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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 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.

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> 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

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... 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 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/...

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.

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.

I think the premise that it's viable to "concentrate together when needed" is false. A key tactic on Ukraine's front line, due to the nature of the enemy and the nature of Ukraine's weapons, is dispersion. Concentrating force for any reason before Russia's overwhelming artillery has always proven costly. When that premise fails the utility of point defense like Gepard fails. The only way to salvage it is to imagine Gepards in quantities that a.) don't exist and b.) can't be crewed for lack of trained manpower.

I seek a larger force multiplier: a system that can effectively cover large areas by a small number of men at low cost. One Gepard could pay for many light fox hunting UAVs. With sufficient autonomy a large number of these could be operated from secure areas by small crews. The system should be capable of reaching behind enemy lines to preempt UAVs before they reach combat areas; a capability the can't be matched by any point defense.

What you’re asking for isn’t possible since the development of non-gps & ai based navigation. Any system capable of launching physical strikes will be taken out by counterbattery fire almost immediately, and with the hardening against EW the drones have received you essentially can’t really do much without the equivalent of an EMP, which would likely cause you more damage than the enemy.

The problem is that the orlan only needs to survive long enough to give approximately coordinates for a lancet or artillery strike. Revealing the position of a Gepard in exchange for taking down a drone is a… poor trade, at best.

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…

It's that YouTube movie where micro drones are essentially like magic heat-seeking bullets that scares me the most. Targeted assassinations that are unstoppable with modern defenses - useful for both the terrorists and bloodthirsty nation-states which make us all live in a dystopia with fear of death from the sky

https://undergroundhousing.com/

Maybe you should rather worry how to help the people who are fighting for their lives.

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.

The better way was in not starting this war, or not undermining three attempts at peace negotiations before it ever got to this point.

The US has been involved in one proxy war after another with Russia for decades. It’s just standard US foreign policy, and it simply can’t be denied - US ISR is providing actual strike targeting information.

Regardless, it’s just more of the same. See: Vietnam, Ethiopia/Somalia, Afghanistan, and half a dozen others.

Proxy wars are just the way that wars are going to be fought between peer/near-peer powers, because a full blown confrontation risks global catastrophe.

Ukraine was just foolish enough to sign up for the role of “US’s cannon fodder” in the never ending US-Russia war.

When - not if - when, China ends up getting involved, we will likely see a shift from a unipolar world to a multipolar world and the end of US hegemony and European colonialism.

I’m sure I’ll get flagged for going against the Russia bad US good narrative though.

> Ukraine was just foolish enough to sign up for the role of “US’s cannon fodder” in the never ending US-Russia war.

I think you will find its Russia who invaded, and Russia alone is the one who decided this.

No one else did, everyone else wanted peace, Russia alone wants war.

So the constant shelling of crimea by Ukraine prior to the war never happened?

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.

"The best way to counter the smaller UAVs that operated with roughly a 6k-10k range is via EW."

EW has been brought up a few times now in this thread. I know both side have been able to defeat UAVs with EW on occasion during this conflict. However, I also know that the Russians have lost a lot of costly EW gear to Ukraine: EW is inherently vulnerable because EW lights up the world with RF signatures that get targeted. Also, despite the large amount of EW gear that Russia has employed, they lose lots of tanks, IFVs and men to hobby grade drones every day. Russian EW hasn't been able to stop that.

So I question EW and whether it can really deliver against systems that rely on RF. Then, when you get to fully autonomous systems that don't rely on RF at all, I write EW off as next to pointless.

It's important to remember that all of the videos on YT only show successful attacks. Ukraine is reportedly burning through 10k drones a month.

Russia was terrible at almost all phases of the invasion during the first year, but has really buttoned down in two areas; AD and EW. Russia has been a leader in EW for a long time and is slowly responding.

EW can't be everywhere though, and the smaller drones can avoid it in some situations since it's line of sight.

Also, don't mistake EW as just jamming. Sometimes it's taking over the control channel for a drone, or something even more esoteric like microwaves that fry the systems.

The better way was not releasing Victor Bout, who secured Shahed drones with his Iranian connections

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...

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-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.

Speaking of Orlan-10, its manufacturer is ZALA Aero Group.

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.

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

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.

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.

> 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.

No, the best way to kill a drone is with a cheaper better drone that you can make more of.

If it's a kamikaze thing.. The alternative is a world of e.g. dogfighting drones with a small weapon mounted on the hunter. Think of it as a lightweight airborne AA gun. There you might justify a higher price with e.g. the hunter having a >80% likelihood of surviving an encounter.

Maybe no need for a gun even: dangle a detachable rope or web underneath your drone, now you just need to be fast & maneuverable enough to catch the other drone, and tangle the rope into its propellers.

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

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.

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

"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.

Wouldn't old school AA guns be perfect for that sort of thing?

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.

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.

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:SlavicBro...

So, no, not perfect. Probably not even within an order of magnitude of the same effectiveness. Possibly not even two orders.

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

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.

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.

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.

Where are you getting $5K for a 30mm round?

Russia still hasn't destroyed any Gepards yet, so I don't see why they'd be able to successfully attack Skynex. And Russia hasn't shown any ability to "swarm" anything. At most, they've used an Orlan to spot for a Lancet. And if they can't fly Orlans around, they won't spot the Skynex system for artillery fire.

Also, the Shaheed drones from Iran aren't cheap. They're easily several thousand euros. And there's no indication at all that Russia has produced 200K + Lancets. Russia simply doesn't have the industrial capacity for that, or artillery rounds.

And Germany doesn't need to be the only partner with the US in providing artillery rounds. All of NATO is doing so, and if you think that North Korea and Russia can out produce the US and the EU (not to mention Japan and South Korea), you've been reading too much Russian propaganda.

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.

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.

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/17fbxo...

[2] https://old.reddit.com/r/UkraineRussiaReport/comments/17gnna...

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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