10-19-2022, 01:31 PM
I am going to revise slightly my previous comments regarding shooting down a Shahed-136 by fighter aircraft. It is indeed correct that a tail aspect or head on engagement with the cannon would be problematic because the Shahed-136 is quite "thin". Attacks from the side suffer from a similar problem. However, from above the Shahed-136 is a relatively easy target. It is 11 feet long and 8.2 feet wide (delta shaped). Attacking in a shallow dive should allow the fighter to take out the drone with it's cannon. If the fighter misses with the gun, just "flathat" the drone. Since it operates at low altitude that should knock it down, one way or another. Of course doing all this at night using infrared goggles would be harder.
The real problem is finding the drone and getting a fighter there in time. I don't know what the radar cross section of these drones is. The drone itself is made mostly from fiberglass it appears. There may be metal stiffeners in the structure. From the front and the rear, the visual cross section is minimal. The visual cross section from the top is pretty good, over 4 square meters. What that translates to radar wise I don't know. However, even if the Shahed-136 is as "stealthy" as a KH-101 (which it probably is not), it can be detected at approximately 80% of the radar horizon. The problem is that these drones fly so low that they are almost on you before you see them and are very quickly gone. If the don't come within about 30 km of your position on the ground, you don't see them at all. For that reason lots of them will get through any reasonably sized ground-based radar picket system.
An airborne early warning radar is the only possible way to reliably detect these drones. The radar is looking downwards from high altitude, so the radar horizon is "large". The target is moving (albeit not real fast), so digital MTI can be profitably used. The problem is Ukraine doesn't have this capability, and I don't think AWACS inside NATO territory can see far enough to protect Kiev. Odessa, yes. As I understand it we do not provide real-time target detection services to Ukraine. So, while I really wish Ukraine had ATACMS, I would suggest lending them an E-2D may be more useful right now. They will have to protect it to some extent, but it can operate well back in Ukrainian air space and do the job. Yes, training will be a problem, but without some kind of capability like this, I don't see how Ukraine can respond to these drone strikes no matter what weapons we give them. Not going to happen of course.
We are also supposedly providing a very large number of GLONASS jammers. While this will help, they also jam any Ukrainian systems in the same vicinity that use GLONASS. Not an unmixed blessing. Also, since the drones have a "backup" INS, they will still fly and explode somewhat "near" their target. How good the Iranian software actually is will be tested. Figuring out when not to trust your radio navigation can be tricky.
The real problem is finding the drone and getting a fighter there in time. I don't know what the radar cross section of these drones is. The drone itself is made mostly from fiberglass it appears. There may be metal stiffeners in the structure. From the front and the rear, the visual cross section is minimal. The visual cross section from the top is pretty good, over 4 square meters. What that translates to radar wise I don't know. However, even if the Shahed-136 is as "stealthy" as a KH-101 (which it probably is not), it can be detected at approximately 80% of the radar horizon. The problem is that these drones fly so low that they are almost on you before you see them and are very quickly gone. If the don't come within about 30 km of your position on the ground, you don't see them at all. For that reason lots of them will get through any reasonably sized ground-based radar picket system.
An airborne early warning radar is the only possible way to reliably detect these drones. The radar is looking downwards from high altitude, so the radar horizon is "large". The target is moving (albeit not real fast), so digital MTI can be profitably used. The problem is Ukraine doesn't have this capability, and I don't think AWACS inside NATO territory can see far enough to protect Kiev. Odessa, yes. As I understand it we do not provide real-time target detection services to Ukraine. So, while I really wish Ukraine had ATACMS, I would suggest lending them an E-2D may be more useful right now. They will have to protect it to some extent, but it can operate well back in Ukrainian air space and do the job. Yes, training will be a problem, but without some kind of capability like this, I don't see how Ukraine can respond to these drone strikes no matter what weapons we give them. Not going to happen of course.
We are also supposedly providing a very large number of GLONASS jammers. While this will help, they also jam any Ukrainian systems in the same vicinity that use GLONASS. Not an unmixed blessing. Also, since the drones have a "backup" INS, they will still fly and explode somewhat "near" their target. How good the Iranian software actually is will be tested. Figuring out when not to trust your radio navigation can be tricky.