SmartShooter SMASH weapon sight is hoped to increase the ability of the British Army’s counter-drone operations.
The British Army’s close combat soldiers are poised to gain a strategic edge in countering unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with the deployment of the revolutionary SmartShooter SMASH Smart Weapon Sight Fire Control System.
Engineered to increase the hit probability against micro and mini UAVs, the system boasts the ability to track and lock onto targets, maintaining this lock even with target or user motion. The SmartShooter SMASH system will first be incorporated with the SA80 A3 assault rifle and can also be integrated with other in-service individual weapons.
The initial delivery includes 225 SMASH sights, fulfilling a £4.6 million MOD contract. This first wave of sight units will be dispatched to Very High Readiness units throughout the British Army by the year’s end. Subsequent deliveries will extend the advanced capability to close combat operators across the Army, Navy, and RAF. The agreement with Viking Arms Ltd, based in Yorkshire, enables this phased rollout over the coming years, centred on operational and readiness requirements.
Minister for Defence Procurement, James Cartlidge, emphasised the necessity of this modern capability in the battlefield landscape. “The importance of uncrewed aerial vehicles on the modern battlefield is undeniable. Alongside procuring, developing and deploying this technology in a range of different ways, we must also be proactive in ensuring our Armed Forces can protect against their use by adversaries,” said Cartlidge.
A cheap effective way to shoot down drones is a must. Low tec cheap drones like the Iranian drones Russia use should be easy to shoot down but the high end stuff a different matter but fortunately very few have high tec drones .
Not sure 20k a pop is a cheap solution (£2.4m/225).
This isn’t a smart bullet etc, it is still going to rely on the soldier is line up the fast moving target and hit it. Wonder how much more effective the average soldier is using these Vs a traditional iron fight or normal optics.
It’s a very cheap ssolution the 2.4 million to buy the kit the ammo the huge saving it’s not cost effective to shoot down 1 & 2 & 10 k drones with highly expensive rockets or missiles.
Considering they are only buying 225 it would seem the army disagrees. Seems an odd number but it would seem not designed for regular usage in a war zone.
I guess it depends what the issue rate is to deployed infantry, RM Cdos, Paras, Rangers. One per platoon? One per section? With some in reserve and training pool even a few hundred will go some way.
Would need to be every active unit. Drones are relatively cheap
Did I misread I thought I read it would initially be rolled out to high readiness units and then phased in throughout the forces. Don’t know if that means purely exploiting this order or whether additional orders will may be expected if all runs smoothly. Either way I presume they will want to test it in real world scenarios before mass exploitation.
Steve wrote:
“”Considering they are only buying 225 it would seem the army disagrees. Seems an odd number but it would seem not designed for regular usage in a war zone.””
From the above link:
The move to such a sight during a time of financial constraints appears to me to be using the threat of UAVs as a selling point. Totally missed is this weapon upgrade mirrors the new sight the US is getting for its new 6.8mm rifle. In giving expeditionary forces a one shot one kill capability kind of points in the direction that the army wants to give as much advantage to our guys as it can. If they have to sell this to the powers that be as a drone killer, so be it.
If the scale of issue is one per rifle section, the order is enough to equip 8 battalions ie about a Division, with 9 left over for the training org.
The odd thing is if only one per section, wouldn’t it make more sense to install on the sharpshooter rifle for the extra range.
Unless the idea is to unload a magazine on auto on them, but then the sight probably becomes pointless.
I guess a DJI drone swarm needs many firings that a sharpshooter rifle is not the more adequate
I wouldn’t want to give up my main firepower in the section dedicated just to countering drones. also, SS doesn’t add that much range, the standard SA80 is actually easy on man-sized targets at 400m. SS adds stopping power at range.
The integration of x6 ACOG onto SS is really potent in DCC.
It would be interesting to see what this sight enables for normal operations. Logically it must be able to be used against all targets – not just drones.
Guess we will see whenever the next counter insurgency deployment is. Drones that this will be designed for will be much smaller than man sized I suspect, more likely football sized, anything much bigger and it’s going to have it’s own payload that will fire from way outside sa80 range.
I would imagine this type of tech would easily be defeatable, as it wouldnt take much effort to add a random direction jiggle into the drone for when it gets close, to defeat the predictive flight path calculations.
Why do I worry that all this is far too slow
Hello Steve. I imagine – do not know obviously – part of the contract price is the company recovering research and development costs. That would be fair since this is never going to be a large scale production run for now.
I would assume though that the MOD would approve the final design /cost before following up with the cash. Normally you have a research /concept contract and then another for production.
Yes. Good point.
Viking Arms is just the distributor. The sights are designed and made by Sharpshooter, an Israeli company
Yeah Sharpshooter has various rifle/MG fire control products and this one already exists for a couple years albeit being improved.
Thanks Peter for that background.
The soldier just have to align the rifle to the virtual aiming point. If the trigger is depressed the fire control fires it.
Since the system optically tracks the target it can predict its future position giving an effective aiming point in the sight to the soldier.
It totally depends on the skill and experience of the shooter. For example, most people can within a day get most of their aimed rounds onto a figure 11 target at 300m. Tightening up the grouping takes a lot more time, Then getting consistency takes longer still.
However, most civilian shooters and a lot of military only shoot static targets. Unless you a game or clay pigeon shooter or in the infantry or attached to them. For most people, things get a lot trickier when the target moves. Even an inexperienced infantryman will struggle to hit a moving target at 300m. A significant number of rounds are wasted by shooters, not leading the target correctly.
This sight almost takes away all of the guesswork, from how much to lead the target. Therefore, for the average shooter without much experience. It will significantly increase their accuracy and consistency. Which also means the shooter doesn’t waste shed loads of rounds, trying to hit a moving target.
On the demo at Fort Bragg, around 5 years ago. I had a go with their original sight. It looks like it has evolved quite a bit, since I used it. The version I used required the shooter to press a remote button switch to lock on and then track a target. The target then had a box placed around it on the display. The ballistic computer within the sight then works out the range based on the target’s pixel size and uses pressure sensors to work out the atmospherics. The computer has the weapon’s ammunition data being used. From this information, it then places the aiming dot to where it believes the bullet will strike the target. For moving targets it measured the pixel rate of change.
From memory the aiming dot was always centered on the center of mass. You couldn’t for example change the point of aim to the head and the dot would then correct to that point of aim. Though that may have changed now.
I have seen that the new sights can also come with an integrated laser range finder. This will give the computer a true target range. It may also be used for changing the point of aim on a target by making the computer follow the laser.
It is not 20k a pop. It is 20k for the system and then the cost to shoot each drone down is just the cost of a few bullets rather than the cost of very expensive missiles! Starstreak costs £100k per missile and that is on top of the control system!
There are guided bullets now that can use targeting data to adjust thier flight path somewhat….
There’s a lack of detail in the article. Not wise to assume the unit price. Would be agast if it was that dear. I’m sure there’s some garage in Ukraine ghats making something as good at a tenth the price. One thing for you’re is we can’t afford the cist of these weapons systems if we’re to have large stockpiles fir any future conflict. At meant we’ve had a warning now
PT … also could be any target, troops for instance, this makes any one a sharpshooter. This is sort of black cabs meet sat nav moment.
IRL aimbot.
Interesting kit, love to know how it works.
I assume it’s A3 specific because it’s got the full length picatinny rail and it’s a fairly long scope….
Hi John,
I would love to know how this works and assists the soldier aiming the weapon too.
FYI…article says….
‘can also be integrated with other in-service individual weapons’.
The best it can do is put a dot or similar on the drone and another dot where it calculates where it will be if you hit the trigger and maybe light up when that point is centered. It can’t help the soldier actually aim as the bullets aren’t smart / guided in any way. How effective it is without a 3d radar is anyone’s guess, as it can only be guessing distance and direction based on optics.
Maybe new helmets can have a wee rotating radar on top😂😂😂😂
And some “mini Camm”, 2*2 either side… Lol 😁
Perhaps we will see helmets like Rogue Trooper’s Helm? That not only includes situational awareness sensors but also an AI.
I wonder if the sort of sensors being developed for driverless cars might come into their own here eventually, I guess it will depend on how accurate they will be when scaled up in the required distance range finding for this sort of platform and to what extent it can be miniaturised.
The company PDF on the sight:
Don’t know exactly how it works but you hold the trigger and the shot is released when you are on target.
This is basically an optical fire control system. It can tracks a drone and show the future position to the soldier.when the fire control thinks it gets an hit if fire the rifle automatically if the soldier have the trigger depressed.
So there is not the delay of soldier processing the image and depressing the trigger, he just need to aim the gun to a virtual position in sky.
How it works:
For some targets it detects by optical image recognition.
It can recognize humans, drones, probably also vehicles.
Then it tracks them continuously. Then if you have your trigger depressed when the computer thinks the rifle is aligned to the targets and will get a hit it fires automatically.
Another advantage is that the soldier do not need to close one eye.
Sounds like he could close both.
How does the Rifle fire automatically, the fire control group is a mechanical device, the hammer is held on the sear, once the trigger is depressed the the trigger bar moves forward releasing the sear allowing the hammer to fall to strike the firing pin, so unless some other devise is installed within the fire control group, to hold the hammer down, once you depress the trigger the weapon will fire?
In the PDF posted by Farouk there is this part:
No idea as to what a Fire Block mechanism is or even how it would work, without a modification to the fire control group, would be interested if any commemorators on this site could explain it to me, as after working on small arms for the last 40 plus years i have no idea how this would work,
Indeed I’m assuming the sight will give a positive indication when it’s on target with a tone or say a green light
Seems a long time ago now deluded Russian cowardly weak midget phoned Boris up . I can always fire a missile at you Boris but I don’t want to hurt you . Russia can’t do that but UK if it wished could put one right on the cowardly murdering midgets head .
It may be something similar to this https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/01/17000-linux-powered-rifle-brings-auto-aim-to-the-real-world/ which has been available in civvy street for some time.
Like to see the Russian fleet in the black sea area destroyed and sunk in one big Ukraine air force attack using storm Shadow .harpoon . Neptune. NSM. . Job lot on the bottom
Can’t help but imagine that the ability to do that is being avidly worked on. Question marks over the developmental stage of the ballistic missile they were working on pre war has reached, they have claimed in war conditions it would be tough to finalise it but the Ukranians tend to under play capabilities till they get to use them. And then there is the thousand mile drone they spoke of a good while back. If they were able to hit a sub I wonder how that would go down.
Including their subs too. Hope Ukrainism forces can push through to the Asov and retake Mariupol. Can’t imagine what it’s going to look like when they eventually get there. What an awful mess. Russia sure has a lot to answer for
More info on how it works here
Link
Be even better if he had a magazine fitted.
Well observed.
That’s because space has been reserved for a Magazine but that is a future upgrade, so at present it is “Fitted For But Not With”.
But it is still a World Leading, 1st class Close Quarters Weapon as it can be fitted with a bayonet.
Unfortunately that has been removed due to H&S concerns.
How long have you been involved with UK MOD speak ? 😂
You left out ‘cutting edge’…..
Fuck me 😂😂😂😂
scary tech, just get a lock on a target keep trigger depressed until computer decides to fire the kill shot. all grunts will be sharpshooters now
Yes one of those would work wonders on a1.5″ bore Holland and Holland. Throws out massive wall of BB.
OK, this sight has been around for at least the last 5 years. I was at a demo at Fort Bragg a few years ago, where they were being demonstrated on various weapon systems from M4s, M16A3s, M240, M249 and even a M2. The sight then had two main parts. The main optical sight and a back up reflex red dot mounted on top. The main sight though was digital, which incorporated a ballistic computer, that would alter the point of aim based on the target’s range and local atmospherics. Perhaps more significantly, it automatically works out the lead to give a selected target. So that your point of aim predicts where the bullet will hit.
As I mentioned before, it can make a fairly average shooter significantly better. Where they can pretty much guarantee hitting the centre of mass of a Figure 11 at 300m, repeatably. It was a bit odd wobbling the rifle around and watching the sight automatically adjust the sight picture to align with the target.
Since I last saw it, the two sights are now combined and it can also be used at night, as it has a thermal camera mode. Which would be a game changer if the whole platoon gets one.
The big question is, how long does the batteries last for, if you’re in a prolonged contact? Back then it was using camera batteries, similar to the ones used in NVGs.
See link below:
Home – smart-shooter
As the Ukraine War has shown, apart from hand held RF Jammers. There hasn’t been a kinetic answer to the small “toy” drones, like the DJI Mavics. That are being used to drop grenades in trenches etc. Perhaps with the sight’s ability to track a target, it might be possible to shoot one down. Though detecting it in the first place is still the issue that needs solving.
Battery: PDF posted by Farouk says 72 hours or 3600 smash assisted shots.
Small hobby drones operate on domestic wifi bands so should be easy to jam. Yon can buy off the shelf wifi service denial hardware, just need to amplify the signal if you want decent range. However blocking the 2.4 or 5ghz signal will just mean a drone like the DJI will return to home, so its not a ‘kill’ solution. GPS jamming is a better solution as if no GPS is detected the drone won’t move, it with just hoover then when the battery get to 10% land where it is.
The racing drones used to chase down tanks and APCs are different matter they probably don’t have return home functions as they’re generally designed to be operated close by. For these a low power (80W) wifi signal jammer for around 250USD fitted to the vehicle would block the controllers signal at around 100m making it impossible hit the target as these drone need constant adjustments during the final apprach to be accurate. With only 100m range it would make it only detectable if the enemy is close by.
Detecting the drone again should be easy, they broadcast video and telemetry back to the controller on the same wavelengths as domestic wifi. Another clue that its a drone is they do now use frequency hopping within the 2.4 and 5ghz. Domestic wifi sit on one channel, a drone would frequency hop. Lastly domestic wifi router is unlikely to be broadcasting at 400ft :), so elevation would be a give away.
There are some specialist drone enthusiasts which use lower frequencies for stunt flying within buildings, high bandwidths don’t like obstacles like concrete walls.
Similar logic would apply to targeting Russian jammers, they’re likely just throwing up noise in the 2.4/5 Ghz bands, a drone which can detect the signal strength could autonomously home in on the jammer. RC hobbyist have been building aerial trackers to keep their dish antenna pointing at the drone for 15 years or so, you sense when the signal weakens and align the aerial to get the signal strength up. Instead the drone senses where when the signal weaken and adjusts it flight path towards the signal. You’d need to keep the drone at an decent altitude until close to the target, this is all fine if the jammer is in the open. A better option would be 2 autonomous drones that fly up to altitude an sense the direction of the signal, using the data form the 2 drone you can triangulate the position of the jammer. I know there’s solutions out there now but these would be solutions that are in the 100s of USD not 10s of 1000s and be man portable.
Good post. Thanks for the detailed and up-to-date info on drone warfare
Cheers mate, I guess these would be no different to the mobile phone jammers we used in Iraq and Afghan.
It still remains that if you are transmitting a jamming signal, you could be triangulated and then targeted. There may be a case for a passive system, that is used to initially detect the “wifi” frequencies transmitted by the drone, then activates a jammer as it gets close, to form a protective bubble around your team. Whilst at the same time giving a warning to the operator. However, it has to be portable and be able to carried in a daysack, whilst carrying all the your other gear. If the receiver is sensitive enough, it may be able to detect the drone at a greater stand-off distance and give a pre-warning.
The more I think on it, the more I think it is doable, especially for vehicles. It could even be linked to a RWS. It would be possible to combine a mobile phone and wifi jammer into one unit, though it would be chunky as the radio bands needed to be covered are UHF, L, S and C bands. The antenna sizing for half-wavelength coverage would range from 18.5cm down to 3cm. Which is not so extreme that it can’t be covered by digital tuning. Though the tall bump in your daysack would be a definite tell for a sniper. But, with the sharpshooter scope, it would mean the bod on the ground has a means of not only detecting the drone, but also engaging it. With a much greater chance of knocking it down.
Yeah, the jammers are same as the GSM jammers. You can buy off the shelf examples that can run across frequency ranges. Cheaper ones cover one Band.
For vehicles its a must as a cheap protection against kamikaze drones , even dropping the power to 40w would mean the drone operator loose control at 50m. This would make it hard to detect and triangulate. For Ukraine, we probably know all the frequencies the Russians operate drones so for vehicle just fit 4, 5, 6 low power jammers one for each frequency, simple and cheap. That buys time for develop a single solution and integrate it.
I like the idea of detecting then jamming, for the these multirotor drones in particular I would go for a solution of 1) Detect,2) Jam the Control and GPS frequencies, this will cause the drone to hover 3) know it down. Do step 1 to 3 quickly you can power down the jammer avoiding detection. If you don’t knock it down you’ll need to jam until the battery dies which could be up to 40 mins for some commercial drones, longer for specialised drones
Other option to prevent triangulation of jammers would be decoys, using modest Li-ion battery any a signal generator and antenna you could create a disposable decoy around size of a Ring door bell. We’re talking pounds and could be made from readily available commercial electronics.
If we are talking vehicles, a good example would be to look at pictures of the Scimitar 1/2 used in Afghan, with the aft turret plinth fitted. It had a plethora of different antennas, including a number of jammers. I am hoping that the Chally 2s we gave to the Ukrainans, have got have the jammers fitted?
I like the idea of the lightweight “sacrificial” decoys/jammers. You could use them to blanket an area for creating a protective bubble. Or use them as a deliberate distraction, to entice the enemy to fire upon them. I’m pretty sure with the number of Russian drones that Ukraine has found and collected, that their operating frequencies are now well known. Which can then be used to set up the jammers.
I have been thinking on this, so bare with me!
We know that the Trophy APS works! As it is combat proven and provides a full hemispherical coverage to the vehicle. Through publicly available videos, it shows that it takes out threats between 25 to 50m from the vehicle. It does this by either detecting a missile/rocket launch via infrared optical sensors passively, then activating the AESA radar. Or using the radar in the constantly active mode. Which then works out if the threat to the vehicle is valid, computing a firing solution to the threat. Then defeating it with the explosively formed cone of tungsten cubes. Which either shreds the threat or destroys the seeker/fuze to make it inert.
The Trophy’s ELM-2133 Windguard radar can also be used to back-track the missile’s/rocket’s path to the launch point. Which can then be used to orientate a weapon system towards it. Taking this to next logical step. If the vehicle has an electronic surveillance system, that could be tied into Trophy. This could then be used to point the radar in the rough direction, where it can find and track the drone. Giving the operator the option of jamming the drone’s control and communications signals. Or using the radar’s data to control a RWS to kinetic kill the drone, failing that, using the tungsten cubes as a last resort hen the drone gets into kill range.
I think this will become even more of a necessity based on the lesson learned from the Ukraine War. When trying to protect vehicles against loitering munitions, such as the Lancet/Switchblade have proved very difficult. These drones are battery powered, so have a really small thermal signature, they’re relatively quiet and can fly at altitudes up to 5000m. Therefore, to detect them passively an IR based optical sensor is unlikely to find them at a far enough stand-off distance, so you’ll require ESM to initially detect the comm’s between the operator and the drone. Then activate a radar (preferably AESA) to search for, acquire and track the drone. However, if these things get a hunter based AI, where there’s next to no human input. Then the radar will have to be used pretty much constantly.
The radar that Trophy uses does raise some interesting possibilities. From what I can find out, it’s a second generation AESA operating in the X-band and has quite a low power output. This allows it to find and track relative small threats such as RPGs, amongst a lot of surrounding clutter, such a buildings etc. It should have a fairly low probability of intercept, being able to random frequency hop, change its waveform generation and can vary its effective radiated power, all in the blink of an eye. So in theory should be really hard to detect. But as it uses four fixed panels to give 360 degree coverage. Could it also be used in a volume search mode? I guess the issue would be how much power it can kick out. It’s likely to be less than 2km based on some of the company blurb, which would be useless for a worthwhile volume search. You need at least 10km to be of any use. As that would then be able to detect attack helicopters probing for a missile shot.
Therefore, my thinking is that with a fairly low power upgrade to the ELM-2133 Windguard AESA radar. It would then give the option of a vehicle like a MBT, having a networked air defence capability. Whereby the radar can be used to cue a surface to air missile fitted to the vehicle or relayed back to a dedicated mobile air defence vehicle.
Food for thought?
Interesting thought. There’s basically 2 types of threat, the adapted commercial drone which emit RF. These I think can be countered as we have discussed.
But autonomous systems are a different problem. As you point out these do not need to receive or transmit so are very hard to track. This will only get worse, its likely commercial versions will become available with AI for tasks like surveying, search and rescue which will be able to be adapted to military uses. If I can program a drone to find a person or cap sized boat I can tell it to find a tank or APC. (see 5 year old video from DJI on object recognition below) Next the battery tech will get better, were probably just a couple of years from solid state batteries which will double the flight time of these platforms. Next sensors will get cheaper, the never ending development of phone cameras for instance could see cheap infra red become available.
https://developer.dji.com/onboard-sdk/documentation/sample-doc/advanced-sensing-object-detection.html
The biggest concern I have is the cost to take out these relatively cheap systems. Missiles are expensive so are munitions like Excalibur, Lasers aren’t good in all conditions and aren’t man portable.
For autonomous systems Radar seems to be the only way to detect them. I’m thinking send a drone to kill a drone, a drone armed with a 3P airburst programable munition would be very effective and can be launch by infantry or vehicles. Once the location of the drone is is determined by radar the drone is launched in the direction and use a hunter AI to find the enemy drone. The hunter drone is expendable and explodes in close proximity to the enemy drone. The cost of the this drone hunter would be the very similar to the drone its hunting. Of course a drone equipped with an airburst munition has other uses also.
Agreed, it does seem that drone development is repeating early aircraft development. First we had drones for surveillance, next were scouts, then “bomber”. So I guess it’s only logical that a fighter type drone, is the next iteration.
I know there have been quite a few trials done with drones being used to take out other drones. Especially those that trespass over airfields/airports. But the majority of these were firing a net, trying to capture the drone. Which is ok, but does mean in a conflict type of scenario, someone will have to go and locate the captured drone and disarm it, if it was carrying a grenade etc. Safer perhaps to deal with the drone kinetically.
There have also been a few larger drones modified with a pistol mounted in an underslung gimbal. Which were predominantly used for anti-personnel roles. To take out another drone, you will have to get quite close to it, so perhaps a semi-auto shotgun would be a better choice? Though a drone carrying PE encased in ball bearings does mean it would also have a devastating anti-personnel use.
With a shotgun firing steel No4 shot, it does mean you can keep using it rather than lose it in a suicide attack? You can get within 30m of the target drone and if it blows up, your drone should be far enough away not to get damaged. Though the chances of a some shotgun pellets detonating a grenade are incredibly slim. Again, at some point someone is going to have to find the remains of the drone and make its payload safe!
For sensors, Optical is ok, but won’t give you a realistic range to the target. I am not too sure how a infrared sensor would perform? If the target drone is completely battery (lithium ion) powered, unless it is drawing a lot of current from the battery, then the battery will be relatively cool. Which means it would have to get really close to detect the other drone.
A laser range finder can be small and light. Plus there have been quite a few advances in digitally controlled laser arrays used for small LIDARs. But I don’t think we are there yet, in terms of cost.
But I think we could mount a small cheap radar on to the drone. When I did my degree, the dissertation was based on a multipurpose radar that could also do communications whilst searching for and tracking targets. As proof of the thesis, I made an AESA radar based on garage door “openers”. These were cheap Chinese items that operated in the S-band at 2.41GHz. In an array of 32, I manage to get a high fidelity detection range of some 50m.
However, the array was 2ft by 2ft. Which would be no good for a DJI sized drone. For that you would need to operate at much higher frequencies. Thereby allowing you to use a much smaller array. If the array was in the upper Ka or lower V band then the array could be about the size of a credit card. However the detection range will be a lot less than 50m. But it would give true range to the target and can then give the drone a hunter-killer ability. But there will still be a need for a separate search radar, that is used to feed location information to you hunter-killer drone.
I wonder if such a system would be useful against larger drones such as the Lancet?
I did ponder suggesting a shotgun solution, plenty of irate property owners in the US have use shot guns effectively to take out quad copters. The suicide copter would need less refinement so lower initial cost. But ultimately drone wars will come down to who can produce more, so if targeting can be perfected then shot gun solution would work on multi rotors in particular.
There’s essentially 2 categories of fixed wing and multi rotor. The larger fixed wing with ICE power are easier to detect. But as I’ve said in the next few years if solid state batteries fulfill their promises I can see ICE powered drones being the only used in the long endurance high end drones. So any system needs to be future proof.
But that said in Ukraine today a high % of the drones emit RF. That would be my go to right now. So priorities first locate track and destroy RF emitting drones. Low cost jammer and jammer decoys and ability to locate track and destroy Uranian style ICE drones with a low cost solution. Meanwhile start aggressive testing of various low cost and small format sensors, could mean combining two or more. Small radar would work for multi rotors but fixed wing kamikaze drones like lancet are quite fast so the drone would need a more powerful radar or updates until its close.
I think the Lancet still emits RF, the video of it hitting targets are fed back. I believe the Russians control them terminal phase.
LIDAR will get cheaper. The iPhone now has LIDAR which will mean it will become a standard feature and developed further just like cameras have.
I guess breaking the cost curve on Trophy should be explored get more out there at a much lower cost wouldn’t be a bad thing. Making it more portable also.
Wouldn’t this better suit an LMG or GPMG with a simple pole support?
Since the fire control is software based it can be accomplished to other weapons.
The LMG in both 5.56 & 7.62 mm is no longer in service.
What about drone detection tho? To shoot at a target you need to be able to ‘ see’ it. Drones ( tiddlers anyway) thought were hard to spot??
Would this sight be good on a .50 HMG….
Is the SA80 A3 weapon supposed to be a decent reliable weapon now? Have only read about all the problems the earlier editions used to have but a few dispatches said it had remarkably improved hopefully.
It’s good enough for your average infantry soldier!!!
And they all wear size 9 boots! Yeah I get it 😉
But good to know it’s getting better with it’s upgrades. It looks good to the eye with it’s make over.
This is quite interesting actually, it controls the firing of the rifle!
https://www.army.mod.uk/news-and-events/news/2023/06/game-changing-anti-drone-weapon-sight-for-army-s-close-combat-soldiers/
Its for use with small infantry squad based quad copters type drones.
“SMASH uses image processing to automatically acquire a target from the sight’s field-of-view, and then displays a box around the target in the shooter’s reflex sight.
The capability will only fire when the sight is aligned to hit the target.”
reminds me of the F35’s gun actually, pretty impressive!
I hate to be a bit nitpicky, but wouldn’t these be better fitted to a larger calibre weapon- like a GPMG or .50cal? That seems to be the type of weapon that the Ukrainians are using for shooting down Russian drones.
I’ve got no problem in principle with having them on SA80s, and I’m sure not a terrible solution, but I can’t help but feel that a 5.56 mm round isn’t going to have a great deal of stability when fired up into the air. You don’t have to get very high for increased wind speed, air turbulence, etc.
Perfect for cheating at clay pigeon shooting