Isegoria

Reno-based Valkyrie Systems Aerospace has received a research grant from the US Air Force to develop its HoverJet Guardian, which combines electric VTOL and high-speed jet cruise with amphibious and hovercraft capabilities:

The VTOL system appears to use a quadcopter layout, with four props (or perhaps eight mounted coaxially) hiding in holes in its fat wings. These get it off the ground in relatively civilized fashion, but then a pair of Pratt & Whitney 545c turbofan engines take over, adding a combined 8,200 pounds of horizontal thrust to the mix.

The result, claims Valkyrie, is a cruise speed of 340 mph (547 km/h), a transonic top sprint speed of 700 mph (1,127 km/h), and a whopping 15 hours of endurance at altitudes up to 40,000 feet (12,192 m).

This is no small bird. Measuring 24 x 30 x 6 ft (7.3 x 9.1 x 1.8 m), it’ll weigh 4,200 lb (1,905 kg) empty. Add fuel, a pilot and/or up to 2,000 lb (907 kg) of cargo, and that little VTOL system will have to lift the Guardian at a maximum takeoff weight of 12,000 lb (5,443 kg).

That’s considerably heavier, say, than the Joby S4, which is said to be around 8,820 lb (4,000 kg), and it uses fewer, smaller propellers. So those props are going to have to work hard. On the other hand, since it’ll run primarily on jet fuel, energy storage won’t be an issue at all, and the electric systems can be tuned for high power rather than efficiency.

High-speed VTOL is not all these things bring to the table, either. The Guardian, and its smaller brother, the Eagle UAV, are apparently capable of landing on water, and offering “three modes of operation: aircraft, hovercraft and amphibious.”

Russia’s Poseidon is an Intercontinental Nuclear-Powered Nuclear-Armed Autonomous Torpedo:

It is a giant torpedo which can hit coastal cities with devastating results. Compared to an intercontinental ballistic missile it is very slow, but possibly unstoppable.

The weapon’s expected speed, around 70 knots, is fast enough to make it realistically uncatchable to existing torpedoes. And its operating depths, perhaps as deep as 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) puts it beyond reach. Western planners will have to develop new weapons to intercept it. And that will take considerable time and investment.

A nuclear reactor gives the weapon essentially unlimited range. This gives it new levels of operational flexibility in terms of launch and target locations. Although it is restricted to at-sea or coastal targets, such as New York, Los Angeles. It can be launched from under the protection of the ice cap, or from coastal waters.

The militant drone threat is no longer new, so why does it still feel novel?

In a now ubiquitous quote, as he spoke of the challenges faced by US and coalition forces in 2016, Gen. Raymond A. Thomas, commander of US Special Operations Command, stated that the “most daunting problem was an adaptive enemy who, for a time, enjoyed tactical superiority in the airspace under our conventional air superiority in the form of commercially available drones and [field]-expedient weapons systems.” In 2021, the military’s assessment carried the same tone. Just last year, US Gen. Kenneth McKenzie referred to the proliferation of small drones as the “most concerning tactical development” within US Central Command’s area of responsibility.

At this point, the militant drone threat is not “new” so much as it is persistent. Yet the threat still feels novel. This dissonance is partly due to the slow rate of progress made toward developing an effective and sustainable counterdrone infrastructure. Put another way, the threat feels new because it is unresolved.

[…]

Most of the deployed counterdrone systems are based on air defense systems, which are designed to identify and shoot down large and fast-moving objects. Drones, especially makeshift or COTS drones, are typically small, slow, low flying, and able to sustain erratic flight patterns—a tactical mismatch. Given the number of specialized tasks required of the kill chain, the variety of drone types faced by US military forces, and the likelihood of continued innovation by militant actors, a single-system solution is unlikely to be effective and sustainable in the short and intermediate term.

[…]

In a now-infamous case, in 2017, an unidentified ally of the United States shot down a small quadcopter drone with a $3.4 million Patriot missile. That cost-benefit ratio is unique but illustrates an important point. To be viable and sustainable, a counterdrone approach must be cost effective, rather than exacerbate the asymmetric nature of state-militant conflict.

According to a recent report, among counterdrone products for which pricing information is available, over 60 percent cost more than $100,000. That’s troubling. Most COTS drone systems cost well under $1,000.

[…]

Most innovations will be small in scale, but carry potential for outsized tactical and strategic effects. For instance, in campaigns in Iraq and Syria, Islamic State fighters reportedly wrapped tape around parts of their drones to avoid detection by masking the radar signature. If kinetic, weapons-based options are used to intercept drones, then militants may switch to using them in more populous areas to discourage government forces from harming civilian bystanders. Radio frequency and radar systems are best at detecting incoming drones when they have a clear line of sight, and the physical complexity of urban spaces offers militants a means of avoiding detection. The possibilities for innovation and avoidance are sufficiently large that it will be wise to avoid placing all eggs in a single basket.

The kill chain is a process that occurs on the battlefield or wherever militaries compete, Christian Brose explains:

It involves three steps:

The first is gaining understanding about what is happening.

The second is making a decision about what to do.

And the third is taking action that creates an effect to achieve an objective.

When members of the US military complete that process of understanding, deciding, and acting, they refer to it as “closing the kill chain.”

And when they thwart the ability of a rival military to do so itself, they call that “breaking the kill chain.”

The United States spends close to three-quarters of one trillion dollars on national defense each year, he notes:

That is more than the next eight countries spend put together. That money buys a lot of military capability — fighter jets, submarines, aircraft carriers, battle tanks, attack helicopters, nuclear weapons, and hundreds of thousands of incredibly well-armed people.

[…]

The problem is not that America is spending too little on defense. The problem is that America is playing a losing game. Over many decades we have built our military around small numbers of large, expensive, exquisite, heavily manned, and hard-to-replace platforms that struggle to close the kill chain as one battle network.

[…]

China, meanwhile, has built large numbers of multi-million-dollar weapons to find and attack America’s small numbers of exponentially more expensive military platforms.

Turkey’s rise to Drone Superpower has been driven by extensive media coverage, while Russian developments have taken place in the shadows:

A video from December 19 shows an S-70 Okhotnik (“Hunter”) stealth combat drone dropping a bomb. The Okhotnik has been under development since 2011, so this is one of those overdue projects finally beginning to deliver. Interestingly, the latest version appears to be stealthier than the initial design.

Equally interesting that it scores a direct hit on a target from altitude with an unguided, ‘dumb’ bomb. While Western powers rely on expensive precision weapons. Russia has placed emphasis on targeting. The Okhotnik is equipped with a version of the SVP-24 aiming system developed for the Su-24 tactical bomber. This is able to take into account speed, altitude, wind, humidity and other factors and time bomb release to achieve what is claimed to be comparable accuracy to precision munitions – the makers say it can hit to within three-to-five meters.

Precision bomb aiming could allow Russian drones to hit large numbers of targets with cheap munitions like the unguided FAB-500 1,00-pounder in the video, rather than expending their limited stocks of smart bombs. They may also be able to strike accurately in conditions of intense GPS jamming (a feature of Russian combat operations) which could make JDAM-type GPS-guided weapons to veer off course.

I’ve mentioned Russia’s Special Computing Subsystem 24 before:

Instead of mounting a kit on an old bomb and losing the kit every time, the Russians mounted a JDAM-like kit, but on the airplane.

Ukraine’s defense minister promising a “bloody massacre” if Russia invades:

While Ukraine is heavily outmatched by Russian forces, the threat of heavy casualties is one which Russian cannot ignore. This is why uncrewed systems – remote-controlled robot warriors – could play an important part where the fighting is heaviest.

[...]

“Today Russia is more averse to casualties for military and political reasons,” Samuel Bendett, an expert on the Russian defense scene, and adviser to both the CNA and CNAS told me. “Both Chechnya wars are still fresh in many Russians’ memories and the casualties that Russian forces took in those wars has a very powerful and negative effect on the population’s overall support for such campaigns.”

[...]

While other nations have pursued armed drones, Russia has carved out a niche in developing and fielding a variety of armed ground robots, most notably the Uran-9, which was used extensively in Syria.

The Uran-9 is an uncrewed tracked vehicle the size of a large SUV weighing ten tons. Usual armament is a 30mm automatic cannon, four anti-tank guided missiles and rocket launchers firing unguided thermobaric rockets (the Russians describe this as a rocket-flamethrower), plus a machine gun. It can be remotely controlled from two miles away. A specific aim of fielding the Uran-9 is to “minimize battlefield casualties”: throwing expendable robots into the assault means less fire will be directed at humans.

“The Russian military is presenting the ongoing modernization as turning the military into a precise and high-tech force. Developing different types of unmanned systems speaks to that principle as making missions more effective and ultimately saving soldiers by removing troops from certain dangerous front line combat,” says Bendett.

This approach is seen as heresy in some military quarters. In the U.S. Army for example, unmanned ground vehicles are seen more as auxiliaries, providing logistics support as robot truck drivers and battlefield mules to lug footsoldiers equipment, not replacign them. The Russian approach is to stick a machinegun and a rocket launcher on the mule and send it ahead of the troops, not have it trailing behind.