High Energy Radio Frequency. Now it seems to be some sort of cigar thing. But the old HERF gun concept is back, to shoot down drones:
British soldiers have successfully taken down drones with a radio-wave weapon.
The demonstrator weapon, a type of Radiofrequency Directed Energy Weapon (RF DEW), uses high-frequency radio waves to disrupt the electronic components inside drones, resulting in the devices malfunctioning.
"RF DEW systems can defeat airborne targets at ranges of up to 1 km and are effective against threats which cannot be jammed using electronic warfare," the Ministry of Defence (MOD) said.However, the nature of the technology means that a wide beam is used, which is effective at disabling multiple drones simultaneously, but lacks target discrimination. Hence, Sgt Mayers, the first British soldier to bring down drones using a radiofrequency weapon, described it as "a great asset to Layered Air Defence."
The MOD believes the system, which it estimates costs 10p per shot fired, "could provide a cost-effective complement to traditional missile-based air defence systems."
This is what you need - as long as drones cost more than 10p, you will win that exchange all day.
12 comments:
A couple points of order, BP, that perhaps you can clear up for me?
- how hard is it to shield your electronics? We know for a fact that this can be done - and done so successfully that many current weapons actually have “home on jam” technologies.
- the other issue is that Russians aren’t overwhelming the Ukes with drones - they are wiping them out with artillery. I strongly suspect using a HERF weapon would be like drawing a target on yourself and daring the Russkies to flatten you with either conventional weapons or smart weapons that home on jam.
This smells to me like another fake super-weapon like the Javelin. But whadda I know?
Warfare forever has been a duel between offensive weapons and defenses. The spear vs the shield and so on. The battle between the level of better armor vs the naval guns continued until a NEW Tech the Airplane made battleships obsolete.
Real problem today seems to be ABILITY to field enough weapons. You can develop this directed radio wave weapon that "Costs" 10p a shot but how much did the WEAPON cost and how much Rare Earths that England and currently America seems dependent upon Russia and China to sell them.
Warfare is a history of new weapons and new counter measures. This is no different. Electronics for drones will soon become hardened against EMP...which is what this new countermeasure is.
I remember back just before 2000 (during the Y2K hype, and I was on a"bug hunter" team at the time) Wired magazine did an article about a hardware guy who had a garage-brew HERF gun that could cripple computers and disrupt digital files from a distance. (Remember when Wired actually published computer and tech articles? Yeah, I'm old).
Apparently one of the now extinct brokerage companies based in the World Trade Center freaked out over the article, and spent $ millions to harden/Farraday their three floors. All of that was wiped out that September morning in '01.
So both the concept and the fear and loathing of the results have been around for some time. As there is so little mega-profit involved this HERF counter drone deployment in the Military Industrial Complex , will this be an idea (although a decent one) that goes nowhere?
Glen, I'm moderately convinced that's it's REALLY hard to shield against this. I'd post about this but I think I know too much classified stuff (c.f. TEMPEST) and so think I won't talk at all about it.
But I think it's *really* hard. My take is that in 5 years we won't talk about battlefield drones as something that matters.
Your mileage may vary, void where prohibited, do not remove tag where controlled by law.
Changing offense results in changing defense.
Well, we'll see. If you leave them open to Command and Control then there must be an antenna. Maybe you can clamp voltage, but what does that do to your dbA? This is really complex
Ughhh… I know enough about this shite to be dangerous and that’s it! I know for my industrial stuff induced voltages, cross talk and noise were easily dealt with using shielded cable and floating grounds etc. For my drones (just hobby stuff) - the FPV stuff is very susceptible to noise. I wish I knew the physics of it, and the HERF bun…
😞
Ughhh… I know enough about this shite to be dangerous and that’s it! I know for my industrial stuff induced voltages, cross talk and noise were easily dealt with using shielded cable and floating grounds etc. For my drones (just hobby stuff) - the FPV stuff is very susceptible to noise. I wish I knew the physics of it, and the HERF bun…
😞
Nothing radio controlled can be reliably hardened against electronic (radio) attack. They have built-in antennas to receive electronic signals. Otherwise, they'd never take off or get anywhere near their targets.
You're trying to armor components, for a non-zero weight penalty, against ground systems whose only weight limitation is the carrying capacity per ft² of the ground they're operating on.
It's a Bambi vs. Godzilla battle.
With millimeter-wave targeting and tracking radar, they'll be melting drone's brains from horizon to horizon. And without the drones, that artillery won't have anything to hit. With enough power, they'll be melting drone brains to the limit of sight, and firing brief electronic shots that make anti-radar attacks unlikely to succeed, coupled with mobile platforms inherently hard to find.
Drones will recede to a permissive environment only weapon.
Great against spear chuckers in loincloths, but against near-peers, essentially turning them back into toys.
Now the HERF race has begun. With enough juice, someday the only places our Predators et al will fly will be the Turd World.
But for now, anywhere without this sort of defense remains vulnerable to drone attacks.
Sic transit mundi
Assumptions without real data is dangerous.
After all it seems Russia's are winning in Ukraine and disarming all of the NATO militaries with their foolish suppling of arms and training to Ukraine.
Where is that countdown of so many days of losing Aesop?
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