Disrupts electronics: How new microwave weapons can resist swarms of drones
This is stated in The Strategist "Counteering Drone swarms: a powerful microwave", which was translated by focus. Armed forces need to pay paramount attention to the counteraction to the tactics of swarming drones, which helps even the cheapest in the production of drones to overcome the protection systems. A multi -level defensive system that covers technologies is needed to neutralize many threats within a few seconds.
One such solution is already available: modern powerful energy microwave (HPM). The use of shock drones worth several hundred dollars each threatens the ability of the military to perform tasks without unacceptable losses of personnel and equipment. And when drones appear in large numbers, ordinary protection, such as automatic guns, cannot neutralize them quickly enough.
Defense systems using interceptors or shells are too slow against the swarms of drones, and their shots can cost more than the drones they try to destroy. This is an urgent problem for all defense forces, including Australian. The HPM weapon operates at the expense of directional electromagnetic energy pulses that disable electronics of drones in the middle of the flight.
In the most primitive sense, it works in the same way as your home -made microwave, and even uses similar radio frequencies, but acts at a distance of hundreds and even thousands of meters. Unlike traditional shock systems that should be intercepted and physically destroying each target separately, high -energy HPM can adjust their beam to disable whole drones in one volley.
It is important to note that modern HPM high -energy systems are programmable, which allows them to quickly update them as technology and threat tactics develop. In addition, they are more mobile, modular and scaled than early versions of the directed energy technologies, and focus on total energy aimed at target, not peak power, as previous generations of HPM weapons. The fight against the threat of cheap drones is not a future problem, but the reality of the battlefield.
The drones with the view of the first person became one of the most powerful weapons during the war in Ukraine. Currently, losses on the battlefield from drones exceed the losses from artillery, and according to some estimates, reach 70-80 %. In addition to technological progress, tactics are developing rapidly. The war in Ukraine demonstrated a rapid cycle of development of counteraction and combating measures. Adaptation on the battlefield does not occur in the years, but during the week.
For example, recently, to combat obstacles, you use artificial intelligence drones and drones directed through the fiber cable. The main task of counteracting drones is to identify, track and neutralize them before they can harm. In the case of swarm, the problem increases many times over, especially for defensive systems that lack the speed or opportunity to simultaneously damage many threats.
Since many available systems for combating drones work for one purpose at a time, a swarm of drones can suppress or completely fail. But HPM weapons are able to neutralize the swarms of drones during one high -speed combat. Traditional drone measures, including kinetic protection, such as rocket and guns, requires a lot of ammunition replenishment, insufficiently scaled to defeat many drones or simply unable to adapt to the growth of swarming technologies.
Large and small states are working to create opportunities for large coordinated drones, including Dronov-Kamikadze swarms, which are essentially managed missiles. A huge number of such drones overload defense systems and makes important objects more and more vulnerable. Programming or increasing the autonomy of swarm can coordinate attacks from several directions, using gaps in traditional air defense networks.
In order to effectively resist the threat of developing drones, Australia must invest in scaled and adaptive systems capable of integrating into a wider potential for counteracting small unmanned air systems. The HPM weapon meets this requirement. The rapid reaction time and the ability to neutralize the switches of drones at a time make it an important component of modern multi -level air defense.
HPM systems are actually infinite, they are limited only by the energy source that can be a generator or even electricity online. In all these cases, the cost of one volley reaches several cents. This completely changes the value equation: previously needed expensive interceptors or shells with fairly expensive detonators, as well as complex ammunition replenishment schemes. But HPM is not a silver ball.
It should be integrated into a multi -level approach that combines kinetic, electronic struggle and a directional energy system to maximize the adaptability of protection against evolutionary threats. The advantage in the technologies of antitussive struggle is not a wish, but an urgent need. The inability to adapt to these rapid changes will jeopardize all the armed forces, so the speed of purchase, deployment and adaptation of drones to combating drones is now crucial.
Collaboration with allies, especially under the Aukus Agreement, is more important as ever. Developing advanced technologies and ensuring operational compatibility with key partners, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, will give Australia a competitive advantage. The question is no longer what a system of combating drones should be purchased Australia, but how quickly it will be able to establish a commercial and military partnership to effectively resist the increasing threat.