C-UAS on the battlefield at very low altitude

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/2017/08/very-low-level-air-defence-against.html

/2018/05/summary-modern-air-defences-for-europe.html

One might increase the rate of fire of a MG3 back to about 1,500 rpm and use a duplex cartridge (two bullets in one cartridge) for 3,000 bullets per minute rate of fire, 50 per second.*

 

All kinds of drones and most missiles would be hit very quickly and be stopped by such a volume of fire even from a single RCWS. The detection of drones might depend on a quickly rotating (~100 revolutions per minute) AESA radar with such lower power and (by radio band) such a high atmospheric attenuation that it senses drones out to no more than 400 m and cannot be triangulated from more than two kilometres away.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

 

* 20 mm autocannons with simple HE-PD rounds would be an option for tanks, I dislike the specialised and expensive 30 mm autocannon with HE-PROX rounds solution. One might also stick with the duplex round MG3 approach as long as the tank has a coax gun of more powerful calibre, ideally a .338 chaingun.

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A mystery about FPVs and tanks

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The FPV (kamikaze drone) threat is by now well-known to those who paid much attention to what's going on in the Russo-Ukrianian War. Yet, there's a mystery that this war cannot tell us anything about:

What if there was a proper breakthrough and a proper exploitation of the same. Mounted forces roam deep and quickly, expoiting that they are not opposed properly. Would the FPV threat be iminished in such a situation, meaning that such exploitation forces need no great C-UAS defences? Or would the movement (dominantly along roads) create turkey shoot conditions for whatever FPV teams are in the area? Just let one drone rise to spot movements, then the turkey shoot begins?

Properly-planned standoff ECM support would rather not be available, after all.

 

And suppose it's neither extreme, but the FPVs still cause much damage; is the exploitation drive still 'worth it'?  Imagine a FPV unit doing one high value target kill per day during static trench warfare conditions, but ten per day during a four-day mobile phase being on the defender side. The FPV unit's lethality would be way up during the enemy's offenisve, but the harm it does might seem like acceptable losses if the breakthrough exploitation bags many prisoners of war, captures much material and conquers a city or two.

The pychological element may be decisive. A FPV unit may run in panic just as any other unit. Or maybe it doesn't - who knows? I suppose nobody, so we won't know until ther eis acutally mobile warfare again. More mobile than the Kharkiv offensive (which wa skinda slow) and more mobile than the Kursk offensive '24 (same). 

 

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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