By Kris Osborn, Warrior President
The combat realities in Ukraine and the Red Sea continue to drive accelerated Pentagon action to engineer and deploy a new generation of paradigm-changing drone technologies. The potential drone threat to US forces has in recent years grown exponentially for a number of key reasons, as inexpensive small drones are easy to acquire and increasingly easy to “arm” with explosives and other kinds of weapons such as EW.
Ukraine has shown that small drones, such as the US built Switchblade Kamikaze, have been able to track and decimate tanks in substantial quantities by loitering and then essentially transitioning from “surveillance” to kinetic attack. The drone threat is substantially compounded by a simple question of numbers, as drone “swarms” substantially change the threat equation. A single drone or airborne explosive, operating at medium or low altitude, can be tracked and intercepted or jammed with reasonable success.
The swarm threat, however, is intended to essentially “blanket” an area with ISR and “overwhelm” or “test” enemy air defenses. The concept of operation is as clear as it is simple, as drone swarms can simply include far too many targets for most countermeasures to defeat. Even if a “proximity” or area fuse is used to disperse fragmentation across an area to destroy more than one target, massive volumes of individual drones operating in a swarm formation are likely to enable continued attack.
Sheer redundancy is the concept of drone swarm threats, enabling ISR and attack to continue in the event that many drones are knocked out or disabled.
The Red Sea also informed critical counter-drone tactics for the US Navy, which has been extremely successful tracking and destroying incoming Houthi-fired drones and cruise missiles. While senior US Navy leaders tell Warrior the training, doctrine and weapons systems all proved extremely effective, there were new tactics and critical lessons learned in the realm of drone defenses and countermeasures. For example, Commanding Officer of Carrier Strike Group 2 Rear. Adm. Javon “Hak” Hakimsadeh told Warrior that Navy maritime warriors networked ship-based targeting systems with fighter jets in position to perform surveillance or direct attacks on incoming airborne threats. Hak explained that lessons learned from the Red Sea are now informing ongoing Pentagon efforts to develop new countermeasures, weapons and concepts of operation for the specific purpose of countering drone swarms.
US prepared for drone swarm attacks?
These threat scenarios raise a critical and likely often discussed contingency regarding US drone defenses and Combined Arms Maneuver. Are US mechanized formations and land convoys or Carrier Strike Groups at sea extremely vulnerable to attack swarms of low-cost enemy drones? While Houthi drones were handled with great success by the US Navy, the service is quickly integrating new weapons, tactics and concepts of operation to prepare for a new generation of threats such as those more likely to be used in a great power scenario
Both US Navy and Army war formations have a number of fast-emerging promising drone defenses, yet the services are also rapidly exploring the realm of the possible, new technologies and cutting edge approaches to countering drone swarms.
EW & High Powered Microwave
Arguably the most promising or significant innovation in the realm of drone defense pertains to the rapid and continued emergence of new kinds of EW and high-powered microwave technologies capable of jamming multiple signals at once. An ability to do this would doubtless prove extremely critical in the event of a swarm because an electronic signature could potentially be disabled across a wide area.
In a general sense there are several key areas the Pentagon is likely to be focusing on across a spectrum of potential weapons and tactics. One must simply be ISR focused, meaning the earlier and more accurately a launching drone swarm can be identified, the better the prospects of a kill or disruption. “Hak” described this as killing the “archer” instead of the arrows, suggesting that if ISR technology and sensors can identify the “launch” point or point of origin of drone swarms, they can be attacked earlier in the defensive process.
While both the US Army and Navy operate close-in “area” weapons such as the ship-integrated Close In Weapons System (CWIS), a technology which integrates radar and fire control with a Phalanx weapon able to fire 4,500 or more small interceptors per minute to destroy multiple targets across a wide aperture. The Army also uses Phalanx weapons as part of its forward operating base defense system called Counter Rocket Artillery Mortar. (CRAM) Both of these weapons are intended to “blanket” an area with defensive projectiles to “deny” an enemy the ability to successfully “hit” its intended target. However, these weapons are designed to counter “close-in” attacks nearer to a target, and the Pentagon is likely quite focused on “detecting” and “seeing” drone swarms at greater stand-off distances. Years ago, the US Army experimented with armed its heavy tactical trucks with Phalanx systems, a concept which could help protect Army formations while “on the move” in combat.
Yet another kinetic response, which may have some limitations, is the use of “proximity” fuses, meaning rounds designed to detonate or “explode” across a given area without necessarily intercepting “one” target. These munitions can disperse hundreds of small “fragments” to destroy multiple targets at one time.
Kris Osborn is the President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a highly qualified expert in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University