Flakpanzer Gepard, self-propelled anti-aircraft gun on drone protection duty near Kyiv,
Getty Images
Last night Russia attacked Ukraine with over 400 Shahed-type drones, many of which flew though Polish airspace, one hitting a house in the village of Wyryki, while Polish forces shot down others.
Such incidents are likely to continue, and any future war is likely to involve even bigger waves of attack drones. As the DSEI Defence Exhibition & Trade Show opened in London yesterday, drone defense for Europe loomed large, with many anti-drone guns on display.
Armin Papperger, CEO of German arms maker Rheinmetall CEO says he is expecting an order from the German government worth several billion Euros for hundreds of Skyranger air defence guns. This huge bill is one of the reasons why governments have been slow to acquire urgently needed drone protection.
Meanwhile Ukraine is using weapons costing a hundred times less to bring down Shaheds, suggesting that there is something wrong with European defence procurement. Dr. Jack Watling of UK defence thinktank RUSI told me that European defence hardware is “pretty universally overpriced” – but the causes are complex and harder to tackle than you might think.
How Gepard Came Out Of Retirement To The Rescue
Existing missile-based air defenses struggle to cope with the threat of small drones. Pricey high-performance surface-to-air missiles like Patriot can easily tackle fast jets, helicopters and cruise missiles, but are only bought in small numbers. The U.S. only makes 650 PAC-3 Patriots in a year, and Russia can launch more Shaheds than that on one night. Hence the renewed interest in old-school anti-aircraft guns with plenty of ammo.
Cruising at 120 mph and under 10,000 feet, Shaheds are individually easy to down. Stopping hundreds in one night is a challenge. Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns vehicles, made in Germany in the 1970s, have been notably successful at downing drones. The tank-like Gepard has a turret with a pair of 35mm automatic cannon firing almost 20 rounds a second, guided by the Gepard’s own radar.
Ukraine acquired some 120 Gepards from Germany and from the US via Jordan, though they last one was retired from the Bundeswehr in 2012. The Gepard has found a new life on the front line against Shaheds: slow-flying drones moving in a straight line are easy targets. The Gepards are now adorned with rows of kill marks, with one gunner alone claiming to have downed 28 Shaheds,
According to a Gepard commander, Ukraine’s top three weapons for countering Shaheds are “Gepard, Gepard and Gepard.”
Germany stopped making Gepards in 1980 and the successor is the Skyranger, a twin radar-guided 30mm gun turret made by Rheinmetall, making this the natural choice for the German Army. The gun system costs around $12 million and Papperger, speaking in August, anticipated an order for around 500 which would bring in a cool $6 billion,
The Skyranger turret is only one part though. You also need a vehicle to put it on. In 2024, the Bundeswehr ordered 19 Skyrangers mounted on Boxer armored vehicles for around $36 million apiece. It is a capable high-tech system, but does drone defence have to be so expensive?
Skyranger vs Sky Sentinel
Sky Sentinel automated twin .50-caliber anti-drone weapon in Ukraine
Mykyta Shandyba
Ukraine is bolstering its anti-Shahed air defenses with locally-made Sky Sentinel turrets. Sky Sentinel is a self-contained trailer mounting a pair of .50 caliber machineguns, using cameras and AI software rather than radar to track targets. Each Sky Sentinel costs $100k, or about 1% as much as Skyranger.
The smaller caliber means shorter range but greatly reduced cost. Rheinmetall sold 35mm ammunition for Ukraine’s Gepards at around $600 a round, and the 300,000 rounds supplied are running low. Rheinmetall proposes an even more sophisticated anti-drone round for Skyranger called AHEAD which will be over $1,000 a shot. At 20 rounds a second it soon adds up.
Rheinmetall’s sophisticated new AHEAD anti-drone ammunition with its payload of tungsten cylinders is likely to cost over $1,000 per shot.
David Hambling
By contrast .50 caliber ammunition is common and dirt cheap; the U.S. Army’s currently pays $2.67 per round. Again, it is inferior to the larger caliber rounds but more than powerful enough to take down flimsy Shaheds. And the factor-of-100 price differential, plus the ready availability is significant. Nobody wants to have an ammunition crisis in the middle of a long war.
Watling notes that Sky Ranger can deal with a wider range of threats out to higher altitudes, and that Sky Sentinel works best when networked with other systems whereas Skyranger operates fine on its own. The German system also has more sophisticated aiming and works in a wider range of climates. There is no doubt that by paying the extra the Germans have bought themselves a better product.
But did they need to pay that much?
Cost Drivers: History, Capability and Greed
Watling says that the two systems are not directly comparable, as Skyranger is designed for mobile warfare with expeditionary forces rather than homeland defence. And Ukraine has other advantages.
“Cost differences reflect relative labor costs, costs for assurance with regulatory requirements, and the fact that the Ukrainian company is not charging much by way of a margin,” says Watling.
He also notes that because it sits within a nested defense system of radars and other sensors, Sky Sentinel does not need all the capabilities of Skyranger.
Watling suggests that the gap between the two is narrower than the crude factor-of-100 figure might suggest. But, he adds, “European defence equipment is pretty universally overpriced.”
Rheinmetall Skyranger air defence system at DSEI this week
David Hambling
The reasons for this include regulatory hurdles and the fact that suppliers, not confident that orders will continue when the political weather changes, want to recoup costs quickly rather than count on a long-term arrangement. And there is the simple motive of wanting to make as much profit as possible.
“It is partly companies charging a large margin because they can,” says Watling.
For Germany, this is unlikely to be a problem. The government wants to boost its defence industrial base and spending in Germany creates and maintains jobs. Buying from Rheinmetall looks politically expedient. Nobody in Germany appears to object to paying more for the deluxe system: it provides a quick and proven solution, and nobody doubts that Skyranger is highly capable. The success of the Gepard has been the best possible advertisement.
But unlike Ukraine, Germany is not under nightly attack and trying to muster as many guns as possible to defend the country. If Germany finds itself in a shooting war, its priorities might change very quickly. As in Ukraine, people and politicians might start clamoring for as many affordable counter-drone systems like Sky Sentinel rather than a few high-end systems. By which time it might be too late.
Meanwhile in the U.S., plans are under way for the “Golden Dome” program to protect the nation from long-range drones as well as ballistic and cruise missiles. Early signs are that it will be an assemblage of sophisticated, high-tech and expensive systems. Whether it will have the staying power to resist wave after wave of drones is another matter.
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