19 Comments
User's avatar
Gary's avatar

The range seems to be a killer. You’d need what, 6?, to fully cover a Burke-class destroyer?

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Fred's avatar

Combine this with standard CWIS, microwave or laser weaponry to create a layered counter UAS defence package.

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Fred's avatar

Well you’ve thought this out very well.

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Velociraver's avatar

Sounds like a re-hash of the defunct Australian "metal storm" project. Apparently the Chinese have revived it, as well.

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Hans Torvatn's avatar

But does that make it invalid?

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Sally meadows's avatar

With a range of only 40-60m you're going to be dead before engaging a Uav...

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Researching Ukraine's avatar

Data from the battlefield suggest otherwise.

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Hans Torvatn's avatar

That’s a very good answer.

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James Pierce, Jr's avatar

I have always been fond of Gatlings.

Would be nice to get the effective range out beyond 60 m. though.

Mount four of these on an MBT a la the Soviet T-35 -

https://tank-afv.com/ww2/ussr/T-35.php

and you are on your way to SF writer Keith Laumer's Bolos. Although the design would have be reworked for a larger magazine as a vehicle mount.

At any rate, an interesting concept.

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Researching Ukraine's avatar

Very similar. But with that large caliber and high cyclic rate, it is cost prohibitive and difficult to scale.

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Oskar Krempl's avatar

Interesting concepts which IMHO needs some more work, because:

A drone traveling with 120 km/h needs 3 seconds for 50 m.

According to your specs you have at maximum 3 shots available. Fire to soon you miss, fire too late you are dead. With only 3 shots avaible that puts a lot of importance on proper fire control.

Why does it have to be tungsten? For normal drones steel is at that speed more than enough.

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Paul Stone's avatar

I don’t understand. It says 3-6 rounds per second. I assume that is also per barrel.

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Researching Ukraine's avatar

No. As the article states, one barrel fires at a time. Like a Gatling, or mini gun.

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Paul Stone's avatar

I think I understand. Oskar was referring to a “shot” as one complete cycle through all of the barrels. But, it seems like the odds of the drone making it through 3 complete cycles would be rather low.

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Oskar Krempl's avatar

To cite from the article (text under the first picture, emphasis by me:

This is a Dillon Aero. Overkill for the cyclic rate we need. The Aero can fire 50-100 rounds per second. BUT OUR SYSTEM SHOOTS ~60 PROCETILES EVERY SHOT. A 2 second burst is ~750 “shots” with a meter wide kill zone.

Later he writes: The ammunition supply is housed in a reloadable spring-loaded hopper or drum magazine with capacity for 100 to 200 shells.

So this makes for me a maximum of 3 shots. Then someone has to reload.

As long as only a single drone shows up it is not much of a problem. But what if it is more than one drone, like for example the last nights at Odessa?

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Harry's avatar

Wow! Can you shoot skeet with this? It’d be like, “Pull 30!”

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Martin Whitener's avatar

Ben: NOT FAIR!!!!! The stupid ducks do not stand a chance. Man you are SO CRUEL. You are gonna cause the extinction of Russian water fowl.

:o)~

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Gunnar's avatar

Defense against small drones seems like a very challenging engineering problem. My question to you is, if terrorists wanted to attack a civilian airports much in the way the Ukrainians went after Russian bombers sitting on the airfield - does anything exist that can defend from that? It would seem to me nothing can defend a civilian airport for years to come.

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