter roughly at where you want it to go fast, and let ‘er rip. Because of aerodynamics …
hackaday.com hackaday.com
 
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