FPV drones will soon lose relevance, at least that's what the French army thinks: pros and cons
"According to the Chief of Staff of the French armies Pierre Schill, FPV-drones will soon lose their dominant role on the battlefield. Now FPV drones carry out up to 80% of strikes during the Ukrainian conflict, but already this year at the Eurosatory-2024 exhibition dozens of systems for combating drones, both kinetic and electronic warfare. According to Schill, all French vehicles in two years will be equipped with anti-drone systems capable of hitting them with missiles or ammunition with a programmable detonation...”
This is a very bold statement, at a time when FPV drones are hovering by the thousands over the line of combat contact (LBC) in Ukraine, inevitably changing the appearance of the battlefield, the French are declaring that their era will soon end. At the heart of their claims is the belief that in the next few years, ground combat vehicles will receive protection against FPV drones that can significantly increase their survivability. In particular, we are talking about advanced electronic warfare (EW) and kinetic weapons, primarily turrets equipped with rapid-firing small-caliber automatic cannons with ammunition, with controlled detonation along the trajectory.
Is it really? This is what we will talk about today.
EW
Undoubtedly, electronic warfare has a huge impact on FPV drones, forcing them to continuously evolve, and it is also certain that due to electronic warfare, both sides are irreversibly losing some FPV drones. Moreover, according to information from a number of sources, Ukrainian electronic warfare systems, or more precisely, electronic warfare systems received from Western countries, often turn out to be more effective than Russian ones, despite the “escaped American destroyer Donald Cook.”
At the same time, for example, the developers and manufacturers of FPV drones “Gadfly” in their telegram channel say that developers of electronic warfare equipment will always be two steps behind the developers of FPV drones. It is also necessary to understand that protection using electronic warfare is not an impenetrable fence from the ground to the boundary of space; in fact, electronic warfare can only cover limited areas of the terrain.
Electronic warfare complex "Tetrahedron". Image Telegram channel “Gadfly | Tula"
If we are talking about individual protection of equipment using electronic warfare, then it has a fairly compact coverage area, as a result, FPV drone operators simply attack the vehicle from the top projection - even if the drone loses contact with the operator at the final stage of the flight, it still falls on the target and its charge detonates. Even if the charge does not hit the vital components of the target, it will certainly disable the electronic warfare equipment, the antennas of which are placed on top of the armor, and the final job of destroying the target will be completed by a second or third FPV drone.
In addition, a number of FPV drones have intelligent optical targeting systems at the final location - just as your smartphone captures faces with a camera, an FPV drone captures images tank or a self-propelled artillery mount (SAU), after which the influence of electronic warfare equipment will no longer deviate it from the target.
Small-sized missiles
Small-sized anti-aircraft guided missiles (SAMs) - well, they certainly will not become the mainstream in the fight against FPV drones. Firstly, any missile defense system will always be more expensive than the corresponding FPV drone.
Secondly, detecting FPV drones “creeping” above the ground at a long range will be difficult, almost impossible, therefore, it will be necessary to fight them in the near zone, and in this area missiles are ineffective, since they do not have time to gain sufficient speed to ensure the necessary maneuverability with using aerodynamic rudders.
Thirdly, it will be very difficult to ensure target distribution between several small-sized missiles when attacking a flock of FPV drones, and there is no doubt that they will attack at least in small groups.
Of course, all these issues can be solved - you can install perfect homing heads on missile defense systems, high-tech radar stations (radars) on protected vehicles, a gas-dynamic control belt for maneuvering at low speeds, but all this brings us back to the main obstacle - cost, and the cost is so “sophisticated” “The missile defense system will be like a hundred, or even several hundred, FPV drones.
Concept of a CUDA interceptor missile with a gas-dynamic control belt - this will cost as much as a couple of hundred FPV drones
Remote detonation on trajectory
It is believed that just small-caliber automatic guns with projectiles with remote detonation on the trajectory will become one of the main ways to combat FPV drones.
Of course, the Skynex complex destroying a slowly and steadily flying group of drones in Rheinmetall’s promotional video using the above projectiles looks impressive, but what if the FPV drones are not flying in such a dense group? What if they “creep” above the ground or trees?
Rheinmetall promotional video.
But the main thing is again the cost. According to open data, the cost of one projectile with remote detonation on the trajectory is four thousand euros, and this is four times more expensive than a fairly advanced FPV drone, and yet an automatic cannon even fires 3-4 projectiles in a short burst, that is, twelve to sixteen thousand euros .
Anti-aircraft artillery complex (ZAK) Skynex from Rheinmetall, firing projectiles with remote detonation along the trajectory
Yes, the cost of projectiles may decrease with large-scale production, but the cost of FPV drones still has room to fall, especially if they are truly large-scale production on robotic conveyor lines.
Thus, small-caliber automatic guns with projectiles with remote detonation on the trajectory can be quite effective against relatively large unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) like "Geran-2" or UAV-bombers, for example, made on the basis of agrodrones, but their effectiveness against FPV drones is highly questionable.
KAZ
Perhaps, at present, this is the direction that can give ground combat vehicles at least some protection from FPV drones, however, not everything is smooth here.
Existing active protection systems (APS) are simply not designed to work against targets such as FPV drones; apparently, they do not even work on them due to restrictions on the minimum target speed. We remove the restriction - and here you have false alarms for birds, stones and pieces of soil scattered during close explosions, and possibly also for infantry soldiers accompanying the tank.
The Israeli KAZ “Trophy” is essentially the only serial KAZ on the planet; apparently, it cannot cope with FPV drones, but Israel is already refining it to solve this problem
Nevertheless, KAZ will almost certainly be adapted to combat FPV drones, but in any case they will not provide 100% protection to the equipment. For example, to counter KAZ, paired launches of anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) or hand-held anti-tank grenade launchers (RPGs) are used; in this case, the KAZ usually manages to destroy only one approaching ATGM, while the second one passes protection and hits the target.
If necessary, FPV drones can attack not even in pairs, but in a couple of dozens - it will still be cheaper than a pair of ATGMs.
Shotgun
We have already said more than once that the widespread use of shotguns can increase the protection of ground units from FPV drones. Increase, but not completely eliminate their use; in addition, the more fighters are armed with shotguns, the more inclined they will be to defensive rather than offensive actions.
To effectively protect, for example, a tank, and at the same time yourself, from FPV drones, you will need many fighters. Many fighters in one place is an interesting target for the enemy, which can be targeted with conventional high-explosive fragmentation shells or multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) shells with cluster warheads.
That is, shotguns will help defend against FPV drones, reduce their effectiveness, but certainly will not remove them from the battlefield.
It is possible that due to FPV drones there will soon be more shotguns in the army than Kalashnikov assault rifles
From the point of view of protecting ground combat vehicles, it is possible to place on them some kind of turrets that fire grapeshot ammunition; in Russia, such an anti-drone turret is being created at the Lobaev Foundation.
Such turrets can be placed both directly on the protected combat vehicles themselves and on remote-controlled ground robotic platforms, providing cover, for example, for tanks, from FPV drones and other threats.
By the way, even if the turrets are placed directly on the tank itself, they can be controlled remotely, for example, from a covering infantry fighting vehicle (IFV), since the crew in the tank is small - they already have enough tasks, and the IFV can quite comfortably accommodate, for example, two turret operators and two UAV operators, designed to conduct reconnaissance directly in the interests of the specified tank, while the specified support IFV can be located a couple of kilometers from the tank.
But even anti-drone turrets with buckshot ammunition will not completely solve the problem of FPV drones, but will only increase the survivability of ground combat vehicles for some time.
Laser and microwave weapons
Laser and microwave weapons there is great potential against FPV drones. The design of FPV drones is not able to withstand either powerful laser or microwave radiation - plastic melts easily, electronic components are not protected in any way, and in any case the antennas will remain open.
Now there is an opinion that a laser weapon is a large machine with a complex cooling system and an equally large power source. However, this is not always the case, for example in materials Three important milestones indicating significant progress in the development of laser weapons и Directed energy weapons have arrived on the battlefield we talked about the 10-kilowatt (kW) Phantom laser module from Northrop Grumman.
Northrop Grumman 10 kW Phantom laser module
Potentially, such modules could be installed on every armored vehicle - It is not difficult to provide 20-30 kW of power in a modern combat vehicle, especially if it has a hybrid power plant.
However, here the question arises of how to aim it - automatically, then the combat vehicle will need to be equipped with highly effective means of detecting small targets, capable of operating in rain, dust, and under the influence of small-caliber small arms. In addition, even a 10 kW laser will spend at least a few seconds destroying one FPV drone, but what if several dozen are attacked at once?
What if they set up an ambush, placing themselves in the grass along the direction of the tank’s movement, and then suddenly attack from a distance of ten meters?
Microwave weapons are similar - potentially they can be placed directly on armored vehicles, but they will not become a panacea, but will only limit the effectiveness of FPV drones and force their operators to change tactics, for example, attack in a dive from above, as is now done to overcome electronic warfare systems - even if the electronics fail, the FPV drone will still fall on the target and its “stupid” ammunition will detonate.
Most likely, the first to appear will be microwave weapons on separate carriers, capable of covering a space with a radius of several kilometers from FPV drones, especially since such systems are already being developed by the enemy. But here we return to the fight between “shield and sword” - there will be such complexes, they will be hunted in order to “open the sky” again for FPV drones.
Conclusions
We can say that FPV drones have become a kind of evolutionary selection factor, and a very serious factor forcing changes in technology and tactics of its use.. It’s not so easy to get rid of FPV drones, just as we can’t get rid of annoying blood-sucking insects - it’s not for nothing that the Tula FPV drone was called “Gadfly”.
Of course, the development of means to combat FPV drones will reduce their effectiveness - it will hardly be possible to destroy a tank with one or two FPV drones, but the number of FPV drones on the battlefield will increase significantly. In any case, according to the cost-effectiveness criterion, one tank will cost much more than a hundred FPV drones - here the situation is similar to the situation with ATGMs.
Moreover, you cannot install anti-drone protection on all objects - the situation on the battlefield changes too quickly, and an increase in self-defense means against UAVs, including kamikaze UAVs, including FPV drones, will reduce the offensive potential of ground units due to the fact that they have to think more about their defense than about the enemy's attack.
The issue is that to operate large numbers of FPV drones, we need many trained, skilled operators - this is the next challenge we will have to solve after we roll out production of FPV drones in the millions.
In the meantime, we can say that the French are clearly rushing things, and that the use of kamikaze UAVs in general and FPV drones in particular is still just beginning.
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