By The Saker

October 06, 2019 "Information Clearing House" - There are probably hundreds of books out there about the so-called “Revolution in Military Affairs”, some of them pretty good, most of them very bad, and a few very good ones (especially this one).  For a rather dull and mainstream discussion, you can check the Wikipedia article on the RMA.  Today I don’t really want to talk this or similar buzzwords (like “hybrid warfare” for example).  Frankly, in my experience, these buzzwords serve two purposes:

1. to sell (books, articles, interviews, etc.)
2. to hide a person’s lack of understanding of tactics, operational art and strategy.

This being said, there *are* new things happening in the realm of warfare, new technologies are being developed, tested and deployed, some extremely successfully.

In his now famous speech, Putin revealed some of these new weapons systems, although he did not say much about how they would be engaged (which is quite logical, since he was making a political speech, not a military-technical report).  For those would be interested in this topic, you can check here, here, here, here, here and here.

The recent Houthi drone and missile strike on the Saudi oil installations has shown to the world something which the Russians have known for several years: that even rather primitive drones can be a real threat.  Sophisticated drones are a major threat to every military out there, though Russia has developed truly effective (including cost-effective, which is absolutely crucial, more about that later) anti-drone capabilities.

First, lets look at the very low-cost end of the spectrum: drones

Let’s begin with the primitive drones.  These are devices which, according to one Russian military expert, roughly need a 486 CPU, about 1MB of RAM, 1GB of harddisk space and some (now extremely cheap) sensors to capture the signals from the US GPS, the Russian GLONASS or both (called “GNSS”).  In fact, the “good terrorists” in Syria, financed, assisted and trained by the “Axis of Kindness” (USA/KSA/Israel) have been attacking the Russian base in Khmeimim with swarms of such drones for years.  According to the commander of the air defenses of Khmeimin, over 120(!) drones were shot down or disabled by Russian air defenses in just the last two years.  Obviously, the Russians know something that some “Axis of Kindness” does not.

The biggest problem: missile systems should not be used against drones

Some self-described “specialists” have wondered why Patriot missiles did not shoot down the Houthi drones.  This is asking the wrong question because missiles are completely ineffective in engaging attacking drone swarms.  And, for once, this is not about the poor performance of Patriot SAMs.  Even Russian S-400s are the wrong systems to use on individual drones or drone swarms.  Why?  Because of the following characteristics of drones:

1. they are typically small, with a very special low profile, extremely light and made up of materials which minimally reflect radar signals;
2. they are very slow, which does not make it easier to shoot them down, but much harder, especially since most radars are designed to track and engage very fast targets (aircraft, ballistic missiles, etc.);
3. they can fly *extremely* low, which allows them to hide; even lower than cruise missiles flying NOE;
4. they are extremely cheap, thus wasting multi-million dollar missiles on drones costing maybe 10-20 dollars (or even say, 30,000 dollars for the very high end) makes no sense whatsoever;
5. they can come in swarms with huge numbers; much larger than the number of missiles a battery can fire.

From the above, it is obvious how drones should be engaged: either with AA cannons or by EW systems.

[Sidebar: In theory, they could also be destroyed by lasers, but these would require a lot of power, thus engaging cheapo drones with them is possible, but not optimal]

It just so happens that the Russians have both, hence their success in Khmeimim.

One ideal anti-drone weapon would be the formidable Pantsir which combines multi-channel detection and tracking (optoelectronics, radar, IR, visual, third-party datalinks, etc.) and a powerful cannon.  And, even better, the Pantsir also has powerful medium range missiles which can engage targets supporting the drone attack.

The other no less formidable anti-drone system would be the various Russian EW systems deployed in Syria.

Why are they so effective?