Is it issues detecting and tracking? Seems like radar guided gun systems should shred shaheeds but perhaps I’m missing something.
I can see the difficulties tracking quad copter / fpv drones… anyone have insight?
Its a similar problem in the cold war aircraft. They fly low, so the time for detection, identification, targeting and shooting is quite short. The gun can shoot out to a few km, but can only see low flying targets out to a few hundred meters.
Gun systems only really work if you are defending a position targeting by the drone. Even then, you need a very large number of guns as each gun system only has an effective bubble of a few hundred meters against low flying drones.
Ukraine has been doing very well with audio based detection to give advanced warning and using man portable weapons to shoot down drones. Russian drones have since started flying higher, which then opens then up radar detection, bigger gun systems and interceptor drones.
Ukraine has been doing very well with audio based detection to give advanced warning and using man portable weapons to shoot down drones.
I wonder what would be required to detect the smaller targets at further ranges. Audio networks with large distribution might work…
From what I understand Ukraine is using thousands of cellphones on a stick with a solar panel and external mic.
With directional mics you can get additional range.
that is slick
Big ears
We’ve come full circle
Used in early WW2 to listen for planes, pre radar
Different but the greeks when besieged were known to drive stakes of brass with a thing brass plate above ground attatched to it at intervals, then they could see the vibrations from anyone tunneling under, what do they call it, sapping, they dig under, then burn the supports and collapse a section of wall to breach the city.
One incident the greeks made a chemical weapon out of chicken feathers and chicken shit and charcoal and lit it and threw it down there after they counter tunneled into them after seeing their vibrations.
Radar was developed before WW2. It was just really expensive, so analogue systems (eg, mk1 human eyeball, and this monstrosity) were used to supplement.
It’s simply a numbers game. Gepards are very effective against Shaheds but they only have a range of a few kilometres. You’d need hundreds to protect a major city. Those numbers just don’t exist.
Valid. I wonder if we’ll see distributed networks of radars capable of detecting smaller targets at longer ranges…
It seems more that drone combat is relatively new and we haven’t seen the iteration for drone combat that other weapons systems have had.
It could be guns, drones, signal interference, or something else entirely.
valid… and if they focus everything on air we’ll have ground and subterranean drones to contend with shortly.
subterranean drones
Now I am imagining a mole drone slowly inching his way across the battlefield at night and sticking up like a little inconspicuous periscope type solar panel during the day.
rumble rumble rumble rumble SLAVA UKRAINE BOOOM BLYAT
We already have some forms of ground based drones. I don’t see subterranean drones any time soon given the state of art in various forms of excavation.
it was mostly in jest but I wouldn’t put it past the Ukrainians to open a new front.
Given the ubiquity of explosive drones specifically I feel like we need that calendar cartoon with March 2026 being torn off to reveal July 1864
because you can have anti-drone shotgun blyat! (serious concept sold as serious ppl)
blyat!
that thing but with Saiga shotties
