Don's Weekly, 28 July 2025: Part 5 (Equipment)

by Donald Hill

(…continued from Part 4…)

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Equipment

Russia started using a drone that looks like a smaller version of a Shahed/Geran, has a 15 kg warhead and can hit moving targets. It has an encrypted range of 40-80 km, and other drones in range can act as relay nodes, making a swarm of drones resistant to jamming.

Swift Beat is a US company that is building drones in a partnership with Ukraine. The drones are being sold for the price of production without profit. Three models for the company were responsible for 90% of the Russian Shahed/Geran drones that were destroyed by interceptor drones. Information about the drones, their interception rate and the number of drones that were launched was not provided. Zelensky says that $25 billion is needed to build drones, missiles and EW equipment, and that $6 billion is needed for interceptor drones alone.

Russian Su-35s are using the improved R-77M air-to-air missile that has a claimed range of 190 km, compared to the 110 km range of the R-77-1 missile.

A photo of an Su-35S of the VKS, purportedly armed with four R-77M air-to-air missiles: these represent an extended-range variant of the R-77-1.

(Left) The VARTA DroneHunter is a 2.3 kg system that can be attached to drones at a cost of €300. The two 12-gauge barrels carry 12 rounds and a recoil mitigation system that uses counter-shot to stabilize the firing platform. It can engage drone and personnel targets at 5-20 meters and has been officially adopted by the Ukrainian army. (Right) 3DTech said its Khyzhak Shooter underwent field trials featuring six 12-gauge barrels that also use a countercharge to cancel recoil. The barrels can be fired individually or all at once and the developer says that fiber-optic drones are easier to shoot down because the mass of the fiber coil slows the drone down.

Europe is working on an inexpensive jet-powered strike drone with a speed of 400 kph, a range of 500 km and a 36 kg warhead. A Shahed-136 has a speed of about 185 kph, a range of 1600 km and a 50 kg warhead. Two Ukrainian companies partnered with US companies to develop a prototype by October that will be a ground-launched, affordable one-way drone with a range of 50-300 km and the ability to navigate in an EW environment. The warhead weight requirements were not mentioned.

Transferring power wirelessly could power drones, sensors and other equipment in remote battlefield locations. The previous record for wireless power delivered 230 watts for 25 seconds at 1.7 km, and an unknown amount of power at 3.7 km. A US DARPA program used a laser to send 800 watts of power to a distance of 8.6 km for 30 seconds. Standard power lines are about 95% efficient, losing 5% of the power sent. Using off-the-shelf equipment, this effort had an efficiency level of 20%. With customized equipment the efficiency level will increase. Optical (laser) beams can send a more focused beam than radio frequencies and need a smaller antenna but can be scattered by fog and clouds. This effort took three months and is the first of a three part project.

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