Summary
Germany’s government approved a proposal allowing the military to shoot down drones over critical infrastructure as a last resort.
The move responds to rising sightings of suspicious drones, particularly since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with concerns over espionage and sabotage.
Recent incidents include up to 10 drones spotted over Bavaria’s Manching air base, raising security fears.
Previously, the military could only force drones to land, redirect, or issue warnings.
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Should they do that more often but are frequently undereqiped? Certainly.
Do they need other options if that doesn’t work? Also yes.For an extreme case, there are already drones controlled by fiber optic cable on both sides of the Ukraine war.
I’m very much interested in what they intend to use to shoot the drones. Missiles? Way to expensive. Buck shot? Inaccurate at range. Regular bullets? Flies way too far in case of a miss. EW? Not sure the Bundeswehr got any and if not it’ll take fives years of debate if this is technology we actually need and another ten to procure the necessary equipment.
The army division doing air defence was completely dismantled in 2012, with the missile-based systems (Ozelot) going to the air force, those shoot stingers. The Gepards are now Ukraine and are eating drones for breakfast on the cheap, but, well, they’re not in Germany. Rebuilding of that capability won’t happen before 2028. But yes the answer is air-burst munitions, I don’t think lasers are quite there yet. EW makes sense for commercial drones but military ones probably won’t be impressed.
Do those nets I’ve seen deployed against drones in videos not work well in practice? It seems like the least dangerous way to get it to the ground, short of hacking it.
Minigun, obviously
This is where I think there will be a need for laser based weaponry. Tracking a moving target isn’t hard. Predicting it’s position when the bullet / missile arrives is the hard bit. So lasers don’t really miss. Cost per shot is low so intercepting cheap drones is not an issue.
Biggest problem is mobility, but I think I’ve read articles about a version dragged around behind a Land Rover.
If there aren’t many, they could use attack helicopters with their swivel guns. Fly above, check if nothing important is below / behind the drone, then shoot.
Bold of you to assume that our Bundeswehr or Luftwaffe have any helicopters in a ready state.
Likely small emp like device that can be pointed at the drone and disable the connection.
Is that a real thing that exists? Because I think I would have heard about it being used before…
Read an article back when drones started to pop-up in Ukraine about the US developing someone to jam them/disable them.
So who knows if it made it past their criteria and is out by now.
