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Mod. Notice Technological advances in weaponry

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Article about Hanwha building STOL versions of the General Atomics Grey Eagle drone for use on the Korean navies amphibious ships

www.twz.com

General Atomics' Gray Eagle STOL Drone Will Be Made In Korea

South Korean-built Gray Eagle STOL drones will be offered to the local armed forces, as well as the U.S. military and other customers. South Korean-built Gray Eagle STOL drones will be offered to the local armed forces, as well as the U.S. military and other customers.
www.twz.com www.twz.com

It's quite a big craft at 1,633 kg with really wide wings of 17m. They have mostly been used in the ME, General Atomic started promoting the STOL version some years ago. It's a well sorted out drone, probably what you need deploying them in the maritime domain. I wonder if the RAN would have any interest for the Canberras.
 
Article from TWZ about a hard kill system the soviets designed to protect SS-18 silos from nuclear missiles. It was never deployed but tested, allegedly successfully. Most nuclear weapons are set to explode at around 10,000 m, to maximise blast effects, I don't think this system could intercept a missile at that height. It may be against silos they explode closer to the ground, possibly even 'right down the throat'. The article has a great video of a missile launch but has nothing to do with the system except this was the missile and silo they were designed to protect.

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www.twz.com

Soviets Tested ICBM Silo Defense System That Showered Incoming Warheads With Clouds Of Metal Darts

Russia got as far as testing the terminal hard-kill active protection-like system for protecting its ICBMs from incoming ballistic missile barrages. The Soviets got as far as testing a hard-kill active protection system to protect its ICBM siloes from incoming ballistic missile warheads.
www.twz.com www.twz.com
 
I've posted a few times about V-bat VTOL and landing drone, seems like Vbat is getting a big brother, a tailess X-bat, pictured below. There are a few vids in the links to old tail sitting experimental aircraft.

1761142171209.png

www.twz.com

The Rise Of X-BAT

Shield AI's highly ambitious plan to disrupt the autonomous combat aircraft market with its VTOL stealth drone.
www.twz.com www.twz.com
 
More about the XBat and a spiffy picture of it on it's trailer. Yes it's probably AI generated, can't be sure because there are no limbs or digits to be seen.

1761655467367.png

In the article Bill Sweetman talks about a few issues including naval use and the possibility they will use old engines from F16 and F15 as they retire - both are pure speculation. Think how many you could fit on a carrier, amphibious ship or even a container ship. The military ships have the benefits of being set up to handle fuel and munitions.
 

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CD Xbow said:
More about the XBat and a spiffy picture of it on it's trailer. Yes it's probably AI generated, can't be sure because there are no limbs or digits to be seen.

View attachment 2466498

In the article Bill Sweetman talks about a few issues including naval use and the possibility they will use old engines from F16 and F15 as they retire - both are pure speculation. Think how many you could fit on a carrier, amphibious ship or even a container ship. The military ships have the benefits of being set up to handle fuel and munitions.
Click to expand...
IIRC the YF-16 using F-15A & B engines was a huge part of them winning the contract over the YF-17 (which later became the F/A-18).

It's a big reason behind the RAAF using the B-200 Kingair, same engines as the PC-9. Enormously cheaper to ring the same engines in multiple airframes.
 
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Civmec have a proposal to up gun the Arafura class OPV. These poor boats were stripped of most goodies by the ADF, including a proper naval gun. The whole process has been as exercise in idiocy. For some reason they were going to get a 40mm instead, a type the ADF don't use. The integration process failed and they ended up with a 25mm pop gun.. The helicopter deck was going to be deliberately weakened so it couldn't take a naval helicopter. Have I mentioned the word stupid?

It was especially stupid at a time when the PRC was undergoing the biggest build up in naval history, a period where the RAN failed to build any other ships and the whole strategic environment was deteriorating. We build, at great expense, a toothless OPV. Fortuntely someone had some sense and chopped the program at 6 boats, not the 12 propsed. Civmec proposal is to put the 57mm gun back like the original, carry 4 NSM, containerised drones and a towed sonar for antisubmarine work. A big jump in capabilities, resulting in well balanced small boat, very similar to the original, reference design.

www.navalnews.com

Civmec Presents Arafura Capability Enhancement At Indopac 2025

Australian shipbuilder Civmec has presented a weapons capability enhancement for the Arafura-class OPV at Indo Pacific 2025 in Sydney.
www.navalnews.com www.navalnews.com
 
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Tail sitting drones are all the rage at the moment. This article discusses Andruil's Omen, a hybrid electric group III drone made for a customer in the UAE. It's smaller than the XBat but bigger than the VBat. No performance metrics are given, but they do claim ranges relevant to the Indo-pacific.

www.twz.com

Anduril Unveils Omen Hybrid-Electric Vertical Takeoff And Landing Drone

Anduril thinks Omen, now in co-development with a company in the UAE, will take on long endurance missions performed by much larger aircraft.
www.twz.com www.twz.com

VTOL drones like these offer enormous benefits in ease of deployment and as winged they share the range/efficency in flight of fixed winged craft. The article mentions the 2 most difficult problems, having enough grunt to get in the air, which the XBat solves with a 'big engine' and the transition from the vertical flight to horizontal flight regimen.

"....there’s a lot of wreckage on the road to the creation of tail sitters,” Arnott asserted. “A lot of people have had a shot at doing that. Not a ton of people have succeeded in doing it.”

.....we hit a wall when it came to propulsion technologies,” Arnott noted when talking about prior flight testing of subscale demonstrators. “So we’ve been working very diligently over the last five years, looking at new technologies, and in particular series hybrid tech, and working with the likes of Archer."
 
This article talks about the 2 new anti-drone technologies. The author doesn't mention the swag of adaptions to pre-existing weapons that also are effective such as modified 70mm laser-guided rockets. He does point out that Tanks were deployed first with great effect in 1916 during WWII and by 1917 effective counter measures had already reduced there effectiveness.

theconversation.com

Drones have changed warfare. Two new weapons might be about alter its course again

Direct-energy weapons are being developed as a way to defend against drone attacks.
theconversation.com theconversation.com
 
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This one is nothing to do with technological advances in weaponry but I couldn't find anywhere more suitable to post it. It concerns a mutiny of a Soviet frigate in the 1970's. I had never heard the story before, as the headline says, it's a real life hunt for Red October (sort of). Some nice images of Soviet gear in the article

www.twz.com

The Real-Life Hunt For Red October Happened 50 Years Ago

The mutiny aboard a Soviet warship in November 1975 led to a chase across the Baltic Sea, involving nuclear-armed bombers.
www.twz.com www.twz.com
 
Attack helicopters make good anti-drone platforms, they have a swag of weapons, good sensors and networking.

www.twz.com

U.S. Army AH-64E Apache's Counter-Drone Capability Rapidly Matures

Apaches scored 13 drone kills out of 14 engagements during Operation Flyswatter, reflecting the AH-64’s evolving counter-UAS capabilities. Apaches scored 13 drone kills out of 14 engagements during Operation Flyswatter, reflecting the AH-64’s evolving counter-UAS capabilities.
www.twz.com www.twz.com

Ironic sort of, drones and manpads have sort of driven the attack helicopter away from the frontlines in peer conflict, now they find themselves well suited to an anti-drone role.
 
Looking through the Naval News I found quite a detailed article about the Morgami frigates. Other than getting a bit fussed by zero/minimal change semantics, it talks a bit about the construction sites in Oz and the changes to their weapon systems that are planned, currently these mostly use Japanese munitions. Our Morgamis will support:
  • ESSM which gives them a magazine of 128 (32 x 4) anti air missiles. SM family and Tomahawk will require later integration
  • Mk 54 Torpedo
  • The NSM the RAN are currently upgrading the Hobarts to support.
  • SeaRAM, these are on the Japanese Morgami and will be retrained, possibly the first RAN platform with them

 

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