As part of a new military aid package, the United States will transfer experimental weapons to Ukraine to fight Iranian and Chinese drones, Defense One reports, citing representatives of the state-owned SAIC company.
On April 4, the Pentagon announced a new package of military aid to Ukraine. It included weapons systems that the United States called “ten mobile laser-guided anti-UAV missile systems,” Interfax-Ukraine reports.
The delivery followed a competition held by the US Army in January 2023 to procure the system against Iranian Shahed-136 UAVs.
According to the source of the publication in SAIC, the company must send ten anti-drone systems to Ukraine, the cost of each of them does not exceed $30,000, while Ukraine is forced to use missiles worth up to $500,000 each to fight drones worth about $20,000. However, military experts emphasize that, first of all, one should take into account the possible damage from hitting a target with a kamikaze drone.
The system also reportedly includes an M240 machine gun mount and an electronic warfare system that can take control of a commercial drone, including any DJI system that doesn’t work with advanced encryption.
According to SAIC, during the test, the system detected the drone at a distance of more than six miles and hit it at a distance of three miles, which is much more than the requirement of the army – 1.2 miles.