The kamikaze drone attacks on Ukrainian cities are the next turning point in the war. So far, Kyiv seems to have no effective means against the mass attacks. What weapons and defense systems from the West could help against this?
They fly slowly, are loud, but can cover thousands of kilometers and are also difficult to locate: Kamikaze drones, such as the Shahed-136 developed in Iran, are currently spreading fear and terror in Ukraine. They also show how modern air defense is reaching its limits. The Houthi rebels in Yemen are said to have successfully used the drones against Saudi Arabia, which was unable to defend itself despite modern air defenses. Now Russia is also relying on the terror drones.
While many of the drones were shot down in recent mass attacks on Ukraine, many got through. In an act of desperation, police officers in Kyiv grabbed their guns to bring down a drone. No real solution, as military experts point out. Because the drones then explode somewhere else in the city when they hit. And the ammunition fired from the guns also comes down somewhere and becomes a danger.
The Ukraine also has larger Soviet-style interceptor missiles, such as the Buk or S-300, and now also has the ultra-modern German system IRIS-T SLM. But these missiles are comparatively expensive at several hundred thousand euros each – a waste compared to the cheap drones, whose costs are estimated at 20,000 euros each. According to experts, Ukraine could not sustain this imbalance for long.
The anti-aircraft tank “Gepard” supplied by Germany could help shoot down the drones in a cheaper way. However, he is needed at the front because of his mobility. So what else can be done about the new threat from the air?
One possible solution is the Vampire system from the USA. It is a mobile system that can also be installed on pick-up trucks. Vampire uses small rockets to take drones out of the sky. These are directed to the target with a laser and are said to cost around 28,000 euros each – which would put them in the price range of the drones themselves. However, the system is considered to be comparatively little tested.
Vampire could be supported by Titan, which is also supplied to Ukraine from the USA. However, the system does not shoot itself, but captures and analyzes the attacking drone and chooses the best methods to combat it. The developers have equipped the system with an automatic decision-making mechanism for this. However, it only covers a radius of three kilometers. Initially, Ukraine is to receive twelve of them. Israel had also announced that it would help Ukraine set up an early warning system.
And Israel could contribute even more to its defense against drones, after all it has a proven air defense system with the Iron Dome. In the most recent Gaza war, its rockets were able to fend off more than 90 percent of the incoming rockets. And the costs per anti-missile are estimated at 50,000 euros in a range that would probably be acceptable for a defender. However, Israel has recently ruled out the delivery of the Iron Dome due to “a number of operational considerations,” it said.
But the USA and even Germany also have high-tech air defense systems in stock. In July, US senators wrote a letter to the Secretary of Defense calling for the delivery of the C-RAM system to Ukraine, among other things. “C-RAM will provide a critical point defense capability against missiles and drones targeting civilian and military critical infrastructure,” it said. C-RAM is a rapid-fire cannon system designed to protect US military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan from missile and artillery shells.
The Bundeswehr also has a similar system called MANTIS: the anti-aircraft gun developed by the German armaments company Rheinmetall looks like something out of a “Star Wars” film and fires up to 1000 rounds per minute. According to the Bundeswehr, it can defend against rockets, artillery shells and mortars, but also drones or cruise missiles. However, it is not mobile and only covers a radius of three kilometers. However, it can also be used purely as an early warning system without artillery.
Laser weapons to defend against drones are also being developed in several countries. However, it is unclear how far advanced the efforts are. Israel recently successfully tested its Iron Beam against drones. However, the system should not be delivered until 2024. Barring Israel’s reluctance to support Ukraine, it would probably be too late anyway.
But another technology should be available more quickly: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg had announced that the military alliance would deliver “hundreds” of jamming transmitters to Ukraine in the coming days to counter drones. This is intended to disrupt the steering of the drone so that the drones “do not go down in a city, but in the open field where they do not cause any damage,” military expert Thomas Wiegold told the broadcaster Welt. With several hundred jammers, “the chance of getting a large part of these drones out of the sky increases”.
Of course, other countermeasures against the threat of drones are also conceivable. The Ukraine, for example, could preventively attack and destroy drone batteries and command centers, for example with the now infamous HIMARS rocket launchers, which are very precise. However, if the drones are launched from Belarus or Russia, this is likely to be problematic for political reasons.
In order to strengthen Ukraine’s air defenses, NATO countries have already hastily announced the delivery of older but proven systems: Spain, for example, is supplying HAWK air defense systems, the development of which dates back to the Cold War era. The ground-based anti-aircraft missile system Spada Aspide also comes from Spain. France wants to supply Ukraine with the Crotale mobile air defense system, which was first introduced there in the 1970s.
It will probably only become clear in the coming days and weeks how Ukraine can best counteract the threat of drones. In the end, it may be a mixture of different measures that lead to success.
