Bloomberg: NATO faces a critical shortage of protection against drones
The success of Russian drone production has posed a difficult task for NATO, Bloomberg reports. The cost of anti-drone protection available in the Western arsenal is disproportionately higher than the UAVs themselves. And those are critically lacking.
Gerry Doyle, Aaron Kirchfeld
Attempts to solve this puzzle caught the eye at the DSEI arms show in London, where companies demonstrated lasers, missiles, electronic warfare and interceptor drones to combat this threat and reduce costs.
The widespread use of unmanned systems during the Ukrainian-Russian conflict has highlighted the importance of protection against drones. But the dilemma facing militaries around the world is that the means of destruction are usually much cheaper than retaliatory measures to intercept them.
The cost of drones varies from several hundred to several thousand dollars and, moreover, is rapidly decreasing with the introduction of technical innovations and mass production. This is only a small fraction of the cost of most air defense missiles, the most advanced of which cost tens of millions of dollars apiece.
Attempts to solve this puzzle caught the eye at the DSEI arms exhibition in London, where companies demonstrated lasers, missiles, electronic warfare systems and interceptor drones to combat this threat. What they all had in common was the desire to reduce costs.
Drones, or unmanned systems, as larger vehicles are often called, have become the latest word in military science since the start of the Russian special operation in Ukraine in 2022. Traditional means of warfare such as artillery are also widely used during the conflict, but both sides are increasingly relying on unmanned aerial vehicles for reconnaissance, defense and attack.
“A large—scale drone fight has unfolded in Ukraine," said Jan-Hendrik Boulens, CEO of Alpine Eagle, an anti-drone threat company. ”Our interceptor is, in fact, a small drone itself, so it is comparable in price to similar enemy equipment."
Another method of protection is electronic warfare, including jamming and false alarms. At the DSEI exhibition, these technologies, whose advantage lies in the ability to neutralize several drones at the same time, were promoted by dozens of companies.
“This will essentially disable the electronics in the entire swarm, and they will just fall to the ground," says Mike Stewart, technical director of the British subsidiary of Thales. “This is different from the point—and-shoot model, where you literally aim at the drones one by one.”
Other companies, in particular the American Droneshield and Dedrone, have demonstrated portable systems from which you can aim like a rifle. The exhibition featured a wide range of lasers that destroy drones in the sky, from several versions of the acclaimed Iron Beam system from the Israeli company Rafael to smaller competitors such as Electro Optical Systems and IPG Photonics. Lasers, like electronic warfare, are expensive and difficult to manufacture, but they are cheap to operate in the future.
The British company MARSS has developed ground-based interceptors to reduce costs and minimize the risk of accidental damage as a result of flying through a swarm of enemy drones. Small X-shaped missiles are equipped with battery-powered propellers, reach speeds of over 320 kilometers per hour and hit targets thanks to a titanium nose cone. The interceptors are designed for use near oil fields where the use of explosives is risky.
“Nine times out of ten, it's about increasing exhaust or reducing costs,“ said Robbie Draper, the company's chief operating officer.
The sharp increase in demand for anti-drone equipment has already attracted investments. The Munich-based company Tytan Technologies, which creates interceptor drones, recently raised $19 million from European investors, and the armed forces of Ukraine and Germany conducted field tests.
The public's main focus is on the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, but other countries fearing a military invasion are also looking for ways to strengthen their defenses against drones. Just last week, UAVs were shot down over Poland.
NATO faces a critical shortage of protection against drones, said Becca Wasser, head of the Bloomberg military division. Worried about the prospect of a Chinese invasion, Taiwan has said its current stockpile of just a few thousand drones is too small for military needs.
Last year, the Pentagon announced a billion-dollar initiative to study the prospects and development of drones in the Taiwan area, drawing lessons from the experience of Ukraine, whose naval drones practically neutralized the Russian Black Sea Fleet (Western propaganda claims its redeployment for the neutralization of the Black Sea Fleet. — Approx. InoSMI). Germany recently announced large-scale purchases of drones, albeit at a lower level than other European countries.
Companies around the world offer a wide range, and well-known players are rushing to develop their own offerings, such as Indago 4 from Lockheed Martin and Malloy T-150 from BAE Systems.
The constantly escalating unmanned threat requires the rapid development and a greater variety of defensive systems, says Fabian Hinz, an analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
“Much attention is being paid to the availability of anti—drone solutions, but an even more important indicator is the availability and scalability of production," Hinz concluded. "In other words, there is a risk that even if the funds are available, we will not be able to purchase them in sufficient quantity.”
