A British F-35B has shot down a hostile drone over Jordan, marking the first time a British F-35 has destroyed a target on operations.
The Ministry of Defence confirmed that the fifth-generation jet engaged and destroyed the aerial threat as part of defensive activity across the region. The sortie was supported by RAF Typhoon aircraft and a Voyager air-to-air refuelling tanker.
The engagement forms part of a broader UK response to escalating attacks involving drones and missiles across the Middle East. In parallel operations, a British counter-drone unit neutralised drones in Iraqi airspace heading towards Coalition forces, while an RAF Typhoon operating with the joint UK-Qatar 12 Squadron shot down an Iranian one-way attack drone directed at Qatar using an air-to-air missile.
The use of the F-35B in a live engagement represents a milestone for the aircraft in UK service. The short take-off and vertical landing variant is operated by both the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy, flying from land bases and from the Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers.
Defence Secretary John Healey said UK forces were acting to reinforce regional defences.
“We are moving quickly to further reinforce our defensive presence in the Eastern Mediterranean.”
“I am deeply proud of the professionalism and bravery of our Armed Forces personnel who have in recent days successfully taken action across the region to protect our allies and defend British interests.”
Alongside the air operations, the UK is deploying the Type 45 destroyer HMS Dragon to the Eastern Mediterranean. The warship, equipped with the Sea Viper air defence system, will strengthen the UK’s ability to detect and defeat aerial threats, including drones.
Two Royal Navy Wildcat helicopters armed with Martlet missiles are also deploying, adding additional counter-drone capability.
The Ministry of Defence said the measures are aimed at protecting British personnel and interests, while supporting the collective self-defence of allies in the region.
Unfortunately, according to NL, neither Duncan nor Dragon has yet received the Sea Ceptor mod. Any takers on a wager that MoD/RN may accelerate the installation schedule, if the current dustup becomes semi-serious? There are two speeds for NATO equipment programmes: Manyana, it’s peacetime, or Oh f*ck, someone just dropped us into it.
Why would they accelerate the schedule, that wouldn’t be relevant to current events, would still take years
For these kinds of drones Sea Ceptor isn’t really needed.
T45 and A30 is for ABM defence.
The Wildcats will deal with the Shahad drones.
Really the Wildcats don’t need the T45 and could have been directed by the amount Olympus radar head using an RFA. T45 simply does both things.
Hugo,
Sorry, description not sufficiently explicit. Consider the pace of Op. Corporate, or various periods during WWII. MIC can find another gear, if sufficiently motivated.
It is quite surprising how fast things can be done if it is really, really needed because…..
When the coffers are unlocked. Its amazing what equipment is suddenly available over night. Mods that take years normally suddenly take weeks/days.
Agreed…the leisurely pace of making the work fill up the over extended timeline evaporates….
It would take months even if they worked flat out to install and test a new VLS system, were not Japan or Korea.
Cannot propeller trainers like Tucano deal with shahid drones off Cyprus. Loaded with martlet or gun pods ?? We need to reduce the kill cost ratio. Someone said if no drones got through the West has still spent amounts sending up missiles. It’s a win for Tehran.
All should advocate for the adoption of the lowest cost, most efficient C-UAS system (or system of systems). In other words, a nearly ideal opportunity to experiment. In this particular scenario, the US and Israel will eventually terminate the archers, w/ extreme prejudice.
The US uses APKWS, it should be easy to get that integrated into the Typhoon at least. I wouldnt be surprised if the US at some point integrates it onto f-35 (wing mounted obviously). APKWS is very cheap and many thousands are produced every year
Patrick C,
Thanks, did not realize the APKWS II guidance kit is ~ $25K. Occasionally, the US MIC develops a bargain priced munition, despite larcenous intent. 😂😁👍
To be fair, as Dern pointed out a while ago, its an expensive kill of a 50k drone but preventing it from maybe hitting a 50-60 million quid target…..well worth it, but possibly not sustainable 👍
In some ways dealing with drones seems to be like Germany dealing with the mosquito in WW2. It almost seems not worth it to try and down them (for different reasons) but ultimately they still cause enough damage you need to down them
Brilliant! The air defence turns up just after the major part of the air threat has been neutralised.
I seem to recall British forces returning from the Gulf thirty five years ago passing their new desert combat boots on the road going the other way!
The British Prime Minister’s career has survived by an extremely slim margin. A drone landing a few hundred yards further on and Britain might have sustained serious casualties in Bahrain or Cyprus, casualties to service personnel, as far as we can see, entirely unprotected by ground based sir defence.
Unsurprising that recruitment and retention is so poor. Whitehall/Westminster clearly care nothing for our armed forces either at home or, most particularly, on deployment and has not cared for some considerable length of time.
America lost 6 personnel in attacks but no one is calling for Donald Trump to resign. I don’t see why Starmer would be considered any different.
We are very quick to call for heads to role in this country. Others just get on with it and accept the risks.
People forget most PM stay in their role for a full term lol.
Calls from Democrats for President Trump to resign never cease!
The point is that U.S. casualties were sustained despite GBAD.
British servicemen in Bahrain and, quite possibly, in Cyprus have no GBAD.
Strikes against this country, ‘Little Satan’ to the frankly lunatic Iranian regime, were entirely predictable once things kicked off as ‘any fule kno’ was highly likely. Our lack of contingency planning, preparation, has been a grave dereliction of duty, incompetence in spades, at the highest level in Whitehall/Westminster.
Our servicemen survived by good fortune only. They deserve a great deal better than that from their government.
There are extensive air and missile defences around the base in Bahrain which intercepted 73 missiles and 91 drones. I’m not sure if you understand the set up in Bahrain, we have a jetty in the middle of a US navy base in a small country which is on a small island. We can’t rock up with a sea Ceptor battery to defend our jetty while THAAD and Patriot batteries are firing all around it as part of an integrated missile defence.
The base in Cyprus’s is covered primarily by Israeli air defence which Iranian weapons need to cross.
The drone which hit Cyprus’s came from Lebanon launch by non state actors.
Cyprus also has air defence systems all of which were deployed but air defences are not set up to look for remote controlled planes launched by terrorists.
So at no point are any British forces deployed anywhere without air defences.
Excellent comment Jim. Thank you. Read the Telegraph article entitled “Is this the Royal Navy’s biggest humiliation?
And weep! I told them that if they want the objective facts they should refer to the UKDJ. Comments include such gems as we should have bought American Carriers-ours are rubbish! We have not paid any rent for(Our sovereign Base!) Akrotiri! We must buy back HMS Bulwark! HMS Queen Elizabeth is stuck in port because her toilet is blocked !! And the cherry on top-HMS Anson went sailing GAILY past Cyprus without any action!?!?
I should not let this get under my skin, but sometimes,,,,
Apparently USS Ford could not enter combat due to a blocked toilet as well 😀
🙂
Check the scoreboard
😆😅🤣😂
Geoff, the Daily Telegraph has had a very poor team of defence correspondents in recent years. They get terminology wrong, stories wrong and have weak analysis of defence matters.
Yes mate the Mails team of defence correspondents are absolute shite! Clueless in pretty much every respect 👍
I am not sure we need to call our any one rag on this Airborne, they are all universally cr@p.
Never fear, General Dynamics is working on the new Comet power toilet plunger for the QE, just ironing out vibration issues.
I agree it’s all been a bit over-hyped however, the Cypriots from my understanding had been asked not to use their quite significant air defence to avoid potential friendly fire incidents, as occurred between Kuwait and the USAF. In this situation there should be a system in place to cover the base, deployed by the UK, especially with fore-knowledge of the US and Israel’s attack.
Jim, you seem to be content about the air defence of our two bases in Cyprus, comprising distant Israeli AD and Government of Cyprus AD on the island. Still some drones got through to Akrotiri on multiple occasions. I would be happier with British GBAD at both bases – there seems to be none at all.
You might want to check your sources And whatever defenses they have are obviously not good enough and they sure as hell are not from the UK
Who is responsible for the security of those serving this country?
It is not Israel. It is not the United States. It is the British government, Whitehall/Westminster.
British GBAD should take care of ultra low level threats to our own formations. Our GBAD resources are threadbare as events have clearly demonstrated, a grave dereliction of duty.
Is it really going to take an ICBM landing in Central London for this country to wake up!
But every cloud has a silver lining.
It must, by now, be abundantly clear…after four years of ‘airfix’ drones driving a coach and horses through received air defence dogma…that ultra low level air defence has to be delegated down to troop/platoon level and equipment selected, procured to fulfil that requirement as a matter of urgency.
…is to completely miss the point. British service personnel would be better protected against ultra low level slow moving ‘airfix’ drones by a Royal Flying Corps Squadron of Sopwith Camels than they are at the moment by any in service Air Defence equipment.
The evidence for that is available every day in Ukraine and has been demonstrated once again across the Gulf these last few days. A munition which throws out a dense cloud of smaller fragments is the best method of defence against these simple UAVs. Read Prof. Sergey Makarenko of St. Petersburg Electrotechnical University 193-page report entitled ‘Countering Unmanned Air Vehicles’: “The myth that domestic air defense systems are able to cope with any challenges in the field of countering drones continues to be supported by most official experts and the media, but this is a dangerous delusion,”
It has been well evidenced over many decades that defence procurement in this country is indeed daft.
Most ICBM defences are provided by Ground Based Air Defence. Israel is using Arrow 3 GBAD almost daily at the moment against ICBM. Aster 30 (RN Sea Viper on Type 45), capable of ICBM defence, is already deployed in the GBAD role elsewhere.
Of course we are not defenceless. But our air defence, like so many of our defence systems, is hopelessly inadequate in size and scope for today’s threat rich international environment. So it would be great if Whitehall/Westminster would say something regarding the detail of how to improve this parlous state even if it is only ‘Happy Stuffing Christmas’
Meanwhile, Hendon please note, a few Squadrons of Sopwith Camels equipped with twin .50 Cal firing (technically feasible; in the public domain) prox fuze ammo would be most welcome.
Our air defence is perfectly adequate for the task with a T45 and two wildcats going to Cyprus, a squadron of Typhoons over the gulf and half a squadron of F35’s all doing air defence. In addition we have Sky Sabre and star streak batteries if required.
If your talking about central London being hit your talking about an ICBM
New flash, there is no GBAD on the planet that can consistently defend against an ICBM, the best systems on the planet to defend against an ICBM/MRBM’s is SM3 and AEGIS.
There are currently two AEGIS ashore systems providing ballistic missile defence for central London right now. They are deployed in Poland and Romania because that is the best place to intercept a missile headed for central London
HMG is not daft, these problems have been know for some time and solutions were put in place a long time ago.
Are those solution perfect, no
Could we do more, yes
Are we defenceless, NO
Ukraine has done some pretty amazing things with drones. Ru has shown that it can re flag merchant ships mid ocean.
The med has busy sea lanes. What anti drone systems protect those expensive and scarce F35B sat under sun shelters. I assume there are EW systems , but Cyprus , the last time I went was full of Russians who could have hostile intent . A merchant ship offshore could launch drones, that’s probably how European airfields were buzzed last year.
Can we guarantee defence against that sort of defence?
👍🏻
Well said Jim.
Or not really…
British service personnel would be better protected against ultra low level slow moving ‘airfix’ drones by a Royal Flying Corps Squadron of Sopwith Camels than they are at the moment by any in service Air Defence equipment.
The evidence for that is available every day in Ukraine and has been demonstrated once again across the Gulf these last few days. A munition which throws out a dense cloud of smaller fragments is the best method of defence against these simple UAVs. Read Prof. Sergey Makarenko of St. Petersburg Electrotechnical University 193-page report entitled ‘Countering Unmanned Air Vehicles’: “The myth that domestic air defense systems are able to cope with any challenges in the field of countering drones continues to be supported by most official experts and the media, but this is a dangerous delusion,”
That’s good to hear but why have France, Italy, Denmark have or are purchasing the SAMP/T NG and the UK nothing? Shared missile stocks with the RN, potential to use with CAMM. Minimise waste. Current Sky Sabre is for the Army, not Shorad or MRAD for anyone else afaik. Could be an opportunity for a co-share RAF & Army regiment set up for base, port, infrastructure and army defence? In peace time share, exercises and real conflict separate responsibilities? Utilise some UK Boxer platform’s for Skyranger 30 (w/LMM-Starstreak for UK version) like Germany is purchasing?
However the T45 is the only platform available, last ship standing! The 2 Wildcats is an interim response and not ideal as I’m sure you are aware! This whole saga does show how thin the military is regarding any sort of reactive or planned deployment/response. And while Starmers response in my opinion has been weak and more concerned with his UK voter base, the Tories are more to blame for the savage defence cuts from 2015 onwards. However this could be a wake up call and a turning point in the road…. Or considering the attitude of HMG maybe not!
This probably lays in the starkest image what the problem is and is in reality a deep humiliation for the UK. Simply put the RN did not defend UK sovereign territory.. not due to overwhelming odds, but because it simply did not really have any ships left to turn up in.
The media and other political parties are going all out to blame kier starmer for weakness.. while completely ignoring the fact that in reality he had no ship to send. This was not a bad policy decision, this was a tactical decision on where and when to send availability capability against risk, the RN, army and airforce would have advised him what was available vs the risk vs impact on operational temp and given him their best option.
The problem was we no longer have a viable navy.. the interactions of 26 years of catastrophic political decisions, some overestimating how long you can keep a ship running beyond it’s indicative life, and an engineering issue have all hit together when the world order is dead…and we as a nation have been humiliated.
The irony of it is the driver of the first cuts that hurt, dropping the order of T45s from 12 to 6 and the frigate fleet from 20 to 16 was our unconditional and massive support for the US war on terror…
But no matter the causative factors both Labour and conservative strategic decisions have lead us to a place of humiliation.. will we learn and rebuild our navy to 30 frigates and destroyers.. we should, but I doubt.
According to NL the navy DID give the govt the option of having a T45 in the med during the build up but that was NOT listened too and now here we are still a fortnight away from having Dragon on station! If the govt thought it was provoking Iran to have a ship there, they could have still ordered Dragon to be made ready to go as soon as the first bombs dropped.
O/T now we have a Labour MPs husband arrested on spying for China,funny how China keeps cropping in relation to the govt!
As has been said on other threads this is being unfairly dropped on the RN. RAF GBAD should be protecting Akrotiri, T45’s primary task is fleet AD. The RN now need to move Dragon from its own taskings to cover an airbase that is in harm’s way.
RAF GBAD was gutted in the 2000’s,much like the rest of our Forces,what do you suggest they should have used ?.
Spot on in every respect mate!
Probably because Democrats bizarrely think that a convicted rapist who instigated an insurrection in an attempted coup, should not be president… Weird 🤷🏻♂️
But democrats thought otherwise.
Democracy: the least worst system of government.
Well that’s obviously wrong 🤦🏻♂️
As usual, strong on categoric statement, weak on any support for that statement.
Let’s see what you make of this:
‘Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.’
No, it’s just too clever for you to understand.
Just like it’s obvious Mencken’s satire has gone completely over your head 😆
You must be one of the common people.
Which is in itself absurdly classist. Get a grip with your armchair political philosophy, you sound like chumps.
You have made yourself ridiculous, and not for the first time. These intemperate remarks do you no favours.
As Mr Spock, commonly known as Spock, has correctly pointed out, as with so much of Mencken’s humour, his use of ‘common people’ is satirical.
‘Common people’, as with the House of Commons, has never been pejorative. How could it be, referring, as it does, to all voters?
They’ve been calling for Trump to resign for years… It’s just his own base this time around said let’s make him resign, as No more wars in the Middle East, Forever or not and No More Wars for Israel, which turns out the IDF basically forced the yanks into the game.
Oh dear your translation is a bit skewed! Can you hear the paveways landing a few blocks down?
Jim at least the yanks put their money where their mouth is!! They fund their military properly!
The major part of the air threat hasn’t been neutralised. That much is obvious by the US rushing out more F35s and F15s to the region.
As for Iran’s ballistic missiles, they fired at most 20% of their arsenal based upon the numbers that each Gulf nation had said were fired at them. No doubt US and Israeli airstrikes will have destroyed some on the ground, but it’s probably not 80%.
That’s before Iran’s drone stocks are taken into account, which far exceeded their missile stocks.
I agree, so in your opinion do you think offensive strikes are needed as part of the defensive posture old Starmer has adopted? As anyone with more than 3 days experience in the job understands that any defence requires both pre-emptive and continual offensive action. Any defence with no offensive planing hands the initiative to the enemy 24/7? Thoughts?
This is a very very big question for the gulf states.. they keep on telling Iran they have had nothing to do with the attack and Iran keeps on flinging drones at them expending vastly expensive and not easily replaceable patriot stocks.. how long can they simply stay defensive, because their patriot batteries are going to run dry before Iran runs out of things to throw at them.
The point the gulf states declare war will be the moment the middleast truly goes up in flames.. because US and Isreali air strikes can be put back in the bag.. the Arab states going to war with Iran.. that’s a decades long bloodbath.
Which is what Iran is trying to provoke.
I’m not sure what they are up to, honestly, those that play asymmetric warfare tend to be far less predictable.. I suspect what they are after is destabilising the hydrocarbons markets so smashing inflation through the roof.. I don’t think their end game is war with the Arab states I think it’s economic destabilisation. But I think the outcome could be general war in the gulf…
The big issue is that I don’t think the populations would accept essentially siding with Israel.. there would be risk of rebellions ( especially in places like Jordan).. it’s why the Arab states are staying well out of it.. but it gets more difficult.
🙃 Reminds me of good old Neil Kinook wanting to alter the Tornado GR1s into AD assets as he was opposed to offensive action.
Like all the other far left idiots singing kumbaya round the camp fire while the wolves circle outside….
I agree, offense is often the best defence.
Ah mate only people of a certain age will remember that lol
Starmer has agreed to facilitating American offensive strikes against Iranian ballistic missiles and drone stocks, launchers, etc. Best use of UKs limited military resources is to destroy those Iranian missiles and drones that survive the American ground-attacks and are inbound towards us or our allies. Because while the US has vast stocks of bombs to drop on targets in Iran, the number of air-defence interceptors held by Gulf States and the US is extreme limited by comparison.
Most shocking part of this entire debacle is that Trump said he was suprised that Iran retaliated with missiles and drones against countries in the Gulf hosting American bases 🤦🏻♂️
Ok Mr Spock? No problem, I do agree that we have a very good number of decent platforms in the air to destroy (most probably) any leakers that get past Isreal and the US, and we should use our strengths in this situation.
However what about the optics? Firstly HMG deny the US use of our bases, we get a drone strike on UK sovereign territory and we suddenly let the US use our bases and expect (and hope) they do the dirty work on destroying the launch sites and in effect do what the HMG won’t do which is protecting UK personal. The RAF are as ever doing an outstanding job, however as previously stated any part of defence is a planned and directed offence! It wasn’t long ago many were ranting that the US are not a reliable ally, yet now we hope and expect them to defend us? Surely we can’t have it both ways, are they our allies or are they unreliable? Agreed the Orange man is a little unhinged but, ignoring the Trump/Starmer politics, the people in uniform work well together, trust each other and will continue to do so when both those clowns are gone. Cheers.
Nice, but the words nut and sledgehammer spring to mind.
“We are moving quickly to further reinforce our defensive presence in the Eastern Mediterranean.”
How long gor a T45?
How many missiles do we have? and the cost trade off is crazy, may be two modern gun GBAD systems could cover the RAF base a lot cheaper than missiles and most NATO nations have them but not us along with no AWAC’s, we just go with out endlessly.
Any CDS should hold his head in shame as lack of defence at the RAF base in Cyprus, its embrassing. No wonder retention is bad. Make do amd mend is not working any longer.
T45 is there for ABM interception and to be a Lilly pad for the Wildcats.
It isn’t going to shoot £20k drones with £2m missiles.
The point being that the drones have got be downed over the sea so they don’t crash on houses/farms.
So using short range Phalanx or 30mm is fine over the sea approach, which is one side, but if the drones are approaching over land it is a different calculus.
It might shoot down a 20k drone with a 2m missile if the target is worth 5m.
It might well do that…..
But it is a threat risk calculus.
Good point not many consider 👍
At the moment the gulf states are having to hit drones with Patriot missiles.. because they don’t know the targets.. defence in the end is more costly than offensive… which is why I wonder how long the gulf states can stay in a defensive stance… they keep telling Iran it’s go nothing to do with them and they did not even give overfly permission…but Iran keeps firing.
Which is why platforms like WildCat are far more suitable with £200k missiles than Patriot or NASAMS.
And in the end guns.. actually having cheap local defences for your core infrastructure.. I think we are still catching up to what drones really mean.. essentially we now mix the hyper advanced rare but catastrophic threat ( the IRBM ) the high end higher mass threat ( cruise missile and shorter range ballistic) with an incredible mass of cheap ( essentially drones enacting WW2 style mass but without even needing people)…
I don’t think anyone has yet fully come to terms with what this means for air defence.. a CBG could be attacked by an IRBM coming in at 15 times the speed of sound, 20 stealthy cruise missiles hugging the sea and 250 drones coming in dumb at 200 miles an hour… all at the same time.
Which all points to why T31 is actually very well equipped for most of that role as a goal keeper for the stealthy cruise missiles and the mass of drones.
We both agree that T31 is an essential part of CBG and is not the paper tiger that some try and make out.
With NSM and a sensible load out in Mk41 T31 is super useful.
Yep completely.. in the future I think your going to want more AAW platforms that provide a high low mix.. you will want the T45/83 to be focused on the high end threats.. but you will also want T31s to focus on mass low end attacks… then the autonomous element can be sent down the threat axis to die valiantly.
Radar coverage isn’t the problem.
Radar is not as good as AWAC’s for look down features such terrain hugging crouse missiles or very small slow drones, you can fly under rador as well. we just excuse all the gaps in equipment, and carry on with people wildly defending our clapped out military . Its a farce, a gun can shot more drones than a missile its many times cheaper holds more rounds than a aircraft and two good gun GBAD vehicles would cover the RAF base, but we have Sky Sabre not the good, poor range and expensive missile or a £ billion pound over kill Type 45,
AWACS(E3) cant spot shahid drones or anything likely to attack Cyprus. The F35 can spot them with its AESA radar as can Wildcat and T45 which is why they are all being sent.
Also flying a E3 around of the coast of Israel as its under air and missile attack is a very bad idea.
We we do not know that as have not got any, we just go with out and bluff, And E3 are old not up todate , you miss my point its a very expensive fix for a problem that just 2 GBAD gun systems gould fix
We know E3 can’t pick up shahid drones because we have spent the last couple of years along with the USA and France shooting down shahid drones and they both use E3. The Saudis also use E3 and they have been trying to shoot down shahid drones for ten years.
The problem is that pulse Doppler radars have a velocity gate. They can only see targets traveling faster than a certain speed. Propeller powered drones flying close to the ground are too slow to show up.
You can park all the E3’s in the world flying round Cyprus you like. The pilot has as much chance spotting these drones with binoculars as the radar does.
E7 is probably different but no one currently fighting in this was has E7.
F35, T35 and Wildcat are as good a radar platform as anyone is likely to get.
Crowsnest is probably pretty good for this task as well given its lower height and the capabilities of the searchwater radar which is primarily a maritime radar.
Despite postponing IOC, would we have a working Wedgetail in an emergency?
“ The problem is that pulse Doppler radars have a velocity gate”
Yes, PD is velocity gated but the gate values can be varied unless there is a hardware floor.
There is a velocity gate problem as you describe. But a lot of the issues is also the radar operating frequency itself. The E3 uses a S-band PESA, which is mechanically rotated. Lower frequency (UHF, L and S) radars traditionally have a lot of difficulty in detecting very low targets, due to the amount of clutter that is returned by the land and sea, which needs filtering out. In this respect a lot is determined by the beam shape. The E3’s is more like a vertical beaver tail, so it picks up a lot of unwanted noise. This noise takes up a huge amount of processing resource to either filter out or characterize the target from the noise. This is where the E7’s radar has significant advantages, even though it uses the lower L-band frequencies. As the shape of the transmitted beam is more circular, so it picks up less noise to begin with. Not forgetting that the E7 uses some of the latest GPU tech for processing, so it has significantly more processing power than the E3. The E7’s MESA radar is also an AESA, so you can manipulate the beam much more effectively than you can with PESA.
Nuts, forgot to mention in this type of scenario. A Crowsnest equipped Merlin will have a much better chance at detecting slow moving unmanned air systems, that have a small radar cross section, as the radar operates in the X-band. Even though the radar is an older style of non-beam forming mechanically scanned radar. The antenna is shaped to give a reasonable beam pattern, that allows it to concentrate more energy into a smaller area. In essence this means there is less clutter for the radar to filter out allowing it to find very small targets at sea – such as periscopes. Something that the Searchwater has always been good at. So it “should” be very good at detecting Shahed type drones.
With guns you have got to remember what goes up comes down! I don’t think the residents of Limassol will relish the idea of spent rounds coming down on their heads!
And? What’s your point? Not going to shoot down things over Liinsassol. Just over the bass , Limiassol is up the Cypriots to defend , modern system can easy determin speed direction. If not heading for the base then do not fire. its not hard to programme no fire zones.
Do you realise how close Limassol is to Akrotiri? The only way to engage drones attacking Akrotiri without the fall out coming down on Cypriot territory using guns is seaward! Even if we didn’t engage until drones were over the base rounds ain’t going up and coming straight down!
Yes I know how far it is away. So we let a drone hit the base and may be kill our people just in case spent proxy airbrust rounds fall on locals. Glad you were never my commander. Are you in the Labour Party? Worrying about every one but your own.
Don’t be a prat🙄you know very well there wouldn’t be any permission given to fire by any commander with the risk of collateral damage outside the SBA,s without the agreement of the Cypriot govt! Even though the bases are sovereign territory we still need the support of the ‘locals’ to operate them,start killing a few and damaging homes etc how long do you think that would last?
E NATO has got E3s if anyone thought it was a good idea to use them for this. It isn’t.
There is a good fixed radar head 2k up the sky on the top of Mount Olympus. It doesn’t need AAR!
Radar but definition can be flown under and its not hard when its that high up a mountain, i know where it is, guarded it a few times, would not waste an 30 plus year old E3 its not that good and very dated.
🤣
Did you think the USAF losing 3 F15Es was embarrassing?
Yes, but they can replace them, we can not even stop a prop powered drone so who is more embarrassed
And yet we shot done multiple drones in the past few days.
With very, very expensive missiles and we all know we will not have many of them, its madness when for some drones a good GBAD gun will be better, cheaper hold more ammo,
The UK, weirdly enough, actually has quite a few ASRAAMs lying around, which is why so many can be sent to Ukraine.
Misses the point, a gun system is cheaper for slow drones although a bit short ranged. A long conflict would see us run out mird so as we give so many away with out replacing
I’m sure you’ve noticed a fair few a got passed the American defenses too. Very small drones, are very difficult to track and engage because of there very low radar cross section and slow speed. What seems easy sat at home isn’t easy in a conflict zone.
Really wow 8 tours in 22 years thanks fior reminding me about conflict zones, I know some always get through. My point if bothered to read it was a gun GBAD would have been ideal in Cyprus. Not fool proof but better thsn NOTHING, and much cheaper than an AAM, and yes I know the vase is suroundded by water on 3 sides two or 3 modern gun systems would cover it less the area of the hospital. We have limited ammo abd it’s very expensive. Not so with a gun system.
To a Kuwaiti F18, no less.
Thought it was the Patriots that got them.
Been a swirl of twitter posts claiming it was a Hornet.
Mostly US naval aviation accounts gloating, but I haven’t seen anything to the contrary.
Phalanx/Goalkeeper types are good CIW’s to cover this type of threat. Even a rotary minigun on the back of a Hi-Lux will do its bit. The Ukes have proved this type of concept. No AAD is 100% effective, yet we sling expensive gear skywards then moan we have run out and there is no money. Its a Carry On film on loop.
We would quickly run out of missiles, doubt we would run out of gun ammo. Its a stupid thing spend millions on hittingcheap drones when a modern gun system could take most them out. Every thing the MOD does is just a farce of total stupidity, cheaper option here and now but no we chuck money we don’t have on missile we have few of.
As always its no one fault, no one takes the blame, and its keep quite and make do. Don’t bring the problem up and it might not happen. The CDS needs to man up and address so many failings but none will. And we will not buy any Gun GBAD, it will be treated as one of attack,
There is the other issue beyond this if we ever get into it with the Russia we know they will happily throw a cheap drone at any infrastructure that hurts.. hospitals, power stations, water treatment etc.. unless we were planning to run out of district general hospitals and power stations.. we had better have some plan for defence against cheap drone strikes..
The bizarre nature of Drone and the new tec is that we now have to return to a mindset of 80 years ago.. mass defence against mass attrition attack.. and guns are still best for that.
Thats the truth and the PTB need to grasp at asap.
Agreed but does any one in MOD know that? or is there yet another project looking into it. Lets wait and see what shambles the DIP is and how its spun as all things to all people when likely its a cut drowned in double speak and half truths. Any military today needs a gun based GBAD agreed there are never going to be enough and its not 100%. We simply do not have the missiles to do the job, in numbers and range,
2/3 such systems in Cyprus would be enough for whole base its better than what we have there now, nothing followed by crossed fingers and a lot cheaper than a £ billion Type 45 with limited expensive ammo you do not what to waste on prop drone. Our under armed forces can not protect its self let alone the nation, any one who thinks other wise is clearly as mad as fish.
I think the MOD are more than aware of the nature of this risk and how to deal with it, probably more than most other NATO countries. Ukraine has been knocking down wave after wave night after night for years now and the UK has been closely involved with that, supplying large qualities of cheaper LMM effectors, Paladin guns, Gravehawk & Raven systems.
Hope so a gun system is needed, and there are boxer mounted systems already. Let’s see what is ordered rather than what we trial, have a project in etc. MOD talk a lot but do little when come paying for kit
Guns would be nice but we are not short of helos and cheap rockets. The reality is the UK mainland isn’t really at risk from threats of this type, it’s just Akrotiri we need to protect because other sovereign bases are either a long way from land or surrounded by allies.
True no need for every base to have guns but there it would handy and wise. Let’s wait and see if acted on or just brushed off and ignored, we all kind of know which it will be
Phalanx was deployed to Iraq I recall on trailers to defend bases against incoming.
Yes it was mate.
Yep, on a number of occasion was walking past the trailer, when the siren went off. Seemed to be pretty effective as well. First time just stood there gawking watching the light show. Rockets and mortar shells were broken up into chunks, so learned pretty quick to get over head cover pretty sharpish.
Wildcat armed with Martlet may be the world’s best defence against shahid drones and a T45 is great for ABM defence. I suspect the RAF will be much happier with this set up instead of sticking an Army Sky-sabre battery near their air base.
That might be done as well.
The problem is, what to do on the inhabited side of the island?
Greece and France are sending ships. They could do the inhabited side.
Be cheaper, better if we had modern gun GBAD, missile cost, a type 45 cost may £ 1 billion and its missile are limited, over kill for prop powered drone. As always its make do and mend, when its clearly an equipment gap no wants to admit, fix or ever talk about. And why no hardened Hangers? do every thing on the cheap and keep fingers crossed nothing happens
Yeah bring back the Tribal class 🤦♂️
If you want to let an air threat get close enough to a billion pound warship for a gun kill that’s your call mate but not many people think that’s a good idea. Guns are a last resort.
If you’re talking about a gun based system to intercept shahid drones then we have deployed several to Ukraine already. The difference being Ukraine is dry land and you can place the guns well up threat.
Akrotiri is a peninsula surrounded by water. So where are you going to put the guns?
on the dry land hence GBAD, i mean proper guns not converted machine guns , i know the base was there for months doing force protection, guns on land facing out to sea, where else did you think i’d put them? the base is on the side facing the middle east. A type 45 will have sit in front of the base or near it
Most GBAD Guns can reach 3 plus miles thats enouth to get a prop drone, and cheaper, its last ditch defence better than doing nothing or letting one hit the run way, what do think i meant?
Ok so instead of putting a T45 and wildcats up threat you want to surround the air base with flack guns to intercept the threat a couple of miles away and you want to do this to save a few quid on missiles.
No idea put them there just for slow drones they are not worth a missile.. every thing is that fast etc only a missile will do. And yes save a few £s, we have limited missiles
You stick both systems there. Sky sabre and some guns. If it’s a Shahed we know guns can easily deal with the problem. If it’s something worse the sky sabre can be used
What’s needed is a Type 31.
To be fair Martin is describing T31 functionality.
Yes he is but he is describing the type 31’s secondary armament. Type 31 will be equipped with CAMM as principle AAW armament.
And also Mk41 – who knows what will be in that!
SM-3, at least according to the badly written RN website.
I find that surprising on cost grounds alone.
It is clearly being cued from something else as the NS100 doesn’t have the range or resolution for the task.
Feels like a duplication of A30’s development, role and path.
Strange.
It’s just some intern googling ‘what missiles in mk41’ and then copying down the US weapons, there’s no way we ever get SM3 and SM6 which was also listed.
At the £££££ that would eat the ASTER stockpile budget and makes CAM look super cheap.
There has been a serious amount of neglect and negligence here. Are you seriously telling me HMG did not know about the attack well in advance? Maybe not the day and time (as the US administration does not in fact trust the Starmer regime) but they could read the room and see the US deployment of various assets, all with certain roles and capabilities, and therefore put in an assessment of future intentions.
A forward deployed T45 dragged out of maintenance, some RA GBAD (not Sky sabre as not enough to cover required responsibilities and a hammer to crack a nut) all stuff which could have been forward deployed with the Typhoons! But alas nope, as our dear leader did not want to be seen as an aggressor to his vote pool, as the greens are now overtaking Labour in their efforts at appeasing the new voting demographic (look at Denton/Gorton various ward voting preferences) and the sectarian and religious voting intentions. It’s all about appeasement and fear, nothing to do with what’s best for the country. Even the leftist government in Canada support Trump FFS! But I’m sure having stated the obvious a few of the usual clowns will abuse me and shout me down….normal SOP in Starmers UK!
Not sure who I replied to but this post should have been a stand alone comment, sorry chaps.
HMG did not know about this attack in advance. The US government did not know about this attack in advance. This is a result of pulling “strategy” out of your ass.
The Iranian regime was daft enough to have a meeting thinking day light would be safe. The Israelites got lucky on hacked surveillance cameras and seen this. The Israelis fired an air launch ballistic missile and the Americans joined in.
That’s what actually happened.
Israel has been trying to kill the Ayatollah for revenge for some time. Trump is daft enough to think knocking him out would end the war.
Trumps current advisors are the weekend host of Fox and friends and conspiracy theory nut. Two Majors form the National guard who have never had a real job in their life’s.
Is any of this surprising
Yes dear…l
You say that with such certainty Jim! It has come out that Mossad have hacked the traffic camera etc in Tehran and other locations, which is an expectation of good covert surveillance which Isreal is a master at. However your ballistic missile theory, out of the blue, does not take into consideration the initial slow build of assets by the US to the region, followed by a weeks period where air assets were pre-positioned from the continental USA at an increased pace and very specific platforms.
While your missile theory may be correct it would be more inclined to be an Israeli “target of opportunity” too good to miss and maybe brought the timetable forward. But, the mood music was there, we have a massive intelligence community and to say they and therefore HMG did not know this attack on Iran, and probable retaliation strikes, was unknown to HMG is a leap too far. Even your average layman who is clueless about defence has been watching the news and talking about it. You defend Starmer at every opportunity and that’s your right and you are well informed, however with all due respect this is a hard one to defend and justify. Thanks for your reply.
Mate, you’re bang on, as so often.
And, I predict yawning silence as there is no real reply possible to many of those details beyind digging heads in the sand just a little deeper….
As I suggested further up, I find it inconceivable that CSOC, CJO were unaware of the risks around the US build up and that there were no contingencies in place.
The fact is, as J said, Starmer, apart from preferring to hide to appease, as I his natural instinct I feel, has so few assets to send. Not his fault that, but all the other governments back to 1997.
Which is why I won’t vote for any of them.
I agree on the threat assessment but resources are limited. The US has been kicking off with Iran for two years now. Would you waste a precious T45 when you already moved Typhoons and F35 into the region and the American government told you they were only bluffing for now.
With hindsight they should have expected Trump but can anyone expect Trump. Even he doesn’t know what they will do tomorrow.
Agreed, the current Government mate are absolutely wank, but they did inherit the wafer thin military capability from the clown Tories. But, there was options available and I’m sure the head sheds gave him options but he decided to sit on the fence and not be seen to be initiating anything which could harm his domestic voting pool. Remember mate he is guided by Hermer and they are both slaves to “international law”! They both prefer the globalist outlook than domestic, as any good leftie does.
What we need is modern GBAD, ie guns not vast amounts just enough to deal slow drones while the missile deal with every thing else, the RAF base has no perminant air defence at all whos fault is that? We can not carry on using missile we do not have that many the cost per round is millions,
Tat is my point add guns not just use guns alone,
🤣
They will have to.. drones were killed by guns in the Red Sea.. long range cheap crappy drones completely changes the dynamics of naval conflict.. it’s fine to use a 2 million pounds air defence missile that you can build a few hundred a year of to defeat cruise and ballistic missiles that cost about the same and take as long to mass product… but as soon as you add a 20,000 pound drone that can be produced 10,000 a year that missile first and always equation is gone.. even if your defending a billion pound warship.. because if you use the missile every time always you will loss the maths is inevitable. Let’s be clear in the Red Sea essentially a none state actor with very l little depth of strategic reserves ran western AAW ships close to empty and they did in the end use guns as well.
When peers go at this like china and the US.. the number of long range drones used will be huge.. but the high end IRBMs and cruise missile risks will also be huge.. so a Carrier battle group will have to preserve its few hundred high end interceptors for the high end threats.. long range drones will need to be killed by something else.. yes you can use a small ship flight with a light 100,000 pounds missile but your still on the wrong end of attrition..
A 76mm round cost 1000 pounds, and a Dart round probably 10 times that… but your still on the right side of attrition..
Guns will be vital in modern air defence.. far far more than they ever were at the end of the 20c and beginning of the 21c. Ships like the Italian FREMM with its 2 76mm and the type 31 with its 57/40/40 May have been build for cheap AAW.. but we got at bit lucky because in the drone age you need cheap gun based AAW.
That is all i am getting at we simply do not have the missile stocks and a gun system would be ideal for slower prop drones, any nation with out some kind of gun air defence is on hiding to know where, Guns as an added layer on top of every thing else. We would not need masses on land about a regt worth and each big RAF base to have a couple, cheaper than burned out F35 or dead personnel,
There is an even bigger issue.. we seem to have missed. The military are the weapon that a nation welds.. and in wars of choice you send off you weapon to fight.. the thing is the next war war are looking at is not a war of choice it’s organic war with a peer.. the last time we had one of those was 80 years ago and we have forgotten.. to win that war you don’t break the weapon you break the nation that welds the weapon.. russia has shown us it’s not forgotten in the Ukraine war.
Russia will quit happily throw drones at every conceivable strategic target that its open soft and does damage.. the hospitals, power infrastructure etc.. we have about 300 district general hospitals in this country.. any strike on them would cause significant primary deaths and mass secondary deaths as our acute health system fell apart and with it the armed forces role 4 operational care pathway.
If we are thinking we may end up fighting a peer war with Russia we need a plan to defend everything we need to keep…
Best defence would be a modern gun system with proximity ammo. And cheaper , just another gap we have like no AWACs, no tracked gun artillery, no long range GBAD. Etc etc
Bofors 40mm using 3P ammunition should do the job wonderfully
I hope somd in the depths of the deluded MOD is thinking something similar but I hold out little hope of that.
APKWS?
If F35Bs are being used is the RAF looking at podded rockets for anti-drone use which i believe the USAF are? Could they carry additional 2-4 ASRAAM or 2 AMRAAM on the wing pylons as no need to be stealthy to shoot down drones? And what about adoptong the podded 25mm cannon for extra shots capacity?
Shooting down drones at low level with cannons is very dangerous. ASRAMM is the best missile on F35 for the task and has been used. Given the timescales to get LM to integrate anything on F35 I can’t see laser guided rockets being available any time soon.
Shooting moped drones with Fast Jet is dangerous full stop. That’s why we gave all the Pumas to Ukraine.
Sonik, are you talking about the UK Puma helos or something else called “Puma’s”? Not aware of any helo donation besides Sea Kings from UK and Germany and Lynx’s from Germany Navsl air arm.
We also have some small fixed wing drones called Puma, but I’d be surprised if we gave them to Ukraine. Far more likely to be the old Puma helicopters we decommissioned last year.
Yes the helos. Good fit because we were retiring them and Ukraine already operated the type. The donation was not widely publicized but it’s not a secret either, perhaps it was kept low key due to gapping our own capability.
Okay, thanks and good on the 🇬🇧 for doing this. Wasn’t aware Ukraine had them already.
It’s crude but it works, the Ukrainians put up anything that flies with a door gunner. I’ve even seen drone takedown videos of a guy with a shotgun in the back seat of a Cessna.
APKS isn’t on the F35’s JPO list
I think what you’re referring to is the APKWS rocket system. It’s certified for the F16, it’s possible that the Wildcats we are sending with HMS Dragon will have them too, although they might be using Martlets.
The APKWS guided rockets are probably the most sensible weapon we have for shooting cheap drones at the moment.
I read an article saying that BAe are working to get the weapon certified for the typhoon as a matter of urgency. I hope that the MoD onboard this asap.
Yes thats it. I think i saw a photo of them testing it on F15s. F35Bs may need to carry more thsn 2 ASRAAMs if thats what they’re using. You’d think the inner pylon should be able to carry another 2? So 6 per F35B?
If the Starstreak is a Mach 2+ missile could that be adapted for air to air anti drone if cheaper than ASRAAM? Wasn’t it proposed for the Apache fleet at one stage?
Or the LMM if its fast enough for air launch from a jet?
*Sorry, should read up to Mach 3.5.
Yes, $22k per shot according to wiki. Comparable to cost of a Shahed drone.
Pilot to Base,
“I just Splashed one over Jordan”……
“Over”.
Base to pilot,
“Well done, return to base”.
“Over”
😎
Lots of lads have splashed one over Jordan!!!
Being Serious though.
This Story Is on the BBC Website with the heading “British F35 shoots down Drone”
Together with footage which (???) shows the Drone being disasembled and then a short clip of a Typhoon.
Typical BBC Ignorance of basic facts and even more basic Journalistic Incompetence.
BBC is pointless.
Unless of course you want to go to jail for 12 months or get screwed for a 1000 quid, then the BBC becomes the main event!
Thank you George for the objective truth. Avoid the Telegraph and unless you have strong tranquilisers close by, keep well clear of the Mailonline!!
😆😅🤣😂 Your list of quotes earlier is still cracking me up.
Hi Daniele. I need to take up Yoga and chant. I really should not rise to these people. It is never going to change. Love to you and Debbie from Jan and I. Hot and humid in Durban!
What quotes, what have I missed? A bun fight or a piss take 👍
Hi mate.
I cut and pasted these from Geoff’s comment earlier, the “SME’s in the D Mail and Telegraph.
Comments include such gems as:
“we should have bought American Carriers-ours are rubbish!”
“We have not paid any rent for(Our sovereign Base!) Akrotiri!”
“We must buy back HMS Bulwark!”
“HMS Queen Elizabeth is stuck in port because her toilet is blocked !!”
And the cherry on top-
“HMS Anson went sailing GAILY past Cyprus without any action!?!?”
About as knowledgeable on military matters as many journalists and the BBC….
I know it’s not popular to consider arming the River B2’s, but a pair of them out there with a 57mm gun, a brace of Martlet armed Scheibels and upgraded radar might be useful in this drone scenario?
Only having one slightly larger gun than that fitted SURELY wouldnt make them corvettes ( in the eyes of the navy) or even destroyers ( in the eye of a politician) and the Peregrins or whatever they are called can be easily hefted on to the ships as required.
Before anyone starts shouting “death trap” , part of the ‘normous cost of the B2s was an internal redesign re damage control, and indeed a small ops room so they are not just commercial tin boxes. Stationed offshore i am sure they could be a great asset, unlikely as they are to be targeted with anti ship missiles in this instance.
Interesting that the Wildcat has grown to be an anti- air asset now.
AA
Far too sensible that suggestion….
Rather than an up-armed b2 River, a type 31 with Dragonfire would probably be good for this mission.
It’s worth noting ( as others have said above) the Wildcats will do most of the anti-drone work, Dragon will probably launch missiles if there is a ballistic threat.
The other job Dragon is doing is demonstrating to the Cypriot government that we are serious about protecting the island.
Can we give over with Dragonfire? It takes it 30 seconds to knock down a toy drone
It’s better to spend a few quid per shot and take a few seconds to shoot down a drone than spend half a million pounds on a missile to destroy something that costs about the same a s a Kia Picanto.
(and that’s saying nothing about the advantage of not requiring any ammo)
On a ship it would cost £0 a shot as the ships engines will be running anyway. The problem however is dragonfire costs £120 million a unit to purchase. For that same money you can buy a Bofors 57mm and 29,000 rounds of 3P ammunition which is a far better option
Your timing information is incorrect.
It is not the UK’s Job to protect the Island of Cyprus,there are bigger players who will take that Role.
It is our job to protect our airbase however
Sounds like a type 31 frigate 😀
Yes AA. Might be good if they do all five B2s but not all at once! Even a light upgrade on the B1s, 30mm, newer radar, even a helo platform for Peregrine , like ex HMS Clyde. Should be doable, affordable and maybe even add a lightish ashm setup with Sea Venom or Sea Brimstone or just FFBNW, especially on the B2s. Thailand have their B2 River based Karabi’s as a reference. While we wait for the current and hopefully a few more T31s.
I assume the assumption was that the radars both in Cyprus and the RAF base plus neighbouring countries would pick up any threats with plenty of time and that the f35/typhoons on station would have time to react and shoot down the threat. I wonder what went wrong.
Is a Shahad able to be detected flying low, slow, and being small? Assume the RCS is low and they give off no signatures that MASINT can detect.
Our radar in Cyprus range from OTHR able to see thousands of miles ( reportedly ) to the more standard type atop Mt Olympus for regional surveillance.
In the 80s, Mathaeus Rust flew as Cessena right through the Soviets defences and landed at Red Square. The vast VPVO was not set up to deal with such a threat.
That’s my assumption but we don’t know. The government hasn’t provided any details at all, not even sure they have commented on it. We don’t know if it was shot down and the debris landed or it made it though.
I did read an article that explained why drones were stone Cold hard for airborne based radar.. both size and speed add massive complexity.. yes you can mess with the low-speed Doppler filter or a low-velocity speed gate but then your just adding more ground clutter and processing issues.. and all you need to do is keep slowing your drones down until they get through.. in the end slowing them down does not reduce the range and you can fly a fixed wing drone down to the speed of a car on an A road.. at that point it’s impossible to differentiate it from the ground clutter and your radar becomes useless for anything if you drop low speed Doppler filter or low speed gate that low….
Yep your not going to engage fleeting or moving targets with a drone sneaking around at 50mph.. but airfields, hospitals and power stations cannot move…
In the end we are ever in a peer war with an nation that’s going to throw lots of long range drones at us.. we will need vast amounts of cheap as SHORAD.. and I’m taking if we want to keep it we will need to pop a SHORAD of some type next to it…because Russia especially will hit anything that hurts the population.. especially hospitals.. if I wanted to hurt the Uk hardest earliest and cause the most pain., it would but a few drones into each of the few hundred DGHs we have.. because modern hospitals don’t run well with a few holes in them.. they have zero inbuilt resilience and lots of things that go bang…. Brutal but if I wanted to let the British public know they were in a war that’s what I would do.. and secondary benefit would be it destroys the role 4 in the operational care pathway for the UK military.. then I would hit the power stations and sub stations.. kill the nation not the weapon it welds.
There is a possible answer to the low speed airborne detection problem, though it becomes very processing intensive. The technique is use a similar process to how the now retired Sentinel with its real-time ground target mapping, was capable of tracking moving targets on the ground. This is by using the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) technique. The SAR technique is way of using radar to build an image, much like how old TVs used to work, by building the image over successive scans/sweeps. The Sentinel used this technique to not only build up a picture of the ground beneath it, but also to help visualise a target’s past, current and predictive paths. So you can work out where it started from but also where it is going. Thereby giving the operator a ground moving target indicator (GMTI) capability. However, Sentinel used a derivative of Raytheon ASARS-2 radar, which is an X-band AESA and is well over 25 years old now. Technology has moved on significantly since it was adopted in to RAF service. Where the signal processing is mostly done using derived GPUs, which are significantly faster than legacy CPU based processing. So this technology can be reduced in size to fit on to the MQ-9. with pretty good image fidelity.
However, the SAR technique was primarily designed to map out ground features. With a software enhancement it could be used to include moving air targets. But again to help filter out the clutter it will still need significant signal processing, which in part could be done on the platform, but could also be done via a data-linked ground station. But, by using SAR you can build up an image of the target to get positive identification on it. Plus fit it to a MQ-9, you now have 24 hour coverage over a given area.
Wasn’t part of the reason that Mathaeus Rust got though Soviet airspace, due to the shooting down of Korean Airlines plane a couple of years before ?
Might have been, yes.
I also read that he was “intercepted” of sorts but below stall speed so interceptors could not get a clear visual.
I think the key point is that your high tech defences are set up to cope with US B52s they will struggle vs a slow moving prop.
Much like our scenario here, with our high tech T45s and Sabre.
K007 was unfortunate in that a Rivet was snooping around and the Soviets had doubt n some quarters whether it was that or an airliner.
And their AD commander was a ruthless SOB.
It has also been suggested that South Korea/ US airforce could face the same issues with North Korea AN-2 by planes used by SF . I am sure there was a similar issue in Vietnam were the US went to total overkill to shoot down North Vietnamese by planes, which resulted in the US aircraft crashing . Have to look for that one
I know very, very little regards Vietnam so could not comment there.
Surely the answer to point defence against Shahed and the like is a radar or even optical sighting, when really close, gun? A mini gun or multi-barrel anti aircraft gun maybe with proximity exploding ordinance? If we persist with million dollar missiles against big model aeroplanes we simply are going to lose. War boils down as in Ukraine and WW1/ WW2 to a battle of the factories and the West is setting up to lose here. We have to start thinking simpler tech and real fast or we are doomed….do you hear what I say? ….we’re doomed.
no, no our MOD like expensive gold plated stuff that looks good can;t have the UK buying guns for GBAD we gave them up in 70/80s we could not have been wrong back then, MOD is never wrong. You are right though with out cheaper drone defence we will loose guns are part of the answer if any is listerning is diffirent matter. The top brass etc all know best look at great job they have done with the Army over 30 yeras no issues there.
China must love how the US and some allies are pi$$ing huge quantities of strike and defensive missiles on Iran. With no ground assault there will be SFA gains. It will enhance China’s Taiwan invasion chances though.
Not sure China is loving this as it’s their oil going up in price be their air defence systems being shown to be s**t.
Russia is definitely loving it, I don’t think anyone else is benefiting from this.
A munition which throws out a dense cloud of smaller fragments is the best method of defence against these simple UAVs.
Read Prof. Sergey Makarenko of St. Petersburg Electrotechnical University 193-page report entitled ‘Countering Unmanned Air Vehicles’:
‘The myth that domestic air defense systems are able to cope with any challenges in the field of countering drones continues to be supported by most official experts and the media, but this is a dangerous delusion’
Since the debacle of the loss of Crete in WW2, the RAF Regiment equipped with GBAD has been responsible for airfield protection.
Low and slow drone targets are exceptionally easy to acquire by a man with an optical day/night sight fitted to a kinetic defence system. Airburst or prox fuse is the way to go and .50 Cal ammo can be prox. fuzed.
This is not complicated, technically.
In terms of budgets, recruitment, retention, in other words politics, it requires prioritisation and backbone. That has been lacking now for decades. Whitehall/Westminster give not a fig for servicemen at home or deployed overseas; national security, the first duty of government.
‘Developed by Rheinmetall, the “Ahead” system uses a programmable time fuze, which, as the round exits the muzzle, is set via an electromagnetic induction coil in the gun barrel to detonate at a precise time, releasing a cloud of tungsten sub-projectiles.’
Britain has an excellent track record in fragmentation warheads. .50 Cal airburst with advanced fragmentation effects, linked to day/night auto target acquisition will do the job.
Someone has obviously got a grip, belatedly, to authorise various emergency deployments. Time now for a reality check on available land forces.
It seems unlikely that the Straits of Hormuz can be secured, before any peace settlement, without boots on the ground. Britain will not be involved.
Nevertheless it should now be clear that RAF Akrotiri requires a significant upgrade in security, including RAF Regiment GBAD capable of air defence including ultra low and slow targets, wild dogs…
Time to dust off those old airfield protection shotguns…
‘The most immediate advantage of integrating acoustic sensors into a multi-layered security ecosystem is the ability to access another unique level of insight. If drones have been modified to mask their RF signal, RF sensors will be unable to identify the threat. But acoustic signals are extremely difficult to mask. Traditional radars can be very effective at detecting the presence of a flying object, but they can’t classify or identify the object to any great degree. But as each drone type has a unique acoustic signature, acoustic sensors have a clear role to play here.’
‘When your people are threatened every single night, it breaks through bureaucracy, removes red tape, and creates a single focus on results. That’s not the case in Western countries in peacetime.”
As of early 2026, interceptor teams have overtaken the bulk of the anti-Shahed air defense burden, using a plethora of homegrown airframes, and some higher tech foreign ones.
“Remember how long the Shaheds were tormenting us, how they were launched in dozens,” said Pavlo, an instructor in the same Ukrainian company where Doc works.
“Now, even in their hundreds, they are no longer such a problem because we have found a solution that is significantly cheaper.”
According to Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi, 70% of Russian Shahed-type drones launched at Kyiv were being downed by interceptors.
Now, countries from NATO to the Gulf are scrambling to tap into Ukraine’s expertise, which goes beyond just the interceptor drones themselves.
“Our biggest strength is constant data,” noted Buchatskyi, “we process hundreds of aerial threats per night, learn from them, and adapt based on that learning — something no other country in the world really has.”
Perhaps a small buy of 25mm gun pods for UK F-35B?
So, so many people here and across the media talking about Starmer failing to defend the UK, when the bastard’s been actively dismantling the UK on every level for two years.