Swarms of explosive drones are a dark cloud in the minds of military commanders three years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, where many thousands of armoured vehicles and soldiers have succumbed to the weapons.
By some estimates, the majority of Russian and Ukrainian casualties have been caused by unmanned aircraft, mostly the smaller, short-range kind compared to large American drones like the Reaper.
Not even heavily armoured vehicles are safe. In December, a US-made M1A1 Abrams tank was destroyed after six direct hits from Russian first-person view (FPV) quadcopters. While it is not clear how many of the quadcopters missed or were downed before the tank was a write-off, defence planners are not taking any chances.
Drones are critical ammunition in their own right, sometimes used in lieu of artillery, although big guns can be more destructive in the right circumstances, according to a recent report from the Rusi defence think tank.
A wide range of counter-drone technology was on display at this month's Idex 2025 defence exhibition in Abu Dhabi. It ranged from laser weapons to zap drones out of the sky to low-cost rockets that fill the sky with shrapnel and a “smart shooter” system which attaches to soldiers' guns and helps them to aim at the fast-moving objects.
Less sophisticated options have been tested in combat, often used alongside more basic protective measures such as setting up “tunnels” of netting over roads.
The constant evolution of drone and counter-drone operations has been dubbed “near-surface warfare” by the British army, and is spawning a dizzying array of countermeasures.
Russian and Ukrainian soldiers both carry shotguns, but experts are divided over how effective they are because some FPVs fly at 150kph or faster. That means a travel rate of more than 40 metres per second – a target even a skilled shooter would struggle to hit.
Ukrainian troops have carried the semi-automatic BTS 12 shotgun while Russians have used semi-automatic shotguns such as the VEPR-12 and have even been spotted with a rig of 24 shotgun barrels.
Tactical drones cause terrible carnage, and range from FPVs that can chase down a target to larger “bomber” quadcopters and fixed-wing drones fitted with bombs such as Russia's Lancet, which uses computer vision to hunt targets.
Seconds to stop the threat
How, then, can modern armies respond? A common method is jamming radio signals and video feeds that keep tactical drones airborne and provide operators with a view of flight.
However newer drones find targets through computer vision, meaning that for the last part of their flight there is no signal to jam.
In Ukraine, both sides also use drones guided by thin fibre-optic cable that unravels over significant distances, often 10km or, some claim, even further, again making jamming useless. That means the last-ditch option is shooting down the drone, perhaps with seconds to spare.
Abraham Mazor is a representative of Smart Shooter, which makes a smart weapon sight used by the Israeli army and increasingly ordered by foreign customers including the UK. The gun sight uses an image processor to recognise and lock on to targets, enabling a relatively average rifleman to become a decent marksman.
“The main idea was to be able to hit a moving target on the ground with high probability. And then we said, ‘If we can use it on the ground, why not in the air?’” Mr Mazor tells The National.
“Through a software adaptation it also works against drones. The drone’s movement is not stable, but we have the computer to calculate the speed and predict direction of movement, and then it can tell where to fire automatically. We like to remove the sensitivity of the shooter,” he says.
He says Smart Shooter creates a natural “layer” or network of air defenders to cover far more angles than fixed weapons. “We can give the software to every shooter, the technology allows him to be perfect, an expert in shooting and eliminating small unmanned aerial systems.”
To give a sense of how quickly drone warfare is evolving, Ukraine noticed the Russians using the fibre optic drones in March last year and had their own version within weeks. Now both sides regularly use them in a war where each produces or procures hundreds of thousands of quadcopters per month.
This has sparked debate over the extent armies need to use an array of antennas, each trying to jam a part of the spectrum of radio frequencies the drones could be operating on, knowing that any gap in frequencies could be exploited with deadly results.
Alternatively, “hard kill” methods – as opposed to “soft kill” electronic warfare – involve shooting or hitting them with lasers, or some combination of both. There are also increasingly smart methods of jamming, involving systems that detect a drone frequency and then generate the same frequency at higher power to block the signal.
But jamming has the drawback that the more it is deployed, the higher the risk that it interferes with your own communications and links to friendly drones.
Some armies now believe a layered approach is best, using several systems, something tested last summer by the US army at the Yuma proving ground against an attack of 50 small drones flying in fast at different angles. The Americans are also testing a system, Bullfrog, which uses computer vision to control an automated machinegun.
For effective protection against drones, “ideally you want several systems, jamming and electronic warfare and lasers are a good multi-layer approach,” says Hyonbin Hong, Vice President of Global Business at LIG Nex1, a South Korean defence corporation.
“The Korean government wanted various solutions, non-destructive and destructive, or to some people, ‘soft kill’ or ‘hard kill’, the first being electronic warfare and the second being missiles or laser systems. We’re considering all solutions,” he says.
Mr Hong’s company has developed a laser counter-drone system, which he says is still in testing. Lasers are touted as ideal to counter small drones because, unlike missiles that can cost many thousands or millions of dollars, they are said to cost a few dollars a shot. But challenges include making the delicate, complex systems rugged enough to function in a war environment.
Mr Hong says lasers often do not need high power to stop a drone – damaging its camera is enough to blind it, which especially important if the drone flies by computer vision or fibre optics.
“Our basic concept with the laser system is neutralisation and that destruction is not an ideal approach. This can be achieved with a small power level, you don’t need high power and one of our projects is a rifle laser gun and a ground vehicle-based high-power laser type. For larger classes of drone, we use high power, and to achieve longer range.”
In the UK and US, high-power microwave systems are also in testing. These machines, such as Epirus’s HPM, send out blasts of electromagnetic energy which overload a drone's electrical system.
But many experts say it is hard to imagine solutions that do not include cheap and plentiful bullets, or increasingly rockets, which are cheaper than missiles.
Giorgio Markov says hard kills like this are increasingly vital, and his company, Hades Defence Systems, makes a 24-rocket pod that fills the sky with shrapnel.
“We're seeing a lot of saturation of soft kill systems on the market,” he says. “With jammers, they're a very tailorable product. So with each particular communications band you would like to jam, you need to have a separate antenna for that.
“So you want to cover the full spectrum. You want to cover radio waves. You want to cover global navigation satellite system constellations like GPS or Glonass, all your standard navigation systems.
“You want to cover mobile frequencies, because a lot of drones do have mobile modules that connect cellular frequencies for communication. Basically, you want to cover the entire magnetic spectrum, you need a lot of antennas and a lot of power output,” he says.
He points out that, aside from the power required, the enemy can quickly change drone-operating frequencies and, if using satellite navigation, some can now switch between GPS, Russia's Glonass or China’s Baidu satnav systems.
“There is also directional versus omnidirectional jamming. Many people think that an omnidirectional antenna makes a bubble, an area of denial. But those bubbles are typically small, and they require a lot of power to maintain. So that's a very brute force approach.
“With directional jammers, we have a tight beam, which you need to focus exactly on the target and maintain it on the target which could be moving very fast. And with all cases, you will have a certain drop-off in the signal.”
The speed problem is also becoming an issue with new Russian and Iranian drones, jointly developed, that are rocket-assisted.
“You jam the communications module, say, on a Shahed drone, a common Iranian weapon. The problem you're facing is those drones are outfitted with an inertial navigation system, so it has an onboard compass. It knows relatively where it started, where it needs to go, and which direction it's hitting.
Mr Markov says even though inertial systems are not very accurate, they are accurate enough to hit oil refineries that could be several kilometres across in size. “Jammers are good, but you cannot fully rely solely on jammers.”
