Laser weapons and directed energy

What solutions to deal with the threat of light drones and vagrant ammunition?

At the start of the Russian offensive against Ukraine, the balance of power, particularly in terms of available firepower, was so much in favor of the Russian forces that it seemed very difficult, if not impossible, for the Ukrainian forces could withstand more than a few weeks in the face of the onslaught of fire and steel that was to come. However, the Ukrainian command managed to use its available means to the best of its ability to exploit the opponent's weaknesses, such as the need to stay on paved paths and roads, to harass with mobile and determined infantry units, the Russian logistics lines , while blocking mechanized offensives by…

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Is anti-aircraft artillery becoming a credible alternative again?

May 3thMay 3th

During the Vietnam War, the American armed forces lost nearly 3.750 planes and 5.600 helicopters. While North Vietnamese fighters and missiles played a decisive role, together they only shot down 15% of the aircraft lost by the United States, while accidents accounted for 25% of the losses recorded. The remaining 60% came from North Vietnamese anti-aircraft artillery, which posed the greatest threat to American aircraft throughout the war. Inexpensive to acquire and relatively simple to implement, the anti-aircraft batteries of Soviet and Chinese invoice implemented by North Vietnam alone shot down 45% of the planes...

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The report that hurts US anti-missile defense

February 22 2022February 22 2022

Since the first work in the field of ballistic missile interception systems, the Pentagon has invested close to $350 billion in this specific field intended to protect American soil, and to a lesser extent, some of its allies, against strikes from potentially nuclear ballistic missiles. In recent years, the subject has been revitalized by the resurgence of strategic threats from Russia, China and also North Korea, which now have ballistic missiles, certainly intercontinental, but with operational capabilities much lower than the latest models of ICBM missiles. and Russian and Western SLBMs. However, according to a report made public by the American…

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German Rheinmetall presents the Lynx 120, a new high-performance medium tank

February 18 2022February 18 2022

In August 2021, we published on Meta-Défense an analysis highlighting the relevance, for armies and the French defense industry, of developing a medium tracked armored platform and a high-performance medium combat tank, allowing, among other things, to make up for a major capacity deficit in the Army in terms of high-intensity combat between now and the arrival of heavy armored vehicles from the Franco-German MGCS program at the end of the next decade. Indeed, with only 200 economically modernized Leclerc tanks, and 650 VBCI infantry combat vehicles now more suitable for low and medium intensity, than for…

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The TKMS Meko-300 and Babcock Arrowhead 140 frigates on final in Poland

February 17 2022February 17 2022

The Polish Navy has traditionally been the poor relation of the Warsaw Defense effort. To date, it has only 13.000 soldiers, and a limited number of ships, including only 2 OH Perry class frigates acquired second-hand from the US Navy in the early 2000s, and a single submarine. Kilo class out of operational service inherited from Soviet times. However, the country has nearly 650 km of coastline on the Baltic Sea, a strategic location for controlling access to this semi-open sea which hosts many critical infrastructures for the country and for Europe. The country has…

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Japan engages in the development of a microwave gun

February 7 2022February 8 2022

Unlike European countries, Japan largely anticipated the strategic developments that led to the upheavals and tensions that we know today. Thus, Tokyo has relaunched investment in its own defense since 2013, after yielding, like its Western counterparts, to the sirens of the benefits of peace between 2000 and 2012, with a defense effort falling from 4,83 Tr yen to 4,65 .5,5 Tr yen during this period, to rise to 47 Tr Yen, i.e. more than €2022 billion in 2022. The Japanese authorities even indicated, when presenting the XNUMX Defense budget, that they did not exclude the possibility of bringing...

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These 7 technologies that will revolutionize the battlefield by 2040

February 2 2022April 23th

If the last years of the cold war were the occasion of numerous and important technological advances in the field of armaments, with the arrival of cruise missiles, stealth planes and ships and advanced command and geolocation systems, this dynamic came to a complete halt with the collapse of the Soviet bloc. In the absence of a major and technologically advanced adversary, and because of the numerous asymmetrical campaigns in which the armed forces took part, very few significant advances were recorded from the technological point of view between 1990 and 2020, with the notable exception of the generalization of aerial drones of all types. But with the emergence, since the beginning of…

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The US Army will receive its first DE-SHORAD laser Guardian this year

January 14 2022January 14 2022

Protection against light and medium drones, including stray munitions, is now a critical issue for a modern armed force. Depending on the country, different solutions have been put forward, employing mobile artillery systems, light missiles and even anti-drone drones. But the most promising solution in this field remains that based on directed energy weapons, and it is this type of system that the US Army has been developing urgently for 3 years. One of these systems is the Guardian, from the DE-SHORAD program, a Stryker armored vehicle mounted with a 50 Kw laser, capable of taking…

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Will the future US Navy DDG (x) destroyer be a "transitional" destroyer?

January 14 2022May 15th

While Congress has approved the construction of an additional Arleigh Burke Flight III class destroyer for 2022, and the US Navy has announced a vast plan to modernize its Arleigh Burke Flight IIA destroyers to install the new SPY radar -6 with active electronic antenna as for the Flight III and the frigates of the Constellation class, the American navy is also advancing on the replacement of the destroyer Arleigh Burke but also of the cruisers of the Ticonderoga class, while 32 units of these two classes must be retired from service in the years to come. Communication around the new ship,…

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General Dynamics and Epirus embark the Leonidas microwave anti-drone system on Stryker armored personnel carrier

26th OctoberNovember 2, 2021

The fight against the threat that drones and swarms of drones now represent is at the heart of the concerns of the US Army, which has developed a strategy based on 4 pieces of equipment to deal with the majority of threats, ranging from missiles to swarms of drones. But a weakness appeared in this construction of capacities, the absence of mobile systems capable of facing swarms of drones, that is to say a large number of drones acting in concert to saturate the defenses of the adversary, the IPFS-HPM microwave system designed for this purpose takes place in a 20-foot container, which cannot…

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