Iraq was the first to equip reconnaissance in 2015Integrated unmanned aerial vehicleAfter successfully applying it to the domestic anti-terrorism battlefield, it played a decisive role in many important battles, and for a time, it could be said to have unlimited glory. But with the news of these drones being frequently shot down on the battlefields of Yemen and Libya in the past two years, why don't military powers around the world install self-defense systems on drones?

At the current stage of service, inspection and combat, the maximum takeoff weight of the Integrated Unmanned Aerial Vehicle is below 5 tons, while the typical Rainbow 4A/B and Pterodactyl series have only about 1.5 tons. The Rainbow 4 export manual shows that its maximum mission load is 345 kilograms, and when carrying only 100 kilograms of fuel without other loads, it can achieve a long endurance of 40 hours. However, after continuing to carry 245 kilograms of ammunition, the endurance time decreases to 14 hours. Taking the MILDS AN/AAR-60 (V) 2 ultraviolet laser warning system and the ALR-90 (V) series radar warning system, which currently have the best performance and the largest number of equipment in the military trade market, as an example, combined with the ALE-47 multi-purpose dispenser set, the minimum configuration for both ultraviolet and radar warning systems is 4 units to meet omnidirectional radar search illumination and missile attack warning, each equipped with a dispenser of 30 rounds of foil strips and thermal flame jamming shells, as well as their supporting airborne processors and circuits. The total weight is over 80 kilograms, which is approximately equal to the weight of two AR-1 (Sagittarius -1) laser guided missiles or three A R-2 (Sagittarius -2) missiles. If it is mounted on a UAV, it will not only occupy the already narrow interior space, but also seriously affect the UAV's endurance and weapon mounting capacity More importantly, the high price of this self-defense countermeasure system will seriously weaken itUAVThe low cost advantage significantly reduces the cost-effectiveness of equipment.

As is well known, the most advanced self-defense and countermeasure systems currently carried by fighter jets are not primarily targeted against large surface to air missiles or portable air defense missiles, but rather air-to-air missiles and ground field air defense firepower. Due to the latter two having stronger power acceleration time, more reliable ground guidance methods, and larger detector array aperture,conventional airborne jamming methods are difficult to achieve effectiveness.Only specialized electronic jamming aircraft such as EA-18G Roaring with large jamming pods can be effective to a certain extent. This is also why the danger level of the "Wild Mole" air defense suppression mission carried out by fighter jets so far is still much greater than that of ground close range fire support. In the situation where fighter jets alone cannot effectively defend themselves against field air defense,relying on this equipment to protect drones may not be sufficient.

Overall, the current stage of unmanned aerial vehicles carrying self-defense and countermeasure systems is actually in an awkward situation. Even for miniaturized self-defense systems, their weight and volume are still relatively large, and there are few means of interference and weak targeting. Whether they are effective is still questionable; Although specialized pods have good interference effects, they far exceed their carrying capacity in terms of weight, volume, energy consumption, installation difficulty, and cost-effectiveness. From the perspective of the development law of military weapons, no type of weapon can remain in an absolute dominant position for a long timeIntegrated unmanned aerial vehicleThe dominant position in the sky that has been left to everyone in recent years is itself an illusion, so we need to take a rational view of the frequent shooting down incidents that have occurred recently.

Source: Military of Strong Countries