Russian defence against drone swarms

Some promising Russian means of fighting unmanned aerial vehicles

As the Vector Scientific Research Institute JSC (part of the Vega Concern of the Ruselectronika Holding) reports in its press release, the enterprise took part in the VII All-Russian Scientific and Practical Conference Russian Technologies of Anti-Terrorism Protection, Security and Defense, which is held in Kaluga potentially dangerous objects. "

At the venue of the event, the Scientific Research Institute “Vector” presents the key developments of the enterprise in the field of monitoring the environment of critical objects in order to identify unauthorized UAVs and counteract them - passive coherent location complex (PCL), Cheremukha control channel detection module and small UAV radio-electronic suppression module “ Sickle".


Passive coherent location complex (PCL) (c) JSC Research Institute "Vector"

PKL provides the location and tracking of UAVs in a guarded zone, and also controls the drone's movement path when it is suppressed. At the same time, the product uses third-party sources of radio signals to illuminate the targets and is a passive system that does not emit unmasking signals.

The “Bird cherry” module provides the ability to detect, direction finding and positioning both the drone itself and its control panel, while having the ability to simultaneously operate on several UAVs.


Module "Bird cherry" (c) JSC Research Institute "Vector"

   The “Sickle” electronic suppression module provides suppression of small UAVs in the angle sector ± 45º and at a distance of up to 20 km, providing continuous frequency overlap in the range from 400 to 6200 MG currently used for UAV control, as well as all frequencies of global navigation satellite systems. The module creates interference, aimed in frequency and direction, upon command from detection and radio monitoring equipment. The counteraction system can include an arbitrary number of suppression modules, thereby solving the tasks of protecting against UAV flying from several directions at the same time, and protecting extended and area objects.


Radio-electronic suppression module "Sickle" (c) JSC Research Institute "Vector"

   “All the described modules can be combined into a single complex that solves the problem of protection against UAVs. A specific solution - the choice of modification, the determination of the required number of modules, their distribution over the territory of the protected facility, the allocation of each module of its area of ​​responsibility - is carried out at the stage of project development according to customer requirements, taking into account the configuration of the facility and the threat model. At the same time, the undoubted advantages of our system are the ability to ensure stealth of use, detection of stealth objects, the absence of interference with other radio engineering devices, and the need to obtain permission to use radio frequency channels, ”said Sergey Skorykh, Director General of Research Institute Vektor.

https://bmpd.livejournal.com/3820848.html

An aircraft carrier group consisting of several destroyers has a very powerful anti-aircraft defense. No one can compare with them. It is not known how much Cirkon is needed to neutralize any destroyer or aircraft carrier. Several rockets against several hundred anti-aircraft missiles?

Zircon moves at 3km/s and will be manouvering... many western radars don't have a refresh rate to even track that sort of target and will often mistake it for a string of different targets that are appearing and disappearing ...

A group of aircraft carriers can go with several Virginia submarine that will detect and attack this frigate or other corvette before they realize that someone is following them.

Even with four Virginias per carrier group, they can only be in one place at a time each... and if those Virginia open fire the Corvette can fire back with 91ER1 anti sub torpedos. Assuming each Virginia class SSN is in the north, south, east and west locations 1,000km away from the carrier, if the corvette approaches from the northeast or northwest or southwest or southeast those subs would be no where near the corvettes and would be in even less position to stop Zircon missiles than the F-18s would.

The US will have 50 Virginia-type ships, plus other units. It will be the largest nuclear submarine fleet in the world, which will also protect aircraft carrier teams. Destroying an aircraft carrier group is extremely difficult. Even for Russia and China.

They will need a minimum of 52 just to provide 4 subs per their 13 carrier groups and more for their marine carrier groups... that is tying up a lot of SSNs just to keep your ships safe.

Also keep in mind that the Russians in this scenario are only committing ONE CORVETTE... in the real world they would use a complete force including SSNs and SSGNs and aircraft too.

An Aircraft carrier greatly extends the detection and active defence range of any surface fleet and will be more essential in the future, not less... but they wont be 100K ton imperial destroyers like they are today, and their strike package will likely degrade and disappear, because missiles like Zircon and the weapons that come after it will be much much cheaper and more expendable than F-35s.

OTH radars are deep in Russia and do not cover much of the oceans and seas in the north.

OTH radars in Russia pretty much cover every approach including european airspace, arctic airspace, the middle east, asia and the pacific.

USA that still dominates the seas and oceans.

The US is still a big bully that buys and owns a lot of guns and is not afraid to use them... in fact prefers to use them instead of talking about things.

It has never dominated everywhere... that is just silly... look at how impotent they were when Russian troops pushed Georgian invaders out of South Ossetia.

Several Russian frigates and corvette with Cirkon and and several Mig-31K will not change their balance of power.

They already have.

BTW made worse by a 13 billion dollar barge called Ford... might be renamed the Flop perhaps...

These Americans are idiots building aircraft carriers for USD 15 billion and a small Russian corvette is able to sink them. It's not that easy.

Yeah, their problem is that they don't have a realistic view of war... after all these years of being the dominant military they began to believe their own bullshit... they are invincible and all their shit is perfect... Patriots knock down Scuds every day of the week, their tanks are super tanks that have never been defeated while the competitions tanks just blow up like bombs, and of course stealth means they wont even see us and our carriers are everywhere and yet nowhere... they can reach out and destroy anything but nothing can touch them because they can't find them or can't reach them.

The problem is that this was never actually true... there is no evidence of even a single Scud being shot down by a Patriot missile, and they fired on average about 32 Patriots to try to intercept those modified Scuds. Could argue they were never designed to attack high speed ballistic targets... which is perfectly fair... but doesn't excuse claims about it dealing with the Scud problem. Abrams tanks blow up just like any other tanks, and when their ammo gets hit they get destroyed even with their fancy armoured doors and blow out panels and other shit that is supposed to make them perfect and invincible. Stealth is costing more than it is worth. And carriers can be tracked on the internet... I am sure the Russians have all the resources they need to do even better than that.

They will make their own carriers, but they wont be spending anything like what the US is spending on theirs, and their purpose will be to protect the Russian navy from air attack while away from Russian land airpowers reach.

And yes, manouvering hypersonic missiles will be a problem for all Russian ships too, but they will be getting rather more time to develop weapons and tactics to reduce the problem.

They will also not be ass holes and pick fights with countries they have no business with like the US does.

And yes of course the Americans are idiots... the current batch are certifiably stupid... they have squandered the so called peace dividend and they made China and Russia the bad guys. They could have been friendly about it... Russia and China would have grown but they could have grown with them too... by using their economic power to damage and stifle the growth of rival countries economies they seriously have weakened their own status and condition... Russia has been calling for countries to not trade in US dollars because it costs more and hugely benefits the US and gives them more power than they deserve.

With the US using its wealth and power as weapons has led to all sorts of countries actively looking for alternatives because they will certainly need them if they manage to get on Americas shit list... the US has been so unpredictable even Micron mentioned the US as a reason that the EU needs an independent army... imagine that 30 years ago?

And it wouldn't be so bad for the US if they had the highest living standard in the world with shining clean new cities and high speed roads and high speed rail links and efficient air networks... but it seems they don't. The focus was on making the rich much richer and fuck everyone else... and that is what they have achieved.

GarryB wrote:Zircon moves at 3km/s and will be manouvering

At such high speed (3km/s) manoeuvring is not possible.

GarryB wrote:they fired on average about 32 Patriots to try to intercept those modified Scuds. Could argue they were never designed to attack high speed ballistic targets... which is perfectly fair... but doesn't excuse claims about it dealing with the Scud problem.

Patriot was not a major success during the first Gulf War, but we never fired 32 Patriot missiles to intercept one Scud. Where do you get such ridiculous figures from ?

Standard firing doctrine was on average four Patriots should be launched at each incoming Scud. Some Patriots were fired to engage the Scud and the rest would engage the debris. The max number of Scuds launched by Iraq on a single day was 4. Patriot batteries in the area launched 26 missiles (8 at the first Scud and 6 at each that followed) recording kills against all targets.

[/quote]At such high speed (3km/s) manoeuvring is not possible.[/quote]

Is the earth flat as well? Kinzhal is already able to do this for every stage of its flight.

At such high speed (3km/s) manoeuvring is not possible.

So there is no such thing as a MIRV because they travel at more than twice that speed but you are saying reentry vehicles from ICBMs and SLBMs can't manouver because they are moving too fast to be able to?

Interesting because that would mean S-500 can't be very scary because its missiles will likely be moving at that sort of speed too but you say they can't manouver, which means they wont be able to intercept anything at all... RIGHT.

Patriot was not a major success during the first Gulf War, but we never fired 32 Patriot missiles to intercept one Scud. Where do you get such ridiculous figures from ?

I remember the American News reports saying the Patriots were defeating modified Scuds left right and centre... and I didn't say they fired 32 Patriot missiles to intercept each scud because there is no evidence even a single scud was successfully intercepted. I said an average of 32 Patriots were fired at each Scud they tried to engage... which is not really that shocking... how many SA-2s were the US reporting the North Vietnamese were firing at US aircraft during that conflict?

Standard firing doctrine was on average four Patriots should be launched at each incoming Scud. Some Patriots were fired to engage the Scud and the rest would engage the debris. The max number of Scuds launched by Iraq on a single day was 4. Patriot batteries in the area launched 26 missiles (8 at the first Scud and 6 at each that followed) recording kills against all targets.

The modified Scuds we are talking about were modified to increase their range, which increased their speed, so they were falling on their targets at much higher speeds than the design was built for and they naturally started to break up on approach to the target. Standard firing doctrine doesn't come in to it when you are using a weapon against a target it was never designed to engage... they might fire 4 missiles at a bomber, but against an incoming ballistic missile they keep firing missiles while they can to try to maximise their chances of a kill.

Reviews of the evidence show when the Scuds broke up most of the Patriots went for the largest pieces... the fuel tanks and the engines... but even if they went for the warheads the fusing of the patriots and their design to hit manned aircraft meant even if they went for a warhead they wouldn't hit it with any fragments because the warhead was moving too fast and the fragments wouldn't "catch up".

That is why they paid the Russians to buy an S-300V battery, though they didn't get all the bits and pieces of course, but the learned enough to create the PAC-3, which is just a Patriot dedicated to shooting down ballistic targets like the Scud or slightly faster targets like that.

The Russians used the money to upgrade it to S-300VM or Antei-2500, and then later versions like the S-300V4 they use now.

The PAC-3 is a dedicated ATBM system with little anti aircraft or anti cruise missile capability.

As Turkeys interest and purchase choices proves the S-400 is better.

And why not, the Soviets had a lot of battlefield ballistic weapons, so of course they would develop ways of defending from those threats too... just like their navy also had supersonic anti ship missiles and their anti missile defence reflects that with lots of CIWS systems on each vessel.

AEGIS radars also misidentified an ascending Airbus, as being a descending F-14... and managed to have a missile failure that delayed launch of its main SAM system STANDARD for 90 seconds... a minute and a half they were vulnerable... and when they did fire their missile and shoot down that unarmed civilian airliner, they did so from Iranian waters...

GarryB wrote:The other issue is control... imagine the US makes a swarm based on red ants which are ruthless and are expanding north into the US because they are destroying existing ant colonies and everything else in their way...

This is one such drone that can act in a swarm. It is designed by an Australian company called DefendTex.

A 40mm drone that can fire from a grenade launcher. Payloads include camera, anti-armor, fuel-air, HE/frag, diversionary, smoke, counter-UAS, etc. With these mixed of payload types, Drone-40 can be used individually, paired, or as a swarm, to a variety of effects.


https://www.overtdefense.com/2019/06/07/defendtex-drone-40-the-australian-uav-that-can-be-fired-from-a-40mm-grenade-launcher/

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EISgQRUXkAETnyu.jpg

A 40mm drone that can fire from a grenade launcher. Payloads include camera, anti-armor, fuel-air, HE/frag, diversionary, smoke, counter-UAS, etc. With these mixed of payload types, Drone-40 can be used individually, paired, or as a swarm, to a variety of effects.

Yeah, but the guy launching that 40mm grenade becomes very vulnerable to getting shot himself... and the threat from a 40mm grenade can be dealt with using the correct level of protection.

The stuff the Aussies are doing with 40mm grenades the Russians are likely doing too... and 57mm shells and 82mm rounds and 120mm rounds and 125mm rounds and 152mm rounds etc etc etc.

And airbursting 152mm shell with GLONASS guidance that can hit the ground within 10m of a target could also be programmed to fly through a swarm of threats and detonate in mid air sending out probably 30kgs of small fragments accelerated by a 10kg HE charge to obliterate a large number of soft targets within 20-30m of the airburst round... and it can fire those rather rapidly at targets within a 140km diameter circle. Talk of upgraded 160km rounds makes that a 320km circle...

The thing is that new technology can be applied in defence as well as attack... a Russian swarm of anti drone drones could be used to take out a US attack drone swarm... and you can bet the trillion dollar US drone swarm will not last long against the 50 cent Russian drones...

GarryB wrote:EMP turns them off... and a bee is a miracle of compact design... the size weapon payload a bee could carry for any distance would be tiny... you would need a large number of them to be effective in damaging a target... odds are that they will be rather bigger... more bird like... and with a small payload that will require the highest of accuracy to be effective with a payload likely less powerful than a hand grenade.

Firing an EMP device into a swarm of drones is a great idea. However, if you do that in a city, there is a chance that the EMP blast will not only knock off the drones buts also other utilities like ATMs, hospital utilities etc, because those electronic machines (like ATMs) are not hardened to withstand an EMP blast.

EMP is governed by range limits with intense power near the payload, but trailing off with distance. One round wont black out an entire city, but even if it did we are talking about dangerous armed drones here... they need to be dealt with.

Any terrorist attack with that level of sophistication can be traced to the countries that support it and you can seize assets or send them a tactical nuke surprise in return for any damage done.

During WWIII who cares if you can't get out some cash at the ATM... that is the least of your problems.

I am sure if it goes off near an old folks home a lot of pacemakers are going to stop suddenly... hell the American VA might ask for these rounds to be tested near their homes so they can kill off some of their older patients and save some money.

Russia is rather good prepared for these magical drone swarms. Lot of EW systems, including dedicated ones for drone defence. Tor, Tunguska, Pantsir, Sosna, 2S38...

Compared to that the west looks weal and vulnerable. And Russia and China are capable of sending drone swarms into battle. All the tech is already tested.

The hilarious aspect of both stealth-fetishism and drone-swarm-fetishism, is that they're both very vulnerable to ELINT/SIGINT. Every time a low-observable stealth platform gives off  any electromagnetic emission they're vulnerable to dedicated ELINT/SIGINT triangulation, the same applies to drone use/abuse. Detect the drone controller and destroy it, and they effectively killed the drone or drone swarms. VKS in Syria just recently did this (and have been doing this the entirety of the campaign), and every time the jihadists do this, they get detected and have themselves and their base of operation blown to smithereens. 

These cheap easily dispensable drones are not sophisticated to have inertial guidance, if they did they would grow one order of magnitude in formidably, but they would also grow an order of magnitude in cost (defeating their purpose).

There is a video of a russian guy who said the EMP warehead for iskander had an effect radius of 400m.

A smaller one for gun will be less effective.

It is a bit like a nuclear bomb in the sense that increasing the power by double does not increase the effective radius by double.

That is where artillery is useful because 4-5 small airburst rounds will be rather more effective than a single much larger round... if you have an enemy infantry charge with thousands of soldiers attacking across a small front, you don't get your biggest heaviest slowest firing artillery piece to drop a shell in the middle... you open up with small calibre exploding rounds... a cluster bomb with hundreds of 1kg munitions spread over the front will do more damage than a single 500kg bomb.

5-10 152mm EMP shells going off in a grid pattern in the midst of a drone swarm will do rather more damage in terms of volume, than an Iskander round of 500-600kg with an EMP load.

It is not about power but about distribution.

GarryB wrote:The thing is that new technology can be applied in defence as well as attack... a Russian swarm of anti drone drones could be used to take out a US attack drone swarm... and you can bet the trillion dollar US drone swarm will not last long against the 50 cent Russian drones...

What you are saying is true. But do note that a swarm drone attack can also be carried out by Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) also and not just UAVs.

IMO, defending against a swarm drone attack involving UGVs is going to be extremely difficult.

Of course it is, I am not suggesting Russia is 100% safe... no one is... and lets face it... Russia is probably the safest place on earth in terms of air defence.

The point I am making is that while the west has no choice but to move forward with ever more potent forms of attack to try to find a chink in Russian air defence protection, Russia already has a range of weapons to defeat western defences and is in the process of introducing even more capable penetrators while at the same time mastering technologies that should increase flight speed and innovate in various technologies including materials and engines etc etc.

For the west these swarms they call smart, but we have no reason to believe they could not be defeated or even taken over and used against their owners.

Most important to be useful they need to be capable but also affordable... a swarm really only works with numbers... one bird is not a problem at an airport... it is the flock of thousands of birds that is the problem and I really can't see an American or European company coming up with anything cheap enough to be used in numbers enough to make them effective... and their biggest problem is that that is the sort of thing Russia and China would be good at... so it might end up like chem and bio weapons or nukes... we made some but they made some too so we can't use ours because they will use theirs in retaliation... especially when we can afford lots because we spend too much on military systems, while they can afford lots because theirs are affordable... the west ends up bankrupting itself again... which is probably a good thing.

Kupol-PRO C-UAS system

Russia’s arms exporting company Rosoboronexport (a subsidiary of Rostec state corporation) unveiled its new concept of a four-tier C-UAV defence system, which comprises a wide range of solutions ranging from tactical electronic warfare (EW) devices to man-portable anti-drone guns.

The first level of the above-mentioned anti-drone system includes the Repellent C-UAV device, which has been developed and produced by JSC Defense Systems (Oboronitelniye Sistemy). The Repellent can detect and spoof UAVs at a distance of no less than 30 km. The system features high level of ruggedness: Rosoboronexport claims that it functions under the harshest climatic conditions, including dust, rain, and strong wind. The Repellent detects both the drone and its ground control station, jamming every control and navigation datalink.

The devices which have been integrated into the second tier of the system protect critical military and civil infrastructure. This layer comprises the Sapsan-Bekas mobile C-UAV system and Kupol-PRO and Rubezh-Avtomatika devices. The Sapsan-Bekas is fitted with both active and passive UAV detection units, allowing the system to detect even drones with low radio emission. The complex can conduct all-round or sector scanning.

https://www.edrmagazine.eu/russia-enters-c-uav-domain

Kupol-PRO

Pischal-PRO

http://mil.today/2019/Science13/

Updated Harpoon Dronegun Debuted at ISSE-2019

The Harpoon-2M portable system designed by New Telecommunication Technologies (NTT) to fight commercial UAVs was presented at the Integrated Safety & Security Exhibition 2019 (ISSE-2019). Available in mobile and stationery versions, the system is capable to block the drones’ command and navigation control channels.

The system interrupts the operator-UAV link on 8 frequency bands. It also bars the drones from positioning capability, suppressing four navigation systems: GPS, Galileo, Beidou and GLONASS.

The system can be operated both off-shoulder and from fixed positions. In the latter case, Harpoon-2M is mounted on the remotely controlled two-axial rotator.

With fully charged battery, the system can operate for 60 minutes in the suppression mode. Power consumption: not more than 220 W.

The NTT expert Roman Slesarenko explained what problems the droneguns designers were facing.

"When protecting an object, we identify aerial vehicles by their signatures. To obtain a signature, you need to get an insight into a drone. Thus, we have to contact manufacturers of the newly commercialized UAVs. They get in touch reluctantly, thinking our projects are spearheaded against them", shares Roman Slesarenko. "However, it is my belief that co-working with us would improve their image. The less incidents happen to certain brands of drones, the better for them. Our system does prevent such incidents".

Earlier on, manufacturers of droneguns outlined another problem to Mil.Press Today. Export of the products was suspended as there’s still no common view whether they are military-purpose goods. Insiders in one of the dronegun production companies confirm the issue is still urgent: the domestically made systems cannot be supplied even to security experts of Russia’s Lukoil that protect oil facilities in Iraq.

Only good for commercial drones, but still

Neuronet: Drones Won’t Pass

At the international exhibition of state security facilities Interpolitex-2019 in Moscow, Kaspersky Lab presented a prototype of modular system countering commercial drones. The system’s delivery to the first client is expected in 2020, the project designer Vladimir Kleshnin told Mil.Press Today.

The system includes the primary detection module equipped with laser scanner and various cams, and the rotary support with equipment to track the drone and suppress the operator’s control link.

"The highest spot is its software", said Vladimir Kleshnin. "We taught the first version of our neuronet basing on the drone types currently most widespread on the commercial market, but now it can differ a drone from, say, a bird, even if it sees such drone for the first time. We’ve tested it on the range: we took off a customed drone, and the system easily identified it as a threat".

According to the expert of Kaspersky Lab, the project is designed to counter civil drones that are on sale everywhere. "Military drones is not our specialty though", added Vladimir Kleshnin.

He stressed that Kaspersky Lab in that project is responsible only for software, while hardware is supplied by partners/integrators. Moreover, he added, the software can be adapted for visual/sound/laser detection systems, that a potential customer already uses in its security system.

"In the future, we plan to implement the ‘friend-or-foe’ system to close airspace from unauthorized entry and allow own drones, for example, monitor or record", summed up Vladimir Kleshnin.

http://mil.today/2019/Science37/

Most terrorists use civilian drones.

That is not strictly true, because the most powerful and capable terrorists make their own from scratch... is US, Israel, UK, French, German, NATO etc etc...