Yes, this is the “New idea” for anti-missile and air defense without firing an expensive surface-to-air missile. The idea is to create a smart “Flak” anti-air artillery system that is easier to transport, set up, shoot-and-scoot, and use than complex semi-fixed SAM systems. The hope is to create “magazine depth” in having more guided hypersonic rounds to fire into the air for defense.
I think that guided Hypersonic Velocity Projectiles (HVP) are actually more technologically mature than the public realizes. It’s still a “hush-hush” US Navy project that the US Navy won’t disclose, but I think that they fired a few rounds in testing from a warship.
If it works, then the US Army will have a new guided anti-aircraft artillery round that they can use to shoot down cruise, rockets, aircraft, helicopters, drone swarms, and intermediate range ballistic missiles and save the expensive SAMs for other high-value incoming threats. It should be cheaper, but no public disclosure has been made as to cost and effectiveness.
Another drone killer, while we’re on that topic:
I saw this and read up a little on it elsewhere. I’ve no doubt that it works in some way. But the comments on the forum said that it lacks camouflage, is huge, is this and that, and won’t work on tethered drones. No problem…just paint the device green, size matters not with a truck that can haul it around, and it might still render the propellers of tethered drones inoperable and the drone falls down on its tether.
I think it’s just a radar with a built-in electronic warfare jammer against drones. Radio waves are essentially radar, meaning it can be attacked with an anti-radiation missile like the US AGM-88 HARM that homes in on the signal. Being able to move rapidly around should help it survive, but it marries existing radar and jamming tech onto a truck.
Don’t get me wrong, it is definitely needed for C-UAS and against drone swarms. It needs air defense to know if it is being attacked by anti-radiation missiles so should work as part of an integrated maneuver and air defense package.
The field-of-sweep is rather a narrow “pie slice” angle, and I do hope that it has situational awareness sensors all the way around the truck so that a drone doesn’t sneak around the cone- of-fire and circle back to hit the cab. And that is the thing…it follows the SLAMRAAM (cancelled USMC HMMWV with AIM-120 missiles on launch rails) in that to maneuver and aim 180-degrees the opposite way, the driver has to move the truck around with turned front wheels. It’s a cost saving measure as the C-UAS drone sweeper can’t rotate 360-degrees due to the generator in front of it and height restrictions. Nonetheless, if it works, and works for cheap, something functional is definitely better than nothing. I would add a cab machine gun on the roof if there is a hatch on top, and ensure that this truck does have 360-degree sensors and radar to detect any drones trying to fly around the cone-of-fire. Remember, it’s cheaper to equip a drone with other sensors compared to replacing this vehicle.