Presumably THOR was tested against American and/or foreign-made retail drones, and not foreign military-grade drones. Hardened electronics aren't a new concept.
DJIs seem to be popular
https://gagadget.com/en/153538-ukrainian-intelligence-servic...
[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/suspected-north-korean-drones-l...
Always be skeptical of aggressive mimicry. A "piece of crap with a cheap camera" is cheap and disposable-- and misleads those quick to jump to conclusions. It's what you deliberately throw over the fence when you want adversaries to think you're underequipped.
They have nukes for fuck's sake. They can afford real drones.
It'll be arms race, as always.
Example: You send 10-15 cheap drones against a side that employs THOR. When the drones get close to the target THOR will activate itself and bring down those 10-15 cheap drones, and thus revealing its position. You then target THOR directly either with artillery or with a slightly more expensive missile. Once THOR is out you can then send 100 to 200 cheap drones. Rinse and repeat.
Supposedly a similar thing happened with the recent attack on the Patriot system in Kiev, i.e. the Russians first sent some cheep Geran drones, the Ukrainians shot them down activating the radars around the Patriot system (or part of the Patriot system? not that clear), then the Russians sent some anti-radar missiles that took those Ukrainian radars out and in the third and last stage they sent some more advanced missiles that directly targeted and damaged the Patriot (which was by then without radar protection). Almost all images of radar systems that I saw from this war in Ukraine involved mobile units, both on the Ukrainians' and on the Russians' side.
While there are human operators, the Patriot has a fully autonomous mode that is turned on for large-scale attacks like most integrated defense systems produced by the US. When that mode is enabled humans are no longer in the loop; the networked computers engage all of the targets simultaneously, selecting the optimal weapon assignment and timing for each target. That was clearly used here. If the Patriot didn't have radar it wouldn't work and it clearly worked.
No Patriot system was damaged by Russian attacks, there is no evidence that anything got through. The only reported damage was an auxiliary system component getting hit by a large piece of falling debris, which was promptly repaired.
...using Duck tape, apparently.
As per the US media [1]:
> The damage to a Patriot air defense system following a Russian missile attack near Kyiv on Tuesday morning is minimal, three US officials tell CNN, with one official describing it as “minor” damage.
The say the damage was "minimal", but it's there. (and the "minimal" part only showed up later, after the CNN reporter who had first reported it all got accused of being a Russian shill because of it)
[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/16/politics/patriot-missile-...
Takes a pretty serious piece of tech to do that part though
You "just" get THOR to fire and take them out?
You "just" take out inbound artillery?
I haven't paid attention to them since the First Gulf War, but the abilities and competence of the 101st Chairbourne continue to be renoun and without equal.
Can't speak about the Chinese, but because of this war in Ukraine the Russians definitely have a very big head-start when it comes to the execution of anything artillery-related, as in I don't think the Americans have had to fight a real counter-artillery fire since at least the Battle of Hue. Maybe the Ukrainians (also pretty experienced by now) will teach them, if they (meaning the Americans) will be open to learn.
As for the the Russians, they clearly shown that spending tons of munitions to make holes in the open fields is not really efficient. [1] Ukrainians on the other hand are pretty successful in counter-battery fire using US (sic!) systems. See HIMARS, for instance.
[1] https://s2.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20220617&t=2...
HIMARS has started to successfully being jammed by the Russians lately [1]:
> Russia has been thwarting US-made mobile rocket systems in Ukraine more frequently in recent months, using electronic jammers to throw off its GPS guided targeting system to cause rockets to miss their targets, multiple people briefed on the matter told CNN.
which probably should have been deserving of its own HN submission.
[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/05/politics/russia-jamming-h...
So your assumption is that the airforce can’t source a military grade drone to test with?