Cheap systems against "Shahmed" does not exist: analysts dispelled myths about air defense

To spread: recent night attacks of Russian drones on Ukraine, as well as penetration of drones in Poland's airspace raised the issue of air defense systems capable of protecting the sky from drones. Although the developers of the means, as well as some experts, talk about the creation of inexpensive solutions in this field, the German analyst believes that it is almost impossible.

Many experts discuss how to build effective protection against relatively inexpensive drones that can be used in mass attacks for a long time. The military analyst of Hartpunkt Waldemar Gayer also spoke about this. In his material, he writes that traditional opposition methods - fighter jets or expensive missiles, which are launched from the land complexes of air defense - are economically disadvantageous against cheap UAVs.

One swarm of drones can be much cheaper than an expensive plane or rocket, making standard approaches ineffective for long -term defense. Some inexpensive systems that offer a quick effect often do not solve the problem in the long run. They are effective against specific types of threats, but when changing the tactics of the enemy quickly lose value. This is what the experience of Ukraine showed, where Russian drones changed their flight parameters after the first mobile counteraction systems.

Commenting on Giger's material, Defense Express analysts, on their part, noted that the system of counteracting drones consists of two elements: the lesion (effector) and a threat. Any "cheap" remedy without a complex of detection is ineffective. In this case, the cost of the system increases in proportion to the area of ​​the protected area: the larger the territory, the more effectors and sensors.

"And when they talk about a new cheap remedy, which can be an anti -aircraft drone, a miniature rocket, a programmable blade or ordinary balls, then the complex cost of the system is made immediately by brackets," analysts emphasized. For example, according to CSIS, the creation of low -expedient threats to the US using cheap solutions (acoustic sensors, balloons, meterasta) was estimated at $ 15 billion.

The cheaper the effect, the smaller its range, and therefore, you need to place more devices. For example, an expensive system with a 20 km radius can be replaced by approximately 360 cheaper devices with a range of 1 km. In addition, they are often forgotten to take into account the cost of the complexes themselves - as in the case of laser systems: the price of the shot can be minimal, but the cost of the entire system is extremely high.

In Ukraine, this principle is well manifested on the example of counteracting Russian "Shahanedam". Mobile firing groups with machine guns initially worked effectively, but after increasing the height of the drone flight, their efficiency decreased. Now Ukraine uses anti-aircraft drones against Shahaneda, while Russia produces faster reactive drones "Geran-3". Thus, the developer of the attack means the initiative, adapting its systems to the existing defense.