news

The U.S. military recently conducted the "toughest" drone defense demonstration to date, with nine defense systems participating in the demonstration fighting against a "swarm" of 50 different types of drones. The U.S. military ultimately concluded that it was "unable to defeat this type of attack," and even U.S. military officials were reluctant to talk more about the results of the test.

According to the U.S. military website "BreakingDefense" on July 24, with drones currently active in many conflict areas in the world, the U.S. Pentagon held the largest combat demonstration to date within the framework of its "All-Service Drone Defense Program", with as many as 50 drones of different types launching attacks on the same target.

The U.S. Army Joint Counter-Small UAV Systems Office (JCO), which is responsible for this demonstration, conducted a similar test for the first time in April 2021. However, this year's demonstration is somewhat different. The focus is on testing the ability of anti-UAV swarm attacks. The 50 drones used include jet drones, propeller-driven low-speed drones, and micro helicopters. Their weights range from 20 pounds (about 9 kilograms) to 1,000 pounds (about 454 kilograms). Fighting against them are 9 anti-UAV systems from 8 defense suppliers.

The U.S. military did not disclose the details of the demonstration. However, after the demonstration, Colonel Michael Parent, the project manager for procurement and resources in the JCO, said that the defense system prototypes provided by suppliers have shown a "higher level of maturity" and provide "better solutions" in dealing with threats. In addition, JCO officials explicitly refused to discuss the effectiveness of these anti-drone defense systems.

It is not difficult to see from here that the reason why the US military officials involved in the test kept silent is that the effect of this demonstration was not ideal. This was further confirmed in Colonel Parent's subsequent statement, saying that "no capability, whether kinetic or non-kinetic, can really defeat this type of (attack) by itself." He also emphasized: "What we see is that they really need a complete systematic approach, a 'layered' approach." The implication is that these defense systems participating in the demonstration cannot withstand the attack of drone swarms by themselves.

In fact, such a result is not surprising. From the TB-2 drones used by Azerbaijan to slaughter Armenian armored forces in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 2020, to the large number of drones used by both sides after the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in 2022, to the new round of Israeli-Palestinian conflict that triggered the Houthi armed forces to use drones to attack Israel, drones have shown an invincible and unstoppable strike effect on the battlefield. Especially on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield, the small FPV suicide drones can drill into the weak parts of the tank's turret and chassis connection, the engine compartment exhaust port, etc., directly paralyzing the action and combat capability of the main battle tank, and even causing the ammunition in the vehicle to explode, playing a "four-two-pound" combat effect.

From the perspective of actual combat, there is currently no particularly effective means of defending against drones. Taking the Russian armored combat vehicles as an example, the defense against drones basically relies on "hard resistance". For this reason, the Russian army has continuously improved the anti-drone capabilities of armored vehicles by adding physical defense measures. From the earliest "awning" grille armor structure installed on the top of the tank turret, to the use of an iron net shaped like a "birdcage" to cover the entire turret, to the use of steel plates to surround the entire tank like a "turtle", all highlight the increasing threat that drones pose to Russian vehicles on the battlefield. Although the Russian army has also installed electronic jamming devices on the top of the tank to try to block the control signals of drones, it has also had little effect.

On the other hand, the continuous attacks by Russian drones have also caused headaches for the Ukrainian army, especially the "Lancet" cruise missiles that can hover in the air for a long time to hunt targets, which has become the Russian army's killer weapon against Ukrainian armored vehicles and fortifications. In addition to learning from the Russian army to install grille armor to withstand the attack, the Ukrainian army is also equipped with individual electromagnetic interference equipment known as the "anti-drone gun", but it has not been heard of any great use. In addition, the Ukrainian army has tried to useFPV DroneIntercepting the Russian "Lancet" cruise missile in the air can be said to have opened up new ideas for drone air combat, but this method has also achieved little success.

Since they can't prevent it, they will increase their efforts and hurt each other. So Ukrainian President Zelensky announced at the end of last year that Ukraine will produce 1 million drones in 2024. However, with Ukraine's current manufacturing capabilities, it is completely unrealistic to develop them on its own, so NATO will naturally pay for it. On July 10 this year, the Netherlands announced that it would allocate 20 million euros to purchase 1 million drones for Ukraine.

Regardless of whether these 1 million drones can really be put into place and put into the battlefield, it is worth thinking about whether there is really no effective defense against the drone "swarm" attack? In fact, judging from the U.S. military's drone defense demonstration, it is not a complete failure. The problem exposed by this demonstration is that a single defense system is difficult to resist the attack of drone swarms, but the U.S. military has also gained new ideas for dealing with drone swarms.

There were eight participating suppliers in this demonstration, up from five last year, including Israel's Elta Systems and U.S. defense startup Anduril Industries. Elta Systems brought two different defense systems, one vehicle-mounted and the other portable. Most of the defense systems participating in the demonstration are not built for a single weapon, but use the concept of "layered defense" and combine multiple sensors to detect drones, because most drones are "low, slow, and small" aircraft, and they cannot be detected by a single weapon.radarHard to shoot down.

Among all the nine candidate defense systems, at least four types of sensors are equipped: radar, electro-optical/infrared camera, and spectrometer; and four types of countermeasures:Anti-aircraft missiles, small drones, anti-aircraft machine guns, and radio frequency jammers. In order to effectively fight drones, the U.S. Army is also seeking a "layered" approach to combat. However, this combat method is a big test for each independent defense system and its ability to transmit, process, and combine and analyze different data. How to identify targets and assign them to different weapons is as important as improving the strike capability and strike accuracy of a single system.

This can also serve as a reference for our development of anti-UAV technology. While vigorously developing anti-UAV systems, we need to integrate the concepts of intelligent identification, layered confrontation, and both soft and hard methods, combining large anti-UAV electronic warfare systems, vehicle-mounted electronic warfare equipment, and portable jamming devices with traditional air defense systems, and then using artificial intelligence technology to jointly weave a "big net" that can intercept UAVs without blind spots.