Ukrainian War Developments

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Helius

Helius

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Zichan said:
This engagement seemed to high for a commercial drone of the type you were thinking.

I think another matter to take into consideration is whether these SAM systems, especially the older ones, can even detect and track those small drones. Most of them will be flying relatively low and at a relatively low speed. Therefore they will be in a radar signal return zone of the side lobe beam which is clutter heavy as it scatters off terrain, buildings, etc.

To remove clutter, older radars rely on Doppler shift which makes it possible to differentiate signals based on their radial speed. Using this information a SAM radar interested in detecting aircraft can remove clutter signal by filtering any data with a radial speed say less than 100 kph. This makes the radar blind to objects moving at a slower speed. Therefore, a small drone has a good chance of falling within this blind zone of the radar and flying up to the radar undetected.

Theoretically, even at high altitude, if you fly in a circle around an older pulse doppler radar you may be invisible to it because your radial velocity will remain zero.
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I don't know much about the precise timings of the pulse doppler radar on the Tor-M1 to make an educated assessment, but doesn't its tracking radar (as separate from its pulse doppler radar which is for missile guidance) also have a digital signals processor for "blind speed" targets that discriminates against passive interference i.e. natural and artificial formations to overcome exactly this deficit?

And doesn't the M1 also have an optical tracker for additional redundancy, like the Strela-10?
 
Temstar

Temstar

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Abominable said:
TB-2s cost $5 million each, it more than worth it to take them out. Military drones fly too high for something like a Zu-23 to take out.

You're right though. There is a gap in the military industry for a low cost smaller SAM platform designed specifically for drones. I don't think any
country has anything like that.
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A system for this already exists, and yes again it's Chinese. It's called
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. It's apparently achieving tremendous success in Saudi hands right now, downing dozens of Houthi UAVs:
1648506818957.jpg
First true battlefield proven laser weapon I believe, phew phew.
Drones of all sizes and weapons dedicated against them are the way wars will be fought in the future. I hope Russians can see clearly from their experiences this time otherwise they will miss the boat.
 
A

Abominable

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Temstar said:
A system for this already exists, and yes again it's Chinese. It's called
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
. It's apparently achieving tremendous success in Saudi hands right now, downing dozens of Houthi UAVs:
View attachment 86237
First true battlefield proven laser weapon I believe, phew phew.
Drones of all sizes and weapons dedicated against them are the way wars will be fought in the future. I hope Russians can see clearly from their experiences this time otherwise they will miss the boat.
Click to expand...
That's the best option for anything commerial. Anything medium or high altitude will need something else though. I think dedicated fighter drones may be we start seeing.

Also, I wonder how that would do against a helicopter? England already have their laser guided manpad. Just up the power of the laser and do away with the missile.
 
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Chilled_k6

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Corona said:
It is the 2nd time that Iskander ballistic missile is used against Buk air defence system!!!!!!!!!!
It is confusing, why are they using a ballistic missile against Buk ? Sure the accuracy is perfect but still!
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I can't really tell if its an Iskander. Definitely looks like a very fast projectile that you can't see but then again all these Russian drone vids are so blurry. If it is, they must have decent stockpile to use them liberally. Also, if they want to hit a target quickly the Iskander is the right choice, much faster than getting an airstrike. I think the best solution is just armed drones but Russia seems to lack those. They use drone mostly for pinpointing targets like in this vid.
 
Temstar

Temstar

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Abominable said:
That's the best option for anything commerial. Anything medium or high altitude will need something else though. I think dedicated fighter drones may be we start seeing.

Also, I wonder how that would do against a helicopter? England already have their laser guided manpad. Just up the power of the laser and do away with the missile.
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Up the power is easy to say and not so easy to do. The whole Silent Hunter kit is container sized and need a truck to move it around:
large_tiAzQjJVoRbKQbMn.jpg
Even at 33kW it's a power hog as lasers are still pretty inefficient at converting electricity into beamy death. More like a blast furnace that also happens to produce coherent light as a by-product.

Nevertheless inefficient it may be, you still need something like this on the battlefield. Thanks to a certain Chinese company the world is flooded with small drones that hold camera good enough for military applications. Both sides in this conflict are using them and you will never take them all down if you try to swat them with conventional SHORAD.
 
Helius

Helius

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Chilled_k6 said:
I can't really tell if its an Iskander. Definitely looks like a very fast projectile that you can't see but then again all these Russian drone vids are so blurry. If it is, they must have decent stockpile to use them liberally. Also, if they want to hit a target quickly the Iskander is the right choice, much faster than getting an airstrike. I think the best solution is just armed drones but Russia seems to lack those. They use drone mostly for pinpointing targets like in this vid.
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Also there isn't just one type of Iskander. There's the Iskander-K which is the cruise missile variant for launching Kalibrs -
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1509176117600538634
 
solarz

solarz

Brigadier
Temstar said:
Up the power is easy to say and not so easy to do. The whole Silent Hunter kit is container sized and need a truck to move it around:
View attachment 86240
Even at 33kW it's a power hog as lasers are still pretty inefficient at converting electricity into beamy death. More like a blast furnace that also happens to produce coherent light as a by-product.

Nevertheless inefficient it may be, you still need something like this on the battlefield. Thanks to a certain Chinese company the world is flooded with small drones that hold camera good enough for military applications. Both sides in this conflict are using them and you will never take them all down if you try to swat them with conventional SHORAD.
Click to expand...

Why laser? Wouldn't a good old bullet do the job?
 
Temstar

Temstar

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solarz said:
Why laser? Wouldn't a good old bullet do the job?
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Ammo for laser is electricity, which in this case would be fuel for the onboard generator. Your logistic train would already have to handle fuel so it fits right in. Fuel trucks can easily deliver the fuel and pump it into the fuel tank of this vehicle. If it used an autocannon than resupplying it would be more complicated.

Using electricity also has some interesting applications for the future: if in the future charge stations for electric cars become so common that every street lamp post have them you may be able to miniaturise the system even further or stretch out the onboard fuel for longer by plugging in whenever possible.
 
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