Defense against UAV's

Fred J. McCall wrote:
wrote:

: Hint #3: A fighter with a 20mm Vulcan will flat mess up a "small,
: slow UAV" and actually has a radar on board so that he can see it and
: some actual training on how to do an air intercept, neither of which a
: helicopter has.
:
:Always assuming that the radar is capable of getting a lock on the UAV.

No such assumption is necessary. It's not like in the movies.

What makes you so certain that gunnery radar WILL lock on to a stealthy
UAV? The UAVs are designed, after all, to avoid being picked up by
radar. For defence planning purposes the assumption has to be that
radar will not probably work against them, unless and until it is
proved to be capable of doing so. To take any other attitude would be
foolish complacency.

:If not, his chance of scoring a hit is remote - the speed differential
:is so huge that he could do no more than 'spray and pray'.

Hint #1: What do you think the landing speed of a jet fighter is?

Hint #2: Guns work off the pilot's eyeballs.

And exactly how will the pilot aim his guns, if the radar gunsight
won't lock on and the sights he's got are no better than WW2 standards?


Hint #1: in WW2 the Luftwaffe found that only between 2% and 5% of the
shots they fired hit the target - and they were shooting at B-17s! Now
scale down the target size to a UAV with a wingspan of a couple of
metres, and work out how much ammo would have to be fired to nail one.

Hint #2: unlike the Luftwaffe's ammo, the current standard US 20mm
aircraft SAPHEI shell, the PGU-28/B, does not have a tracer - so the
pilot will have no idea where his shots are going.

:The basic problem is that naval self-defence systems are designed to
:deal with large, fast objects which produce a nice big radar echo. We
:know that they have problems picking up stealth planes - that's the
:whole point of stealth planes, after all - so it is obvious that
:they're going to have a hell of a lot more problems dealing with a very
:much smaller and inherently stealthy object. I don't doubt they will
:eventually find a means of coping with them, but that's probably years
:away - and the threat exists now.

Hint #4: The sky is NOT falling, Chicken Little....

I sincerely hope that you have absolutely no connection with the
planning of USN defence systems, because that sort of sneering
complacency gets the wrong people killed.

:Note that according to the website above concerning the half-hour
:terrorist flight over Israel "the Israeli army could also do nothing to
:shut down the plane though they observed the entire flight over their
:territory."

And just why was that? It's a preposterous claim. If you can see it
you can kill it.

How, exactly? Ordinary MGs with eyeball sights stand hardly any chance
of connecting with a small plane at an unknown distance and travelling
at an unknown speed, unless it comes very low and close. Radar FCS
would probably not even pick it up.

The report I referenced has this to say: "According to a statement of
Hezbollah leader, the flight over Israel to Nahariya lasted 14 minutes.
Israeli side confirms this claim."

The report also says: "Currently no country has an efficient defense
against small low-flying UAVs, because existing air defense systems are
not designed to counter threats of this type. Air defenses are mainly
aimed at relatively large and fast planes. Thus, it is not surprising
that Israeli air defense turned out to be weak against "Mirsad 1" UAV.
Israeli army could also do nothing to shut down the plane though they
observed the entire flight over their territory."

Unless you have evidence that the report is a fabrication - in which
case please post it here - what are your grounds for dismissing it,
except of course that you don't want to believe it?

:The situation is analogous to that posed by the first Russian anti-ship
:missile, the Styx. It was around for years and no-one took much notice
:until one sank an Israeli destroyer in 1967 -

And was totally ineffective only 5 years later, although dozens were
fired, with one even being downed by a 75mm gun.

That's right: the Styx was a very big and quite slow missile which made
a nice big target. Modern anti-ship missiles are in a completely
different league. Please note that the Israelis now fit Phalanx to just
about all of their warships.

:then the USN woke up to
:the need for a short-range defence system, and Phalanx was the eventual
:answer.

You have an interesting view of history is all I can say.

So please explain - why in your opinion was Phalanx developed?

Just to help you, I have a copy of an article by the US technical naval
historian Norman Friedman, which describes the Phalanx as "specifically
designed to destroy incoming missiles which have survived other fleet
defences."

Your basic attitude seems to be that the USN defences will work
perfectly as they do "in the movies", while their attackers will be
easily defeated. Try asking the crew of USS Stark about that. NO weapon
system, offensive or defensive, can be relied upon to work all of the
time, for a variety of technical and human failure reasons.

Tony Williams
Military gun and ammunition website: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk