Russia to Deploy Killer Drone Swarms

Russia to Deploy Killer Drone Swarms

This post is also available in: heעברית (Hebrew)

The Russian Army has been working on plans to develop small drones that operate in swarms. The drones are designed to shower enemy forces with explosives. The idea is to deploy a large enough amount of these drones towards enemy forces so that enemy forces will have a hard time shooting down most the drones.

Based off the low cost drones terrorist organizations often use, the Russians nicknamed their drones “Jihadi Aviation.” Reminiscent of the January 2018 attempt of Syrian rebels to attack Russian air and naval bases in Syria by using drones carrying explosives. Popularmechanics.com reports that Russian air defenses managed to shoot down all of the attacking drones. 

In contrast to the rebel’s low cost drones, Russia will manufacture its own drones. Each drone will have the capability of carrying and dropping a 1 kilogram payload.

Similar future efforts will involve the same swarm concept of assault, however future drones are expected to drop payloads of 20 kilograms, recreating and possibly substituting the effect of artillery strikes.

Since drones are so small and quick, it is very difficult to combat them using traditional weapons. Although usually radio or GPS jamming could do the trick to bring the drones down. If jamming doesn’t work, then another option could be colliding a drone into the attacking drone so that they both fall. However this method would only really be effective against a few drones and not a swarm of them. In an effort to combat multiple drones, microwave based weapons have been developed that fire cone shaped directed energy so to neutralize multiple drones at once.

Russia intends to deliver their “Jihadi Aviation”  to all branches of the Russian military.