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Defense against UAV's
According to:
http://en.rian.ru/onlinenews/20060530/48833304.html An Iranian UAV was able to circle a U.S. aircraft carrier undetected for 25 minutes. With U.S. forces making increasing use of UAV's, the inevitable question becomes: How can we protect our forces against UAV's when other countries or terrorist organizations start using them against us? |
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Defense against UAV's
rb wrote: Highly unlikely that it went undetected for 25 mins. More likely it's Iranian sabre rattling again. Regardless of the accuracy of this particular account, it is true that UAVs pose a new problem for navies and armies, especially in the smaller versions. Defensive systems are generally designed to detect and destroy much bigger and more obvious targets, and even if they manage to spot a small UAV, what would be used to shoot it down? This is the subject of much debate at the moment. Ordinary homing missiles may not be able to lock-on to a stealthy little UAV (and even if they could, there's not much logic in using a very expensive missile to shoot down a very cheap plane). A radar-directed gun system like Phalanx might also not lock-on to such a target. The best bet at the moment IMO would be a 35mm gun firing the Oerlikon AHEAD 'shrapnel' type airburst ammo, using electro-optical guidance. Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum |
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Defense against UAV's
rb wrote: The US navy in particular seems to have seen the writing on the wall for some time now, hence (I would assume) part of the reason for their interest in developing the 'Millenium' gun and expressed interest in the naval 57mm cannon. http://www.lockheedmartin.com/wms/fi...=400&jsi=false http://www.navyleague.org/sea_power/dec_04_46.php The 35mm Millennium gun would qualify - that's designed to fire the AHEAD ammo I mentioned - but I'm not so sure about the Bofors 57mm. In the AA mode that uses radar aiming and proximity fuzes, and I'm not sure if either would be sensitive enough to respond to a small stealthy UAV. Tony Williams Military gun and ammunition website: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk |
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Defense against UAV's
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Defense against UAV's
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#7
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Defense against UAV's
wrote: According to: http://en.rian.ru/onlinenews/20060530/48833304.html An Iranian UAV was able to circle a U.S. aircraft carrier undetected for 25 minutes. With U.S. forces making increasing use of UAV's, the inevitable question becomes: How can we protect our forces against UAV's when other countries or terrorist organizations start using them against us? Did you notice this is a Russian news agency reporting on what an Iranian spokesman said? |
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Defense against UAV's
wrote in message
ups.com... rb wrote: Highly unlikely that it went undetected for 25 mins. More likely it's Iranian sabre rattling again. Regardless of the accuracy of this particular account, it is true that UAVs pose a new problem for navies and armies, especially in the smaller versions. Smaller versions typically have no or little combat capability. Great survellaince platforms etc but not big enough for any serious work. Make it big enough to do offensive stuff and it's just as detectable as any other aircraft. Defensive systems are generally designed to detect and destroy much bigger and more obvious targets, and even if they manage to spot a small UAV, what would be used to shoot it down? The current crop of UAVs are still heavily dependant on comms and few have any serious autonomous combat capability. Hence, jamming is the most likely defense. Jam the comms the UAV goes into autonomous mode. Now you hava a relatively dumb target to attack. This is the subject of much debate at the moment. Ordinary homing missiles may not be able to lock-on to a stealthy little UAV (and even if they could, there's not much logic in using a very expensive missile to shoot down a very cheap plane). The smaller UAVs have limited offensive weapons, if any. Those UAVs that do are much larger, not overly cheaper than a manned fighter/bomber, and just as easy to detect (particularly if you can detect all the comms traffic). A radar-directed gun system like Phalanx might also not lock-on to such a target. The idea is to take them out long before your last line of defense. The best bet at the moment IMO would be a 35mm gun firing the Oerlikon AHEAD 'shrapnel' type airburst ammo, using electro-optical guidance. Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum |
#9
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Defense against UAV's
The Raven wrote: wrote in message ups.com... Regardless of the accuracy of this particular account, it is true that UAVs pose a new problem for navies and armies, especially in the smaller versions. Smaller versions typically have no or little combat capability. Great survellaince platforms etc but not big enough for any serious work. Make it big enough to do offensive stuff and it's just as detectable as any other aircraft. There are useful offensive things that even small aircraft can do - like damaging radars. A small uav capable of delivering (slowly) 200kg of payload is much less detectable then your normal fighter. Although it might be easier to detect/respond to then an antiship missile, it might also be orders of magnitude cheaper - and therefore employed in swarm attacks. Defensive systems are generally designed to detect and destroy much bigger and more obvious targets, and even if they manage to spot a small UAV, what would be used to shoot it down? The current crop of UAVs are still heavily dependant on comms and few have any serious autonomous combat capability. How long is that going to last? The rest of the world is not dumb, and India/China have enough good & cheap programmers and scientists... Hence, jamming is the most likely defense. Jam the comms the UAV goes into autonomous mode. Now you hava a relatively dumb target to attack. Relatively dumb might still be too smart. Especially if it is in daylight and in good weather - sea is mostly empty and image recognition is making a lot of progress. This is the subject of much debate at the moment. Ordinary homing missiles may not be able to lock-on to a stealthy little UAV (and even if they could, there's not much logic in using a very expensive missile to shoot down a very cheap plane). The smaller UAVs have limited offensive weapons, if any. Those UAVs that do are much larger, not overly cheaper than a manned fighter/bomber, and just as easy to detect (particularly if you can detect all the comms traffic). You think USA style super-duper all-weather fail proof UAVs. A radar-directed gun system like Phalanx might also not lock-on to such a target. The idea is to take them out long before your last line of defense. Taking them out early means missiles and/or aircraft. Both will have problems locking on low signature slow flying targets. And both can be overwhelmed/depleted by swarm attacks.. |
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Defense against UAV's
I kept specifying "small, stealthy UAVs" - which by definition would
be used for recce, not attack - as these are the hardest targets to detect and destroy. Now it may be that powerful navies will not be too troubled by what they can do (you can't hide a ship too easily anyway, so their enemy will know they are there) but armies certainly are worried, because UAVs can be used to detect the movements of troops and vehicles and identify targets for attack - even to lase them to guide in homing munitions. And some of the recce UAVs being developed at the moment are really small and quiet and will be very difficult to spot. Even if SAMs could deal with these small UAVs, the problem would be that the enemy could then just send over hordes of very cheap UAVs (without the expensive sensor kit) to soak up the SAMs - a very cost-effective way of degrading your enemy's capabilities. Unless and until a small and cheap "anti-UAV" homing missile can be developed, I think appropriate guns (and ammo) provide the best answer. It is of course correct that a big, weapon-carrying UAV will be much easier to detect than a small one (although a stealthy design may still cause problems, just as stealth strike planes do). In contrast, fast anti-ship missiles may be difficult to intercept but they have hot engines and leading-edge surfaces which are easy to detect with IR sensors: stealth and high speed do not go together very well. Tony Williams Military gun and ammunition website: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk |
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