Official says simpler and cheaper weapons could be more cost-efficient in countering Russia’s Iranian-made Shahed drones
“The solution is obvious: in addition to mobile large-caliber machine guns, there are plenty of simpler and cheaper anti-aircraft systems available today that have proven themselves to be effective against Shaheds. These include Gepard and Vampire.”
I hadn’t been really following the VAMPIRE. It was apparently announced last year as going to Ukraine at some point in 2023 as part of the effort to counter Shaheds.
I am assuming that given that there hasn’t been a lot of discussion about it yet, though, it’s either not yet doing a good job or isn’t available in sufficient numbers to make a significant difference.
It shoots Hydra 70 rockets modified with a laser guidance kit, so it’s probably quite short-range; if the price of each missile is the same as the APKWS I, each will cost about as much as a Shahed, so while it’s considerably more-affordable than most of the other SAMs being used, it’s also not a hard counter in terms of it being much cheaper to shoot down a Shahed than to launch one.
Hydra 70s are something that the US has built and used in the past in large quantities, and still manufactures, so I would assume that coming up with a lot of them is not a problem. I don’t know about scale to manufacture the laser homing system.
I assume that the idea here is that the missile gets a cheap and simple laser guidance kit, and the fancier hardware goes on the (reusable) launcher, which doesn’t get consumed in shooting down a Shahed, so it should be pretty sustainable.
The downside is that with limited range, Ukraine would probably need a lot of them to cover a lot of targets in Ukraine, since each unit cannot cover a very large radius. It’ll be a point-defense system.
As for the Gepard, while Germany can now manufacture ammunition for it again and restarted production, the SPAAG itself has been out of production for a long time, and I doubt that Germany will rebuild the production lines, so while it may be a good match for low-end drones like the Shahed, the number in Ukraine is probably about all that are likely to show up, unless some of the countries that operate old Gepards can be convinced to turn some of them over… According to Wikipedia, Germany and the US have been repurchasing what Gepards can be had from other countries, so there are some more that will come:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flakpanzer_Gepard
Jordan: 60 have been received from retired Dutch surplus for 21 million dollars.[23] In May 2023, the Pentagon confirmed that an undisclosed number had been purchased by the U.S. for $118 million using funds from the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, with an expected delivery date of May 30, 2024.[24][25] The U.S. plans to deliver up to 30 to Ukraine before the end of 2023, according to the German Defense Ministry.[26]
Qatar: In December 2020, it was announced that a license had been issued for the export of a total of 15 Gepard anti-aircraft vehicles to Qatar. Furthermore, four automatic cannons, 30 barrels, 16,000 rounds of ammunition and 45 breechblocks will be delivered as spare parts. These were purchased in order to ensure air security for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. In early 2023, German government officials began negotiating with Qatar the possible purchase of their 15 Gepards to send these to Ukraine.[27] In May 2023, it was reported that these 15 Gepards may have been repurchased by Germany for Ukraine.[28]
AFAIK, since these systems are mobile, they are moved to intercept the rather slow Shaheds - according to sonar and visual data from detection outposts.
