Unmanned Vehicles

A collaboration to watch as it will likely result in very impressive stuff.

Molniya type drones occupy a position between traditional artillery and more sophisticated, capable drone airframes. To put it another way, the Molniya drone is how Artillery would make a drone if Artillery types were in charge of creating a drone platform for delivering artillery munitions to targets.

It is interesting to see how this area changes as these types of platforms are also extremely easy to intercept.

The Bird of Prey interceptor is based on Airbus’ jet-powered Do-DT25 target drone, which can reach speeds of around 555 km/h.

In its current configuration, the drone carries up to four Mark 1 missiles, with future operational versions expected to carry as many as eight.

During the test, the drone autonomously carried out the full engagement chain—searching for the target, identifying it, and launching a missile without direct human control.

The fuselage length of 17 meters and wingspan of 25 meters place it within the lower range of light transport aircraft, such as the De Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter, Let L-410 Turbolet, and Cessna 208 Caravan. The internal cargo bay has a volume of about 18 cubic meters and is designed as a continuous, unobstructed compartment capable of accommodating standardized cargo containers and specialized loads such as refrigerated goods.

I don't really understand the point of making a large cargo aircraft unmanned. It isn't going to be able to pull maneuvers a human couldn't survive and the weight of the human becomes neglible compared to the cargo capacity.

I would prefer a DHC-6, L-410 or Caravan modified to be able to fly unmanned any day.

The US military no longer needs air superiority to deliver precision guided, oppressive strikes.

The US is not the first country to produce hypersonic missiles like this (or more precisely a hypersonic unmanned glide vehicle) but analysts would do well to understand that this fundamentally changes what the US ground forces can accomplish without the traditional overwhelming air dominance US military doctrine usually requires... and it doesn't require the US military to learn new tricks either, this is a natural progression of HIMARS type long range missile artillery.

I think the only defense against a hypersonic guided unmanned vehicle like this is to keep moving and always be immersed in a sea of credible decoys... which in the end is the only real defense to anything threatening.

The Iran War has exposed longstanding gaps in the UK’s military capability

But it has not stopped the armed forces from deploying innovative systems and tactics, particularly in the C-UAS segment

Airforce Technology explores all known platforms, systems and equipment sent to the Near and Middle East for intercepting Iranian strikes

The UK is just as frustratingly confusing of a place as the US, in some ways the UK is backwards as hell and in other ways they are bleeding edge. Even as dysfunctional as the UK military is as an institution (Exhibit Ajax) the UK has still managed to present a diversity of practical, effective and affordable C-UAS solutions that honestly makes it one of the more wholistic, sustainable and effective air defense implementations outside of Ukraine. Maybe this has to do with the UK's closer practical working military ties with Ukraine than other nations?

The Royal Navy has deployed at least three Wildcat helicopters from which personnel fire low-cost (~£50,000) Martlet LMMs. This adaptation demonstrates the Navy’s evolving defensive tactics in the drone age, combining aerial mobility with a cost effective Thales-built missile interceptor.

Note, these Martlet missiles cost about the same or less than shaheds, so the whole idea of shaheds being "cheaper" falls apart, especially when you can mount a rack of them on a helicopter with high powered sensors (that can sense the shahed from farther away than the shahed can sense the helicopter) and EW equipment that is already useful for other tasks too, unlike a shahed which is only useful as a flying bomb optimized for uncontested airspaces.

This helicopter can in a matter of minutes erase at least 20 shaheds (if onboard machine guns or EW are used for some of the kills even more). Additionally in the aftermath of a mass flying bomb attack a helicopter like this can immediately transition to assessment of damage and then to adhoc medical evactuation if needed. Thus as I have pointed out in the past, the investment into the helicopters isn't really a sunk cost since they have civil uses as well, unlike flying bombs.

The cost of Martlet missiles is roughly equivalent to the cost of a shahed type long range flying bomb, but note that a helicopter or air defense vehicle can cary a Martlet missile until it is need to be used, which inherently presents a cost savings over a shahed that is lost no matter what whether a target is succesfully reached or found.

This is the UK designing these affordable missiles too, I am sure the price advantage of shaheds will evaporate even quicker into an illusion as more nations replicate this approach.

According to sources, the drone is expected to have a range of over 50 km and an endurance of around 30 minutes. Equipped with electro-optical and infrared sensors, it will be capable of surveillance as well as target identification. Importantly, it will continue to operate even if enemy forces jam or disable GPS signals.

The project is on a fast track, with the IAF hoping to complete development, testing and delivery of an initial batch within a year. This will involve helicopter drop trials, payload integration and high-altitude testing before the system is cleared for operational use.

..and just like that, in a blink of an eye the Apache goes from being considered obsolete because of drones to being widely utilized all over the world as both a counter drone AND drone launch platform.

It almost makes you dizzy it happened so fast if you subscribe to the prevailing narratives about these things as they spin meaninglessly around like tops. This is old this is new this is old this is new....

Who could have predicted this??