@@TheXanUser they could also get 4 door crew cab, 4wd, with 4cyl diesel engine, Toyotas Tacomas and Ford Rangers overseas. Illegal in the US for some stupid reason. Many of us wanted to bring them to the US for our personal vehicles. I just bought a 2wd, 5spd, truck with an 8ft bed a few months ago with no rust, and no stupid electronics, so I'm happy.
I know they claim up to 60 pound drones, but to be real, that round can bring down full blown aircraft with enough damage to control surfaces. It would likely struggle against armored helicopters, but even still, shrapnel is shrapnel, and it doesn't belong in things like rotor shafts or other moving parts.
A dual feed system that allows the cannon to switch to an API round would solve that problem. Proximity/frag for small targets, API for larger targets.
And even "armored" aircraft only really have armor around the crew compartment. Yes the Hind has titanium rotors that are resistant to 50 cal, but a 30 cal flack round delivers 9x the weight, better than half of which is metal: I don't care if it is titanium, it's not going to just shrug that much mass off! It's more the lack of range that will be the limiting factor than any armor an aerial target is equipped with.
@@SoloRenegade This is incorrect. The US is the one that developed the RF fusing for AAA guns back in WWII, it's about the aerial burst that throws the shrapnel, altitude plays nothing into it, and during WWII there was level flak as well as high altitude as the burst altitude could be changed manually but slowly, which is why the RF fusing was revolutionary as it didn't need to be pre-fused and the RF signal sent from each round detonated in proximity to the target regardless of altitude. So this is not a new concept but an old one married with modern technology.
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@@SoloRenegade I mean I would assume they had a min safe height that the fuse wouldn't allow it to explode before hand...but I'm pretty sure you can adjust the fuse to be timed for what ever you want.
@@Dave-lh6ws he is right and you are wrong. This technology is obsolete before its even deployed. Hopefully they get a couple billion in funding before anyone finds that out
Or dust. A smoke grenade is basically a short duration laser shield. Just adding a reflective coating would buy you some time. Maybe not against a pulsed laser, but if you need several seconds to overheat a drone...
In 1918, John Moses Browning foresaw drones would someday cause significant problems on the battlefield, and thus invented the M2 Browning machine gun to defeat them
@mkultra3679You no idea what you're talking about, I did a file dumb on ALL the files in warthunder and found the declassified M2 browning spec sheets, the same ones with an Anti drone variant c. 1928
I'm pretty sure John Moses Browning created the M2 browning to attach to our Non-Altitude Assault Transports in our war against the Xyydrak Empire and their laser-shielded warships.
nice toy for the kids this Bushmaster, however the Rheinmetall Skymaster/Skyranger systems are far more capable (double the range, programmable AHEAD ammo, etc) and truly mobile if needed.
US Army and USMC honestly should just kit out Toyota Hilux. Since it's illegal to import, lot of kids would join arm forces to be basically mechanized Hilux infantry 😂. Then after they get old, auction Toyota Hilux to civilian market.
@@nagasako7 USA light divisions are getting the Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV), which is a beefed up Chevy Colorado ZR2 for rear area mobility. Sticking one of these on that chassis would be simple. Not sure if it could follow the grunts close enough, as they are not supposed to ride the ISV into battle. Supposedly the Hawkeye 105mm howitzer that fits on a HMMWV would fit on an ISV and it would have a lot longer range. Same for the new 120mm mortar to put on a HMMWV for special forces. That could give light infantry divisions some longer range fires, than using a smaller, man-portable mortar.
You fly four kilometers fish net . All drones will be captured need drones to carry the large fish net in the sky. Army Drones vs Fisheman Drones with carrying very large fish net.Very Cheap method but effective 4:23
I love these palletized weapon systems that fit on trucks. The Bushmaster is a great example, but there's also the V.A.M.P.I.R.E. system created by L3 Harris which shoots laser guided hydra rockets from the back of a pick up truck too.
4:05 if you're willing to pay for it, Honeywell has a 1-Megawatt Turbogenerator based on an A350 XWB auxiliary power unit, which should fit in the bed of a Humvee. Looks like it weights about 300lb.
Power generation isn't as much of an issue as laser performance. There's still an expendable component, fuel for the generator versus ammo for the gun. The fuel draw is essentially part of the cost of engagement, but is usually easier to manage logistically than one or more specific types of ammo for a gun, esp. with the multifuel systems becoming available.
I'm all for 20-40mm technicals for SHORAD against multiple targets including drones, don't get me wrong, but I think the comparison with lasers was uncharacteristically oversimplified. The kill chain for targeting a drone with a 30mm cannon includes target acquisition through the MACE system (identical for lasers), then slewing the gun to the target (similar for lasers), then firing at the target (similar for lasers), then waiting for the rounds to reach the target and assessing the effect on target - this is where lasers take the cake. For a 1.2 km engagement - which is within the laser's range and well within the chain gun's range - a 30mm round with a muzzle velocity of ~800 m/s will take 1.5 seconds to reach the target. For a comparable time to identify the target and slew the turret, the laser is already done cooking off some critical systems, and we're probably going to repeat the whole process again for the 30mm burst that missed because the target is maneuvering on terminal approach to attack whatever our short-range defenses are defending. Lasers do not have this issue, they can track targets maneuvering evasively much more effectively. Then comes cost - 30mm ammunition beats missiles on price for sure, but it still costs far more than a 1.5 second burst from a 500+ kW laser. Even a single 30mm round costs more than that laser burst, and the engagement is likely to require 12-150 rounds - best case is a cluster engagement where those ~60 rounds take down 3 targets. 3 sustained bursts from the laser on those 3 targets would have similar or better performance on time to kill as well as cost. I think the real draw back to lasers is the cost of the actual systems - they're currently quite exquisite and expensive compared to conventional small-caliber AAA, and losing one SHORAD system in a notional engagement with multiple assets makes the guns look a lot more attractive on cost - but still inferior to a similar number of (much more expensive) laser CIWS systems.
I asked GPT to run some numbers on this for a notional 200 target strike on a layered air defense where 2 mature high-KW laser systems or 2 30mm MACE systems are lost while defending the higher-tier systems, with the overall strike otherwise defeated. The lasers cost way less per shot and are more effective overall on a per-unit basis, but the engagement is far more costly with the laser systems than with guns due to their massive price disparity, and of course fielding the laser defense is much more costly and a much more effective defense can be mounted for the same price using a larger number of conventional gun and short-range missile systems. Lasers are still desirable as an additional layer to improve the overall intercept rate of a layered defense, as well as being the primary engagement option for economically defeating low-tier low-density threats like non-saturation drone incursions. However, any air defense has to be built with saturation strikes in mind, and lasers are far too expensive to field in the quantities and wattages required to succeed - or even meaningfully contribute - in saturation strike defense scenarios.
You also have to consider that you need to include the cost of the 500Kw laser, the generator, and the extra logistics to carry them around. You’re not fitting that on a couple trucks. They also don’t exist and nobody has been able to make them yet so that also doesn’t help as far as implementing them goes
@@Premium-Content the 30 mm wins easily on cost and reliability in adverse weather conditions. The 30 mm cannon can be installed on any heavy duty vehicles including civilian trucks. It's a no-brainer so the Pentagon will not go for it.
Sandboxx, what about anti drone microwave systems like Leonidas? That sounds like a true area denial system, rather than a “shoot to kill” point-to-point system.
Leonidas, much like the laser systems, could theoretically be counteracted by modifying the drones. Such as adding some sort of faraday cage around the drone to block microwaves. Kinetic systems don’t really have counters like this, which is why they’ll always be needed, at least alongside the other systems
@ during an interview with Andy Lowery on his “The Merge” RUclips channel, Pako asked Andy about reports that things like that and copper tape could defeat Leonidas. Andy replied that he truly hoped China would believe such reports. Maybe the issue with microwave systems is don’t stand down range from them!😬
Exactly. Not standing Down Range though, is also an issue with kinetic weapons like the Bushmaster😉 A big issue for many countries, including the US is. That during peace time. There are legal restrictions, as to how and when, to defend against drones. Because of collateral damage. While it's bad enough, that a drone fals from the sky, and possibly causes harm/damage. Having 30mm rounds doing the same, over a wide area. Makes the situation worse (What goes up, must come down). Especially, when the target drone, isn't an imminent thread, but rather might be Recon or even a Civilian, d1ck1ng around. So in peace time, Microwave, Laser or even a net-launcher, is probably the way we have to go. Until we can train Eagles to bring them down safely. Or produce drones, with the same capability.
@@soul0360 it wouldn't be to hard to make work around though. For example the 20mm ammo for the CRAM has a built in self destruct if the round travels to far or falls below a specific altitude. Not that it would be perfect and work 100% of the time but it does eliminate about 98% of the potential problem.
Drones will just get faster and fly in very random lines to counteract this. Have you seen the racing drones change direction? The video shows drones flying at the same speed in the same direction, but what will happen is the drones will be at different heights and change speed and vector constantly and the gun will be shooting in blank space. This demonstration is for people that don't know what drones can do.
These will obviously be used for close in protection. An M230 can fire a depleted uranium round at over 3000 ft/sec. All it needs to do is get close enough where it will prox fuze and shower the target with fiery bits. A quadcopter drone is not going to be fast enough to effectively dodge a bullet. Especially not the equivalent of a shotgun blast.
@@ypw510 If you have a swarm of drones, you set some to fly close to the ground, literally a few feet off it, some up high and some in the middle, then you get them to change direction and height constantly and guns will have little hope of taking out a swarm of drones. Some drones will be specifically decoys that are extra hard to take down, extra speed and extra protection but less munitions. Plus once drones are over a target, they can drop straight down to detonate, shooting them down doesn't matter then as they are on a kamikaze run. I also expect some flying drones to drop ground based drones that will then manoeuvre on the ground to the target. This demonstration was open ground and clear skies, far easier, once a drone can use trees and shrubs for cover you may have less than a second for a drone to go from cover to the target, look at the videos from Ukraine on what actually happens.
@@Martian74 The thing about a drone swarm is that with enough of them close to each other, several can be taken down by each airburst. But the thing is that you can talk all you want about tree cover or whatever. But the purpose of a system like this is to protect an asset - especially missile batteries. I can't imagine a missile battery being placed in an area where it's going to have to deal with a lot of trees that will block the ability to acquire targets.
This is an excellent video. I served as a Fire Direction Office in Vietnam in 1970. As a fresh 2nd Lt, I was sent to an Artillery Battery stationed at LZ Hardtimes. It was located in a valley with mountain ridges within 1,000 meters on one side of us. We had a large perimeter. Shortly after I arrived we got two dusters to help with perimeter defense and direct fire on the mountains. We took a lot of incoming, mostly motors and the dusters were a key part of our response. It was great watching them light up the mountainside. We also had a radar unit which fed data to both our Fire Direction Center and the Dusters. The Vietcong learned quickly to move beyond the ridge line.
I've been reading the Northrup Grumman sell sheet on this ammo. They're saying that it can be used against more than just drones, but against ground vehicles, boats, and personnel. Apparently the XM1211 can be loaded on an Apache, which was the first user of the M230 Chain Gun.
The problem with trying to replace chemical explosives with lasers is similar to trying to replace ICE cars. The stuff that runs on chemical energy just works so well.
Agree 💯! It also would be that difficult or expensive to add in protection against lasers to drones, but fragmentation she'll just trash the guidance, propulsion, and / maneuver components or just detonate the warhead.
@jace8785 In a general sense, yes. In a technical sense, they're based on electrochemical reactions. Internal combustion engines and traditional "gunpowder" based ordinance are based on rapid chemical reactions, namely explosions.
Energy is a pretty interesting and oft-forgotten topic. One thing I think we forget about gunpowder and related explosives is that they're chemical energy storage. Dense, too, so you don't need that much to get a lot of energy, which means we can use a little to get hunks of material downrange. Sure, it's volatile, dangerous, and wears out barrels eventually, but it solves certain energy-generation problems 😅
This is a good observation. There is a company working on an emergency power reactor that fits onto a semi truck bed. Projected 10 available MW for 10 days before shutdown and refurbishment are needed.
I rather like the approach that the Rheinmetall Skynex takes to this. Instead of using a proximity fuse, the rounds have a simple timed fuse which is set according to radar data when the round is fired. The system can defend against different threats, auto selecting from various types of ammo. It can also be used on the go.
a timed fuse, as you point out, will also be cheaper since it is simpler. It may also eliminate or reduce "friendly fire" /collateral damage since it would explode 'where it was aimed at' - and not just explode somewhere else after the target dodged and the projectile flew on for another 30 meters
Drones fly at World War ONE speeds and altitude. A WW 1 weapon, machine gun, or WW 2 weapon an autocannon, is the ideal method to deal with them. I personally think a 30 mm is overkill. When you couple these rapid fire weapons with the technology of micro radar and computer aiming, you have a very cost effective way to cope.
the weapon here is good for a very limited selection of drones - Shahed ( Iran drones), Switchblade and maybe cruise missiles. It has a good standoff/engagement range useful against a missile that is just flying in a straight line and a very predictable path and destination. With that said, as you pointed out, a timed fuse would work mostly as well - its just a matter of math after all..
@ws7001 The microwave systems damage the electronics inside the drone instead of just cutting off communication with them. It has the effects of a directional EMP essentially.
@@lexpox329 The real question is, can it hit a drone actively maneuvering to avoid incoming fire and can it do it against 3 or more of them before they reach the target. They were rather specific in stating the weight of the drones it can engage which makes me wonder what the average weight of the drones they use in Ukraine are. Drone with some C4 stuck to it should still be highly maneuverable.
All those drones look big, slow, and either hovering or flying straight. I wonder effective it would be against a small maneuvering FPV race quad or a swarm of them.
Australia allready has the answer with their invention of The Slinger over a year ago and has sent 160 units to Ukraine. The Ukrainians love them. The unit weight is 700lbs. It uses the Bush Master 30mm auto cannon using proximity censoring fragmentation rounds at 200 rounds a minute plus it has a 7.62 Belgium made fnmag machine gun that fires 1000 rounds a minute. The ecodined ecogaurd 4d multi surveillance radar is built in to the system and provides detection ranges of 3.5km for vehicles and over 2.2km for individuals and small drones out to 1.5km. It has thermal imagery and can identify objects at 13.7km. The system can automatically move and aim the guns itself while on the move when ready to fire all the operator needs to do is pull the trigger. It can continuously search for more targets while simultaneously engaging. The Slinger is small enough to mount on the roofs of vehicles or in the back of a pick up truck. The Ukrainians mounted 110 Slingers onto APCS and 50 onto practica 4x4 light mraps. The Australian company that invented the Slinger has a background in tracking space debris as small as 1mm with cutting edge lasers and optics.
@@Lousy-k1nIf it was in production may be great. Drones can come in low - under the radar so to speak - also remote vehicles with power hungry weapons need a power source. Also they become viable targets. you would need layers of these to be effective.
Military-grade drones can use hardened hardware, so if they're self-guided they can be tough to take down unless there's a way to generate a high-powered ionizing pulse without a nuclear device.
They still do, but there is a lot of other gain media. Which you choose depends on the application, cost,, whether you're running a continuus wave or pulsed laser and other factors. Heck, you can even ruby lenses to use with different optical applications.
Its called the Phalankx in some circles and the ammo is about $100,000 per second to fire Very effective, but not very efficient because it is really expensive
This isn't Phalanx. That's a close-in weapons system (CIWS) built around an M61 cannon firing 20mm rounds. Those actually have to hit the target dead on (why they fire so many), although I'd think a single hit to a large quadcopter drone would easily take it out. It's about $35 a round for high explosive incindiery 20mm rounds. It can fire up to 100 per second, but probably less. So it's not going to be $100,000. This system is meant to use one of two 30mm exploding rounds with an RF triggered proximity fuze. It just has to get close enough and it detonates into a ball of debris. It might even be possible to fire them one at a time or in short bursts of 3 to 10. They could be very effective since most of these drones are pretty easy to take out if they can be hit. The problem now is how do you hit them. A shotgun probably wouldn't be effective from longer distances, but this is more like launching a shotgun shell close enough where it blows up.
The reason the expensive military weapons are weak in actual combat, is that it focus too much on fancy tech that is unproven and the target is only for specific military vehicle
Drone builder and drone pilot here. I'm unconvinced that this would work on an FPV drone. It looks ideal for something fixed wing, something slow like an aerial photography drone (think DJI products), or something flying a reliably straight path. I would be SHOCKED if one of those could take out an fpv drone that was automated to fly at random routes. If you've never watched an FPV drone fly in person, it could change your idea of what drones are capable of. Seeing videos online makes them seem slower and less agile than they are in reality.
It definitely wouldn’t work. But Northrop paid him, so he made the video. This is the problem with the defense ecosystem. Nobody - and I mean nobody - thinks LASERS are the answer to swarms. HPM, jammers - maybe, but not lasers. The real “answer” is a layered defense.
Phalanx can pick up and engauge fragments of explosions and other bullets. Yeah this can do it. Turrets can move fast then it becomes if they want to sneak up The issue is gucci rounds start costing as much as a drone does
I was really expecting this to be an episode on ewar platforms and jamming. I think the effectiveness of drones is substantial but we are seeing them at their MOST effective in Ukraine because the ewar and jamming on both sides, while complex, is generally short range and piecemeal, as compared to the kind of spectrum denied environment we expected to see, and that a more capable force would certainly aim to create. Kinetic solutions are a part of the defensive onion, but I see them as very much a fallback to the initial layer of simply preventing the drones from operating in the first place.
There are ways to protect against EW. In Ukraine, Russians are extensively using fiber-optic wire-guided drones which are completely invulnerable to EW, the Ukrainians are starting to switch to them as well. In the future we will see more autonomous drones so they will also not care about EW.
@@Kriss_L EW is about jamming the communications. If you use enough power to physically damage the drone, at that point that's not EW anymore, that's a directed energy weapon, in the same class as lasers. Such weapons (also called HPM - high-power microwave weapons) do exist(Epirus Leonidas, Raytheon Phaser, etc), but they're dramatically more expensive and power-hungry than EW equipment. No country has fielded such weapons yet in significant numbers, the US is still testing them.
I designed a drone that has a 20:1 thrust to weight ratio. This allows the drone to detect and move out of the way of an incoming bullet/ missiles from at least 500' away. I also designed the bottom of the drone to deflect ammunition busts. To survive on coming attacks from the ground.
Just after Christmas, I was thinking a bit "old school." The Nazis fought swams of allied bombers with flack. The M-ACE system brings that to the 21st century!
_The Nazis fought swams of allied bombers with flack._ The Allies also fought swarms of Luftwaffe bombers with flack. In either case, it wasn't very successful given the ratio of shells fired to aircraft downed, but it was good for civilian morale to see the armed forces were doing _something._
So, we have truck-mounted, precision-guided flak guns, with networking to scale up the firepower, for whacking drones and drone swarms. We're just not bothering with the whole 88mm thing. Got it.
$1 worth of shielding, easily added by untrained labor AFTER manufacture - so ....nah High power microwaves or other wavelengths may work to disrupt control in susceptible drones by thats about it Many drones implicitly auto land (soft crash) when base connection is lost, but that behavior may be changed by a simple software rewrite
I can see this providing layered defense. In WWII, the Navy had fighters, 5” guns, 3” guns, 40mm cannons, and 20mm. This seems like a cannon range while lasers are in the big gun range.
And thus the 'America is so far behind' discussion ends. New hypersonic missles. New gen 6 bomber (soon to take on gen 6 fighter roles), top level electronic warfare packages, and now simple and effective small drone protection. Check, Check, and Checkmate.🍻
Não tem nada de eficaz nesse sistema, tendo em vista que são usados pelos ucranianos há tempos e os russos somente localizam a fonte emissora de frequências e destroem as torres
Exactly. The USMC's new MADIS and army's M-SHORAD use that same Bushmaster and ammo with new ammo that is range programable added to the proximity fusing will be out in service soon. - The issue is for the sensor to work the system has to be out in the open where they are visible to longer range surveillance. That would make them more vulnerable to short range ballistic missiles such as the Iskander.
yeah, but they are mobile and the radars could even be placed on an flying platform ( think mini AWACS drone) - the problem is, thy are still susceptible to swarms and the ammo is still expensive. I think cheaper shotgun rounds are required to be a part of this system with a defensive range of a hundred yards with the defended target having an expectation of getting shrapnel and concussive blasts and being hardened accordingly. :(
@@stephenwilkinson1254 As to ammunition, unlike CIWIS Phalanx which shoots a hundred or more 20mm dumb rounds at a target, these systems should be able to shoot only 2 or 3 rounds at a target because of the proximity fuse and eventually the even better range programmed proximity fuse. With gun system max range of 4km, I expect actual engagement range of 2 to 2.5km. That is a lot of range to shoot down several dozen slow moving drone. Cost I have seen range between $50 to $100 dollars. Lets say $125 with 4 rounds per drone, that $500 and relatively cheap.
@@edl653 NO. the proximity rounds you are firing ARE NOT GUIDED. Like the phalanx, they are fired at fast objects moving at high speed with limited maneuverability at that speed - they are less hit by the phalanx than the phalanx puts steel where they are going to be. Proximity fusing doesnt alter that calculation, just gives us more wiggle room. If you fire a 20mm or 40mm shell at an object 2 miles away, it has 3 seconds to not be where you expected it to be. Remember the drone does not have to follow a ballistic trajectory like a mortar or rocket, it can stop, drop, reverse, go +/- 30 ft in a second - while your $500 proximity shell explodes in vain Hell, we havent even explored the idea of these drones being fed telemetry about incoming rounds and being told to adjust their flight! THE ONLY SOLUTION I see is the kinetic rounds being either guided to target with lasers or deployed at close range, where there is insufficient time to duck out of the way
@@stephenwilkinson1254 The guidance is in the aiming of the gun by the targeting system. The targeting system sees the direction and speed of drone and calculates the ammo trajectory which is much more precise than a human eye leading a target. Yes, the proximity fuse gives the round a tiny bit of wiggle room. When the range programable detonation rounds make it on to the seen, the gun will be able to put out patterns of shot that create an airburst area where even if the drone deviates a bit, it will still fly into shrapnel. - Drones at 2km out from a target area are likely not maneuvering much. The 30x113 rounds have a muzzle V of 805m per second so putting a pattern of shrapnel 2-1/2 seconds ahead of a drone is very achievable. The UK's NLAWs do the same think when attacking a n armor vehicle, it calculates where it will be when the missile arrives. Yes, the vehicle can make a quick sharp turn and cause a missile to miss, but most of the time the vehicle will not and gets destroyed. The same with the drones and ammo arriving on target in 2-1/2 seconds or less.
@@edl653 "Drones at 2km out from a target area are likely not maneuvering much. " THEY WILL BE. This in flight jinking would add minimal overhead to battery or fuel since they would only have to deviate to a location +/1 100 ft from where they would otherwise be in 2 seconds ( or whatever the engagement time of the gun is) IT IS IMPORTANT TO THE NOTE THAT THE GUN(S) FIRE UNGUIDED PROJECTILES ON AN INTERCEPT TRAJECTORY THAT MAY BE INVALID IMMEDIATELY AS THEY ARE FIRED. Drone modifications to implement inflight jinking enroute to target took less than 15 minutes to implement in code. In the future, this can be augmented by telemetry transmitted by the drone operator or from a trailing 'controller/mother drone' using either laser pulses or thin fiber optic cable ( un jammable - currently seeing very limited use in the Ukraine/Russia engagement.
I wonder if the search radar or fire-control radar are jam resistant. That would be the Achilles heel of a system that depends on radar for either acquisition or fire-control. No doubt the enemy would be trying to jam.
10s of thousands, nobody is revealing this info at the moment, but shooting a $1,000 drone with a 10 or 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 thousand dollar round is utter nonsense.
Pennies per shot, with each shot taking seconds. That's cheap and all, but unless you've got hundreds of them, not ready for a swarm. Being cheap will mean the attack gets through. Or are you saying it's better to sacrifice American and allied young men because you want to save money?
@@_Coffee4Closers Are you illiterate? I said we don’t know what they cost. And I also understand the military is hiding how much they cost. It’s classified. Why? These aren’t 1970s technology. These aren’t the artillery or cannon or machine gun rounds that North Korea is supplying to Russia. These are the latest and greatest from the military industrial complex in the US. What is the unit cost of an ATACMS? Do you have any idea what the development costs are? The testing costs are? The procurement costs are? The manufacturing costs are? The storage and deployment costs are? You don’t know anything. You can’t eat at Waffle House for the price of one of these rounds. Just stop.
I agree that the kinetic solutions are probably the most viable ones. Lasers and microwave weapons can be effective for some use cases, but the biggest problem I see with those is the cost(cost per engagement is very low but the weapons themselves are expensive). Basically every military vehicle needs an anti-drone solution, lasers(powerful enough to kill drones in seconds) are too expensive for that. Even if your laser has a huge range, drones can fly very low and the line of sight requirement will limit the area defended by lasers, same for HPM weapons like the Leonidas. A short-range anti-drone turret, armed with a rifle or a shotgun, can be orders of magnitudes cheaper.
I think you're correct. There's still room in the market place for ultra-close range drone defense - ideally a rotary cannon shotgun firing 12 gauge turkey shot at 600 rounds per minute. This video is about a semi-static defense system you can deploy, it's worthless if trying to assault an area. Plus there's zero chance these 30mm cannons are reactive enough to deal with a fast moving drone at under 500 meters. I think what every tanker and armored vehicle will want is some relatively affordable LIDAR and optical scanner hooked up to an automatic shotgun, and with the flip of a switch this system shoots everything in the air that's moving within 50 meters. We already have some of these systems in place with hard kill active protection, just needs retrofits with a super fast swiveling gun mount. Something that costs under $2,000 and can be fitted on a every other vehicle in a convoy.
1:11, right here your not cost effective or mobile. Still gota work those bugs out if you want to stop a $100 fiber drone flying 8 inches of the ground.
The Bushmaster is overkill. A 50 caliber machine gun is more than capable of destroying even the largest military drones. With the savings, more systems could be deployed. One MACE radar could control multiple networked machine guns.
50 cal lacks airburst ammunition, requiring a direct hit for a kill, so it’s unsuitable for this purpose. The same is true for 20mm. 30x113 is pretty much the lightest, lowest recoiling firearm that can perform this task.
I’ve been saying the same thing for a long time. We should be integrating 30mm airburst ammo into all our ifv’s, instead of the 105 they’re putting on the new booker. It’s also a game having anti personnel capability.
20 years ago a video showing how crop circles are potentially made used a magnetron, it nearly took down the chopper filming it. I think they probably use something like that
I wonder if the addition of Drone movement software to include erratic and evasive flying patterns could be somewhat useful as a countermeasure as it might take a few seconds for the bullet to get in range, and predictive aiming is likely to have limits.
Having to deploy that *great big antenna tower is suboptimal.* For one thing, it makes the vehicles unable to move in convoys while operational. Why the ad shows them firing on the move? 🤔
well, Bofors presented programmable dispersion rounds in 2002, for 40 and 57 mm systems; Rheinmetall offers them for 30 mm since about a decade. The only new part is that now, drones and drone swarms on the battlefield are actually a thing.
For a swarm, how about a huge, re-inforced net that is held up by something (to be designed). Could save ammunition and be quite effective, if the swarm is all in one place, heading in the same direction. Just a thought....
Since drops are a financial attrition weapon (cheap drones, expensive countermeasures), would some kind of modified shotgun with buck or maybe even bird shot do the job just as well? Random thought.
That's essentially what this ammo is. The shell is fire close enough, then prox fuzed where it unleashes fragments. I don't think it's specifically buck shot, but more incendiary fragments. These are actually designed where they can fire many of these to take down larger aircraft.
The Bushmaster and it's new round are very good solutions to the "drone swarm" problem, but now I'm imagining this concept "bulked up" very slightly, and the whole system (sensors AND weapon) incorporated into something the size of the Bradley or Stryker AFV, allowing 2 vehicles to consist of 2 complete systems, rather than either of these pickup-truck mounted systems to be "useless without it's companion". Of course, being able to link up even more such systems (truck or AFV mounted) into a larger "mesh" of gun-based anti-drone-swarm systems would be great for when you have a larger area to protect and just one sensor system or weapons platform isn't enough to cover the whole thing.
I am also imagining this system's weapon component slightly miniaturized by somehow fitting the proximity fuse of the XM1211 30mm round into a round that will fit in an autocannon that uses the M61 Vulcan 20mm gatling cannon's ammunition, with "point detonating" or "proximity fuse" modes easily (and rapidly) programmable by a compact addition to the ammunition feed system for such weapons. It would default to proximity fuse mode if no programming data was received before it was fired, allowing increased probability of hit/kill on any platform mounting the M61, no matter if it's modified with the ammunition programming addition or not. The neat thing about the ammunition programming addition is that it allows a single weapon with a single ammunition feed to replicate the functionality of a weapon with dual ammunition feeds such as some variants of the Bushmaster autocannon series (specifcally the one used in the M2 Bradley AFV).
I looked up what already uses an M230. That includes an Oshkosh L-ATV with an EOS R400, which has a similar radar/optical/infrared targeting system. I think this platform is just something that might be better suited to improvised use, such as in pickup trucks beds.
Its like a mini-Skyranger product family. Same idea, same approach: high capable 3d-radar systems combined with connected 30mm high firerate guns and programmable airburst /proximity rounds.
This is really hot sh*t. A really good alternative to Rheinmetall's bulkier 'single-unit' solution. You might not know this but the approach to computer processing used to be 'build bigger more powerful computers and processors" before people realized you could link smaller computers together over a network and get the same solution more cheaply and effectively. This solution is better because you don't need a big artilliary piece. You can just stick a bunch of smaller more limited units on the back of pickup trucks and get a more flexible, scalable solution by linking them together. As long as they can communicate, you're good to go.
Welcome back WWII anti aircraft truck
Technical / flak truck / Toyota reigns
Now with automation and robotics!
Proximity fuse is here to eat delicious delicious FPV drones
Seems appropriate, for the sequel.
Off the boat and now on the ground
Modern computers and radar married to a simple flak gun.......perfect.
The "BUSHMASTER" is a VERY DEADLY Machine !! make No Mistake !!
And if it has manual Operation, it can give Direct Fire Support.😊
can someone explain to me how this isn't a ciws reskin with the radar part separate
Modern computers are not difficult to jam.
@@shawn13mertle13 what do you mean by that
the guys in the Toyota pickups had it figured out all along.
they lacked radar though
everyone already knew what could be done with a pickup before what you are talking about, we all knew and still do
And thats why they banned the Hilux from the US and genocided those that were here with cash for clunkers.
@@SoloRenegade but overseas they could still get 8 foot bed versions.
@@TheXanUser they could also get 4 door crew cab, 4wd, with 4cyl diesel engine, Toyotas Tacomas and Ford Rangers overseas. Illegal in the US for some stupid reason. Many of us wanted to bring them to the US for our personal vehicles.
I just bought a 2wd, 5spd, truck with an 8ft bed a few months ago with no rust, and no stupid electronics, so I'm happy.
I know they claim up to 60 pound drones, but to be real, that round can bring down full blown aircraft with enough damage to control surfaces. It would likely struggle against armored helicopters, but even still, shrapnel is shrapnel, and it doesn't belong in things like rotor shafts or other moving parts.
A dual feed system that allows the cannon to switch to an API round would solve that problem. Proximity/frag for small targets, API for larger targets.
And even "armored" aircraft only really have armor around the crew compartment. Yes the Hind has titanium rotors that are resistant to 50 cal, but a 30 cal flack round delivers 9x the weight, better than half of which is metal: I don't care if it is titanium, it's not going to just shrug that much mass off!
It's more the lack of range that will be the limiting factor than any armor an aerial target is equipped with.
Programmable fuses exist...the 30mm can be programmed to burst after penetration for Helicopters.
It mentioned 20 to 60 pounds, which makes me wonder how effective it is against smaller FPV and bomber drones.
Not that hard to take down a drone that is sitting still and all by itself
"flak" for a new age
Flak would work too.
Proximity flak projectiles
Send to Ukraine
low level AAA. Flak hits targets are FAR higher altitudes.
@@SoloRenegade This is incorrect. The US is the one that developed the RF fusing for AAA guns back in WWII, it's about the aerial burst that throws the shrapnel, altitude plays nothing into it, and during WWII there was level flak as well as high altitude as the burst altitude could be changed manually but slowly, which is why the RF fusing was revolutionary as it didn't need to be pre-fused and the RF signal sent from each round detonated in proximity to the target regardless of altitude. So this is not a new concept but an old one married with modern technology.
@@SoloRenegade I mean I would assume they had a min safe height that the fuse wouldn't allow it to explode before hand...but I'm pretty sure you can adjust the fuse to be timed for what ever you want.
Old school proximity fuze. Love it. Proximity fuze was crucial to victory in the Pacific in WWII.
Trained infantry with iron sights can take it down. Y'all lost against the taliban with this same trick. The drone costs less than the round
@name_dropper8112 OK buddy, keep coping
@@Dave-lh6ws he is right and you are wrong. This technology is obsolete before its even deployed. Hopefully they get a couple billion in funding before anyone finds that out
The one trick lasers hate: bad weather. Fog and rain really screw up lasers.
Or dust.
A smoke grenade is basically a short duration laser shield.
Just adding a reflective coating would buy you some time. Maybe not against a pulsed laser, but if you need several seconds to overheat a drone...
Depends on the wavelength, but yeah. Environmental concerns are very real.
"Optical" lasers. Other, non-visual frequencies are not as effected.
Doesn't rain mess up a lot of drones too?
BLUE ROOFS.
It's official. The US is going to field technicals.
@@Dcook85 I already have an 8' pickup truck bed. What is the process to have the gun installed? I didn't find an order form on their website.
The issue has always been identifying the target.
China has much of the same drone tech as the u.s.
Deep state sells to all.
Welcome back WWII proximity AA rounds
Same thought I had...
Most underrated invention of the last great unpleasantness...
Proximity fuse explosive rounds miss the whole point about needing to use cheap and easy to produce ammunition to destroy swarms of cheap drones. 🙄
Same
@@Blixey-r9zDude, we fired several hundred million proximity fixed rounds in WWII. They’re not expensive or complex.
In 1918, John Moses Browning foresaw drones would someday cause significant problems on the battlefield, and thus invented the M2 Browning machine gun to defeat them
Not true
@mkultra3679You no idea what you're talking about, I did a file dumb on ALL the files in warthunder and found the declassified M2 browning spec sheets, the same ones with an Anti drone variant c. 1928
😂
i thought the Browning was created to fight zombies?
...............school, what can you do?
I'm pretty sure John Moses Browning created the M2 browning to attach to our Non-Altitude Assault Transports in our war against the Xyydrak Empire and their laser-shielded warships.
40mm bofors with VT fuses are back in season
Pompoms
@@Stealth86651 Gross, Bofors were better.
(Although the Octuple Pom-Pom is based)
That should fit in the back of a Hilux to.
@@Stealth86651 Seems like octuple Pompoms are back on the menu, boys
Back on the menu boys!
The more things change, the more a Toyota Hilux with a big gun bolted in the bed stays the same 🤣🤣🤣
Putting a gun on a pickup truck sounds like the most American thing ever
Honestly it's more African, I feel like they're the one's who invented tacticals and this is an AA tactical.
probably the most effective platform across the globe. if you think older, an archer on horseback.
Hilux required...
@@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusket Technicals*
@@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusketexactly.. The Toyota Hilux has been used for years in war zones.
Wile E. Coyote here. I'm ordering a really big fly swatter from ACME.
Now that's funny. The good old days Saturday morning.
I needed a giant fly swatter for my older sister. Why did we have to watch the cartoons she liked? And why are mom and dad still in the bedroom?
Giant air powered salt gun would actually work....I think.
Brilliant, Wile E! Watch out for unintended effects if it cuts loose, though! ❤🤠
A Bushmaster with proximity-fused grenades. Awesome!
When do we get the civilian handheld version?
Against troops around
nice toy for the kids this Bushmaster, however the Rheinmetall Skymaster/Skyranger systems are far more capable (double the range, programmable AHEAD ammo, etc) and truly mobile if needed.
So you set up your drone gun and radar. The opposition locates your radar by its emissions, and calls an artillery strike.
The tactical Toyota yeeting 2-liter exploding soda bottles! You get a technical, you get a technical, WE ALL GET TECHNICALS!!!!🎉
This is a 30mm, not a 105. You’re yeeting those little 4oz juice cans.
@@wagnerrp 30 mm is just over an inch (appx 1 3/16") More like explosive pill bottles.
US Army and USMC honestly should just kit out Toyota Hilux. Since it's illegal to import, lot of kids would join arm forces to be basically mechanized Hilux infantry 😂. Then after they get old, auction Toyota Hilux to civilian market.
@@nagasako7 USA light divisions are getting the Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV), which is a beefed up Chevy Colorado ZR2 for rear area mobility. Sticking one of these on that chassis would be simple. Not sure if it could follow the grunts close enough, as they are not supposed to ride the ISV into battle.
Supposedly the Hawkeye 105mm howitzer that fits on a HMMWV would fit on an ISV and it would have a lot longer range. Same for the new 120mm mortar to put on a HMMWV for special forces. That could give light infantry divisions some longer range fires, than using a smaller, man-portable mortar.
You fly four kilometers fish net . All drones will be captured need drones to carry the large fish net in the sky. Army Drones vs Fisheman Drones with carrying very large fish net.Very Cheap method but effective 4:23
I think they would see it coming and evade it... But a cannon that shoots large unfolding nets!!😮😅
You're surprisingly close... what you want is a magnet net.
@@DavidDarnell-ep4be🐶
"Arf, net cannon!" 😁
Giant mosquito zapper xD
@@send_love NO MAGNET lol... do you even know how magnets work? ( look up inverse square law)
I know severalmany people who are thinking.... "I got a pickup..."
"Gotta", is slang for "Have to".
😂
"Severalmany" sounds straight from Strongbadia!
Just what I was thinking and have a few friends
I love these palletized weapon systems that fit on trucks. The Bushmaster is a great example, but there's also the V.A.M.P.I.R.E. system created by L3 Harris which shoots laser guided hydra rockets from the back of a pick up truck too.
4:05 if you're willing to pay for it, Honeywell has a 1-Megawatt Turbogenerator based on an A350 XWB auxiliary power unit, which should fit in the bed of a Humvee. Looks like it weights about 300lb.
And a bigger fuel tank...lol
Power generation isn't as much of an issue as laser performance. There's still an expendable component, fuel for the generator versus ammo for the gun. The fuel draw is essentially part of the cost of engagement, but is usually easier to manage logistically than one or more specific types of ammo for a gun, esp. with the multifuel systems becoming available.
Excellent, we have researched The Technical with the Friendly Fire Perk.
I'm all for 20-40mm technicals for SHORAD against multiple targets including drones, don't get me wrong, but I think the comparison with lasers was uncharacteristically oversimplified.
The kill chain for targeting a drone with a 30mm cannon includes target acquisition through the MACE system (identical for lasers), then slewing the gun to the target (similar for lasers), then firing at the target (similar for lasers), then waiting for the rounds to reach the target and assessing the effect on target - this is where lasers take the cake.
For a 1.2 km engagement - which is within the laser's range and well within the chain gun's range - a 30mm round with a muzzle velocity of ~800 m/s will take 1.5 seconds to reach the target. For a comparable time to identify the target and slew the turret, the laser is already done cooking off some critical systems, and we're probably going to repeat the whole process again for the 30mm burst that missed because the target is maneuvering on terminal approach to attack whatever our short-range defenses are defending. Lasers do not have this issue, they can track targets maneuvering evasively much more effectively.
Then comes cost - 30mm ammunition beats missiles on price for sure, but it still costs far more than a 1.5 second burst from a 500+ kW laser. Even a single 30mm round costs more than that laser burst, and the engagement is likely to require 12-150 rounds - best case is a cluster engagement where those ~60 rounds take down 3 targets.
3 sustained bursts from the laser on those 3 targets would have similar or better performance on time to kill as well as cost. I think the real draw back to lasers is the cost of the actual systems - they're currently quite exquisite and expensive compared to conventional small-caliber AAA, and losing one SHORAD system in a notional engagement with multiple assets makes the guns look a lot more attractive on cost - but still inferior to a similar number of (much more expensive) laser CIWS systems.
I asked GPT to run some numbers on this for a notional 200 target strike on a layered air defense where 2 mature high-KW laser systems or 2 30mm MACE systems are lost while defending the higher-tier systems, with the overall strike otherwise defeated.
The lasers cost way less per shot and are more effective overall on a per-unit basis, but the engagement is far more costly with the laser systems than with guns due to their massive price disparity, and of course fielding the laser defense is much more costly and a much more effective defense can be mounted for the same price using a larger number of conventional gun and short-range missile systems.
Lasers are still desirable as an additional layer to improve the overall intercept rate of a layered defense, as well as being the primary engagement option for economically defeating low-tier low-density threats like non-saturation drone incursions. However, any air defense has to be built with saturation strikes in mind, and lasers are far too expensive to field in the quantities and wattages required to succeed - or even meaningfully contribute - in saturation strike defense scenarios.
You also have to consider that you need to include the cost of the 500Kw laser, the generator, and the extra logistics to carry them around. You’re not fitting that on a couple trucks. They also don’t exist and nobody has been able to make them yet so that also doesn’t help as far as implementing them goes
@@Premium-Content the 30 mm wins easily on cost and reliability in adverse weather conditions. The 30 mm cannon can be installed on any heavy duty vehicles including civilian trucks. It's a no-brainer so the Pentagon will not go for it.
And lasers are cool😊
Except the laser breaks down in slightly adverse weather
Sandboxx, what about anti drone microwave systems like Leonidas? That sounds like a true area denial system, rather than a “shoot to kill” point-to-point system.
Leonidas, much like the laser systems, could theoretically be counteracted by modifying the drones. Such as adding some sort of faraday cage around the drone to block microwaves. Kinetic systems don’t really have counters like this, which is why they’ll always be needed, at least alongside the other systems
@ during an interview with Andy Lowery on his “The Merge” RUclips channel, Pako asked Andy about reports that things like that and copper tape could defeat Leonidas. Andy replied that he truly hoped China would believe such reports. Maybe the issue with microwave systems is don’t stand down range from them!😬
Exactly. Not standing Down Range though, is also an issue with kinetic weapons like the Bushmaster😉
A big issue for many countries, including the US is. That during peace time. There are legal restrictions, as to how and when, to defend against drones. Because of collateral damage.
While it's bad enough, that a drone fals from the sky, and possibly causes harm/damage.
Having 30mm rounds doing the same, over a wide area. Makes the situation worse (What goes up, must come down).
Especially, when the target drone, isn't an imminent thread, but rather might be Recon or even a Civilian, d1ck1ng around.
So in peace time, Microwave, Laser or even a net-launcher, is probably the way we have to go.
Until we can train Eagles to bring them down safely. Or produce drones, with the same capability.
@@soul0360 it wouldn't be to hard to make work around though. For example the 20mm ammo for the CRAM has a built in self destruct if the round travels to far or falls below a specific altitude. Not that it would be perfect and work 100% of the time but it does eliminate about 98% of the potential problem.
@@TR4Ajim They would not publicly reveal that the system can be defeated by this or that countermeasure anyway.
That's Awesome!! Good, Old-Fashioned American ingenuity, and preparing for the threat proactively, not reactively. Kudos to everyone involved!!!
Drones will just get faster and fly in very random lines to counteract this. Have you seen the racing drones change direction? The video shows drones flying at the same speed in the same direction, but what will happen is the drones will be at different heights and change speed and vector constantly and the gun will be shooting in blank space. This demonstration is for people that don't know what drones can do.
These will obviously be used for close in protection. An M230 can fire a depleted uranium round at over 3000 ft/sec. All it needs to do is get close enough where it will prox fuze and shower the target with fiery bits. A quadcopter drone is not going to be fast enough to effectively dodge a bullet. Especially not the equivalent of a shotgun blast.
@@ypw510 If you have a swarm of drones, you set some to fly close to the ground, literally a few feet off it, some up high and some in the middle, then you get them to change direction and height constantly and guns will have little hope of taking out a swarm of drones. Some drones will be specifically decoys that are extra hard to take down, extra speed and extra protection but less munitions. Plus once drones are over a target, they can drop straight down to detonate, shooting them down doesn't matter then as they are on a kamikaze run. I also expect some flying drones to drop ground based drones that will then manoeuvre on the ground to the target. This demonstration was open ground and clear skies, far easier, once a drone can use trees and shrubs for cover you may have less than a second for a drone to go from cover to the target, look at the videos from Ukraine on what actually happens.
I don't even know much about drones and I laugh at this video
@@Martian74
The thing about a drone swarm is that with enough of them close to each other, several can be taken down by each airburst.
But the thing is that you can talk all you want about tree cover or whatever. But the purpose of a system like this is to protect an asset - especially missile batteries. I can't imagine a missile battery being placed in an area where it's going to have to deal with a lot of trees that will block the ability to acquire targets.
@@ypw510 they wont be THAT close
40 ft apart ( x,y,z axis) is great separation and pretty much outside of the burst range of most projectiles
This is an excellent video. I served as a Fire Direction Office in Vietnam in 1970. As a fresh 2nd Lt, I was sent to an Artillery Battery stationed at LZ Hardtimes. It was located in a valley with mountain ridges within 1,000 meters on one side of us. We had a large perimeter. Shortly after I arrived we got two dusters to help with perimeter defense and direct fire on the mountains. We took a lot of incoming, mostly motors and the dusters were a key part of our response. It was great watching them light up the mountainside. We also had a radar unit which fed data to both our Fire Direction Center and the Dusters. The Vietcong learned quickly to move beyond the ridge line.
I've been reading the Northrup Grumman sell sheet on this ammo. They're saying that it can be used against more than just drones, but against ground vehicles, boats, and personnel. Apparently the XM1211 can be loaded on an Apache, which was the first user of the M230 Chain Gun.
The problem with trying to replace chemical explosives with lasers is similar to trying to replace ICE cars. The stuff that runs on chemical energy just works so well.
Agree 💯! It also would be that difficult or expensive to add in protection against lasers to drones, but fragmentation she'll just trash the guidance, propulsion, and / maneuver components or just detonate the warhead.
But arent electric cars technically also run on chemical energy? The batteries are filled with acid right?
@jace8785 In a general sense, yes. In a technical sense, they're based on electrochemical reactions. Internal combustion engines and traditional "gunpowder" based ordinance are based on rapid chemical reactions, namely explosions.
@@jace8785 new electric cars do not use lead acid batteries for propulsion. They use a variety of materials but they are not “wet”
@@michaelinsc9724
Explosions, i.e. combustion reactions. You know your chemistry 👍
"I think the Bushmaster is a pretty good solution" is a great response to a lot of military problems.
Energy is a pretty interesting and oft-forgotten topic. One thing I think we forget about gunpowder and related explosives is that they're chemical energy storage. Dense, too, so you don't need that much to get a lot of energy, which means we can use a little to get hunks of material downrange.
Sure, it's volatile, dangerous, and wears out barrels eventually, but it solves certain energy-generation problems 😅
This is a good observation.
There is a company working on an emergency power reactor that fits onto a semi truck bed. Projected 10 available MW for 10 days before shutdown and refurbishment are needed.
Truck, a cooler full of beer and two guys with their 870’s having a good afternoon.
I rather like the approach that the Rheinmetall Skynex takes to this. Instead of using a proximity fuse, the rounds have a simple timed fuse which is set according to radar data when the round is fired. The system can defend against different threats, auto selecting from various types of ammo. It can also be used on the go.
a timed fuse, as you point out, will also be cheaper since it is simpler.
It may also eliminate or reduce "friendly fire" /collateral damage since it would explode 'where it was aimed at' - and not just explode somewhere else after the target dodged and the projectile flew on for another 30 meters
Drones fly at World War ONE speeds and altitude. A WW 1 weapon, machine gun, or WW 2 weapon an autocannon, is the ideal method to deal with them. I personally think a 30 mm is overkill. When you couple these rapid fire weapons with the technology of micro radar and computer aiming, you have a very cost effective way to cope.
the weapon here is good for a very limited selection of drones - Shahed ( Iran drones), Switchblade and maybe cruise missiles.
It has a good standoff/engagement range useful against a missile that is just flying in a straight line and a very predictable path and destination.
With that said, as you pointed out, a timed fuse would work mostly as well - its just a matter of math after all..
Sounds like a pretty good solution. Kind of a CIWS for drone swarms. Thanks Alex!
These could theoretically be fired single shot for each target.
I'm impressed that you were able to deliver an interesting video on such a complex topic in under 5 min. Nice work.
The Leonidas solid-state long-pulse microwave system from Epirus seems like it's going to handle drone swarms pretty well.
Still need something for the optical cable drones
@ws7001 The microwave systems damage the electronics inside the drone instead of just cutting off communication with them. It has the effects of a directional EMP essentially.
@ So some aluminum foil and shielded cables would counter the microwaves?
@@ws7001it’s no longer a cheap, quick to manufacture drone if you can successfully do either of that
As a long range fpv drone pilot, signal interference is much scarier than machine guns.
Tch. Grownups spoil EVERYTHING.
Interference only works when the drone is remote piloted. This could kill the next gen Ai internally driven drones as well.
@@lexpox329 The real question is, can it hit a drone actively maneuvering to avoid incoming fire and can it do it against 3 or more of them before they reach the target. They were rather specific in stating the weight of the drones it can engage which makes me wonder what the average weight of the drones they use in Ukraine are. Drone with some C4 stuck to it should still be highly maneuverable.
All those drones look big, slow, and either hovering or flying straight. I wonder effective it would be against a small maneuvering FPV race quad or a swarm of them.
Only idiots would make a drone for military use that isn’t self guided
I want to see Leonidas HPM in action. If it does what it says, drones are BBQ.
Australia allready has the answer with their invention of The Slinger over a year ago and has sent 160 units to Ukraine. The Ukrainians love them. The unit weight is 700lbs.
It uses the Bush Master 30mm auto cannon using proximity censoring fragmentation rounds at 200 rounds a minute plus it has a 7.62 Belgium made fnmag machine gun that fires 1000 rounds a minute.
The ecodined ecogaurd 4d multi surveillance radar is built in to the system and provides detection ranges of 3.5km for vehicles and over 2.2km for individuals and small drones out to 1.5km.
It has thermal imagery and can identify objects at 13.7km.
The system can automatically move and aim the guns itself while on the move when ready to fire all the operator needs to do is pull the trigger. It can continuously search for more targets while simultaneously engaging. The Slinger is small enough to mount on the roofs of vehicles or in the back of a pick up truck. The Ukrainians mounted 110 Slingers onto APCS and 50 onto practica 4x4 light mraps. The Australian company that invented the Slinger has a background in tracking space debris as small as 1mm with cutting edge lasers and optics.
I was thinking a small EMP to take down swarms ! 🤔🤔
Look up Epirus.
Needa a sustanable power plant US is still configuring how to miniaturise a truck size PP
@@Lousy-k1nIf it was in production may be great. Drones can come in low - under the radar so to speak - also remote vehicles with power hungry weapons need a power source. Also they become viable targets. you would need layers of these to be effective.
Military-grade drones can use hardened hardware, so if they're self-guided they can be tough to take down unless there's a way to generate a high-powered ionizing pulse without a nuclear device.
I remember when they use rubies for lasers.
Those are just pulse lasers and I don't think they're powerful or efficient enough.
I remember when they just needed a creepy catch phrase to perform open heart surgery
They still do, but there is a lot of other gain media. Which you choose depends on the application, cost,, whether you're running a continuus wave or pulsed laser and other factors. Heck, you can even ruby lenses to use with different optical applications.
Its called the Phalankx in some circles and the ammo is about $100,000 per second to fire
Very effective, but not very efficient because it is really expensive
This isn't Phalanx. That's a close-in weapons system (CIWS) built around an M61 cannon firing 20mm rounds. Those actually have to hit the target dead on (why they fire so many), although I'd think a single hit to a large quadcopter drone would easily take it out. It's about $35 a round for high explosive incindiery 20mm rounds. It can fire up to 100 per second, but probably less. So it's not going to be $100,000.
This system is meant to use one of two 30mm exploding rounds with an RF triggered proximity fuze. It just has to get close enough and it detonates into a ball of debris. It might even be possible to fire them one at a time or in short bursts of 3 to 10. They could be very effective since most of these drones are pretty easy to take out if they can be hit. The problem now is how do you hit them. A shotgun probably wouldn't be effective from longer distances, but this is more like launching a shotgun shell close enough where it blows up.
I honestly thought we were going to talk about the Leonidas system lol
The reason the expensive military weapons are weak in actual combat, is that it focus too much on fancy tech that is unproven and the target is only for specific military vehicle
Issue:
RF sensors don't detect drones controlled via a 10 mile long fiber optic strand
That's badass. Good video, Devil! 😀🐕🐕
Drone builder and drone pilot here. I'm unconvinced that this would work on an FPV drone. It looks ideal for something fixed wing, something slow like an aerial photography drone (think DJI products), or something flying a reliably straight path.
I would be SHOCKED if one of those could take out an fpv drone that was automated to fly at random routes.
If you've never watched an FPV drone fly in person, it could change your idea of what drones are capable of. Seeing videos online makes them seem slower and less agile than they are in reality.
Agree, and a laser won't do much either as agile as they are. But there is more than just your pets out there.
It definitely wouldn’t work. But Northrop paid him, so he made the video.
This is the problem with the defense ecosystem.
Nobody - and I mean nobody - thinks LASERS are the answer to swarms. HPM, jammers - maybe, but not lasers.
The real “answer” is a layered defense.
Phalanx can pick up and engauge fragments of explosions and other bullets. Yeah this can do it. Turrets can move fast then it becomes if they want to sneak up
The issue is gucci rounds start costing as much as a drone does
Yes think drone racers wow those things can move and are agile at the same time
I'm waiting for someone to make a more cost effective anti-air auto shotgun.
Alex, great video that was shorter and packed with digestible information!
I was really expecting this to be an episode on ewar platforms and jamming. I think the effectiveness of drones is substantial but we are seeing them at their MOST effective in Ukraine because the ewar and jamming on both sides, while complex, is generally short range and piecemeal, as compared to the kind of spectrum denied environment we expected to see, and that a more capable force would certainly aim to create.
Kinetic solutions are a part of the defensive onion, but I see them as very much a fallback to the initial layer of simply preventing the drones from operating in the first place.
There are ways to protect against EW. In Ukraine, Russians are extensively using fiber-optic wire-guided drones which are completely invulnerable to EW, the Ukrainians are starting to switch to them as well. In the future we will see more autonomous drones so they will also not care about EW.
@@thoughtpolice5191 Anything that has electrical and/or electronic components can be fried if you radiate enough power.
@@thoughtpolice5191 Autonomous drones will still require sensors and/or data links. These are always going to be vulnerable to electronic warfare.
Fiber Optik drones with cables are already a thing, so jamming won't work on those...
@@Kriss_L EW is about jamming the communications. If you use enough power to physically damage the drone, at that point that's not EW anymore, that's a directed energy weapon, in the same class as lasers.
Such weapons (also called HPM - high-power microwave weapons) do exist(Epirus Leonidas, Raytheon Phaser, etc), but they're dramatically more expensive and power-hungry than EW equipment. No country has fielded such weapons yet in significant numbers, the US is still testing them.
I designed a drone that has a 20:1 thrust to weight ratio. This allows the drone to detect and move out of the way of an incoming bullet/ missiles from at least 500' away.
I also designed the bottom of the drone to deflect ammunition busts. To survive on coming attacks from the ground.
Just after Christmas, I was thinking a bit "old school." The Nazis fought swams of allied bombers with flack. The M-ACE system brings that to the 21st century!
Rommel put those flack canons to good use against infantry too...
_The Nazis fought swams of allied bombers with flack._ The Allies also fought swarms of Luftwaffe bombers with flack. In either case, it wasn't very successful given the ratio of shells fired to aircraft downed, but it was good for civilian morale to see the armed forces were doing _something._
American General: how do we stop drone swarms?
GLA Ally: slaps roof on ZSU-23-4 quadcannon
How is this not about Leonidas? 😂
Amazing video thank you for your effort. We need these asap for east coast
So, we have truck-mounted, precision-guided flak guns, with networking to scale up the firepower, for whacking drones and drone swarms. We're just not bothering with the whole 88mm thing. Got it.
As long as the truck comes with decent cup-holders, I'm all for it.... ;-)
Rapid, iterative, adaptations to new, tactical challenges; this is very reassuring to see.
Thank you for using also metric units! It reaaaly helps following the story without losing precious seconds trying to estimate the conversion.
To have impact on security, there needs to be huge amount of these.
🇦🇺 Australia already has EOS Slinger doing this, 3 years ago but easier. 👍 Wonder where 🇺🇲 got the idea 🤔
Looked through comments for this. I can't believe he didn't mention it , lazy reporting especially after we already sent them to Ukraine last year.
There are many such systems... I'm sure he was not implying that M-ACE is the only such weapon in the world.
Not Invented Here is a big issue with US military but probably not as bad as it was
Very good presentation good points made simple is often best and the proximity fusers in the actual rounds is a game changer
epirus - leonidas
you should investigate that system
high-power microwave
can take out an entire swarm
or one drone out of several
$1 worth of shielding, easily added by untrained labor AFTER manufacture - so ....nah
High power microwaves or other wavelengths may work to disrupt control in susceptible drones by thats about it
Many drones implicitly auto land (soft crash) when base connection is lost, but that behavior may be changed by a simple software rewrite
I can see this providing layered defense. In WWII, the Navy had fighters, 5” guns, 3” guns, 40mm cannons, and 20mm. This seems like a cannon range while lasers are in the big gun range.
And thus the 'America is so far behind' discussion ends. New hypersonic missles. New gen 6 bomber (soon to take on gen 6 fighter roles), top level electronic warfare packages, and now simple and effective small drone protection. Check, Check, and Checkmate.🍻
This is a step foreward, but we are not at the forefront of this tech, and that's something we must ask of ourselves.
nice cope
Não tem nada de eficaz nesse sistema, tendo em vista que são usados pelos ucranianos há tempos e os russos somente localizam a fonte emissora de frequências e destroem as torres
@@isn0t42 Thank you. Your jacket is quite stylish also.
@@UfoManiacs. English translation, if possible?
Bring back the Quad 50 😎
Exactly. The USMC's new MADIS and army's M-SHORAD use that same Bushmaster and ammo with new ammo that is range programable added to the proximity fusing will be out in service soon. - The issue is for the sensor to work the system has to be out in the open where they are visible to longer range surveillance. That would make them more vulnerable to short range ballistic missiles such as the Iskander.
yeah, but they are mobile and the radars could even be placed on an flying platform ( think mini AWACS drone) - the problem is, thy are still susceptible to swarms and the ammo is still expensive.
I think cheaper shotgun rounds are required to be a part of this system with a defensive range of a hundred yards with the defended target having an expectation of getting shrapnel and concussive blasts and being hardened accordingly. :(
@@stephenwilkinson1254 As to ammunition, unlike CIWIS Phalanx which shoots a hundred or more 20mm dumb rounds at a target, these systems should be able to shoot only 2 or 3 rounds at a target because of the proximity fuse and eventually the even better range programmed proximity fuse. With gun system max range of 4km, I expect actual engagement range of 2 to 2.5km. That is a lot of range to shoot down several dozen slow moving drone. Cost I have seen range between $50 to $100 dollars. Lets say $125 with 4 rounds per drone, that $500 and relatively cheap.
@@edl653 NO. the proximity rounds you are firing ARE NOT GUIDED.
Like the phalanx, they are fired at fast objects moving at high speed with limited maneuverability at that speed - they are less hit by the phalanx than the phalanx puts steel where they are going to be.
Proximity fusing doesnt alter that calculation, just gives us more wiggle room.
If you fire a 20mm or 40mm shell at an object 2 miles away, it has 3 seconds to not be where you expected it to be.
Remember the drone does not have to follow a ballistic trajectory like a mortar or rocket, it can stop, drop, reverse, go +/- 30 ft in a second - while your $500 proximity shell explodes in vain
Hell, we havent even explored the idea of these drones being fed telemetry about incoming rounds and being told to adjust their flight!
THE ONLY SOLUTION I see is the kinetic rounds being either guided to target with lasers or deployed at close range, where there is insufficient time to duck out of the way
@@stephenwilkinson1254 The guidance is in the aiming of the gun by the targeting system. The targeting system sees the direction and speed of drone and calculates the ammo trajectory which is much more precise than a human eye leading a target. Yes, the proximity fuse gives the round a tiny bit of wiggle room. When the range programable detonation rounds make it on to the seen, the gun will be able to put out patterns of shot that create an airburst area where even if the drone deviates a bit, it will still fly into shrapnel. - Drones at 2km out from a target area are likely not maneuvering much. The 30x113 rounds have a muzzle V of 805m per second so putting a pattern of shrapnel 2-1/2 seconds ahead of a drone is very achievable. The UK's NLAWs do the same think when attacking a n armor vehicle, it calculates where it will be when the missile arrives. Yes, the vehicle can make a quick sharp turn and cause a missile to miss, but most of the time the vehicle will not and gets destroyed. The same with the drones and ammo arriving on target in 2-1/2 seconds or less.
@@edl653 "Drones at 2km out from a target area are likely not maneuvering much. "
THEY WILL BE.
This in flight jinking would add minimal overhead to battery or fuel since they would only have to deviate to a location +/1 100 ft from where they would otherwise be in 2 seconds ( or whatever the engagement time of the gun is)
IT IS IMPORTANT TO THE NOTE THAT THE GUN(S) FIRE UNGUIDED PROJECTILES ON AN INTERCEPT TRAJECTORY THAT MAY BE INVALID IMMEDIATELY AS THEY ARE FIRED.
Drone modifications to implement inflight jinking enroute to target took less than 15 minutes to implement in code.
In the future, this can be augmented by telemetry transmitted by the drone operator or from a trailing 'controller/mother drone' using either laser pulses or thin fiber optic cable ( un jammable - currently seeing very limited use in the Ukraine/Russia engagement.
I wonder if the search radar or fire-control radar are jam resistant. That would be the Achilles heel of a system that depends on radar for either acquisition or fire-control. No doubt the enemy would be trying to jam.
Cool, but what's the cost per round? One of the advantages of laser is that it's pennies per shot.
And hundreds of millions up front per weapon system than isnt reliable during bad weather.
10s of thousands, nobody is revealing this info at the moment, but shooting a $1,000 drone with a 10 or 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 thousand dollar round is utter nonsense.
@@Kissypooh You thought 30mm rounds cost $50,000 each?
Pennies per shot, with each shot taking seconds. That's cheap and all, but unless you've got hundreds of them, not ready for a swarm. Being cheap will mean the attack gets through. Or are you saying it's better to sacrifice American and allied young men because you want to save money?
@@_Coffee4Closers Are you illiterate? I said we don’t know what they cost. And I also understand the military is hiding how much they cost. It’s classified. Why? These aren’t 1970s technology. These aren’t the artillery or cannon or machine gun rounds that North Korea is supplying to Russia. These are the latest and greatest from the military industrial complex in the US. What is the unit cost of an ATACMS? Do you have any idea what the development costs are? The testing costs are? The procurement costs are? The manufacturing costs are? The storage and deployment costs are? You don’t know anything. You can’t eat at Waffle House for the price of one of these rounds. Just stop.
Amazing that they can fit a proximity fuse, explosive, and shrapnel into a little 30mm shell.
I agree that the kinetic solutions are probably the most viable ones. Lasers and microwave weapons can be effective for some use cases, but the biggest problem I see with those is the cost(cost per engagement is very low but the weapons themselves are expensive).
Basically every military vehicle needs an anti-drone solution, lasers(powerful enough to kill drones in seconds) are too expensive for that. Even if your laser has a huge range, drones can fly very low and the line of sight requirement will limit the area defended by lasers, same for HPM weapons like the Leonidas. A short-range anti-drone turret, armed with a rifle or a shotgun, can be orders of magnitudes cheaper.
I think you're correct. There's still room in the market place for ultra-close range drone defense - ideally a rotary cannon shotgun firing 12 gauge turkey shot at 600 rounds per minute. This video is about a semi-static defense system you can deploy, it's worthless if trying to assault an area. Plus there's zero chance these 30mm cannons are reactive enough to deal with a fast moving drone at under 500 meters. I think what every tanker and armored vehicle will want is some relatively affordable LIDAR and optical scanner hooked up to an automatic shotgun, and with the flip of a switch this system shoots everything in the air that's moving within 50 meters. We already have some of these systems in place with hard kill active protection, just needs retrofits with a super fast swiveling gun mount. Something that costs under $2,000 and can be fitted on a every other vehicle in a convoy.
Gotta love a technical to help cover your anti air 6.
1:11, right here your not cost effective or mobile. Still gota work those bugs out if you want to stop a $100 fiber drone flying 8 inches of the ground.
Fpv loses video whenever flying near ground at range
@@Vinlaell *Fiber*
@@jov7733 what the hell does fiber have to do anything drones don't eat
This guy is cool. And speaks VERY INTELLIGENTLY. Keep it coming, brother.
And like the Zumwalt the cost of each round will be one million dollars. 😂😂😂
Airburst ammo has been used for decades in things like the mantis ciws and is quite cheap.
@mkultra3679 ciwis doesn't use air burst ammunition.
The Bushmaster is overkill. A 50 caliber machine gun is more than capable of destroying even the largest military drones. With the savings, more systems could be deployed. One MACE radar could control multiple networked machine guns.
50 cal lacks airburst ammunition, requiring a direct hit for a kill, so it’s unsuitable for this purpose. The same is true for 20mm. 30x113 is pretty much the lightest, lowest recoiling firearm that can perform this task.
As long as the ammo remains less costly than the drones this approach will remain viable.
Next up: flying drone-tanks with explosive-reactive armor 😁
I’ve been saying the same thing for a long time. We should be integrating 30mm airburst ammo into all our ifv’s, instead of the 105 they’re putting on the new booker. It’s also a game having anti personnel capability.
20 years ago a video showing how crop circles are potentially made used a magnetron, it nearly took down the chopper filming it. I think they probably use something like that
because you can't use a buchmaster in a residential area
Its not the rate of fire, but the rotational speed of the turret that will be limiting. As the drone swarms come from every angle.
I wonder if the addition of Drone movement software to include erratic and evasive flying patterns could be somewhat useful as a countermeasure as it might take a few seconds for the bullet to get in range, and predictive aiming is likely to have limits.
Northrop Grumman also showcased late last year a DUAL FEED version of the M230LF.
There are also high energy, phased array radar systems that are able to fry huge swarms of drones all at once
This is AMAZING!!! Way to stay on top of this threat America!!!
The main issue I see with lasers, is that a reflective paint coating on the target will greatly diminish its effectiveness, if not neutralize it.
US out here making technicals.
Having to deploy that *great big antenna tower is suboptimal.* For one thing, it makes the vehicles unable to move in convoys while operational. Why the ad shows them firing on the move? 🤔
well, Bofors presented programmable dispersion rounds in 2002, for 40 and 57 mm systems; Rheinmetall offers them for 30 mm since about a decade. The only new part is that now, drones and drone swarms on the battlefield are actually a thing.
All I saw was a single drone being shot down. Where is the swarm demonstration?
There is none, that's why.
For a swarm, how about a huge, re-inforced net that is held up by something (to be designed). Could save ammunition and be quite effective, if the swarm is all in one place, heading in the same direction. Just a thought....
Nice. I totally agree that this is a good solution.
Since drops are a financial attrition weapon (cheap drones, expensive countermeasures), would some kind of modified shotgun with buck or maybe even bird shot do the job just as well? Random thought.
That's essentially what this ammo is. The shell is fire close enough, then prox fuzed where it unleashes fragments. I don't think it's specifically buck shot, but more incendiary fragments. These are actually designed where they can fire many of these to take down larger aircraft.
The Bushmaster and it's new round are very good solutions to the "drone swarm" problem, but now I'm imagining this concept "bulked up" very slightly, and the whole system (sensors AND weapon) incorporated into something the size of the Bradley or Stryker AFV, allowing 2 vehicles to consist of 2 complete systems, rather than either of these pickup-truck mounted systems to be "useless without it's companion".
Of course, being able to link up even more such systems (truck or AFV mounted) into a larger "mesh" of gun-based anti-drone-swarm systems would be great for when you have a larger area to protect and just one sensor system or weapons platform isn't enough to cover the whole thing.
I am also imagining this system's weapon component slightly miniaturized by somehow fitting the proximity fuse of the XM1211 30mm round into a round that will fit in an autocannon that uses the M61 Vulcan 20mm gatling cannon's ammunition, with "point detonating" or "proximity fuse" modes easily (and rapidly) programmable by a compact addition to the ammunition feed system for such weapons. It would default to proximity fuse mode if no programming data was received before it was fired, allowing increased probability of hit/kill on any platform mounting the M61, no matter if it's modified with the ammunition programming addition or not.
The neat thing about the ammunition programming addition is that it allows a single weapon with a single ammunition feed to replicate the functionality of a weapon with dual ammunition feeds such as some variants of the Bushmaster autocannon series (specifcally the one used in the M2 Bradley AFV).
I looked up what already uses an M230. That includes an Oshkosh L-ATV with an EOS R400, which has a similar radar/optical/infrared targeting system. I think this platform is just something that might be better suited to improvised use, such as in pickup trucks beds.
This is WW2 technology in a rapid fire modern cannon. But if it works in real battlefield conditions, it seems to be the cheapest option.
It took a ton of rounds to stop 1 plaine pre proximity rounds. After them it was not 1 to 1 kill ratio.
MACE is fine until the enemy develops a hypersonic drone.
Generators have a heat signature, which can be detected and TARGETED by drones
Its like a mini-Skyranger product family. Same idea, same approach: high capable 3d-radar systems combined with connected 30mm high firerate guns and programmable airburst /proximity rounds.
This is really hot sh*t. A really good alternative to Rheinmetall's bulkier 'single-unit' solution. You might not know this but the approach to computer processing used to be 'build bigger more powerful computers and processors" before people realized you could link smaller computers together over a network and get the same solution more cheaply and effectively. This solution is better because you don't need a big artilliary piece. You can just stick a bunch of smaller more limited units on the back of pickup trucks and get a more flexible, scalable solution by linking them together. As long as they can communicate, you're good to go.
How intense, and which wavelength? Zapped!!!
Hope we have some at the Inauguration
3:12 Aww...come onnnn, I'm just flying my model over here.
Excellent video, I will subscribe.