UAV / UCAV - Drohnen

[Quintus Fabius]

Abfangdrohnen, welche von einem Ballon aus gestartet werden:

https://www.twz.com/air/balloon-launched...in-ukraine

Pictures have appeared on social media showing work in Ukraine to turn a tethered aerostat – what is more colloquially called a balloon – into an elevated platform for launching kamikaze drones at incoming long-range one-way attack drones. This follows the emergence last year of a sensor system designed to detect and locate enemy drone operators mounted on the same type of aerostat.

The aforementioned aerostat-mounted counter-drone sensor system was developed and rolled out by a separate Ukrainian firm, Kvertus. TWZ has reached out to Aerobavovna for more information.

From the images that emerged so far, the system as it currently exists includes a launcher for a single fixed-wing kamikaze drone ‘interceptor,’ as well as a sensor array suspended from the underside of the aerostat and other equipment. The system is designed to attempt an intercept “after detecting long-range kamikaze UAVs [uncrewed aerial vehicles] via an IR [infrared] camera.

If the aerostat-mounted drone interceptor system works, it could offer a useful addition to Ukraine’s defensive arsenal that could be readily deployed across the country. It might also be possible to tie in the balloon-based systems with other Ukrainian counter-drone and air defense capabilities, such as the country’s low-cost acoustic sensor network consisting of thousands of microphones to detect incoming drones.

If the interceptor-armed aerostats are also relatively low cost and low footprint, they could be even more valuable for supplementing the Ukrainian military’s other counter-drone capabilities and further reducing the strain on higher-end and prized air defense systems, especially those supplied by the West.

Das akustische Sensornetz in der Ukraine ist auch so eine Fähigkeit welche hierzulande weitgehend ignoriert wird.