Countering small drones: A big challenge

What began as a commercial technology is in the process of transforming the modern battlefield. As drone technology proliferates, and production scales toward the millions of units annually, the urgent question facing militaries is not whether they can afford sophisticated counter-drone systems, but whether they can afford not to deploy them.

While the funeral in Vatican City of Pope Francis on 26 April 2025 involved many traditional features, such as Swiss Guards dressed in their traditional Renaissance-style tricoloured uniforms, and armed with swords and halberds, it introduced one defensive measure never before seen at a papal funeral – soldiers from the Italian special forces armed not with rifles or other small arms, but with infantry-portable anti-drone weapons. Although a ‘no-fly’ zone had been imposed over the entire area of Rome and the Vatican in order to keep the sky clear of unauthorised aircraft and helicopters, the security forces were ready to deal with pilotless intruders.

Although no drones disturbed the funeral, small drones with multiple rotors and ranges of up to around 10 km have changed the nature of front-line combat. They are already reported to be responsible for around two-thirds of the total combat casualties suffered by both sides in the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

Both countries are understood to be using around 10,000 drones each month. Given that Ukraine’s target for drone production through 2025 is 4.5 million, and Russia is reported to be planning to produce between 3–4 million, the rate of drone use seems set to increase, perhaps by an order of magnitude or more.

Radio links versus jammers

One inherent problem in creating effective anti-drone defences is that the process is largely reactive. Drones and drone tactics continue to evolve, particularly during conflicts, and upgrading of defences is the inevitable response to this.

Known as first-person view (FPV) drones, the most common variant harassing Russian and Ukrainian front-line forces over the last year or so are typically controlled in real time via a video feed sent via a radio link to the operator who can use electronic goggles to display imagery from the drone’s onboard camera, and use commands sent by radio to steer the aerial vehicle. Since these two-way radio communications can be jammed, many drone systems use frequency-hopping to try to maintain the two-way linkup.

Jamming of the radio signals passing between the drone and its operator was a viable solution for dealing with first-generation threats. Jammers transmit a large amount of radio frequency (RF) energy towards the drone. This can disrupt the commands being sent to the drone, and video signal being transmitted back to the controller. They can also be used to jam any on-board GPS system that the drone may be using for navigation.

While anti-drone jammers are available in fixed-site and vehicle-mounted configurations, as the hardware being used to protect the Papal funeral in April 2025 showed, RF jammers are also widely available in man-portable form.

Early drone jammers operated on specific frequencies known to used by commercial drones. More modern systems use improved RF detection subsystems capable of precisely identifying the specific frequencies used by their target, tailoring the jamming to match the threat, while minimising the risk of interference with friendly RF-based systems. However, RF jammers require regular updates in order to cope with changes on the download and control frequencies being used.

By the end of 2024, more than 70% of the radio-controlled FPV drones being used by Russia and Ukraine were being successfully countered by jamming, even though newer types of Ukrainian drone operating at many different frequencies had made Russian jamming operations increasingly difficult.

The fibre-optic revolution

Fibre-optic drones get around the jamming problem by carrying a storage spool and a dispensing system for a long optical fibre. Since all communications between the drone and its operator are transmitted through the fibre rather than via radio links, these drones are more difficult to detect, and immune to effects of defensive jammers. Fibre-optic technology offers much higher bandwidth than is possible using RF links, so delivers higher-quality imagery to the operator.

The weight of the fibre-optic storage spool and the dispensing system reduces the operational payload of a drone. Maximum range is limited by the total length of fibre being carried, and currently sits at around 10–20 km. While the presence of the fibre does place limits on the degree to which the drone can be manoeuvred, it does allow flight at much lower altitudes than are required in order to maintain radio links. Additionally, as long as the fibre is unbroken, the drone could be landed to await the arrival of a suitable target – thereby permitting ambush-type attacks.

 

If the use of fibre-optic drones destroys a large portion of the enemy’s RF jamming systems, this can restore the viability of radio-controlled drones, which are less expensive than their fibre-optic guided counterparts.

Protective netting

According to a recently-published US Army document, gunfire is seen as a potential counter to hostile drones flying close to a tank. The proposed procedure for a training exercise ‘React to Unmanned Aircraft System While Mounted – Platoon’ calls for tanks threatened by a hostile UAV to “engage with all machine guns or 120 mm canister rounds”. US tanks have no fire-control system able to target such threats, but the document recommends that when faced with a crossing fixed-wing threat, gunfire be aimed “one-half football field in front of nose”, while an approaching quad-copter be tackled by aiming slightly above its fuselage.

Such a simplistic approach has not found favour with other armies. Recent conflicts have seen tanks equipped with protective screening intended to detonate incoming warheads. In its most basic form, these are mounted above the turret in order to counter attacks from above, but drones are now able to fly at very low altitude when attacking, and recent imagery has shown some Russian tanks totally enveloped by protective screens.

Armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs) and other vehicles on the move behind the front line are potential targets for attack, as are groups of soldiers. In 2023, Russia was reported to be using lamp posts to support panels of netting stretched across major roads around Bakhmut. These panels seemed to be repurposed camouflage netting, and were intended to counter drones attempting at fly at shallow approach angles while chasing and attacking vehicles. Likewise, Ukraine has also taken a similar approach, by hanging fishing nets above commonly-used roads. This thin netting is often difficult to detect on an FPV’s camera, and make it likely that FPVs diving targets on these roads would find themselves immobilised in the process, their propellers snagged in the netting.

In mid-2024, the Russian TASS news agency recorded that the vehicle routes in the Kupyansk area of the front line were being fitted with protective nets made from plastic and fabric mesh held in position by wooden poles positioned along the route. If the netting is installed both overhead and on both sides of the road, the result is the creation of what is intended to be an anti-drone tunnel.

 

In February 2025, a 2 km tunnel of nets was reported to have been installed near Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region. These road-protection schemes are reported to be effective, but involve a significant investment in man-hours both to install the supports and netting, and then to maintain them. It remains to be seen for how long such protective nets will remain a practical solution.

Small SAMs for the anti-drone role

One early attempt to create a low-cost surface-to-air missile (SAM) able to engage small UAVs was the Raytheon Coyote. This was originally developed in piston-engined form, incorporating folding wings, and stored in a pneumatic box launcher. It formed part of the ground-based air defence (GBAD) counter-UAV system developed for the US Marine Corps. This teamed the missile with an RPS-42 S-band radar, a Modi electronic warfare (EW) system, and visual sensors. In this initial form, Coyote was 600 mm long, had a 1.47 m wingspan, weighed 5.9 kg, and was armed with a 1.8 kg warhead.

Selected by the US Army for use in the counter-UAV role, the Coyote Block 1B version was equipped with a RF seeker and a proximity-fuzed warhead, and operated in conjunction with Raytheon’s Ku-band Radio Frequency System (KuRFS) radar. To increase the missile’s speed and maximum range, Raytheon then developed the Block 2 variant. Launched by a rocket booster and powered by a small turbojet engine, this had a flight endurance of up to 4 minutes, giving a range of 10-15 km, and the ability to re-attack a target in the event of an initial miss.

In February 2021, Raytheon was awarded a US Navy contract to develop what was originally known as Coyote Block 3, but was later given the designation Coyote Launched Effect Short Range (Coyote LE SR). Compatible with a TOW missile launcher, this version has no wings or strakes, but features three rear-mounted pop-out grid fins.

Aside from the more common explosive payloads, non-kinetic options are also becoming available. In this vein, in August 2021, Raytheon announced that during an air-intercept test, a Coyote Block 3NK (non-kinetic) missile launched from a US Army Fixed Site-Low, Slow, Small UAV Integrated Defeat System (FS-LIDS) had used its non-kinetic warhead to defeat a swarm of ten drones.

 

The palletised FS-LIDS is one of two configurations of the Raytheon’s LIDS family, the other being the Mobile-Low, Slow, Small UAV Integrated Defeat System (M-LIDS) variant. Both integrate Raytheon’s KuRFS radar and Coyote missiles with Northrop Grumman’s Forward Area Air Defense Command and Control system (FAADC2) and the Counter-Small UAV Electronic Warfare System Direction Finding (CUAEWS DF) direction finding and electronic warfare (EW) system made by Syracuse Research Corporation.

M-LIDS Increment 2 comprises a pair of Oshkosh M-ATV 4×4 protected patrol vehicles, one of which is fitted with a Moog Reconfigurable Integrated-weapons Platform (RIwP) remote turret, armed with a launcher housing two Coyote munitions, and the XM914E1 30 mm automatic cannon; while the second vehicle is equipped with the CUAEWS DF, along with a remote weapon station (RWS) fitted with a M2 12.7 mm heavy machine gun (HMG), paired with the Ballistic Low Altitude Drone Engagement system (BLADE) specialised C-UAV sight. Two key capability differences between the two configurations include the fact that M-LIDS has both cannon-based and HMG-based effectors while FS-LIDS lacks these, and that FS-LIDS’ Coyote launcher houses four rounds, while the M-LIDS’ launcher houses two.

In 2019, the USAF revealed that its BAE Systems AGR-20 Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II (APKWS II) air-to-ground 70 mm guided rocket had been successfully tested in the air-to-air role. In late 2023, the service announced the impending delivery of a new APKWS II proximity-fuzed warhead intended for use against drones. Early in 2025, the USAF reported that the APKWS II had been successfully used by F-16 fighters to engage hostile drones launched by Ansar Allah (Houthi) militia forces in Yemen. In this role, the APKWS II had served as a low-cost alternative to the AIM-9X Sidewinder.

 

Laser-guided 70 mm rockets also form the armament of L3Harris Technologies’ Vehicle Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment (VAMPIRE), a modular system able to arm light tactical vehicles or even non-tactical vehicles. Based on a pallet that can be installed in about two hours on any vehicle with a cargo bed, it combines a mast-mounted WESCAM MX-10D RSTA independent stabilised sighting system with a launcher for APKWS or other laser-guided munitions. Developed and field-tested in 2021, this surface-to-air system underwent further tests in the following year, and a batch of 14 were delivered to Ukraine by mid-2023.

Even smaller and cheaper SAMs

Many small drones of the sort being widely used in the Russo-Ukrainian war would not make suitable targets for SAM defences on technical or cost grounds. Even engagements by cannon-based defences may prove surprisingly expensive if long bursts are fired. If SAMs are ever going to become a widely-deployed counter to swarms of drones, they would have to be cheap enough to be mass-produced at a unit cost similar to that of their target. Although such a goal may seem impractical, several companies not currently associated with missile development and manufacture seem determined to attempt it.

The Latvian company Frankenburg Technologies has set itself the goal of developing “missile systems that are ten times more affordable, a hundred times faster to produce, and in quantities far exceeding current industry capabilities”. In December 2024, it announced a plan to start testing of hardware in Ukraine during 2025. No technical details of the hardware have been published other than a maximum engagement height of 2,000 m. A photograph of what seems to be a test launch shows a wingless missile with cruciform tail fins, but other photographs released by the company show a model with cruciform wings and tail fins, and indicate a length of less than 1 m. A predicted unit cost of around USD 2,000 is in a similar price category as many of the drones it is intended to counter.

 

In March 2025, the Swedish company Nordic Air Defence (NAD) announced the development of the Kreuger 100 anti-drone missile. Compatible with handheld or mobile launchers, it uses what the company describes as battery-powered pulsed propulsion, and is guided by an infrared (IR) seeker, which according to the company is built from “commercially available components”, and “designed to function effectively in various weather conditions, day or night”. Currently the missile flies at speeds of up to 270 km/h, but significantly higher speeds are expected from a planned military variant. It is understood to lack a warhead, however this has not been confirmed.

Drone versus drone

An alternative to these proposed missiles is already in service in the form of interceptor drones. Guided by real-time data from ground-based radar or optronic systems, these take direct physical action such as detonating a warhead, colliding with the intruding drone, or delivering some form of disabling payload such as a net.

Ukraine is already using Win_Hit interceptor drones developed by Ukrainian company ODIN to engage Russian Shahed/Geran and Gerbera long-range one-way attack (OWA) drones. Win_Hit is vertically launched and powered by four propellers mounted at the tip of the drone’s cruciform wings. Once launched, it has an endurance of 7–10 minutes, and cruises at 200–220 km/h, transitioning to 280–300 km/h during its final attack.

On 3 July 2025, Ukraine and the US company Swift Beat signed a memorandum covering drone production. Swift Beat is to expand its production capacity, and give priority to supplying Ukraine with drones under what was described as “special terms and at cost price”. In addition to interceptor drones, the agreement also covers quadcopters for reconnaissance, surveillance, and fire-adjustment, as well as “medium-class strike drones for engaging enemy targets”. The US company had already conducted drone tests on Ukrainian territory.

 

Elsewhere, following an initial series of trials conducted in Israel during October 2024, around 20 counter-drone technologies underwent operational trials testing by the Israel Ministry of Defense (IMOD) Directorate of Defense Research & Development (DDR&D) in February 2025. While some involved gun systems, solutions using interceptor drones were demonstrated by Israeli companies, Airobotics, Elbit Systems, Elisra, Israel Aerospace Industries, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, Robotican, and Xtend.

Directed-energy weapons

The US Army’s Directed Energy Maneuver-Short Range Air Defense System (DE M-SHORAD) is based on the General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) Stryker wheeled infantry combat vehicle, and is armed with a high-energy laser (HEL) and radar system configured by Leonardo DRS. This includes a 50 kW class laser intended to melt the plastic or metal structure of a hostile drone, damage its optical sensors, cause it to catch fire, or even to prematurely detonate the explosive payload.

During a meeting held in June 2025 to review Russia’s planned state armament programme for 2027–2036, President Putin declared that the country needed “new approaches and non-standard solutions” to the problem of countering drones. Within days, officials revealed that eight HELs of varying power levels had recently been tested. These included mobile units and higher-powered stationary systems, and the trials were expected to allow the start of serial production and subsequent deployment.

In the spring of 2025, Russia’s TASS news agency reported the development of a “laser rifle” able to attack hostile drones at a range of up to 500 m. Based on Ytterbium-laser technology, the hardware was tripod-mounted, and connected by cable to a separate power supply. According to TASS, a similar weapon was already in Ukrainian service. However, the only laser weapon that Ukraine has revealed so far is the Tryzub (ENG: Trident). A video released in April 2025 showed what was probably a trials version installed on a mounting carried in the rear of a vehicle. According to Col Vadym Sukharevskyi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, Tryzub can engage fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and large reconnaissance drones at ranges of up to 5 km, or tactical strike drones and cruise missiles at up to 3 km.

High-power microwave (HPM) devices are another form of directed-energy weapon (DEW), and are intended to generate an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) powerful enough disrupt or destroy the electronic circuitry in drones by inducing damaging levels of voltage and current. In April 2025, the UK MoD announced that during the largest counter-drone swarm exercise the British Army had conducted to date, soldiers had successfully tracked, targeted and defeated swarms of drones using a newly developed system dubbed ‘RF DEW’. This used high-frequency radio energy to disrupt or damage critical electronic components inside the drones, causing them to malfunction or crash. Installed on a truck, the system is intended to defeat airborne targets at ranges of up to 1 km, and become an effective counter to UAVs that cannot be countered by electronic warfare. According to the MoD, the estimated cost of each shot of RF energy was about GBP 0.10.

 

Last-ditch defence

Today’s Russian and Ukrainian front-line soldier knows that while newspaper articles and defence magazines may talk of next-generation lightweight SAM systems, and of DEWs based on HELs or HPMs, these are unlikely to become available in large numbers deployed close to his current position. Meanwhile, the soldier lives under skies swarming with hostile drones – knowing that if a drone just spotted by a comrade has locked onto him, his life expectancy could be dramatically shortened. Inevitably, front-line soldiers facing frequent drone attack would like to see some form of anti-drone defence deployed at platoon level, or even made available to every soldier.

One potential candidate is a shotgun, which can be effective against all types of small UAV, including these guided by fibre-optics. Ukrainian and Russian forces are reported to be using shotguns as last-ditch anti-UAV weapons, and manufacturers in other countries are developing anti-drone shotgun rounds, and even offering specialised shotguns.

Italian firearm manufacturer Benelli Arm’s M4 gas-operated 12-gauge weapon is already in service by the US as the M1014 Joint Service Combat Shotgun, by the UK as the L128A1, and by at least 14 other countries. The manufacturer has now developed the M4 A.I. Drone Guardian variant. This features a long choke inside the barrel which is intended to enhance the ability to hit drones at greater distances that are possible with the standard barrel.

Swedish ammunition manufacturer Norma offers the AD-LER, a 12-gauge shotgun cartridge that releases a payload of 2.7 mm No 6 tungsten shot at a velocity of 405 m/sec and a maximum effective range of 100 m. According to the company, the shot has a “high impact force against drones and other small aerial targets”.

 

Payloads intended to end a drone’s flight by tangling with or even damaging its rotor blades can be fired from shotguns or various forms of hand-held, shoulder-launched, or turret-mounted launcher. They can also be launched from a defensive drone, or hung below the latter and manoeuvred into contact with the target.

Florida-based company ALS has developed the ALS12SKY-Mi5, a 12-gauge anti-drone round intended for use against commercially-available drones used for illegal or military purposes. The payload has a velocity of 251 m/sec when fired, and a maximum effective range of about 90 m. It takes the form of five tethered segments which separate by centrifugal force in order to create what the company describes as a ‘capture net’ about 1.5 m in diameter.

Russia’s Tekhkrym company is developing an anti-drone shotgun cartridge that fires a Kevlar net instead of traditional shot. Reported to be still under development in 2024, this will create a fully-deployed net at a range of about 30 m.

The smallest and most man-portable net-launcher is probably the hand-held Mitla developed by Ukrainian company Teneta. This single-use launcher is only 200 mm long and 40 mm in diameter, and weighs 365 g. A built-in 7.62 mm pyrotechnic cartridge provides the propulsive force for the net, which measures 3.5 x 3.5 m when fully expanded. Due to the force of the recoil, users are advised to hold the device with both hands when firing. Since the maximum range is only 25 m, this is very much a ‘last ditch’ weapon for an individual soldier who finds himself under attack.

Russian company Ingra has developed the Rosyanka adaptor that converts a standard GP-25 Kostyor 40 mm under-barrel grenade launcher mounted on AKM and AK-74 assault rifles into a single-shot 12-gauge shotgun with a reported range of 15–30 m. In 2024, Ingra claimed that testing of the Rosyanka adaptor had been completed, and that a pre-production batch was being manufactured. However, given that not all Russian infantrymen are equipped with the GP-25, the scale of any deployment of the Rosyanka will be limited, while its tactical effectiveness will be restricted by a slow reloading process that requires the device to be removed from the grenade launcher, the spent cartridge case extracted, a new cartridge loaded, and the adaptor reinstalled into the grenade launcher.

Shotgun-type weapons and machine guns have formed the armament of several Russian improvised anti-drone vehicles first seen in 2024. The ZVeraBoi incorporates a turret fitted with two 7.62 × 54 mm PKT machine guns, a six-barrel array intended to fire shotgun-style cartridges, and a thermal imaging sight. A second turret is armed an array of with six coaxial AK-12 5.45×39 mm assault rifles.

In late 2024, video sequences released by the Russian defence ministry showed a counter-drone vehicle armed with a cluster of 24 barrels that may be intended to fire shotgun-like ammunition, as well as six AK-series infantry rifles positioned on a single mount. Both of these multi-barrel systems are steerable, but it is not clear how they are aimed. Another Russian short-range anti-drone weapon created for use on a vehicle features a tripod-based mounting carrying a four-barrel Yakushev-Borzov YakB-12.7 rotary machine gun, a thermal-imaging camera, and probably a laser rangefinder.

 

Ukrainian defence forces have used FPV drones armed with shotguns to attack enemy UAVs. The Ukrainian company Varta has developed DroneHunter, a payload that can be used to arm small drones, allowing them to engage small and medium-sized opponents. It weighs 2.3 kg, and consists of two 12-gauge barrels able to fire electrically initiated anti-drone charges with a range of 5-20 m. Its recoil-suppression system is based on the principle of simultaneous counterfire. A similar system based on four 12-gauge barrels and able to fire more powerful ammunition with a maximum range of 50 m was reported to be under development in mid-2025. The first application of the twin-barrelled system was the Chief-1 UAV, which Ukrainian Ministry of Defence cleared for operational use in June 2025.

Rifle fire versus drone

In June 2024 Ukraine released a video showing how a Yak-52 training aircraft could be used in the anti-UAV role by carrying a marksman close enough to a UAV to allow the latter to be engaged by rifle fire. However, full-automatic rifle fire from soldiers on the ground will rarely be effective against UAVs if standard ammunition is used.

Ukraine has developed a 5.56 mm calibre anti-drone round which is now in front-line use. Known informally as the Horoshok, it is reported to fire five sub-projectiles rather than a solid bullet. These are reported to have an initial velocity of more than 800 m/s, higher than that of the pellets released by anti-drone shotgun cartridges. Yet to have a realistic chance of downing a drone, the soldier must fire a burst of between five and rounds while continuing to track the target. Maximum range is reported to be around 50 m.

The soldier can rapidly reconfigure his personal weapon for use against drone targets, but the Horoshok cannot be fired while the weapon is fitted a suppressor or some types of flash hider. These rounds are reported to be already in service with some Ukrainian units, but production is expected to ramp up to allow more widespread deployment.

Postings on Russia’s Telegram chat service in 2024 have shown attempts by Russian soldiers to improvise anti-drone payloads for the standard 5.45×39 mm rifle cartridge. One example showed how the standard projectile could be removed from the cartridge and replaced by a series of seven ball-bearings contained in a plastic shrink-wrapped sleeve. This improvised payload is smaller in diameter than the original projectile, so will have a low accuracy when fired, while the effect that ball bearings and the remains of the plastic shrink wrap will have on the barrel of the rifle are unlikely to be good.

An alternative approach is to add a sophisticated fire-control system to a rifle used to fire standard ammunition. The Israeli company Smart Shooter won a contract from the US Army to supply their Smash 2000L optical system for small arms and rifles to the US Army. It is intended to team artificial intelligence and assisted-vision technologies to allow individual soldiers to accurately engage moving targets including small drones. Smash 2000L uses image processing to recognise the target, predict its movements, and remain locked on the target despite its subsequent movements, and changes of position by the user. Maximum effective range is 250 m by day, and 100 m at night. The potential of giving the individual soldier the ability to engage small drones has not gone unnoticed by other nations, and the Israeli system can be integrated into any type of assault rifle. The British Army has procured a version of the system for use on its SA80A3 rifle.

 

Coping with the evolving threat

As the deployment of front-line anti-drone systems increases, the greater the training problem. Ukraine reports that a growing number of its soldiers need to be trained in their use. At first, their success rate may be low, but as individual soldiers gain experience, the number of weapons or rounds fired in order to obtain a ‘kill’ declines significantly. However, there are only a limited number of Ukrainian training establishments, so experienced front-line units are often tasked with providing ‘on the job’ training for inexperienced arrivals.

Some observers have likened the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine to the trench warfare of 1914–18, with the large-scale use of drones representing the present-day equivalent to the massed machine-gun fire which caused so many casualties on both sides more than a century ago. Yet just as workable tactical solutions had to be developed to cope with the machine gun, the same will probably apply to drones. What that solution will be has yet to be found. To adapt the words of a reportedly traditional Chinese curse, we live in interesting times.

Doug Richardson

Author: Following an earlier career in engineering, Doug Richardson is a defence journalist specialising in topics such as aircraft, missiles, and military electronics.