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The British Ministry of Defense has successfully tried a new type of electronic weapon to combat drones that have potential impacts on modern battlefields, including Ukraine.
“Rapid Destroyer” is designed by a consortium led by the French defense conglomerate Thales, and uses high-power radio frequencies to disable or fry electronics with drones in the distance.
Two packs of eight drones have been neutralised by weapons in a recent trial, and the mod announced Thursday, “in the project, they were tracked using weapons in every trial, engaged and defeated.”
The technology is still in its early stages. The “Rapid Destroyer” is carried behind a flatbed truck and requires a lot of power.
The US equivalent, designed by the US and many private companies, is the size of a shipping container. Other versions include The Leonidas. It was designed by Tech Company Epiros for the Us Navy and used on board ships.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, both armies have used lethal effects on drones for surveillance and deployment, or for use as missiles.
According to Roman Kostenko, chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament’s Defense Intelligence Election Committee, the drones have caused or support up to 80% of combat casualties in the Ukrainian War.
Many small, inexpensive drones represent difficult targets for countermeasures that can become expensive, as they only hit one target at a time.
New electromagnetic weapons technology is relatively inexpensive and fires a wide beam of energy that can remove multiple drones at once. Experts say this indiscriminate nature makes it unsuitable for defense of infrastructure such as airports, but makes the weapon effective when faced with a herd on the other side.
Justin Bronk of the Royal United Services Institute in London said:
“In certain circumstances, like desert bases, those moving in the direction of the enemy, or the frontlines of movements where you don’t worry too much about warships at sea, yes, absolutely, they offer a significant increase in counter drone capabilities, but they are not one size fitted solutions.”
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The Ukrainian War was a seesaw battle in which electronic warfare played a key role and compromised precision technologies such as the M142 HIMARS missiles supplied by the US GPS guide for obstruction. Drones have emerged as a key battlefield force, but they have to navigate the “wall of electronic jamming,” said senior British military officials.
“This is a countermeasure (VS) countermeasure game,” he said, adding that there are ways to protect drones from microwave weapons, such as protecting circuits with materials that block external electric fields.
Ultimately, the technology is targeted at missile defense. The US Navy announced in 2026 that it could defeat ballistic missiles on fast ships by a high-power microwave weapon known as the Project Meteor.
Graphics by Ian Bott and Bob Haslett
