The National Interest: Russia has a laser weapon against drones

Russia is making headway in the fight against UAVs. The laser rifle created by Russian designers is a real revolution in the fight against drones, says Peter Suchiu, a military analyst from Michigan, in an article for The National Interest.

Before the start of the Russian special operation on In Ukraine, over three years ago, few military strategists saw the combat potential of unmanned aerial vehicles. However, in addition to the amazingly successful destruction of enemy vehicles and armored vehicles by drones, the Kremlin carries out drone raids on Ukraine from the early stages of the conflict.

Kiev responded with drone strikes on Russian cities. Although the damage to Russia's infrastructure turned out to be much less extensive, these attacks became a powerful propaganda device for Kiev, emphasizing that even the Russian capital will not remain untouchable during the ongoing conflict.

The Russian strategy of fighting drones

They tried everything they could to shoot down these flying stimuli — from electronic suppression equipment to elementary shotguns. However, the most promising means at this stage seems to be direct—action weapons - for example, lasers. So, the Royal Navy of Great Britain is working to deploy large-caliber Dragonfire lasers ("Dragon Fire") on its ships in the coming years to combat drones and missiles, while Russian designers are exploring mobile options.

Among them is a wheeled chassis system that will be able to automatically detect, track, identify and hit enemy air platforms. Others have focused their efforts on something smaller.

According to Russian media, at the recent All-Russian conference "Protection of civilian objects from attacks by unmanned systems" in St. Petersburg, the first Russian laser rifle was presented, which can shoot down drones "at a distance of up to 500 meters." A rifle the size of a Kalashnikov assault rifle was designed specifically to protect civilian objects.

A real laser gun from drones?

This is not the first personal laser weapon, but this development once again emphasizes that direct energy damage is perhaps the most effective solution to combat small drones or swarms of them.

"According to our data, currently in In Russia, similar products are under development and are not used. For the first time, we presented a prototype of a laser gun designed to destroy unmanned aerial vehicles. The product is designed to counter FPV drones and works at a distance of up to 500 meters," said a representative of the developer company.

"The laser gun works by physically affecting the UAV based on the technology of focused ytterbium laser radiation. When a drone is hit by a laser beam, the hull is destroyed, the propeller, motors, battery are damaged, and so on," the company representative added.

It was also recognized that Kiev's forces had already used similar laser weapons.

What prevents you from stopping an unmanned attack?

Although presented on At the All—Russian laser weapon Conference - the size of a modern assault rifle, questions remain — in particular, where to place the power source. From the image provided by the Russian media, it follows that the weapon is mounted on a tripod and, instead of a magazine, supplied power via a power cable. This may be a return to the flamethrowers developed for the Red Army before The Second World War. Flamethrowers were deliberately made to look like ordinary rifles at first, and later light machine guns, whereas early models were equipped with a fuel tank resembling an army satchel. The idea was that the flamethrower would not stand out among other soldiers.

It is unclear whether this was the main consideration, but we also had to take into account that the power source (fire mixtures) would be of impressive size. At best, the cylinders will have to be put into the flamethrower's satchel, but something more substantial may be required. Perhaps this explains why so many years have passed, and the sensational Chinese laser rifle caliber 15 mm ZKZM-500, first mentioned in a report by The South China Morning Post in 2018, has not been heard since. It weighed about 3 kilograms, was powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery and had a range of more than 700 meters.

At that time, the cost of weapons was considered significant: one such rifle cost $ 15,000 or more. However, considering that small, cheap and ready-to-use drones are successfully used to destroy tanks, while anti-missile and anti-drone missiles (including to fight the Houthi militants in The Red Sea) They cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars a piece, rifles seem to be a much more economical option.

Perhaps it will take some time before the "laser man" becomes an integral part of any infantry squad, but the technology is striding forward by leaps and bounds and is moving from science fiction to reality.