Beyond jamming, I imagine some kind of autonomous laser system could also be pretty effective at downing large numbers of drones within a given radius.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Hunter_(laser_weapon)
[1] https://www.rtx.com/raytheon/what-we-do/integrated-air-and-m...
https://eos-aus.com/defence/high-energy-laser-weapon/
What they are good at is target tracking, having started out in satellite communication.
Their tracking system paired with a 30mm Bushmaster cannon and proximity ammo is another solution, and there are apparently 160 of them heading for Ukraine to be mounted on M113 and Kozak vehicles.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/israelimod_israel-mod-complet...
>In a historic breakthrough, the IDF on Wednesday announced that an unnamed laser defense system similar to the much celebrated Iron Beam laser system has shot down dozens of aerial threats during the war.
>Already in fall 2024, The Jerusalem Post had learned that the IDF had used laser defense systems in operational situations but was barred from reporting on that at the time.
It was all over Israeli news together with videos of operational intercepts.
it has nothing to do with "february cookoff" of different systems and orders for iron beam were placed in january with deployment by the end of the year
Do you have a credible source from the IDF attesting to this?
And do you believe the IDF would conduct a demonsttation after it has already committed to a system?
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/laser-intercept...
it been all over Israeli news. not exactly "news"
>And do you believe the IDF would conduct a demonsttation after it has already committed to a system?
what demonstration are you talking about ? if you are talking about whatever was published in february, it's mostly for more tactical/mobile use i believe.
there is an issue that north of israel is very hilly, so it's possible to fly drones from lebanon below radar visibility range and then just to get them pop-up 50km away from border. it was major problem last year and the publicized trials a believe concentrated on sourcing systems to solve this issue.
Having a laser that spreads out to e.g. 30cm radius at 500m is not hard to do if you need an area of effect weapon & can push enough power (ie. your laser is powerful enough, but not so intense that it ionizes the air & blocks itself). Reflections seem like a bigger problem: If the most effective defense includes guys with shotguns &/or there are a lot of unprotected personnel in the area, how do you make sure stray reflections don't end up blinding them?
Remember, this is about asymmetric warfare. If the number of rounds or amount of energy required costs more than the drone it shoots down, then it's not an effective deterrent. Militaries are looking for single-shot weapons to take down drones. Fire once and move on. It's the only way to deal with a swarm. Think about it for a bit and it will become very obvious.
It punches through titanium sheet in seconds.
The problem with any point defense system is radiating any energy makes you a big target. So you would want a passive (EO/IR?) or triggered active/passive system.
For those uses, there's a fairly decent approach ["missile"] or hover ["bomber"] stage that is probably plenty vulnerable to autonomous PDS via 12 guage medicine.
Tracking / detection could even be passive, partly acoustic, partly EO/IR, with only a small fire control radar if you really want it.
I don't think western common folks grok how depraved that country is in terms of doing good work, reward systems for such and corruption on every single level. puttin' built a mafia state and pushed this behavior from top->bottom, and these are side effects. Not some soviet competence and discipline, which wasn't stellar either but light years ahead of current state.
1) Russia suspended the treaty 2023, so it is not relevant here.
2) The use of hangars is not prohibited, as can be seen by the climatized hangars that the US keeps their B1 in.
3) Russia has announced plans for such reinforced hangars years ago, but very likely some dacha or yacht had higher priority.
When I said "triggered" I meant you would enable it when under attack, at which point it doesn't matter if they know you're there anymore.
Bigger picture - if knocking the laser defense off-line slashes the unit cost of destroying bombers, then it may be the obvious first move in any competent attack.
I can imagine this protecting some future US bases in same way C-RAM is used. But from what I read from ie Iraq veterans they had it turned off most of the time for the fear of shooting down its own planes. So much for trust in high tech if its too powerful and automated.
Chinese have some systems, but from demo I've seen the laser beam took some serious time to shoot a single missile. Drones are smaller and way more fragile (so also harder to hit) but this ain't Star trek or Star wars.
Note that his laser burns through various reflective materials, including mirrors, copper, aluminium, and steel.
Or miss by a long shot and hit a civilian instead.
(1) if prop based, launch something to snare the props (2) if reflective, pre-launch something to spray black non-reflective paint at it, and followup with laser (3) if evasive, approach with random manouvers (4) if unknown, launch everything and see what works, and feed it back to the training data ... etc, etc.
So the cartoons lied to me?
I’ve read about a bunch of these systems even if they aren’t in widespread deployment some are still being tested in real world conditions.
What about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Hunter_(laser_weapon)
“The Silent Hunter has been used by Saudi Arabia to guard against Houthi drones and missiles.”
“During the World Defense Show in Riyadh the February 05, 2024, Poly Technologies announced the first hard-kill engagement of a one-way attack drone.[6]”
The targets, whether it's plumbing pipe rockets or lipo drones, come in at 100-1000 yards/sec, so you don't really have that many seconds per target.
They work in the demo in which you just shoot down the sole target as it fly perpendicular to the machine for both physical and career safety, but when it comes to deploying the thing around your bed, guns make a lot more sense.
Also, your objection doesn’t really fit how drones have been used. Massive highly coordinated drone swarms are extremely unusual, the threat is mostly individual drones or small clusters.
Many very dangerous drones are well under 100y/s aka 200mph.
1000 yards/second aka Mach 2.7 is well beyond the ‘drones’ people are concerned with and into expensive missile territory. Which is where anti missile systems get used.
full blown deployment by end of this year