Summary
Germany’s government approved a proposal allowing the military to shoot down drones over critical infrastructure as a last resort.
The move responds to rising sightings of suspicious drones, particularly since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with concerns over espionage and sabotage.
Recent incidents include up to 10 drones spotted over Bavaria’s Manching air base, raising security fears.
Previously, the military could only force drones to land, redirect, or issue warnings.
They could send a stronger signal and just take control, land and confiscate, control signals isn’t encrypted for most consumer drones (nor is the video feed encrypted either).
Should they do that more often but are frequently undereqiped? Certainly.
Do they need other options if that doesn’t work? Also yes.For an extreme case, there are already drones controlled by fiber optic cable on both sides of the Ukraine war.
I’m very much interested in what they intend to use to shoot the drones. Missiles? Way to expensive. Buck shot? Inaccurate at range. Regular bullets? Flies way too far in case of a miss. EW? Not sure the Bundeswehr got any and if not it’ll take fives years of debate if this is technology we actually need and another ten to procure the necessary equipment.
If there aren’t many, they could use attack helicopters with their swivel guns. Fly above, check if nothing important is below / behind the drone, then shoot.
Bold of you to assume that our Bundeswehr or Luftwaffe have any helicopters in a ready state.
The army division doing air defence was completely dismantled in 2012, with the missile-based systems (Ozelot) going to the air force, those shoot stingers. The Gepards are now Ukraine and are eating drones for breakfast on the cheap, but, well, they’re not in Germany. Rebuilding of that capability won’t happen before 2028. But yes the answer is air-burst munitions, I don’t think lasers are quite there yet. EW makes sense for commercial drones but military ones probably won’t be impressed.
This is where I think there will be a need for laser based weaponry. Tracking a moving target isn’t hard. Predicting it’s position when the bullet / missile arrives is the hard bit. So lasers don’t really miss. Cost per shot is low so intercepting cheap drones is not an issue.
Biggest problem is mobility, but I think I’ve read articles about a version dragged around behind a Land Rover.
Skynex
I’m very much interested in what they intend to use to shoot the drones. Missiles? Way to expensive.
Well, if we’re talking about a policing role, it may be fine.
In war, if Country A and Country B are arm-wrestling, and Country A can launch a drone that costs a tenth of what Country B’s missiles do, you can probably guess that Country A is going to keep sending drones, because that’s a pretty favorable exchange. Gotta worry about what happens if it scales up.
But if we’re talking a policing role and don’t expect hundreds or thousands of drones to be sent out – like, the aim is countering espionage or sabotage – that might be okay.
Now, granted, one possibility is that someone might try to figure out a way to send large numbers of drones to do the above, but then that starts to stand out. I think that the current situation is probably more of one where the concern is that malicious drone operators are trying to hide in the noise created by benign drone operators. We don’t easily know whether a given drone is just some random person flying a drone where it shouldn’t be, or whether it’s someone trying to gather intelligence. But if spies start launching a hundred drones at a go, it’s going to be pretty obvious that it’s not just some random person making a mistake.
EDIT:
Not sure the Bundeswehr got any and if not it’ll take fives years of debate if this is technology we actually need and another ten to procure the necessary equipment.
I remember just reading about some kind of programmable-airburst SPAAG that Germany’s sending Ukraine, think it was on a Boxer chassis. Assuming that Germany isn’t sending every one of those that they have, they probably have some to stick around sensitive areas of their own.
kagis
https://mil.in.ua/en/news/ukraine-is-likely-to-receive-boxer-infantry-fighting-vehicles/
The Boxer RCT30 combat module combines the unmanned turret from KNDS Germany with the proven Boxer control module from ARTEC – a joint venture between Rheinmetall and KNDS Germany. The module is armed with the MK 30-2/ABM 30×173 mm stabilized automatic cannon from Rheinmetall. It provides accurate engagement of moving targets both on the ground and in motion.
The German army intends to purchase about 150 systems of this type, and the Netherlands – 72 systems.
The vehicle also has a landing compartment that can accommodate up to six fully equipped infantrymen. However, as the publication notes, the name “command support vehicle” may indicate that these combat vehicles will not be used as an infantry fighting vehicle, but can be used to protect the RCH 155 self-propelled howitzers from drones.
Within a range up to 3,000 metres the MK30-2/ABM delivers maximum effectiveness against land-, air- and sea targets.
So if you plonk one of those in the middle of a military base or whatever, you’ve got a sphere of something like 3km radius.
looks further
It also looks like there’s some fancier thing that has both a gun and missiles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyranger_30
The Skyranger 30 is a short range air defense turret system developed by Rheinmetall Air Defence AG (formerly Oerlikon) and first revealed in March 2021. Its role is to provide ground units with a mobile system capable of engaging fixed and rotary-wing aircraft, Group I and II unmanned aerial systems (UAS), loitering munitions and cruise missiles.[1][2]
Assuming that the “Group I” here is the same as the US classification scheme for UASes and Germany isn’t doing some unrelated-but-similarly-named classification system, it’s intended for use against fairly small drones:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanned_aerial_vehicle#Terminology
Group 1: Max take-off weight: < 20 lb (9.1 kg)
Group 2: Max take-off weight: > 20 & < 55
The vehicle also has a landing compartment that can accommodate up to six fully equipped infantrymen. However, as the publication notes, the name “command support vehicle” may indicate that these combat vehicles will not be used as an infantry fighting vehicle, but can be used to protect the RCH 155 self-propelled howitzers from drones.
Given that the RCH 155 is a self-propelled artillery that can shoot and manoeuvre like a tank, just in 155mm, and Skyshield turrets don’t mind shooting horizontally either, no you don’t want to get close to an angry bunch of them.
The Heeresflugabwehrtruppe won’t be reconstituted before 2028 that’s when those new Skyshield-based systems will arrive in series, from what I understand anything before that will go to Ukraine. If you’re not putting infantry into those bellies I guess they could carry munitions for the RCH 155s? Those want to shoot and scoot you gotta keep up and even loading and unloading troops will only slow them down. Having a system that does air defence, ground defence against everything that’s not heavily armored (and even that if there’s a manpad launcher somewhere), and also cargo does sound sensible, it can flexibly support artillery, infantry, logistics, everything.
Oh. Drone operators. You can taxi those around there’s no place in the RCH 155s.
Presumably if it’s Russian it would be quite large or if it’s small it’s piloted by some one relatively close on the ground
Do those nets I’ve seen deployed against drones in videos not work well in practice? It seems like the least dangerous way to get it to the ground, short of hacking it.
Minigun, obviously
Likely small emp like device that can be pointed at the drone and disable the connection.
Is that a real thing that exists? Because I think I would have heard about it being used before…
There are small devices with directional antennas, often gun-shaped, intended to jam the datalink. Not really “electromagnetic pulse”, though.
That I can definitely believe.
Read an article back when drones started to pop-up in Ukraine about the US developing someone to jam them/disable them.
So who knows if it made it past their criteria and is out by now.
