The original was taken from andrej_kraft's colleague in "Vampires" vs. "Geraniums" in Ukraine
The adjacent territories of Ukraine and Russia are gradually turning into a giant "combat laboratory" for testing and testing a wide variety of concepts for combating the massive use of UAVs - a problem that is not even overdue, but overripe. Recently, during field tests in this CombatLab, another contender for the high title of "silver bullet" lit up. Please love and favor the VAMPIRE anti-UAV system (Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment) from the American corporation L3Harris.
© L3Harris
According to the Pentagon, Ukraine has received at least 14 VAMPIRE systems by the end of 2023, and has been operating them since April.
On the left, the VAMPIRE system is loaded into the United States on a C-17 heavy transport aircraft of the US Air Force for subsequent delivery to Ukraine. In the center and on the right - one of the cars upon arrival at the place © USN
The variant proposed to Kiev uses the chassis of the M1152A1 Humvee cargo and passenger pickup truck as a self-propelled base, on which three main elements of the VAMPIRE system are placed:
• Four-shot LAND-LGR4 launcher for launching 70 mm APKWS 2 missiles;
• guided laser-guided missiles based on 70 mm Hydra NURS equipped with the APKWS 2 (Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System 2) upgrade kit from BAE Systems
• WESCAM's MX-10 RSTA optoelectronic fire control system with a rotary and lifting ball sensor unit for reconnaissance, surveillance and guidance.
Possible options for modular configuration of various warhead and engine variants for APKWS missiles and 17 aircraft carriers certified for use by APKWS © BAE Systems
Initially, APKWS was developed in an air-to-ground version for arming aircraft and helicopters. But in the search for possible customers in 2020, for the first time, launches from ground-based surface-to-surface missiles were conducted. As far as can be judged by the videos distributed on social networks, this option was initially the main one for Ukrainian VAMPIRE systems.
However, back in November 2022, during the next stage of testing in the United States, the VAMPIRE system was also tested in the ground-to-air version to combat UAVs. As a result, they wrote that APKWS laser-guided missiles "proved to be surprisingly effective at destroying Class 2 drones," that is, UAVs with a flight weight of up to 25 kilograms and a flight speed of up to 200 km/h
Accordingly, this option was tested in Ukraine, but in the new year 2024. The Navy of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for the first time published a video of the use of the VAMPIRE system in repelling a raid by the Geran UAV (Shahed-131/136) on February 11 in the Odessa region.
At the end of March, user u/Kleef1337 posted another video on Reddit called "3 Shahed-136's being intercepted by VAMPIRE with APKWS rockets 21/03/2024", which shows the defeat of the UAV and its fall into the sea.
https://www.redd.tube/video/b02ae5b5da603ef87f8c08e840cf294a7e0f72cd
When analyzing the news, experts carefully but persistently hint, they say, the successful defeat of the "Geraniums/Shakhedov"confirms "that the VAMPIRE system with APKWS missiles is a high-tech and at the same time relatively cheap means of countering enemy kamikaze drones."
High-tech, no doubt. But what about the "efficiency/cost" criterion at the price of various APKWS modifications from 27.5 to 40.6 thousand dollars? Of course, this is very good compared to the AIM-120 AMRAAM for NASAMS air defense systems, whose price tag for A/B/C modifications starts at 600 thousand, but at the same time the range there is from 25 km and above. With such initial data, it is not even worth comparing with FIM-92 Stinger MANPADS, the purchase price of which has now increased to $ 120,000-150,000.
Only the APKWS firing range of about 5,000 meters is somehow not particularly impressive.
For comparison, the ancient "Wasp" has a price of one missile defense system at the level of 40-60 thousand dollars, but there is also a range of more than 9000 m.
Or is it normal in the current realities? There was no special choice on the shelf of ready-to-use products with cheap consumables, except for 40 mm automatic grenade launchers with programmable ammunition at ranges up to 1500 m . There have been a lot of promises about combat lasers for many years, but still no clarity .
Judging only by the brochures, among the experimental developments, the prospects remain for the American EAPS ARDEC ID system at ranges up to 3000 m, and up to 2000 m for the Chinese mini-MANPADS .
