Using air guns to effectively combat drones.

 Using air guns to effectively combat drones.

 

 

The modern war in Ukraine and Iran has shown that conventional weapons systems – tanks and armored vehicles, which dominated the battlefield for over 100 years – have lost their relevance and are being withdrawn from the battlefield.

 

Flying drones, which are inexpensive and capable of destroying a tank or any other military or infrastructure facility, are becoming increasingly important.

 

Therefore, protecting military and civilian facilities from unmanned aerial vehicles (or drones) is a pressing issue today. Electronic warfare (EW) systems, machine guns, small-caliber automatic cannons, anti-aircraft missiles, helicopters, aircraft, and, of course, the drones themselves are used for this purpose.

 

However, all these systems are not very effective and their use is expensive. A missile or a volley of projectiles from an automatic cannon can sometimes cost several times more than an attack drone.

 

For several years, our company has been developing several types of pneumatic automatic artillery systems capable of destroying drones, certain types of missiles, and helicopters. These artillery systems have two or four barrels that fire salvos from their barrels, creating a cloud of shrapnel near passing drones. This cloud can be up to 200 meters across, more than enough to destroy any drone.

 

When fired, these systems produce a quiet sound and have a recoil impulse 5-10 times lower than their powder-based counterparts. With an 80-millimeter caliber, they can fire over 20 salvos per minute from all barrels, which equates to 40 to 80 shots per minute.

The service life of such a system can exceed 100,000 shots per barrel, which, given the possibility of using very inexpensive projectiles made of composite materials, eliminates the problem of the cost of consumable ammunition.

 

Such systems would also be very effective against tactical ground targets, but in this proposal we are considering them only as anti-drone systems.

 

The proposed systems can be manufactured in calibers from 50 to 90 millimeters, but in this proposal we will focus on one caliber – 80 millimeters.

 

In this proposal, we present basic versions of the systems, each with manual, albeit highly effective, fire control and targeting. However, in the near future, several levels of modernization are possible for these systems, including increasing their firing power, doubling their maximum range, and equipping them with automatic targeting mechanisms. The modernization also includes improving the efficiency of the compressed air supply mechanisms for firing.

 

Other upgrades to this system are possible, but this project is laying the foundation for them. While such a system could ultimately boast impressive performance, the 80mm system is a basic option that can be upgraded in multiple stages, with each subsequent level enhancing its performance.

 

 

Below, in the table, are brief technical characteristics of two such systems with two and four barrels, respectively, and in their basic version.

 

No.	Characteristic	Units of measurement	Two barrels	Four barrels
1.	Caliber	mm.	80	80
2.	Number of trunks	pcs.	2	4
3.	Number and capacity of stores	pcs.	2x25	4x5
4.	Rate of fire	pcs/min	40	80
5.	Maximum firing range	m.	6000	6000
6.	Maximum firing height	m.	3000	3000
7.	Magazine reload time	sec.	20	6
8.	System resource, total	shots	200,000	400,000

 

Below, in the figure, a variant of the external appearance of a self-propelled automated anti-drone system with two barrels is proposed.

 

 

Compared to similar projects worldwide, the proposed project has a cost tens of times lower and a completion time several times shorter. In terms of cost-time-results-prospect ratio, the proposed project is tens of times superior to similar projects worldwide. This type of work is possible because the project team is not working for a salary, where people are motivated by long-term commitment, but rather for the end result, where the team is motivated by the speedy completion of the work with the highest possible quality.

 

 

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

 

The history of pneumatic artillery begins in the second half of the 19th century, when powerful pneumatic guns up to 381 mm in caliber were developed in the United States for the Coast Guard and for installation on heavy ironclads and even submarines in place of torpedo tubes. These guns were designed to fire projectiles of immense destructive power (dynamite shells), which were impossible to fire from conventional gunpowder cannons because the dynamite exploded in the barrel.

 

 

 

During World War I, pneumatic mortars were produced in England and France that could launch projectiles weighing up to 35 kg over a distance of over a kilometer. Incidentally, these were the first mortars in the world.

 

Later, gunpowder artillery evolved with the development of new propellants, explosives, and other technologies, and the need for pneumatic artillery disappeared, especially since pneumatic artillery remained technologically at the level of its earliest systems. Only our company was able to develop technologies capable of taking pneumatic artillery to a new level, as confirmed by both theoretical developments and practical testing of the experimental system.