John Kettler Posted May 27, 2016 Share Posted May 27, 2016 (edited) The US Army, prompted by increased proliferation and combat use, notably China's Predator counterpart CH-4 and an Israeli Harop kamikaze drone which wiped out a busload of Armenian volunteers during the Nagorno-Karabakh affray, as well as ISIS et al for propaganda and maybe even troop control, has been going hammer and tongs on a solution. Using a 10 KW (bottom end of High Energy Laser definition), it has been wholesale killing drones as small as the small quadcopters so common here in the US. The platform is a HEMTT reconfigured to be a HELMTT, with the laser being positioned high enough to fire down on terrain hugging drones. Thus, it has more than hemispheric coverage. HELMTT is part of a larger Army effort to counter not just drones, but artillery shells and rockets under an effort called IFPC (Indirect Fire Protection Capability), which has, as one of its interceptor components, the same Tamir missile credited with over 1000 rocket kills as part of Iron Dome. There is a short vid of the Tamir firing from an IFPC truck, but what is of particular interest is that the article says the truck is armed with three different weapons: AIM-9X (latest Sidewinder), Tamir and Hellfire), with the objective being to have the right weapons on the launch platform for the particular threat and engagement conditions. From odds and ends gleaned here and there, it appears the Army's lower echelon air defenses will follow the same model, part of which may well include the same twin-barrel 50 mm cannon described as part of the anti-drone effort. I would expect a fully integrated airspace defense system capable of dealing with manned aircraft, missiles, drones, rockets and artillery shells. This looks reasonably doable and deployable within the CMBS timeframe. The article's here. Regards, John Kettler Edited May 27, 2016 by John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A co Posted May 27, 2016 Share Posted May 27, 2016 Cool. I saw an article recently about Dutch (I think) police training eagles to take down small drones. Looks like a burgeoning field. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted May 28, 2016 Author Share Posted May 28, 2016 (edited) A co, Glad you found my post useful. There's doubtless much more to be learned about what the Army's doing. Regarding the matter of Dutch eagles (a topic on which I know almost zero) vs drones, I can do much better than an article. How about a video? Must admit I have real concern for the birds when it comes to drones using some of the larger model airplane engines. Such quadcopters could pose a real hazard to these beautiful and highly capable raptors. Regards, John Kettler Edited May 28, 2016 by John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A co Posted May 29, 2016 Share Posted May 29, 2016 I agree, you could picture the eagle getting hurt by the rotors, but at least they are probably not rare birds- and they could save a lot of people from getting hurt. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
c3k Posted May 30, 2016 Share Posted May 30, 2016 Lol...I can see the sales brochures bragging about sharp metal "anti-raptor" prop blades! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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