Russian defence against drone swarms

Swarm drones are chaep simple and easy to produce while requiring verly litle technical skill or knowlege to create as such we will likely see them being widely deployed by terrorist organizations around the would. This is rather problematic as current weapon systems are ill suited to dealing with a large amount of targets simultaniosly.

So far I have heard that Russia will create a smaller missile to be mounted on the Pantsir air defence system.

Yeah, they have the Pantsir -SM to deal with that in the future. The missiles on the current Pantsir is too expensive for some of the drones .

They can send the new Derivatsiya-PVO 57mm anti-aircraft artillery system to Syria right now for testing if they like.

Tingsay wrote:Yeah, they have the Pantsir -SM to deal with that in the future. The missiles on the current Pantsir is too expensive for some of the drones .

They can send the new Derivatsiya-PVO 57mm anti-aircraft artillery system to Syria right now for testing if they like.

If they do go for 57mm then I would suggest to equip it with both proximity HE shells and APFSDS then it would be an effective platform for killing a wide variety both air and ground targets.

Any insight into how widely deployed anti drone weapons will be deployed or what priority thier deployment will be given?

The-thing-next-door wrote:
If they do go for 57mm then I would suggest to equip it with both proximity HE shells and APFSDS then it would be an effective platform for killing a wide variety both air and ground targets.

Any insight into how widely deployed anti drone weapons will be deployed or what priority thier deployment will be given?

Well, as far as I'm aware, there is no rush to deploy anti drone swarm weapons right now. The attacks in Syria are quite recent so they may speed things up a bit in the coming years. The Pantsirs right now do a fine job all things considered, just not very cost-effective. That's only true against dirt-cheap drones though, some drones justify more expensive missiles obviously.

Overall, I dont see this as a major concern.

Actually swarm drones are not that simple... they need to be able to operate together in a group but not get in each others way... they need to be smart enough to get a job done but dumb enough to be cheap and disposable.

To be effective they will need a flight range of more than 100km otherwise their launch systems could easily be destroyed before they launch their payloads.

The Pantsir is getting a new missile developed that has four mini missiles per launch tube to engage swarm threats... that means each vehicle will have 12 x 4 missiles ready to fire so a battery of 8 vehicles will have 8 x 12 x 4 missiles = so each battery could have up to 384 missiles ready to fire... that is a lot.

More importantly a few vehicles armed with 57mm guns with AHEAD like air burst rounds could seriously deplete any large scale attack very rapidly as each shell could scatter fragments over a 5m radius very rapidly and even minor damage would break a light UAV and bring it down.

Add to that EM pulse weapons that simply fry the little brains of the UAVs and of course the 2,500km range AESA radars located at every S-400 battery site could also generate a microwave signal beam powerful enough to cook a rabbit could also be used to blunt an attack... I think the Russians will be more ready than anyone else.

In fact i suspect the whole concept might backfire on the west because it is the Chinese and Russians that are in the best position to produce large numbers of small smart but still relatively cheap UCAVs for attacks on expensive but not well defended western equipment based all around the world...

GarryB wrote:Actually swarm drones are not that simple... they need to be able to operate together in a group but not get in each others way... they need to be smart enough to get  a job done but dumb enough to be cheap and disposable.

To be effective they will need a flight range of more than 100km otherwise their launch systems could easily be destroyed before they launch their payloads.

The Pantsir is getting a new missile developed that has four mini missiles per launch tube to engage swarm threats... that means each vehicle will have 12 x 4 missiles ready to fire so a battery of 8 vehicles will have 8 x 12 x 4 missiles = so each battery could have up to 384 missiles ready to fire... that is a lot.

More importantly a few vehicles armed with 57mm guns with AHEAD like air burst rounds could seriously deplete any large scale attack very rapidly as each shell could scatter fragments over a 5m radius very rapidly and even minor damage would break a light UAV and bring it down.

Add to that EM pulse weapons that simply fry the little brains of the UAVs and of course the 2,500km range AESA radars located at every S-400 battery site could also generate a microwave signal beam powerful enough to cook a rabbit could also be used to blunt an attack... I think the Russians will be more ready than anyone else.

In fact i suspect the whole concept might backfire on the west because it is the Chinese and Russians that are in the best position to produce large numbers of small smart but still relatively cheap UCAVs for attacks on expensive but not well defended western equipment based all around the world...

Electronic warfare ins definitely the way to go in my opinion but swarm missiles are good too and if you combine that with almost every Russian tank and IFV will be able to shoot them down the Russian army should be quite well defended.

You could also turn the enemy drones against their owners.

About EM weapons will Russia maybe upgrade short range AD systems to be able to fry small drones?

I am sure they could adapt the large powerful AESA radars they are developing for their medium to long range SAMs to generate powerful beams to damage electronic components fairly easily...

Agreed EW is the way to go. Missile option is good but costly in continued attacks or kept in areas of high importance like air fields. But for troops on the ground a zsu23-4 with upgraded radar should be good enough or even a zu-23-2 Zom with upgraded radar.
Or the iranian systems mesbah-1 and sa-ir (ks-19) the air burst fragmentation of sa-ir 100mm round could cover quite a large area and the system is self loading and holds 4-5 rounds before needing reloading and if you had 12 guns with a velocity of around1,000 m/s. Max firing range of 12,700 m timed fuse. and 15,000 m proximity fuse (old figures iranians may have upgraded rounds) and you now have a cloud of shrapnel in the sky.

The good thing about these swarm drones it that they are fast moving unlike jet aircraft so a good radar and systems as described above and you have it covered. There has been mixed reports as to if it was pantsir guns or missiles that did the job.

But for troops on the ground a zsu23-4 with upgraded radar should be good enough or even a zu-23-2 Zom with upgraded radar.

With respect a lot of people are not getting it.

23 x 152mm ammo has an effective range of about 2-2.5km... both horizontal and vertical... so even the cheapest UAV flying at 4km altitude with a belly full of hand grenade sized mini bombs could fly over your position and you could do nothing about it.

Russian experience in Georgia was that the 23mm cannon lacked range, most SAMs were too expensive for the job... the ended up using BUK and an R-73 from a MiG-29 to shoot down drones. MANPADS were ineffective at the time because the IR signature of a drone 3-4km up is tiny making a good lock too hard.

Verba would do a much better job but is not cheap.

Actually the best option would be Kornet-EM in terms of price.

Air burst 30mm cannon shells would be a step up because setting off a 30mm round in a group of UAVs means a chance of damaging them even if it wasn't going to hit it.

57mm shells means much higher engagement ceiling and rather more explosive and fragments to damage light UAV targets from further away without needing to hit anything.

A 23mm cannon burst means 200 shells streaking towards the target, but UAVs are small targets and most rounds will just blow past at a very high speed.

The chance of hitting the UAV is low if the target is small and they often are.

As you rightly point out missiles and guided rounds are expensive and limited in number... but air burst time fuses are cheap and easy to mass produce... the day of the large calibre AA gun might return... with advanced guidance and computer fire control system and air burst rounds it might become rather more efficient to deal with swarm attacks using a mix of 152mm artillery in air burst mode and EM pulse weapons.

Or the iranian systems mesbah-1 and sa-ir (ks-19) the air burst fragmentation of sa-ir 100mm round could cover quite a large area and the system is self loading and holds 4-5 rounds before needing reloading and if you had 12 guns with a velocity of around1,000 m/s. Max firing range of 12,700 m timed fuse. and 15,000 m proximity fuse (old figures iranians may have upgraded rounds) and you now have a cloud of shrapnel in the sky.

Assuming the drones themselves are unaware they are being engaged just a few well aimed shells with airburst fuses would totally ruin their day... you would not need to blow them into tiny pieces or obliterate them... just damage them and make them crash or just break something important.

A redesigned shell that has the fuse in the rear and the HE payload in the middle and fragments in the front section designed to blow forward like a claymore mine... fire it towards an intercept location and as the shell gets closer direct a laser signal to the rear of the shell to set it off and blast the interception area with 10kgs of tiny metal cubes at enormous speeds... good for some soft ground targets too...

There has been mixed reports as to if it was pantsir guns or missiles that did the job.

I suspect it was probably missiles.

Note the missiles on Pantsir and TOR are very simple and cheap command guided missiles with no sensor or high tech components to keep the price low so they can be bought and used in large numbers in a real war.

The important thing is using your own drones to locate the launch areas for these attacks and launching Krasnopol thankyou notes to the offenders ASAP.

Air burst shells are useful, guided shells are useful, but EM rounds would also be useful too... launch a 100mm plus shell into a group of UAVs and detonate an EM pulse weapon to fry them all in one go... would be a safe way to deal with such threats in a civilian area...

Of course conventional air burst ammo is safer for the people nearby too compared with HE rounds landing downrange...

Regarding new 100mm plus rounds... it would be interesting to look at 152mm guns... they would have high elevation and the current models with a 70km horizontal range would be interesting in terms of effective performance.

Rounds optimised for a claymore type attack could be rather lighter than normal HE Frag rounds so muzzle velocity could be higher and altitude and range better... though these shells have GLONASS guidance which could be used to set the round off at the right place perhaps with laser cueing from the main gun or radar platform. An advanced fusing system could allow directed warhead delivery of the fragment payload to ensure a better engagement...

And against soft targets such rounds could be used against light armour or troops in the field as artillery too.

Swarm drones are not that cheap too. If it is cheap drones they won't be able to carry big wareheads (smalk grenades maybe) so most of your military vehicules are safe. And to hit people you need precision which is really expensive to implement (it's like transforming it into a cruise missile ==> probably gps guidance so jaming will be enough. Or puting some small targeting pod which is impossible for small drones).

In theory it is a nice idea but in practice it is not.

GarryB wrote:

But for troops on the ground a zsu23-4 with upgraded radar should be good enough or even a zu-23-2 Zom with upgraded radar.

With respect a lot of people are not getting it.

23 x 152mm ammo has an effective range of about 2-2.5km... both horizontal and vertical... so even the cheapest UAV flying at 4km altitude with a belly full of hand grenade sized mini bombs could fly over your position and you could do nothing about it.

Russian experience in Georgia was that the 23mm cannon lacked range, most SAMs were too expensive for the job... the ended up using BUK and an R-73 from a MiG-29 to shoot down drones. MANPADS were ineffective at the time because the IR signature of a drone 3-4km up is tiny making a good lock too hard.

Verba would do a much better job but is not cheap.

Actually the best option would be Kornet-EM in terms of price.

Air burst 30mm cannon shells would be a step up because setting off a 30mm round in a group of UAVs means a chance of damaging them even if it wasn't going to hit it.

57mm shells means much higher engagement ceiling and rather more explosive and fragments to damage light UAV targets from further away without needing to hit anything.

A 23mm cannon burst means 200 shells streaking towards the target, but UAVs are small targets and most rounds will just blow past at a very high speed.

The chance of hitting the UAV is low if the target is small and they often are.

As you rightly point out missiles and guided rounds are expensive and limited in number... but air burst time fuses are cheap and easy to mass produce... the day of the large calibre AA gun might return... with advanced guidance and computer fire control system and air burst rounds it might become rather more efficient to deal with swarm attacks using a mix of 152mm artillery in air burst mode and EM pulse weapons.

Or the iranian systems mesbah-1 and sa-ir (ks-19) the air burst fragmentation of sa-ir 100mm round could cover quite a large area and the system is self loading and holds 4-5 rounds before needing reloading and if you had 12 guns with a velocity of around1,000 m/s. Max firing range of 12,700 m timed fuse. and 15,000 m proximity fuse (old figures iranians may have upgraded rounds) and you now have a cloud of shrapnel in the sky.

Assuming the drones themselves are unaware they are being engaged just a few well aimed shells with airburst fuses would totally ruin their day... you would not need to blow them into tiny pieces or obliterate them... just damage them and make them crash or just break something important.

A redesigned shell that has the fuse in the rear and the HE payload in the middle and fragments in the front section designed to blow forward like a claymore mine... fire it towards an intercept location and as the shell gets closer direct a laser signal to the rear of the shell to set it off and blast the interception area with 10kgs of tiny metal cubes at enormous speeds... good for some soft ground targets too...

There has been mixed reports as to if it was pantsir guns or missiles that did the job.

I suspect it was probably missiles.

Note the missiles on Pantsir and TOR are very simple and cheap command guided missiles with no sensor or high tech components to keep the price low so they can be bought and used in large numbers in a real war.

The important thing is using your own drones to locate the launch areas for these attacks and launching Krasnopol thankyou notes to the offenders ASAP.

Air burst shells are useful, guided shells are useful, but EM rounds would also be useful too... launch a 100mm plus shell into a group of UAVs and detonate an EM pulse weapon to fry them all in one go... would be a safe way to deal with such threats in a civilian area...

Of course conventional air burst ammo is safer for the people nearby too compared with HE rounds landing downrange...

I get your point on altitude however not every drone attack will fly at maximum height they may fly low to avoid certain high altitude missile defence systems or avoid radar blend into ground clutter or even high winds or other bad weather might force them to fly low. So this is where the shilka etc comes in and remember a good air defence consists of multi layer.

23mm cannon are great multipurpose weapons that are suitable for a variety of threats including half assed home made UAVs made by terrorists even if they have CIA or Israeli assistance.

Most professional forces like Georgia in 2008 with the help of Israeli UAVs can provide systems that the ZU-23 is of no use against.

It makes sense to have a range of tools to deal with a variety of threats and most Russian ground force units include air defence forces with MANPADS (Verba/Igla-S) plus short and medium range SAMs like TOR and Pantsir and Sosna-R, but also guided missiles like Kornet-EM.

The point is that the number of land vehicles with 30mm cannon will be rather large... most APC vehicles will have them... armata based, Kurganets based, boomerang based, as well as other platforms like the BTR-82/3 and SPAAGs like the Tunguska and Pantsir where detonating a round in amongst a group of UAVs is the most useful and efficient way of dealing with them.

On the BTR-82/3 you can use a laser to get the range of a UAV, but Pantsir can use radar to track both the group of targets and the outgoing round and lase it at exactly the right time.

An air burst claymore in 152mm round would be vastly more effective too because its size would allow more fragments and a more spherical blast pattern, but also because 152mm artillery operates with most ground force divisions anyway, so getting target information from your pantsir battery and launching a dozen air burst shells in a coordinate in mid air to flood that area with shrapnel could stop an attack before it even starts... 6 vehicles firing two rapid shots and then return to their normal artillery support mission.... sounds ideal.

To be honest I have heard all the BS about Swarm technology and how wonderful it will be... what it wont be is cheap... they can't even make a cheap anti tank missile.

The technologies and systems to combat potential swarm attack systems should be based on existing systems and work together to allow even more flexibility... an air burst 152mm shell with directed fragments could be used against a group of UAVs, but could also be used against helicopters on an airfield, or a convoy of enemy special forces light vehicles... or whatever.

GarryB wrote:23mm cannon are great multipurpose weapons that are suitable for a variety of threats including half assed home made UAVs made by terrorists even if they have CIA or Israeli assistance.

Most professional forces like Georgia in 2008 with the help of Israeli UAVs can provide systems that the ZU-23 is of no use against.

It makes sense to have a range of tools to deal with a variety of threats and most Russian ground force units include air defence forces with MANPADS (Verba/Igla-S) plus short and medium range SAMs like TOR and Pantsir and Sosna-R, but also guided missiles like Kornet-EM.

The point is that the number of land vehicles with 30mm cannon will be rather large... most APC vehicles will have them... armata based, Kurganets based, boomerang based, as well as other platforms like the BTR-82/3 and SPAAGs like the Tunguska and Pantsir where detonating a round in amongst a group of UAVs is the most useful and efficient way of dealing with them.

On the BTR-82/3 you can use a laser to get the range of a UAV, but Pantsir can use radar to track both the group of targets and the outgoing round and lase it at exactly the right time.

An air burst claymore in 152mm round would be vastly more effective too because its size would allow more fragments and a more spherical blast pattern, but also because 152mm artillery operates with most ground force divisions anyway, so getting target information from your pantsir battery and launching a dozen air burst shells in a coordinate in mid air to flood that area with shrapnel could stop an attack before it even starts... 6 vehicles firing two rapid shots and then return to their normal artillery support mission.... sounds ideal.

To be honest I have heard all the BS about Swarm technology and how wonderful it will be... what it wont be is cheap... they can't even make a cheap anti tank missile.

The technologies and systems to combat potential swarm attack systems should be based on existing systems and work together to allow even more flexibility... an air burst 152mm shell with directed fragments could be used against a group of UAVs, but could also be used against helicopters on an airfield, or a convoy of enemy special forces light vehicles... or whatever.

To be honest I realy like the universal 57mm gun idea as it will alow for your BTRs and BMPs equiped with it to engage light armor,infantry,fire emplacments,drones and low flying aircraft however I do not believe it will relace specialised systems in any of thoes roles as specialised systems are usualy superior and offer fewer design restrictions.

The US military is an exelent examle of why attempting to create an omni purpose weapon is not the best idea.

Anyway I do still think that electronic warfare is the ultimate anti drone solution but as always you should never rely on one weapon system alone.

They also have different EMP weapons. Maybe they could put one in a s-300/400 or buk missile against swarm drones. Those things are said to affect electronics 400m around them so make it explode in the middle of the drones and it's ok.

You should forget about exploding a warhead in the middle of a "swarm" of drones because the drones will be flying too far apart from each other to shoot down more than one at a time.

Making an exploding shell that explodes in mid air rather than requiring impacts with a target dramatically increases its lethality... a 200 round burst of 23mm cannon shells fired at an aircraft sized targets might only result in 4-10 impacts/grazes... with air burst ammo all 200 rounds will explode near the target as they go past.

Obviously the amount of explosive and metal content is tiny in 23mm and even in 30mm so it only really starts to get interesting in larger calibres and especially with directed warheads.

I use to think swarm attacks were actually quite a serious threat and although to a certain extent they especially if they were professional military drones and being used by Usa or any other nation but when they are homemade then the threat drastically reduces. For a start to launch and fly say 100 drones isn't easy for one do you have enough skilled people to fly them then theirs coordination while in flight I would forsee a few mid air collisions during there flight. I posted in another thread and I will post it here
As stated in other threads even upgrades of old anti aircraft guns most of them sitting in storage would be sufficient with a few upgrades automatic radar guidance with proximity fuses are your sorted. Guns in mind

Zpu-1/2/4
Zu -23-2
37mm 61-K
57mm S-60
85mm 52-k
100mm ks-19 (15km ceiling height)
130mm ks-30

All could be based around what Iran did with ks-19 called Sa-ir for the 37mm and upwards equipment and anything below that like what they did with mesbah -1. Zu -23-2 has upgrades already with ZOM1 etc incorporating radar guidance and manpads together.

Even the zsu 23-4M is good and the zsu -57-2 could have similar upgrades. Iran produced the bahman based on zsu-57-2 on a truck.

By choosing these methods it uses up old equipment in stock, cheap to upgrade and make self propelled, and cheap ammo compared to missiles and the larger caliber stuff would actually be better due to options of making new ECM rounds and of course having more fragmentation and airburst range.

Of course if you have older missile systems in storage these could also be used or upgraded with ECM missiles. Can you imagine the size of the EMP a Sa-4 missile would create.

This also backs up what garryb states larger the caliber the better fragmentation and airburst range as well as options for ECM/EW. And all using existing materials and equipment I bet there's still shit loads of this equipment laying around Inc ammo and could be used in the short term in till something better is designed built and tested

'
They just need to pack couple of dozen Igla or Verba MANPADS missiles in a launcher an link it to first available radar. Keep it simple.

Also, Igla would be preferable to Verba due to price difference.

A shilka reborn is ideal. Tons of ammo, make them HE. And manpads with as you said Papa, radar system for detection/tracking.

It would be enough.

miketheterrible wrote:A shilka reborn is ideal. Tons of ammo, make them HE. And manpads with as you said Papa, radar system for detection/tracking.

It would be enough.

I was thinking of an IADS based on only short range systems with optical guidance for missiles like verbas and igla, new ZSU and all of them (radar, missiles and command post) based on Tigr vehicule for ultra high mobility with additional pantsirs to shoot everything above 4 km. In big numbers that more dangerous than an S-400 coverage.

IADS is IADS. There won't be different variants of it. It will consist of short range to long range and everything in between.

How about super heavy flak tractors with 4 152mm high velocity flak guns each and with rapid autoloaders and proximity fuses or even cheap guidance packages they could wipe swarms of air targets relitvely cheaply from a distance of 20 kilometers or more.

Just saw that on Sputnik in French. This is chnese drones working togather but just for collecting info not for Attack.

The-thing-next-door wrote:How about super heavy flak tractors with 4 152mm high velocity flak guns each and with rapid autoloaders and proximity fuses or even cheap guidance packages they could wipe swarms of air targets relitvely cheaply from a distance of 20 kilometers or more.

The cost to design and test it is a bit of a put off been cheaper and quicker to production line just to buy the design of sa-ir from iranians then implement with existing flak guns in storage the ammo already has proximity fuses the Russians could probably design it themselves very quickly it isn't sophisticated stuff. And the flak guns in storage were already designed for such a task they just need a little upgrading