May 12, 2025: The success and proliferation of drones in the Ukraine War has transformed modern warfare. One side effect has been a desperate search for a weapon to intercept or disable attacking drones.

One of the more recent DDS or Drone Defense Systems is the Norwegian Cortex Typhon. This system is mounted in a German Dingo armored truck, and has a drone detection system combining a Remote Weapons System/RWS armed with a 12.7mm machine-gun to destroy hostile drones. The system can be used in fully automatic mode, to fire on any drone within range, or with the operators having the option to decide which target is hostile or friendly and not fire on friendlies. The 12.7mm machine-gun has an effective range of two kilometers, which is about half the range of the 70mm guided rocket used in an earlier AUD system. The machine-gun bullet is much faster than the guided rocket.

In 2022 the American Vampire DDS system was sent to Ukraine. Vampire is palletized with all components secured on a shipping pallet that can be mounted in a pickup truck or a military vehicle like the hummer. Vampire consists of a telescoping mast mounting an electro-optical/infrared modular sensor ball and laser designator, plus a generator for power and Fletcher launcher that carries four APKWS 70mm laser guided rockets. These weigh only 15 kg each and have a range of about a thousand meters when fired from the ground. Vampire can be used to detect and fire APKWS laser guided rockets at air and even ground targets. Any drone, cruise missile or helicopter within range is vulnerable. Vampire is designed to be reconfigured, which is the kind of system Ukrainians prefer. The Fletcher launcher is designed to use the new, longer range APKWS rockets that gain additional range by having a larger rocket motor which makes the APKWS longer. Ukrainians are expected to modify Vampire to better suit their needs or simply to obtain longer range while carrying more rockets ready to fire.

In 2024 APKWS was adapted for use by aircraft. Seven APKWS are carried in LAU-131A rocket pod. Warplanes can carry two, four or more pods per mission and deal with the drone swarms the Russians often use to overwhelm existing ground-based DSSs. LAU-131A can be ground based but that reduces the rocket's effective range to a few hundred meters.

Last year Ukraine developed another DDS. This one works by using First Person Viewing/ FPV operated drones to detect an enemy drone and destroy it by collision. This is made possible by using drones controlled by FPV operators. While the first FPV drones were quadcopters, the interceptor drones are faster fixed wing models that look like remotely controlled model aircraft. The soldier operating the FPV is a kilometer or more away and uses FPV goggles to see what the day/night video camera on the drone can see. Adding night vision doubles the cost for each drone, so not all of them have that capability. Each of these drones carries half a kilogram of explosives, so it can instantly turn the drone into a flying bomb that can fly into a target and detonate. This is an awesome and debilitating weapon when used in large numbers over the combat zone.

The interceptor drones are used to take down Russian reconnaissance and surveillance drones that locate targets for Russian artillery and for air strikes by manned aircraft or explosives-armed FPV drones that can go after a moving target. Unlike manned aircraft, drones are smaller and slower with top speeds of 100 to 150 kilometers an hour, and only operate at low altitudes under 1,600 meters. Note that these drones are still unable to catch helicopters, which they could damage. Fixed wing aircraft, like jet fighters, are another matter as they rarely fly low enough for the drones to reach, much less hit such a fast moving aircraft. The Ukrainians have been able to incorporate the new killer drone capability into their air defense systems, which means the air defense radars and fire control systems recognize drones large enough, or metallic enough, to show up on radar. Modern aircraft tracking radars are not designed to detect, much less track, small slow and low flying drones.

The Russian solution to this Ukrainian interference is to send more surveillance drones accompanied by attack drones as a way to overwhelm Ukrainian DDSs. Sometimes this works, for a while, but the Ukrainians are generally faster to improvise and modify systems that don’t work until they do. Russian forces rely more on massive use of whatever they have. This sometimes works because, as the Russians like to point out, quantity has a quality all its own. That worked until it didn’t as the Ukrainians found ways to quickly overwhelm Russian defensive measures and destroy more of their artillery target spotting and reconnaissance drones in several areas. If the Ukrainians can continue to manufacture lots of these interceptor drones that simply collide with their targets, the Russians are in big trouble because Ukrainian artillery can operate more freely and effectively and suffer lower losses.

So far, the Ukrainians have not demonstrated they can mass produce enough of these attack drones to become a major problem for the Russians. Ukraine does have access to large manufacturing facilities in NATO countries. The problem is whether or not NATO countries move quickly enough to provide more manufacturing for new drone designs Ukraine needs. The Ukrainians have become accustomed to innovating and then manufacturing new drones quickly. Manufacturers in the United States, Europe, and Russia are not accustomed to going that way. They might be if, like Ukraine, they were fighting for survival.