How does the air defense system respond to the attack of the drone swarm?
UAVs have the characteristics of low price, small size, and flexibility, and have become an indispensable and important weapon on the modern battlefield. In the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, both Russia and Ukraine used a large number of drones, and achieved good results in surveillance and reconnaissance, target guidance, and precision strikes.
With the advancement of artificial intelligence, distributed systems, networking communications and other technologies, UAV swarm operations have begun to receive great attention and vigorous development by the world's military powers, and are considered to be a means of combat that can subvert the future battlefield situation.
In 2018, the ISIS organization in Syria used 13 small drones to attack the Russian military base in Syria, creating a practical precedent for drone swarm operations.
In 2019, Yemen's Houthis used 18 drones and 7 cruise missiles to coordinate attacks on oilfield facilities in Saudi Arabia, triggering a rise in world oil prices. Since then, Saudi Arabia's oilfield facilities have been repeatedly attacked by drones armed by the Houthis.
In 2020, during the "Spring Shield" military operation launched by the Turkish army, hundreds of drone sorties destroyed a large number of high-value military targets in Syria.
In the Naqqa conflict that broke out in 2020, Azerbaijan used drones to create multiple firsts in the history of world wars: the first large-scale use of suicide drones to attack military targets in Armenia, and the first large-scale use to combat Armenia's living forces.
With the advantage of exceeding the number of missiles in the firepower unit of air defense missiles, the UAV achieves the purpose of saturating the attack and consuming the amount of enemy ammunition; by virtue of the advantages of cluster operations, the air defense weapon system is overwhelmed and overwhelmed by the simple structure and low price of the UAV. The advantage makes the opponent fall into the dilemma of "hit in the hit, can't hit; hit up, but can't hit".
In the simple version of UAV swarm operations in the conflict in the Middle East hotspot, the UAVs used by various countries are mostly low-cost simple UAVs. Although they do not have intelligent perception capabilities, they can break through the layer of modern air defense systems. Layer interception, such as entering no one's land. The defender still relies on traditional anti-aircraft missiles to attack small UAVs, which is not only cost-effective, but also powerless.
The United States has achieved a lot in research on UAV swarm technology and tactics, and it has also led to the rapid development of anti-UAV swarm operations.
The U.S. "Drone Defender" anti-drone machine gun drone jammer transmits high-power jamming radio frequency signals to the drone, cutting off the drone's communication link and forcing it to land or return. In July 2021, the United States used a Coyote drone swarm to defeat a swarm of 10 drones air-to-air.
Based on its own powerful air defense weapon system, Russia has established the world's first anti-drone electronic warfare force by focusing on the "soft underbelly" and "dead point" of the drone cluster. Among them, the mosquito repellent electronic warfare system is a kind of equipment specially developed by Russia for the anti-UAV swarm, which can quickly and accurately locate the UAV, and use the grid countermeasure system to suppress the communication link of the UAV.
