Russian defence against drone swarms

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

Anyone with a lick of knowledge in technology know that this system works fine against technilogocally incapable nations. When they "communicate" with each other, it lets off a signal which can be intercepted, spoofed and even hijacked.

d_taddei2 wrote:

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

If you want cheapness then you could just take an AK-130 and mount it on a large truck trailer that would alow you to fire of large caliber proximity HE shels rather rapidly but it will lack the range of a new high velocity 152mm design.

[quote="GarryB"]

"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".

Hi GarryB
Do you have more info on the new small misslls for the Pantsir?

The-thing-next-door wrote:

d_taddei2 wrote:

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

If you want cheapness then you could just take an AK-130 and mount it on a large truck trailer that would alow you to fire of large caliber proximity HE shels rather rapidly but it will lack the range of a new high velocity 152mm design.

I think the Chinese did something similar and truck had missiles as well. The KS-19 is 100mm and has a range of 15km with proximity fuses that should be sufficient just needs upgrading like the Iranians did it's good what they did. I've posted pics before in iranian thread

The main problem I see is that reactivating all these old mothballed systems will require a lot of man power to operate and maintain, not to mention the costs of upgrading the systems. The ammo would also need performance upgrades to make it effective... proximity fuses and efficient air burst shells would need to be developed and produced...

I think adapting an existing system to fire new ammo would be the most cost effective solution... 152mm artillery units are already present in the current Russian military, so special air burst models with a laser to set their fuses in flight make a lot of sense... getting a huge number of old weapons with all sorts of different calibres out of storage and back into service sounds like the sort of reaction the US is trying to provoke.

The facts are that the Russians already have an excellent air defence network and it is getting better and better all the time... reintroducing a whole lot of old obsolete calibres and guns would not make things better... those weapons could certainly be given a small upgrade and sold to allies who don't need or can't afford anything more sophisticated, but with new EW systems and new airburst 57mm guns along with 30mm airburst guns and potentially 152mm air burst rounds, adding some really old guns to the mix wont help much.

The new 40mm Balkan grenade launcher could be made much more potent with a forward firing claymore type round with a rear facing laser sensor that detects laser beams for air burst rounds. Obviously the base of the round is the firing cap and propellent area , but a small sensor window facing back on the lower body of the grenade could receive detonation signals from a mounted laser to detonate the round in front of an incoming UAV and a 20 round mag for each weapon that could also be used against attacking ground troops or ATGM teams or suspected sniper positions would be a very valuable round.

For poorer countries reactivating older guns with new rounds and laser beam fuse activation systems would be useful and relatively cheap, but it would not make sense for Russia unless there was a sudden panic new problem they had no time to create a proper solution to.

The facts are that it would be much quicker to develop new ammo and new sensors for the purpose of dealing with swarm attacks in standard calibres... like 30mm, 40mm and 57mm, and 152mm as it would be to develop the same for old out of service calibres and then put them back into production and back into service.

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.

You don't want to have to add new forces to your existing forces... otherwise the threat of swarm attack has made your forces less able to do what they were doing before.

A 152mm medium velocity air burst round will have a very large blast and fragment radius, but it wont be destroying hundreds of big drones in one hit... a decently planned swarm attack will come from different directions at once...

And that is another problem for the attackers... the drones themselves will need to be focussed on dealing with the air defence forces and ignore other targets because if they fail to take out the air defences they will fail.

This requires a level of intelligence and coordination that hand launched automatic drones simply cannot achieve.

A rich country like the US or Israel could probably mount a swarm attack simply by getting 200 drone teams to attack one target at one time all attacking independently but at the same time.

A rich country like the Russians defending such an attack will defeat most of the enemy threats with EW and standard air defence systems.

Systems on the way like quad loaded Pantsir SAMs and cheap ATGMs that can be used against air targets like Shturm/Ataka, or Kornet, as well as gun systems mounted on vehicles with good day and night optics and sophisticated fire control systems means they could deal with a large number of threats simultaneously, but their problem will be coordination so they aren't all shooting at one threat and the rest being ignored.

Net centricity should allow targets to be allocated to platforms to be dealt with to prevent everyone firing at the same target... and more importantly for anti aircraft forces to not fixate on the obvious threats and ignore other less obvious threats... ie a large target at medium altitude can distract you from lots of very low flying threats coming from a different direction at high speed.

If you want cheapness then you could just take an AK-130 and mount it on a large truck trailer that would alow you to fire of large caliber proximity HE shels rather rapidly but it will lack the range of a new high velocity 152mm design.

The AK-130 weighs over 100 tons and all its ammo is below decks... which modern trucks don't have.

A 2S1 has 122mm rounds and there are lots in stock... an air burst shell and decent EOs and comms systems could be used for the same purpose.

GarryB wrote:The main problem I see is that reactivating all these old mothballed systems will require a lot of man power to operate and maintain, not to mention the costs of upgrading the systems. The ammo would also need performance upgrades to make it effective... proximity fuses and efficient air burst shells would need to be developed and produced...

I think adapting an existing system to fire new ammo would be the most cost effective solution... 152mm artillery units are already present in the current Russian military, so special air burst models with a laser to set their fuses in flight make a lot of sense... getting a huge number of old weapons with all sorts of different calibres out of storage and back into service sounds like the sort of reaction the US is trying to provoke.

The facts are that the Russians already have an excellent air defence network and it is getting better and better all the time... reintroducing a whole lot of old obsolete calibres and guns would not make things better... those weapons could certainly be given a small upgrade and sold to allies who don't need or can't afford anything more sophisticated, but with new EW systems and new airburst 57mm guns along with 30mm airburst guns and potentially 152mm air burst rounds, adding some really old guns to the mix wont help much.

The new 40mm Balkan grenade launcher could be made much more potent with a forward firing claymore type round with a rear facing laser sensor that detects laser beams for air burst rounds. Obviously the base of the round is the firing cap and propellent area , but a small sensor window facing back on the lower body of the grenade could receive detonation signals from a mounted laser to detonate the round in front of an incoming UAV and a 20 round mag for each weapon that could also be used against attacking ground troops or ATGM teams or suspected sniper positions would be a very valuable round.

For poorer countries reactivating older guns with new rounds and laser beam fuse activation systems would be useful and relatively cheap, but it would not make sense for Russia unless there was a sudden panic new problem they had no time to create a proper solution to.

The facts are that it would be much quicker to develop new ammo and new sensors for the purpose of dealing with swarm attacks in standard calibres... like 30mm, 40mm and 57mm, and 152mm as it would be to develop the same for old out of service calibres and then put them back into production and back into service.

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.

You don't want to have to add new forces to your existing forces... otherwise the threat of swarm attack has made your forces less able to do what they were doing before.

A 152mm medium velocity air burst round will have a very large blast and fragment radius, but it wont be destroying hundreds of big drones in one hit... a decently planned swarm attack will come from different directions at once...

And that is another problem for the attackers... the drones themselves will need to be focussed on dealing with the air defence forces and ignore other targets because if they fail to take out the air defences they will fail.

This requires a level of intelligence and coordination that hand launched automatic drones simply cannot achieve.

A rich country like the US or Israel could probably mount a swarm attack simply by getting 200 drone teams to attack one target at one time all attacking independently but at the same time.

A rich country like the Russians defending such an attack will defeat most of the enemy threats with EW and standard air defence systems.

Systems on the way like quad loaded Pantsir SAMs and cheap ATGMs that can be used against air targets like Shturm/Ataka, or Kornet, as well as gun systems mounted on vehicles with good day and night optics and sophisticated fire control systems means they could deal with a large number of threats simultaneously, but their problem will be coordination so they aren't all shooting at one threat and the rest being ignored.

Net centricity should allow targets to be allocated to platforms to be dealt with to prevent everyone firing at the same target... and more importantly for anti aircraft forces to not fixate on the obvious threats and ignore other less obvious threats... ie a large target at medium altitude can distract you from lots of very low flying threats coming from a different direction at high speed.

If you want cheapness then you could just take an AK-130 and mount it on a large truck trailer that would alow you to fire of large caliber proximity HE shels rather rapidly but it will lack the range of a new high velocity 152mm design.

The AK-130 weighs over 100 tons and all its ammo is below decks... which modern trucks don't have.

A 2S1 has 122mm rounds and there are lots in stock... an air burst shell and decent EOs and comms systems could be used for the same purpose.

Of course it's unlikely Russia would active old guns and if they did it wouldn't be a multitude it would be one type of gun then upgraded. They may even build one example then offer the upgrade to other countries. When I listed the guns I wasn't suggesting you would activate all it was just examples of what could be used. I don't think it would be expensive or take along time for a country like Russia to upgrade. And am sure Iran would even share some info on what they did with the sa-ir.

But larger caliber does allow more and better options and rather waste time and money designing new gun when you have one in stock doing nothing and was actually designed for anti air makes sense. Of course the 152mm artillery gun you mentioned could be a good option providing the units are not needed in artillery role elsewhere on the battlefield or you bring 152mm gun systems from storage for the purpose.

But I agree that main methods of dealing with this type of warfare is EW, and cheap airburst the last line should be missiles. I actually think Usa would have a harder time dealing with such threats as apart from EW they have nothing really suited the avenger would be there best option and that's manpad based in would start to become very expensive experience for them. Western armed forces are at more risk than Russia as most lack a good mix of air defence systems but rather use aircraft for defence and I don't have to mention why aircraft isn't a good solution.

I like the 2S1 idea loads in storage new round with a range of 12-20km airburst and EW and your sorted now this is something Russia could use.

The advantage of the 152mm round is that vehicles using that round will already be near the front line anyway... add another force of perhaps 4-6 more vehicles and tie them in to the air defence network getting data from nearby assets like SAM sites and radar sites and also getting information from airborne assets like Awacs.

The important point is that most swarm attacks will likely be focussed on taking out the air defence capability of a force.

Another factor is that you are going after soft aerial targets, so lots of small metal cubes could be the payload and the bursting charge does not need to be as big as that used in the standard HE Frag round and the intelligent fuse itself can be in the rear of the round.,

this all means longer range can be achieved if needed by 122mm rounds because it can be a lighter shell with a full power propellent charge... as long as there are enough fragment cubes to cover the front of the round when it detonates then it is all OK.

It is critical that the artillery vehicles used are tied in to the air defence network so they each take on a separate target allocated to them... by allocating targets properly you will quickly work your way through even a large scale attack force, perhaps while your normal artillery vehicles could be plotting the launch positions and sending some love their way.

I mention the 2S1 because it is a compact complete little vehicle which with upgrades and new ammo and a communications link to the IADS should be able to work out where to fire and when for best results... the ammo is not so big and would be cheaper than in 152mm calibre. the difference in range is not so important because I can see these being base defenders not an attack thing... though in some third world country when Rambo gets the locals to mount a cavalry charge against those commies in Afghanistan or whereever then airburst directed fragment 122mm rounds would be devastating against unprotected infantry attacks...

In a smaller scale an airburst round using the laser activated technology of the 30mm cannon shells in 40mm grenades in the Balkan system would also be excellent in dealing with drones, helicopters and enemy troops and other soft targets.

GarryB wrote:Another factor is that you are going after soft aerial targets, so lots of small metal cubes could be the payload and the bursting charge does not need to be as big as that used in the standard HE Frag round and the intelligent fuse itself can be in the rear of the round.

For those countries ( like Asian, African countries) that purchases weapons from Russia and also from China, Europe - can a Russian AWAC like A-50, that they operate, guide a European or Chinese air to ground missile to its target ?

For example lets say Vietnam, Indonesia operates both A-50 & Su 30 and uses European cruise missile. Can a European cruise missile like Storm Shadow fired from a Su 30 be guided to its target by the A-50 ?

Cruise missiles have their own guidance.

Guidance is the wrong word... Russian AWACS and special forces teams behind enemy lines can find targets and work out their coordinates, which can then be used by any cruise missile for targeting.

AWACS aircraft could be used to track UAV type aerial targets which could then be fired upon by ground launched SARH AAMs like R-27ER I suppose...

It would need a lot of coordination between the launcher and targeting platform... but that should not be impossible.

GarryB wrote:Guidance is the wrong word... Russian AWACS and special forces teams behind enemy lines can find targets and work out their coordinates, which can then be used by any cruise missile for targeting.

AWACS aircraft could be used to track UAV type aerial targets which could then be fired upon by ground launched SARH AAMs like R-27ER I suppose...

It would need a lot of coordination between the launcher and targeting platform... but that should not be impossible.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you had mentioned a few months ago that air to ground missiles launched by Mig 31s are being guided to their targets in Syria by Su 30s. Is that what happened ?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you had mentioned a few months ago that air to ground missiles launched by Mig 31s are being guided to their targets in Syria by Su 30s. Is that what happened ?

Sounds like you have confused a few things I have said.

First of all there are no MiG-31s in Syria AFAIK.

Second, it was during trials of the R-37 long range AAM that was to be carried by the MiG-31M in the 1990s when testing was being done... the MiG-31 that launched the missile was able to carry the longer ranged R-37, but was not fitted with an improved radar that could detect targets at over 300km range, so to detect and track the target for the engagement an Su-30 was used... it was closer to the target and found the target for the MiG-31 and passed target data to the Foxhound so it could launch its missile... when the missile got close enough it got its own lock and intercepted the target after having flown 300km.

Air to ground missiles that just need target coordinates like Sat guided bombs could use data from pretty much any platform for an engagement.

Putin at the Syrian intervention conference today, held at The National Defence Management Centre, MoD:


New(?) antiUAV system was presented. Wonder if it had anything to do with downing of UAV s used in 5-6.1.18 swarm attack on Khmeimim & Tartus?

I just though about an idea of defeating drones. Is it possible to us 9mm machine gun on a yak 130 or even yak 152 with good radar/fcs and us them as patrol aircrafts with the yak 130 going also with missiles ?

They could also use the machine gun on all their new fighters in production because it's small. So during a patrol if they meet a drone they can destroy it without using missile or main 30mm gun.

The price of 9mm shells is far cheaper than 30mm guided or unguided and they have enough power to destroy an uav. And as UAV are not really manoeuvrable they could get close enough to 9mm machine gun.

I am talking about an airborn weapon so don't compare it with a ground based weapon.

Isos wrote:I just though about an idea of defeating drones. Is it possible to us 9mm machine gun on a yak 130 or even yak 152 with good radar/fcs and us them as patrol aircrafts with the yak 130 going also with missiles ?

They could also use the machine gun on all their new fighters in production because it's small. So during a patrol if they meet a drone they can destroy it without using missile or main 30mm gun.

The price of 9mm shells is far cheaper than 30mm guided or unguided and they have enough power to destroy an uav. And as UAV are not really manoeuvrable they could get close enough to 9mm machine gun.

I am talking about an airborn weapon so don't compare it with a ground based weapon.

Why 9mm? It seems an odd choice.

Personaly I believe a combonation of lasers and EMP based weapons maybe some form of directed EMP cannon would be the best solution when it comes to air platforms.

Land platforms offer the advantage of allowing much heavier weapons so a combonation of 57/76/100mm cannon with guided shells and EMP and laser cannon.

The-thing-next-door wrote:

Isos wrote:I just though about an idea of defeating drones. Is it possible to us 9mm machine gun on a yak 130 or even yak 152 with good radar/fcs and us them as patrol aircrafts with the yak 130 going also with missiles ?

They could also use the machine gun on all their new fighters in production because it's small. So during a patrol if they meet a drone they can destroy it without using missile or main 30mm gun.

The price of 9mm shells is far cheaper than 30mm guided or unguided and they have enough power to destroy an uav. And as UAV are not really manoeuvrable they could get close enough to 9mm machine gun.

I am talking about an airborn weapon so don't compare it with a ground based weapon.

Why 9mm? It seems an odd choice.

Personaly I believe a combonation of lasers and EMP based weapons maybe some form of directed EMP cannon would be the best solution when it comes to air platforms.

Land platforms offer the advantage of allowing much heavier weapons so a combonation of 57/76/100mm cannon with guided shells and EMP and laser cannon.

For the price. With a good fcs you will need 10 or 20 bullets to hit. And you are sure to destroy it.

Ground based 100 mm guided shells are much more expensive and they are static. And the the drone can send its last position to let the enemy know where your ground forces are if you use a ground system. And you will need specialized vehicles with radars or optics while fighters have the radar and the fcs already on board. It's not a new system just an option to add at your fighter.

Having a 9mm machine gun on all you fighters won't be expensive and won't change their design. Bullets can't be jamed.

EMP weapons can be countered with a Faraday cage. So if it's a suicide drone it can be protected.

How about a 57mm autocannon on a fighter? Not like it has not been done before.

OK, first of all... 9mm... no.

Lacks power and range... if we are talking about a pistol calibre 9mm then you would need to fly within 20m or less of the target to get a hit.

Secondly... 57mm gun on an aircraft... no.

Has power and range, but why waste a whole aircraft with such a setup? It would not be much use for anything else.

The reason I suggested 152mm shells is that they have Glonass guidance and a CEP of 10m... in other words you give it a coordinate in 3D space and it will fly within 10m of that point... it has a range of 70km... with a guided shell with a datalink you should be able to get pretty close to this performance too.

The 4-6 vehicles linked to the AD system don't need to be sitting together with the AD vehicles... they could be 30km away just receiving target data.

The advantages include no new vehicle... these vehicles can be standard artillery vehicles with special AD ammo... when there is no air threat they can operate as artillery.
They use largely standard ammo, with a round modified for the job... 152mm rounds are huge so there is plenty of scope for guided components and still plenty of space for a decent payload. That payload could be a directional claymore type warhead or all round frag payload, or it could be an EM pulse round or jammer that disrupts or damages the targets electronically.

Of course with the latter you want to make sure they don't damage friendly forces systems, so HE directed fragment round is my first choice... coming from above and firing all its fragments forward they would go into the ground if they miss the target...

No one solution should be used... Pantsirs with quad tubes to counter mass attacks, plus Kornet missiles able to be used against point targets out to 10km, plus Krisantema ATGMs, and of course 57mm air burst shells and 30mm air burst shells from ground forces... and of course you could have your own little drone fighters armed with air burst 40mm grenades operated by your field units... they can look for ground targets and deal with ground and air targets with their grenade launchers... all force multipliers... all useful additions to the forces fire power...

In comparison Verba launchers on every vehicle would be expensive and rather less effective in my opinion... let the AD forces deal with the AD problem so the other forces can do what they are supposed to be doing.

Of course occasionally something will slip through and cause problems... an attack helo pops over a hill and detects an Armata div... a 125mm guided missile destroys it seconds later...

Very interesting UAV interceptor apparently propelled by electric engine by Almaz-Antey...




https://el-temif-1.livejournal.com/8983.html?utm_source=twsharing&utm_medium=social

Apparently this thing should hit the target and be recoverable / reusable after that (or how to make CIA spend more money with their fake Takfiri-made UAVs than themselves in interceptors)

Comments?

I was actually thinking of a simple aircraft type UAV with cameras that could be remote flown and mounting a new 40mm balkan grenade launcher in its nose.

In operation you would fly your UAV towards enemy UAVs and open fire at about 30-50m range with special grenades designed to fly 20-40m and then explode blowing forward an enormous blast of ball bearings and cube shrapnel like a claymore mine... a good quality forward looking camera with night vision... it would probably be quite fun... attack them from behind they wont know what hit them and the cost in fuel and grenades should not be that high... you could probably carry 20-50 grenades as a payload, so you could take out quite a few targets. With a well designed round it should be very very effective... you could fit a laser range finder on the aircraft so no ammo is wasted... you could even use computer calculations to determine the aim point and even have it firing automatically based on range and closing speed from the laser and the position in the field of view of the target.

Another option of course could simply be a couple of fixed shotgun barrels with buckshot and fly right up behind the target and blast it with lead...

You just have to remember that this might occur above friendly forces or civilians... an airburst grenade would not be too much of a threat, and nor would shot gun rounds from any height.

Something like this, just for the air:

GarryB wrote:I was actually thinking of a simple aircraft type UAV with cameras that could be remote flown and mounting a new 40mm balkan grenade launcher in its nose.

In operation you would fly your UAV towards enemy UAVs and open fire at about 30-50m range with special grenades designed to fly 20-40m and then explode blowing forward an enormous blast of ball bearings and cube shrapnel like a claymore mine... a good quality forward looking camera with night vision... it would probably be quite fun... attack them from behind they wont know what hit them and the cost in fuel and grenades should not be that high... you could probably carry 20-50 grenades as a payload, so you could take out quite a few targets. With a well designed round it should be very very effective... you could fit a laser range finder on the aircraft so no ammo is wasted... you could even use computer calculations to determine the aim point and even have it firing automatically based on range and closing speed from the laser and the position in the field of view of the target.

Another option of course could simply be a couple of fixed shotgun barrels with buckshot and fly right up behind the target and blast it with lead...

You just have to remember that this might occur above friendly forces or civilians... an airburst grenade would not be too much of a threat, and nor would shot gun rounds from any height.

You would make a terrific military engineer hahaha!

I guess the Russian solution is intended not only for reusability but also for fast interception. UAVs are small targets than can fly very low and they are probably not that easy to detect from very far away. Maybe there is no time to go hunting them one after the other but rather throw many interceptors

GarryB wrote:I was actually thinking of a simple aircraft type UAV with cameras that could be remote flown and mounting a new 40mm balkan grenade launcher in its nose.

In operation you would fly your UAV towards enemy UAVs and open fire at about 30-50m range with special grenades designed to fly 20-40m and then explode blowing forward an enormous blast of ball bearings and cube shrapnel like a claymore mine... a good quality forward looking camera with night vision... it would probably be quite fun... attack them from behind they wont know what hit them and the cost in fuel and grenades should not be that high... you could probably carry 20-50 grenades as a payload, so you could take out quite a few targets. With a well designed round it should be very very effective... you could fit a laser range finder on the aircraft so no ammo is wasted... you could even use computer calculations to determine the aim point and even have it firing automatically based on range and closing speed from the laser and the position in the field of view of the target.

Another option of course could simply be a couple of fixed shotgun barrels with buckshot and fly right up behind the target and blast it with lead...

You just have to remember that this might occur above friendly forces or civilians... an airburst grenade would not be too much of a threat, and nor would shot gun rounds from any height.

10 points GarryB

http://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/4995120

Exactly what you said

Something like this, just for the air:

Yes, though because a diver is not a small fast target a rifle with supercavitating bullet would suffice...


It is not super fast but the bullets it fires should reach out quite far and fast... a bit like a remote gun turret that can move slowly around the thing you are defending... port or ship or whatever...

I rather suspect it would be also rather valuable in dealing with mines found in operations... move closer to the target at 1knt and then shoot it.... not the end of the world if you are too close... but perfectly safe for you.

You would make a terrific military engineer hahaha!

I would probably be a terrible engineer, but I like to think I might be a good ideas person...

I guess the Russian solution is intended not only for reusability but also for fast interception. UAVs are small targets than can fly very low and they are probably not that easy to detect from very far away. Maybe there is no time to go hunting them one after the other but rather throw many interceptors

I think we can both agree the wide variety of threats means a variety of solutions is needed... from a Kalashnikov gun that is actually designed to jam as a normal part of its operation... to this weapon, and many other solutions in between.

The key is cost... you want something cheap and simple that can deal with a lot of targets... preferably with the target not even knowing you are there...

I mean the Serbs used helicopters with door gunners to fly alongside expensive NATO UAVs and just shoot them down with PKMs... brilliant... and relatively simple.

We have seen a requirement for new Helicopter types to be able to shoot down small aerial vehicles... so the Mi-28NM could have airburst 30mm cannon shells which would also be useful...

Exactly what you said

Interesting... they have had what they call cargo rounds for their 30mm cannon for fighters and aircraft where the round travels as a complete projectile until a fixed distance where a rear charge detonates and sends subprojectiles in the direction of the target like a super shotgun blast.

The round itself is optimised for shooting at ground targets like troops or soft targets in the open and is intended for targets 1.8km from the muzzle give or take a metre.

A 40mm grenade could pack a lot of small projectiles with a charge powerful enough to give good range and coverage, and if you had a set fuse to detonate the grenade at a fixed range... 40-80m or so, you could use a laser rangefinder to position your aircraft to fire them so that the blast would cover the area around the target so that even if it stopped or turned or sped up it would still get pummelled...

The issue is that while the 40mm grenade will be more expensive than shotgun shells, it will also deliver a much more powerful blow at greater ranges, so it could deal with all sorts of targets... including enemy helicopters... the key would be forward facing fragmentation effect for the grenades for a good even spread of fragments.

It could be used to stop a swarm of small drones, but it could also be used against an infantry attack on the base too.

A shotgun shell would not have the capacity... a human sized target out to maybe 20m most of the time... further away and you probably wont get enough hits to assure a kill... buckshot would be necessary as lighter loads would probably not hit hard enough to do enough damage on some UAVs...

Fragments from an exploding grenade will be travelling much much fast and do rather more damage...

@GarryB:
Even better than the 40 mm grenade is 57 mm ammo... with more than 10 km range and huge destructive capacity, especially against soft targets. This is almost a 3 kg shell, so no small thing at all.

Low power EW may be limited against autonomous, military grade hardened UAVs, but pure and simple destructive means like 57 mm ammo will do wonders against them and be a quite effective option IMO against UAV swarms