It may seem a bit odd, but the shotgun is a new battlefield weapon against drones, specifically First Person View ( FPV ) drones. Some innovative options may enable man field endurance.
Most FPV robots are smaller, usually quadcopters. These robots are electric powered with four vehicles. They are being used in the hundreds of thousands in the Ukraine war and, according to some Russian options, accounts for as much as three-quarters of the deaths on the field, far more than from artillery attacks, missiles, or weapons. These robots can get out even smaller army units and eliminate them.
There is a great struggle throughout NATO and in Russia to come up with answers to the destruction caused by tiny robots. No one is proposing shutting down the manufacturers, however.
One technique, jamming, is in common use. However, newer robots work on various wavelengths and are difficult to jam online. Also, when you attack army drones online you also disable your own robots and other gear.
Now, more advanced drones are using imaging and AI so that if a message is interrupted, the aircraft can also bring out its activity, provided it has already locked onto a goal. But – thus much – these “fancy” robots are the exception, not the law, on the field.
The Russians have even introduced robots connected to providers using fiber optic cables. These robots can’t get online jammed, but the fibre optic cable limits their range.
Different methods involve using netting and wire bars to cause drones or their bombs before they can strike a target. To a level, this is successful at predetermined locations, but it’s impossible in a changing fight.
A lot of work is going into some out-of-the-box options, including rapidly-firing anti-drone weapons, nets to catch drones that can be launched from the ground, and lasers that can fire up a vehicle’s electronics.
One” option” turns out to be an ancient weapon, the gun. A gun is a tool of last hotel on the field, but firearms are having some success against drones. The Russians and Ukrainians are using them.
There is some new gun technology that offers better odds to take down robots on the battlefield. One of the best advancements is a custom design by the Roman gun maker Benelli. Benelli is owned by Italy’s leading gun business, Beretta.
Benelli’s fresh pistol is called the M4 A. I. Drone Guardian. ( The” A. I”. stands for sophisticated influence, not artificial intelligence ). The weapons features a new weapon cylinder and gun drown designed to improve the range the shot you accomplish and drastically increase the focus of the shotgun pellets.
The cannon is matched to a new weapons produced by a Finnish company, Norma. Norma designed the weapons, AD-LER, especially to work best with the Benelli M4 A. I. The weapons selected is# 6 killed at 2.75mm. There are 350 grains in each photo, up weighing 34 ounces.
The materials for the granules is tungsten, which is an incredibly tough material. Other materials ( lead, steel ) were also evaluated, but military drones, as opposed to civilian drones, typically have harder shells and are more difficult to penetrate.
Shotgun drown design is important in being able to modify the gun against drones. The choke is at the end of the cannon barrel. It can be built into the chamber pattern, or in some instances the drown can be screwed into the chamber. This is handy for hunters who are targeting different kinds of game or shooting clay targets (skeet ).
Most shotguns have simplistic sights, but the Benelli M4 A. I. is fitted with a site called the MPS made by Steiner Optics ( also owned by Beretta Holdings ). This is quickly frame the target for the gun operator.
Apart from blasting a helicopter out of the atmosphere, there are other associated systems. One of them is an ammunition that stems cords and bits that wrap around the vehicle’s shafts, causing the aircraft to be forced to the surface.
If a large misses its goal, it’s designed to safely balloon to the floor, minimizing any risk of unwanted damage or injury. Called the Skynet A-4 large, it works with most 12 gauge shotgun but is most effective on weapons with a rifled drown.
The Russians have their own options for the base man. While they are using firearms and developing anti-drone weapons, they are also converting rocket launchers mounted on firearms to blaze shotgun rounds.
The grenade launchers are GP 25 , Kostyor , (” Bonfire” ), GP-30 , Obuvka , (” Shoe” ) and GP-34. These devices mount under a common AK-47 assault weapons. They are designed to build 40mm bombs.
A Russian business, INGRA-RU, has developed a 12-gauge converter that can fit inside the rocket app and allows the AK-47 to perform both as a shotgun and as a one-shot shotgun. The adapter is called Rozenka. It is 5 inches long and claims a range of 15 to 30 meters using standard shotgun shells. An aiming adapter is fitted to the AK-47 to help the operator correctly aim the shotgun.
Because the adapter has to be removed to be reloaded, in practice, it is a one-shot solution. Miss, and you are toast. Rozenka is priced at ₽ 9, 300 or$ 102.
The Ukrainians have a number of shotgun-type solutions. One of them is made by Stellarium SV, a company located in Chernihiv in northern Ukraine. It is a hand-held plastic and polymer five-barrel device called MSD-5. The five barrels can be sleeved with stainless steel or titanium, allowing the device to fire shotgun shells.
The MSD-5 weighs about 800 grams and uses three CR-123A batteries like those used in many automobile key fobs. The device is priced at 430 euros ($ 473 ). The device has uses for signaling, fire suppression and other applications.
At the end of the day, a shotgun is a last-ditch weapon for the foot soldier. Using any of them requires training, and the operator has to be fearless to stand a few hundred feet from an attacking drone.
There are many other products, some machine guns with burst shells, others that can fire multiple shotgun rounds, but none of them so far promise to eliminate the drone threat. Even so, improving the chances for foot soldier survival is an important goal, and some of these new solutions hold promise to do so.
Stephen Bryen is a special correspondent to Asia Times and former US deputy undersecretary of defense for policy. This article, which originally appeared on his Substack newsletter , Weapons and Strategy, is republished with permission.