>Microwaves Against the Swarm: A New Phase in US Counter-Drone Strategy.

>a new generation of microwave systems, designed to disable entire drone swarms with a single pulse.

>Leonidas is a next-generation High-Power Microwave (HPM) system developed by Epirus, specifically designed to neutralize a wide range of electronic threats, starting with drones and drone swarms


https://www.armyrecognition.com/news/army-news/2025/microwaves-against-the-swarm-a-new-phase-in-us-counter-drone-strategy

is this any good?

>>64029639 (OP)
the drone equivalents of reformertards will say no

>American wunderwaffe #324324
how about improving the air force flight hours per capita first?

>>64029701
implessive

>>64029701
post simulator hours

>>64029639 (OP)
Didn't we have something like this as riot control?

>Send in the Rocket drones
>They defeat Any Point defense system
>Pick off the rest with the swarm

>>64029639 (OP)
Name it after a guy famously killed by swarms of archers.

>>64029639 (OP)
>is this any good?
Maybe? Depends on how cheap it is to counter. The point of drones is to be mass produced and so cheap you can overwhelm conventional high value defenses and achieve a very favorable cost/outcome ratio even with high losses and lower individual capability. On the face of it, energy counters are promising, because they have ultra low consumable cost, scale pretty well, and are quick. Question is what can be done on drones in reverse. If there is some trivial bit of insulation added then it won't be very useful. But even if drones can defend against it, if it costs a lot of weight/price to do so then yes it is a useful part of the eternal cat & mouse because now you've forced your opponent to spend a lot more money and resources to try to achieve the same result.

>>64029780
Also, obviously it depends on being able to make large numbers of them, but assuming it commits America generally does fine with that.

>>64029719
are you tourist faggots seriously calling cruise missiles rocket drones now?

>>64029639 (OP)
Coat drones in white bread

>>64029719
>Rocket drones
What did he mean by this?

>>64029639 (OP)
>must know where the drones are coming from so they can point it at that moment because they can't just have the system turn on at all time without killing their own stuff

magical solutions should be called what it originally is: delusions

>>64029701
Why? The pilots just go home and play DCS anyways

>>64029962
NTA but I make the distinction based on whether or not the thing can land
If it can land without exploding and be recovered for future use, then its a drone. If firing the thing means it has been logistically expended whether it reaches the target or not then it is a missile

>>64031455
so how is that different from literally every other directional jammer that exists?

>>64031455
>magical solutions
You mean radar, acoustic, EOTS, etc sensor systems linked to the HPM, DEW, KE interceptor used to kill the drones? That's not magic, it's a pretty well R&D'd area, and is how any defensive or offensive system knows where to target. There's a reason those hobby drones worked against Russia and Ukraine but didn't work against Israel and the US. That has to do with one being well-trained soldiers, well-equipped, supported and funded, and the second one's not being well-trained, supported, equipped, or funded.

>>64029639 (OP)
The more that militaries push high-powered jamming systems, the sooner we're going to get fully autonomous drones. There are no extant hardware or software barrier preventing you from just making a drone that flies to a designated target area and kills the first human it spots. They would only be marginally more expensive than current drones and could be deployed in arbitrarily large numbers without the need for operators. The only thing keeping us away from that horror is institutional inertia combined with the ability to still operate human-controlled drones. If that option is foreclosed by jammers, it's just full Terminator-mode from here on out.

>>64031879
Autonomous drones wouldn't do anything against genuinely functional strong microwave weapons.
Microwaves aren't for jamming drones, they're for frying poorly shielded electronics.
And therein lies the trick. You can always add more shielding. But that increases weight, which degrades performance, and makes the drone larger. Meaning you now need larger motors/engines (and larger batteries if electric). Making the drone more expensive, less maneuvrable, and easier to destroy by a larger range of hard-kill measures.
It's the cat & mouse game another anon mentioned here: >>64029780

>>64031879
this isn't a jammer, it fries them.

>>64029639 (OP)

Range is still limited but GEN II is at a pretty tactically relevant range of 2km. That's competing with gun systems but in a weapon with obscene multitarget capabilities.

https://www.twz.com/land/army-puts-50m-bet-on-next-gen-leonidas-high-power-microwave-counter-drone-tech

This article has a bunch of details and some figures on range from an investor call by the CEO. I think they realized that they shouldn't post this because in the newer version of the article this line is missing.

> In remarks to the roundtable, Lowery put the range of IFPC-HPM GEN I at about one kilometer. The GEN II version of the system increases the range to somewhere around 2 kilometers (1.25 miles). Expanding on the theme, he gave an intriguing example when discussing the scalability and range.


These are still here:

> The new system produces 30% more power, can transmit continuously for much longer, and emits more heavy-duty pulses and cycles. It also exploits all the different cardinal signal polarizations, a capability that GEN I did not have. (Full signal polarization capability enables transmission of specially filtered waves.)

> “We anticipate the range to be 2.5 times the range [of Gen 1] in the same size package,” Lowery affirmed.

>>64031917
This confuses the turd world dronefag.

>>64032008
>competing with gun systems
>2 km
Nah. Guns like the MGS and KCE are 3-4 km.
Still, 2 km is good from a price/performance standpoint against FPV chaff, since electricity will always be cheaper than 30-35 mm flak shells.
Though this does nothing against bombardment drones, since a) those tend to fly at high altitudes while en-route, outside the effective range of such a weapon; b) frying their electronics on final descent is mostly irrelevant, since they're supposed to crash into something at the end of their run anyway, and the mechanical detonator works just fine. You need to physically damage them, to detonate prematurely.

>Leonidas can be mounted on a comparatively small ground-based vehicle and can fire thousands of “rounds” per second. Leonidas has open
>systems architecture and relies on GaN-based line-replaceable amplifier modules and rapidly fires a barrage of unique waveforms to exploit
>the frequencies that make a UAS target susceptible.
>The company stresses that rather than confusing the drone’s digital electronics by interrupting their communication of satellite navigation signals,
>Leonidas is better described as an EMP generator that envelopes the target with electromagnetic energy that covers very low to very high
>frequencies, “DC to daylight” as EMP is often described. “We don’t care what frequency a drone operates on”, says Andrew Lowery, chief product
>officer at Epirus. “We are an EMP system, so frequencies do not matter. Trying to disable the data links or GPS is comparatively simple, and lots
>of companies can do that. Instead, we blanket the target from a long distance, way beyond kinetic ranges or even THOR.”
>Although the company defines the range of Leonidas only as a “tactically-relevant” distance, this typically means something like 10 km. “Our beam
>is actually not very narrow; its 3-dB beamwidth is about 6 deg.,” he continues. “If I want to take out a fleet of drones, we sweep the sky at a
>thousand times per second so any drone moving into that will encounter a wall of energy as we paint the beam across the sky.

>Epirus Leonidas
> “DC to daylight”
A lot of buzzwords for marketing but fails Physics 101.
Not a serious company...

>>64032041
>MGS and KCE are 3-4 km.

On paper but I reckon in a lot of real engagements they're a lot closer. Vid related is like 2km.

>>64032045
> A lot of buzzwords for marketing but fails Physics 101.

How so? Everything he says is right. This system is actively in live fire testing by the US Army. It uses very powerful microwaves to induce currents in electronics, disrupting them.

>>64032060
>> “DC to daylight”
are you sure?
That's a slightly excessive way to talk about "wideband".

>>64032060
>Vid related is like 2km.
That's a Gepard without the AHEAD module (IIRC only the very latest batch had been updated, so only around 1/3 of total vehicles, and ukes have very few of those), firing impact shells. By necessity, they need to close in, as to not waste ammo, since they can't rely on the shotgun effect of a flak shell.

>>64031879
It's not a jammer.
It fries all the electronic components.

>brain scorcher 9000
like lasers, i can see this having somewhat unintended side effects

>>64029962
shahsneed-236 is rocket drone, not cruise missile (aerial-torpedo).

we'll get ballistic drone soon.

>>64029639 (OP)
sure, until it catches an antiradiation munition.

>>64032261
yes, that's one of the debates about anti-riot and anti-drone microwave emitters, pretty hot news about 15 years ago
the panic about drones has caused this debate to die down but it'll come back up, mark my words

Would the old-fashioned broadband barrage attack work?
Now it would be easy to switch to autonomous flight mode if there were communications problems.

>>64032359
I wonder how easy it is to make a guidance system that doesnt depend on gps or remote connection and strictly uses onboard local mapping data + matching with onboard camera to process visual mapping and overlay with map data.

>>64032443
good old-fashioned DSMAC

error factors are minimised by improved onboard cameras, improved onboard processors, digital image recognition (what they like to call "AI" nowadays), and algorithms so that if say a new building obscures the flight path the computer doesn't totally lose its shit and dive into the nearest building which is inevitably a UN hospital for transsexual Arab orphan toddlers
to create the route map you also need very good satellite imaging and SAR mapping
and changing the cross-spectrum appearance of the target might further confuse the missile

in other words, not actually that easy compared to finding ways to get better GPS coordinates

>>64029701
>how about
>chinkshill talking point nr. 52356
nobody cares

>>64031476
FPV drones don't ever come back to land though, as disarming them is far too dangerous and they're unlikely to ever make it back.
your distinction is dumb.

>>64029639 (OP)
Yeah, microwave and other directed energy weapons are way cheaper per kill than even the cheapest quadcopter drones, let alone comparable interceptors (except maybe small arms caliber AI-driven gun systems). Economics actually favors defense over offense for once.
It's probably not impossible to shield an FPV against this but as mentioned ITT the added weight of protection will degrade performance and payload, making them more vulnerable to hard kill systems.
>>64029719
>Rocket drones
This is by far the worst thing I've read all week.
Fuck you.
>>64031455
>magical solutions should be called what it originally is: delusions
>Radar and fucking optics are a delusion
Jesus Christ. Might as well scoop out my eyeballs now.

>>64031476
>NTA but I make the distinction based on whether or not the thing can land
Unless I'm missing something there is a grand total of zero rocket-propelled munitions capable of landing/recovery.

>>64032443
AFAIK this is exactly how old tomahawks work.

Which is why the US fired tomahawks through Iran to strike the Iraqis way back when, because they were worried that those tomahawks would get lost in the featureless desert, but a detour through Iran wouldn't have the same issue.

That said, scaling down a million dollar cruise missile tech into something remotely affordable is likely easier said than done.

>>64032485
NTA but that's why a lot of people have been bitching that "FPV drones" are actually crude cruise missiles
>your distinction is dumb
it's so that users can tell the difference between an MQ-25 and a Lancet, shit for brains

>>64032488
>Radar and fucking optics are a delusion
we thought Sprey was dead
we were wrong!!
this summer
coming to streaming services and cinemas near you
REFORMERS II: BLITZFIGHTER BOOGALOO

>>64032490
there's probably a recoverable turboprop drone with a rocket booster for terminal attack somewhere

>>64032045
Yeah, that "DC to daylight" is bullshit, but I can see how it could fuck up the electronics.

I imagine it would be like throwing the drone into an EMC chamber. There are lots of different systems in a drone, which communicate using different protocols and different frequencies. These communications move along traces on the PCBs, or sometimes wires, both of which can and do act as antennae and pick up EM radiation. If the radiation is strong enough to induce currents in these communications, that will produce false signals, and mess up the data being transmitted. I doubt that the radiation is strong enough to literally fry these things at 2km, but you don't need to.

The only problem is, that it's not that difficult to harden a PCBA against this kind of radiation. You don't even need any heavy shielding material. Make the two external layers of the PCB into full GND planes, stitch the edges of the board with vias, and cover any sensitive components, such as ICs, with EMI suppression shields, which are basically small metal covers. The added cost and weight is negligible.... By the way, does any of you guys want to create a startup to sell EM hardened drones before the competition catches up?

>>64032502
>shit for brains
i understand the intention, it just fails and doesn't work, piss for brains
a much better distinction would be PGM's and UAV's.
one is a vehicle meant to return and be maintained, the other is a precision guided munition, whether it's propelled by props, jets, rockets or gravity.

>>64032273
It's not a radar.
It's not a jammer.
It's an energy weapon
It activates when it has a target.
So why would an antiradiation munition do anything to it when it won't be radiating 99.99% of the time?

>>64032359
Repeating for the Nth time that it's not a jammer.
It FRIES electronic components. No amount of autonomous bullshit AI can do anything about that, and to top it all off this thing, as opposed to a laser, can engage entire swarms in one go.

>>64032513
your ESL is showing


>a much better distinction would be PGM's and UAV's
define "precision"
what if it's not "precise"?
and, once again, there's a word for that: "cruise missile"

>>64029719
>reddit frog poster
>absolutely retarded
many such cases

>>64029700
>>64032564
>>64032502
>REFORMERS II: BLITZFIGHTER BOOGALOO

Can't fry electronics if they don't exist, Sprey just missed his reform target by half a century.

Protecting against electrical overload is surprisingly easy.

Fake government contract scam. HPMs are simple hardware, they “work” but they’re also completely irrelevant. A country that is wealthy enough to afford to deploy these in numbers (the US) won’t have frontlines in which drones will ever be a serious concern because such a rich country would have destroyed the enemy’s industry and infrastructure with air power and cruise missiles severely impeding the enemy’s ability to deploy large-scale drone ops to begin with.

>>64032491
Tech and software stack has advanced a lot since then, so surely someone must be looking into it at the top level right? We can generate coherent and accurate 3D map data from just 2 images from 2 different angles in real time today with diffusion models today. And there are variety of different methods that do that to various degrees of finer detail(more than enough for war fighting domain since most war fighting applications use dont require accurate finer details but useful as an academic benchmark metric).

And it wouldnt cost millions, but rather few dozen dollars to few thousands of compute hardware. A consumer phone GPU (if you want to save money) or a ASIC if you want specialized. Miniaturization of computing means you get the power of PS3-PS4 hardware in the size of a fingernail that consumes less than 5w of power

>>64032443
Terrain Reference Navigation and Image Based Navigation is essentially what you are suggesting, they use passive sensors like daylight cameras, night vision cameras, and infrared sensors and active sensors like ground radar and laser range finder to compare the terrain below the with a digital map on which their flight path is plotted.
These systems are often one of many systems on cruise missiles for redundancy; they are more spoof resistant than gnss based systems and more accurate than inertial guidance systems.
So, it already exists and with ever increasing computing power, I can't imagine why it shouldn't be able to run on something smaller like a drone

>>64029763
They weren't

>>64032443
You now realize at least half a dozen different drone companies already do this.
-FLIR
-Aerovironment
-Quantum Systems
-Shield AI
And those are just the big expensive MIC firms with dedicated hardware; hobbyists, Ukrainians, and Russians do this too.

>>64031917
you think there are no special drones designed to kill it. normal unshielded drones just go around it until it's killed by the specialized ones.

>>64031917
you dont know about the inverse square law do you? any sort of microwave strong enough to start frying electronics at any sort of significant range would quickly become little more than a point defense system with a large power plant attached to it, highly suspectable to traditional weapons.

>>64034345
>highly susceptible to traditional weapons
combined arms, as ever, is the solution