Russian Troops Use Shotguns While Working on More Effective Counters to Ukraine Drone Attacks

I came across an interesting video from Ukraine. In it, a line of trees between some farm fields that was reportedly being occupied by Russians is blasted by a drone dumping thermite.

Ukrainian drone dropping molten thermite on a Russian held treeline in Zaporizhzhia.

Note: That’s crazy -R pic.twitter.com/Z3PaSoTObQ

— FUNKER530 (@FunkerActual) September 2, 2024

The molten thermite undoubtedly made life really hard for anyone who was hiding in those trees. Many commenters on posts like this one suggested a tried and true defense method against drone attacks: shotguns.

Where Shotguns Shine

Obviously, a shotgun is quite good at removing objects from the sky that you’d really rather have on the ground. Everything from birds to clay discs are taken down by the millions. Whether the goal is to put meat on the table or to win a 5-stand competition, scatterguns are great tools. So people naturally think of shotguns where drones are or could be a problem and Ukraine has used them to great effect in its war against a bigger, more powerful invader.

Ukrainian FPV drone with attached AK-series rifle firing at Russian positions from above.

🎥 @wilendhornets pic.twitter.com/E7pEVlPMvY

— Status-6 (Military & Conflict News) (@Archer83Able) September 4, 2024

Doing things the Biden way and blasting away with a shotgun can would work for many drone threats in 2024. A single small drone carrying an explosive charge or doing recon can readily be taken down…if it gets close enough to the ground. So Russia would be wise to start issuing more shotguns for drone defense. It wouldn’t stop the threat entirely, as a high-flying drones don’t get within shotgun range. But low-flying drones taking direct action against a tank or infantry would be a prime target, assuming they aren’t programmed for evasive maneuvers.

Shotguns Are Only A Temporary Solution

It’s important to remember that Ukrainian drones aren’t terribly sophisticated. In many cases (especially early in the war), they were just consumer drones that were pressed into service by adding everything from release mechanisms. That low-cost approach has made for mostly disposable drones that can easily be swapped out. Even more recent designs built for combat have largely been built like using this same approach.

In the future, though, not all drone warfare will be done on a shoestring budget. Instead of sending one or two attritable drones to perform a task, militaries in the near future are going to do something a lot more frightening: killer drone swarms.

Instead of sending a small number of drones, each controlled by someone nearby with goggles and a joystick, drones will be sent in huge autonomous swarms. Even if you equipped dozens of people with semi-auto shotguns or even vehicle-borne full-auto guns, they only be able to down a small fraction of a big drone swarm. Once a few get through the fire and kill the people with the shotguns, the rest of the swarm will move in and do whatever the swarm was programmed to do.

The cheaper drone technology gets, the larger and more sophisticated the swarms and their software will become. Jamming signals? The pre-programmed drones won’t need signals. Jamming GPS? They won’t need that either. Easy solutions like jammers, shotguns, and even anti-drone drones will get clobbered by the quality that overwhelming quantity brings to the table.

What Stops a Swarm?

The only way to effectively stop drone swarms will increasingly be with computer-controlled directed energy weapons.

Computer control is necessary because humans simply aren’t fast enough to react to an attack by a drone swarm. The defensive fire needs to be rapid, accurate, and near 100% effective. Even a team of skeet champions are only human and won’t be fast or good enough to score perfect hits every time. More importantly, even the highest capacity shotguns would quickly be overwhelmed by the swarm’s sheer numbers.

The other consideration is cost. Sending in thousands of drones would mean that a computer using projectile weapons (like a CIWS) would quickly deplete its ammunition. That means the cost of defeating a drone swarm could simply be too high or too impractical.

What could work much more effectively is the use of directed microwaves or lasers, basically portable versions of Israel’s Iron Beam system. That would allow the computer system to rapidly burn up incoming drones with great precision and at relatively low cost. Such systems would effectively render such drone swarms useless in ways that shotgun-wielding Fudds can’t even imagine. In the mean time, Russia is trying to scrounge shotguns while trying to develop its own more sophisticated defenses.