Hacker News Reader

Comment by jmpman | Hacker News Reader

In an economic battle, I continue wondering why Ukraine has interceptors which detonate instead of being armed with projectiles. High speed cameras and low latency bridgewire ignition, coupled with AI targeting should enable single shot targeting with high probability of success. Multiple reusable interceptors seems like a better solution than expendable. At the same build rate, the number of interceptors per incoming drone will grow over time, instead of maintaining equivalence.

View on HN

I've wondered the same thing. After watching the footage of some of these drone intercepts I realized the camera view interceptors are very erratic. My guess is that shooting a drone down from another cheap interceptor drone is just too difficult to do reliably. I understand that the cost of the interceptors are preferable than the cost of letting them hit their targets, and I understand that they are still an order of magnitude cheaper than the long-range Geran drones they are shooting down.

Given that they show footage of men shooting down similar drones from airplanes, perhaps they can eventually build a larger more stable platform with a more reliable aim using projectiles.

I also wondered the same until I saw that Rheinmetall produced that type of defense system you describe (I think in 2024 or so). And I think that except for Rheinmetall, nobody gives them this type of weapon (seems other countries have something similar), but it's probably a handful of them deployed in maybe very few locations.

I don't think it's that simple to build it, otherwise they would have all done it.

Edit: it's called rheinmetall skyranger.

>it's called rheinmetall skyranger

The problem with that is that behind the Rheinmetall brand name it's actually made by Switzerland's former Oerlikon before the Rheinmetall acquisition, and Switzerland doesn't sell military gear to countries currently at war due to its neutrality status. So for Ukraine it might as well be vaporware as they aint getting it (officially).

Interesting, didn't know it was originally made in Switzerland.

However, I knew that Rheinmetall was going to/delivered the skyranger. [0]

[0]: https://en.defence-ua.com/news/rheinmetall_develops_automati...

I assume the Skyrangers delivered to Ukraine are gonna be laundered Swiss-made AA guns, imported into Germany, assembled in Germany and exported as a "German Made" weapon system, to get around Swiss export restrictions

Cool system. I was thinking a standard interceptor drone, but with a single shotgun barrel, and single round.

I think the current interceptors are optimized for one way attack - just enough flight time to catch the target and detonate. Any extra systems (such as guns or recovery hardware) make the interceptor more expensive.

Also these kamikaze drones are not flying in huge flocks like WW2 bomber that tried to cover each other with machine guns - even if a gun armed interceptor shoots one down, it might not be able to intercept another during the raid.

Some bigger, L-39 sized jet drones on the other hand could be quite capable, possibly launching separate one-way interceptors on top of guns.

More moving parts would mean a much more complex system which would heighten maintenance cost and likely lower successful interceptions per working system significantly.

I'm sure the Ukrainians can draw two curves and see where they intercept

Reply on news.ycombinator.com