Occasionally when wasting time on YouTube searching for content to post here, I come across videos that make an obvious pairing. Today’s topic: Death Rays!
First up: Simon Whistler on the U.S. military’s Songbow Laser Cannon:
“Lasers are not just a sci-fi prop anymore. They are at the heart of a global race to develop the most powerful and precise directed energy weapons. China, Russia, Israel, and the UK are all in on the game. But with Songbow, the US Navy’s new laser cannon, America probably thinks it’s won.”
“Songbow will feature a 400 kilowatt laser. That is a major step up from its older sibling, the 60 kilowatt Helios. This extra energy will allow it to hit bigger, tougher targets faster and from further away. As modern warfare evolves, it’s the weapons surface vessels need to counter serious aerial threats like drone swarms and incoming missiles. And where traditional interceptors can cost millions, a shot from a song bow could be as cheap as a dollar.”
“There’s been mounting concern in recent years about the survivability of the US Navy’s vessels. Countries like China are now armed with large numbers of drones and anti-ship missiles. The modernizing of China’s navy has been steadily underway for decades with the result that it’s now a formidable foe.” Sort of. They have a lot of ships, but they still don’t have a deep water navy, and none of their current aircraft carriers are nuclear powered.
“There’s been debate over whether America’s surface vessels might need to stay beyond the range of these weapons in future conflicts. And of course, China is no longer the only threat.”
“Up until now, there have been two key limitations affecting the US Navy in this arena. First, there’s the finite depth of its magazines. In response to airborne threats, surface ships are limited to how many surface-to-air missiles they can carry. And secondly, there’s the wildly disproportionate cost to kill. An unmanned aerial vehicle, also known as a drone, can be made very little, but it can cost literally a fortune to take it down.”
“Needless to say, these problems are not unique to the US Navy, and the solution to them isn’t either. It’s the same solution being explored by governments the world over: Lasers. Or to give them their full designation, high-powered directed energy weapons.”
“The US Navy has been investing in laser technology for a while now. Its interest goes right back to the days of Ronald Reagan’s strategic defense initiative. Publicly launched in 1983, this was the plan to pioneer a space-based missile defense system which would include a network of lasers to protect America from nuclear attack. The press nicknamed it Star Wars.”
“It was the start of a long flirtation with the possibilities of laser weapons. In the late 1990s, the US and Israel came up with the tactical high energy laser for military use, also known as Nautilus. This used a chemical laser, one that takes its energy from a chemical reaction.” That didn’t work.
“A much better solution seemed to lie in electricity. A beam would instead be generated and amplified through thin glass fibers. As an alternative to chemicals, fiber lasers are smaller, safer, and better suited to mobile applications. They might not have the raw power of chemical lasers, but in theory, they’re much easier to deploy. Think less death ray, and more laser pointer kind of. The main challenge was generating enough power with a fiber laser. So, in the late 2000s and early 2010s, researchers began creating combined beams and array systems using the collective power of several smaller lasers.”
“And this is where the technological leaps are now being made. But whatever has gone before, Songbow has the potential to eclipse its predecessors. It’s been designed in direct response to increasing aerial threats like drones, projectiles, and hypersonic missiles. It follows on from the Navy’s Helios, a high energy laser weapon that’s now been deployed on the Arleigh Burke class destroyer. But where Helios can fire at around 60 kW, Songbow will pack a much stronger punch at around 400 KW. It does this by combining multiple 50 kW fiber laser modules to form one beam.”
“It’s hoped that the power density of a 400 kW class beam will be able to do this to bigger targets at longer ranges. Songbow’s key function will be as a drone and missile defense system, but its pulseed fiber lasers will also assist with remote sensing and target illumination.”
“It’s expected to be installed on naval surface vessels, but could also be deployed on land, making it really rather versatile.”
“The Pentagon is directing billions of dollars into directed energy weapons. The US Navy, Army, Air Force, and Missile Defense Agency are all channeling money into high energy lasers, microwave systems, and battlefield power systems. In April this year, the Department of Defense unveiled a $ 1.5 trillion budget proposal for the fiscal year 2027, described as the most expensive military outlay in modern history. Because as more and more US adversaries and potential adversaries invest in their own capabilities, maintaining dominance is now a spending priority. Jules Hurst III, President Trump’s Under Secretary for War and chief financial officer, has hailed it as a generational investment in the United States military.”
“The US Navy has invested almost $30 million into the [Songbow] project, with funding coming from the US Office of Naval Research. In June 2025, it announced that the contract had been awarded to Coherent Aerospace and Defense in Moretta, California. Not long after, the division was sold to the private investor Advent International. Now renamed Atalon, the company is focused on this growing industry, precision optics and laser systems for aerospace and defense.”
“Beyond all the marketing speak, there are some real advantages to Songbow compared to other solutions. Let’s look at what makes the list of pros. We’ve already talked about that 400 kW beam. Achieving this higher power would mean a drastically increased range and destructive capability. It could even have the ability to eliminate threats that other systems can’t. These might include hypersonic glide vehicles, which move too quickly for traditional interceptors, and hardened cruise missiles, which can’t be beaten by less powerful lasers. It’s estimated that at least 300 kW are needed to burn through the structure of a cruise missile in flight, making a Songbow laser comfortably capable. Now, this is yet to be proved. It’s all aspirational, but it’s what we’ve got to go on.”
“Next up, there’s its cost effectiveness. Wars are cripplingly expensive, as you probably know…The Navy spent an estimated $2 billion in munitions while countering Houthi missile and drone attacks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aiden. Most galling of all of this is that the threats they’re countering can be really cheap. In the Russia Ukraine war, drones costing a few hundred dollars have successfully taken out multi-million dollar combat systems. Even the more expensive drone options require a huge spend to neutralize. An Iranian one-way attack drone like the Shahead can cost between $20,000 and $50,000. But the interceptor missiles needed to take it down will set the US back millions. And it’s here that the Songbow and other laser weapons could make all the difference. Directed energy is much much cheaper per shot compared to traditional interceptors. Songbow costs somewhere between $1 and $10 for every shot because it’s only ammo is electricity.”
“This energy source also lends it another advantage. As long as a ship’s power supply lasts, it can keep going. With an unlimited magazine depth, there’s no fear of missile stocks running low. Logistically, it’s a lot easier. In contrast, a Patriot missile battery, for instance, typically contains between six and eight launching stations, each capable of holding 16 PAC3 missiles or four PAC2s. At most, it’s got 128 missiles ready to fire, depending on its configuration.”
“And of course, at sea, space is at a premium. A surface vessel can only carry so many interceptors. Running low on ammunition is also known as ‘going Winchester.’ Ships equipped with the Aegis combat system, the US Navy’s long-standing shield of the fleet, typically carry up to 96 missiles. This might sound like a lot, but it’s a known limitation. When they’re gone, they’re gone.”
“And there’s another thing in Songbow’s favor, too. In the face of threats, laser weapons are fast. Where missiles or bullets take seconds to reach their targets, the Songbow is instantaneous. As soon as it’s fired, it’s arrived. And unlike conventional weapons, you can go again and again. No reloading, no waiting around. This is obviously very handy if you’ve got multiple incoming projectiles and want to move straight onto the next one.”
“Modern warfare is often dictated by quantity rather than quality. Launching a large swarm of drones, decoys, or projectiles is an effective way of completely overwhelming defenses. These are what strategists call saturation attacks. There are just too many targets to handle all at once. There’s not enough time to reload and refocus, and missile stocks simply run out. But in theory, as long as electrical power lasts, directed energy weapons could keep going.”
“We need to be very wary of overhyping this, though. A high energy laser still needs time to disable a target and move on. So, there’s still a limit to what could be achieved in a large enough saturation attack. But with more than one laser weapon, the advantage would be pretty sizable.”
“Directed energy weapons can also stay on target continuously. They can follow a threat and maintain their beam while it’s maneuvering.”
“It’s even rumored that Songbow will be able to defeat hypersonic missiles. These, you see, are a real fly in the ointment for defenders like the US. Hypersonic missiles are able to fly at speeds exceeding Mach 5 and change course unpredictably, making them notoriously tricky to take down. Contrast this with an inbound ballistic missile. In this case, conventional air defense systems can track it and calculate its future flight path. It tends to be fairly predictable. They’ll then launch an interceptor to meet it where it’s likely to end up. Hypersonic missiles, though, don’t play by these rules. They’re faster and they change course mid-flight, making it much harder to calculate their flight path. In theory, Songbow’s winning combination of high power, speed of light engagement, and capacity for continuous firing could see it win the day.” Set aside for a moment that Russia and China’s “hypersonic” missiles are more hype than sonic.
“However cool and futuristic it sounds, Songbow still has its limitations and its critics.”
“One of the main obstacles to any laser weapon is nature herself. Atmospheric conditions like mist, fog, and rain can all absorb and scatter light, diffusing a laser’s beam. And the same goes for things like smoke, salt particles, and if it’s used on land, dust and sand. So, this is not an all-weather solution. And in time, seaborne enemy craft could even be fitted with devices that create smoke or other obscurants to protect themselves. This would be a very easy way to counter a laser. Extreme sea conditions will also pose a problem. Lasers follow a straight line of sight, which isn’t always possible on a constantly shifting terrain like water. Rough seas and swells can easily disrupt a beam, especially over longer distances.” With modern gyro-stabilization, I suspect this is largely a solved problem.
“Even a ship’s vibration can cause difficulties. High energy lasers rely on precision, but the general operation of a ship is pretty unstable. As well as waves and the motion of the ocean, you’ve got the vibrations from engines and onboard machinery. Maintaining a stable lock while taking all of these things into account is going to be really quite hard.”
“And in practical terms, the sky, or rather the horizon line, is the limit here. A laser is clever, but it can’t magically arc over the horizon. It’s a definite physical limitation compared to a combat system like Aegis.”
“Another downside to high-energy laser systems comes in the form of thermal blooming. This is basically when a continuously firing laser beam heats up the air around it, causing it to defocus and become less effective. It’s a bigger issue when the targets are coming head-on in a straight line, known as a down-throat shot. At times like this, the beam has to sustain itself in one direction for a long time. The more powerful a laser weapon, the more troublesome this is. So, it could be a real problem for the 400 kW Songbow.”
“Operationally, all that power is something of a double-edged sword. We talked about the advantages of a weapon that can run from a ship’s electrical supply. Said earlier, as long as a ship’s power supply lasts, it can keep going. High power lasers, you see, need a hefty electrical supply and advanced cooling capabilities. A large amount of the energy they generate is just lost as heat, which needs to be dissipated. If it isn’t, the weapon will ultimately become damaged and will stop working.”
“Managing the temperature of a directed energy weapon is crucial. This means a specialized cooling system, and this is asking a lot of shipboard power systems, especially when they’re already prioritizing output for things like radar and propulsion. As journalist Charles Mitchell has written, quote, ‘The challenge is to cause a warship to act as a stable power plant and a heatsink at the same time as it is operating high demand sensors, combat systems, hotel loads, and other auxiliaries.” End quote. He argues that the laser fight won’t so much be limited by a ship’s fuel tank, but by its electrical and thermal headroom. If a laser is continuously being shot, its effectiveness is going to come down to how quickly its ongoing heat buildup can be carried off. But according to one naval industry report, even the Navy believes the Arleigh Burke class fleet of destroyers has quote reached the limits of its growth capacity. This raises serious questions about how easily older ships like these would be able to take on the Songbow’s enormous electrical and cooling demands. And this seems to be a challenge the US Navy is well aware of.”
“Already next generation surface vessels are in the works with designs for expanded power generation that will accommodate directed energy weapons. In December 2025, Donald Trump announced the Navy’s plan to develop a new class of ‘largest we have ever built’ battleships. It’s hoped that the first, the USS Defiant, will be ready in the early 2030s. According to plans, the Defiant will be nuclear powered to provide the Navy’s fleet with quote a significant increase in combat power by longer endurance, higher speed, and advanced weapon systems required for modern wars.” This is also the reason the Gerald R. Ford class of aircraft carriers is powered by two nuclear reactors.
“Among these same plans, the Trump class battleship seems to include two 300 or 600 kW shipborne lasers and other laser systems for optical dazzling and sensor disruption.”
“Commentators have described directed energy weapons as central to the Trump class ship’s design, but this form of weaponry has always had its hurdles. Hurdles that have plagued the development of laser weapons since the 1980s. Even a Congressional Research Service report acknowledges the old saying, quoting again, “Lasers are X years in the future and always will be.”
“Only last year, one of the Navy’s top fleet commanders, Admiral Daryl Caudle, said the service should be embarrassed by its slow progress with the technology. Because although the theory behind their application carries weight, he believes the US still isn’t ready for prime time. Lasers might promise a lot, but they’re not yet a viable way to take out a missile. And at a symposium in 2024, Rear Admiral Fred Pyle told attendees the Navy had quote a tendency to overpromise and underdeliver.”
Skipping over the failure of the Army’s 300 kW Valkyrie laser system, which seemingly couldn’t hit milestones and was mothballed. “The Army decided the prototype would not be fielded to units. Instead, it’ll be used to inform the new joint laser weapon system. This laser initiative is a collaboration between the US Army and the US Navy. In theory, it’ll allow them to pull their research from past efforts to create a 150 kW system that could potentially be scaled up.”
“Similarly, in 2024, the US Air Force shut down its much vaunted SHIELD program, which had set out to introduce pod-mounted high energy lasers to fighter aircraft.”
“SHIELD had apparently been hit by many of these issues that we’ve already talked about. Technical difficulties, heat generation, harsh environments, all leading to claims that the technology still wasn’t developed enough for real world use. Of course, this doesn’t mean the whole concept of laser weaponry is being scrapped.”
“Despite the troublesome quirks of laser weapons, they’re in motion all over the world. The United States definitely isn’t the only global power taking part in this futuristic race.”
“You might remember our video about the UK’s Dragonfire laser. Like Songbow, Dragonfire has been designed to counter drones, missiles, and projectiles. And also like Songbow, it uses solid state fiber laser technology. The development of Dragonfire has been funded to the tune of million pounds.”
“In 2024, it successfully engaged an airborne target during an exercise. There at the Hebrides range in Scotland, the weapon took drones flying at 650 km/h down. Dragonfire is due to be fitted to a Royal Navy type 45 destroyer in 2027. Because of this, its exact range is still classified, but we do know that according to the official descriptions, the level of precision it offers is the equivalent of hitting a one pound coin that’s about the same size as a euro or a US quarter from a kilometer away. It’s capable of manifesting 50 kW of power.”
“And it’s a similar story with Israel’s Iron Beam, otherwise known as the laser dome, pioneered by the defense technology company Raphael. This is a 100 kilowatt high energy laser system. In Raphael’s glossy marketing, it claims that Iron Beam redefines modern warfare. And I mean, yeah, maybe it does. Reportedly, the Iron Beam is able to overcome the atmospheric challenges faced by other laser weapons. With lasers, the larger the beam, the more atmospheric interference you’re likely to face. The Iron Beam gets around this by shooting hundreds of small coinsized beams instead of one. These all converge on a target until it’s damaged or destroyed. It claims almost zero cost per interception, whatever that is. And significantly, it’s now up and running. In December 2025, the Iron Beam was officially deployed to the IDF after more than a decade in development. And in March 2026, social media footage seemed to show it in action intercepting a Hezbollah drone.”
“Israel may be the first, but it won’t be the last. Also hot on their heels are South Korea, Russia, Ukraine, India, and Japan. All are developing variations on the theme. And last year, China unveiled its own shipbourne weapon, the LY-1, a high energy laser weapon said to be an advanced testing.” China’s weapon systems seem to be long on hype and short on performance.
“Reading about high energy lasers, the term layered defense comes up a lot. At least for the time being, and probably for a long time to come, laser weaponry can’t be a one-stop shop solution. There’s simply too much to it and too many limitations to consider. And so, it will literally become just one weapon in a country’s arsenal. Systems like Songbow will sit alongside more proven interceptors so that if, for instance, sea conditions become rough, there’s still something a crew can do to deal with that pesky incoming drone.”
“Traditional projectiles might be fishily expensive, but they’re probably here to stay in some capacity.”
“As well as working alongside other defensive weapons, Songbow will also sit within the Navy’s laser family. If it’s successfully deployed, it’ll act as the big gun. But there are other smaller siblings there, too. Take ODIN, for example. It stands for Optical Dazzling Interdictor Navy. And at the time we’re writing this, there are seven ODIN systems on Navy ships. They’re there specifically to emit an infrared light that will scramble the optical sensors of a drone. Rather than shooting it down, they can effectively make it lose its way and crash.”
Helios, another laser defense system already deployed on the Arleigh Burke-class USS Prebel, successfully shot down Iranian drones this year.
“The global race to field directed energy systems is well and truly on, leading some to call this the age of laser weapons. It echoes past scrambles around stealth aircraft and precision missiles. Now, the question isn’t so much whether lasers will reach the maritime sphere, but how quickly countries can overcome the many hurdles to making this a success.”
Now the second death ray video. In my Black Friday/Prepper roundups, I’ve been including links for the IMALENT MS18, an insanely powerful flashlight that I don’t have a use case for, but which some people (say, ranchers or security guards for large complexes) might. Well, someone took its big brother, the IMALENT MS32, put a magnifier on it, and turned it into a death ray.
Now, as a death ray it’s inferior to a gun as a self-defense weapon, and about 1/100th as cost effective for lighting a fire than a cheap electric lighter. But it’s still pretty cool. Err, pretty hot, that is…
Democrats get called on their Medicaid fraud and steal firefighter pensions, the awful atrocities Hamas committed against Israeli civilians, more details of the plot against America, another Democrat spying for the Chinese, a look at Finland’s deep civil defense infrastructure, and Uncle Rick discovers that Ivy League grads working for the New York Times are ignorant dumbasses.
ice President J.D. Vance certainly has been busy as America’s “Fraud Czar.”
Medicaid fraud in California is rampant, and as my colleague Mary Chastain noted in March, Vance’s anti-fraud task force suspended 70 hospice and home health care businesses in Los Angeles.
The move came shortly after investigations by CBS News and Nick Shirley revealed a fraud scheme in California involving hospices.
Vance’s task has then suspended over 400 more.
Now the Vice President has announced on Wednesday that the Trump administration is withholding $1.3 billion in Medicaid payments to California and is threatening to suspend federal funding to all states if they don’t aggressively prosecute fraud in their Medicaid programs.
“There are California taxpayers and American taxpayers who are being defrauded because California isn’t taking its program seriously, but also you have people who have been prescribed medications that they don’t even need. They’ve had drugs put into their bodies that they don’t need because fraudsters have actually encouraged false prescriptions and false administration of medications,” Vance said at the White House.
The move is similar to the one the administration took in February suspending Medicaid payments to Minnesota.
Vance said that the administration is also notifying all 50 states that it could freeze funding to their Medicaid Fraud Control Units “if they do not aggressively prosecute Medicaid fraud.” The units, which exist in each state, investigate and prosecute Medicaid provider fraud. “We are going to turn off the money that goes to these anti-fraud units,” he said, if they fail to do their job.
This is a good start, but people need to go to prison.
Washington just became the first state in U.S. history to terminate a public employee pension plan.
The plan belongs to retired police officers and firefighters. LEOFF Plan 1 was 160% funded as of June 2024 per the state’s own actuarial valuation. It had not required a single contribution in 25 years. By 2029 it was projected to reach 200% funded with a $4.3 billion surplus.
The legislature terminated the plan, swept $3.9 billion, and is using $880 million of it to refill a rainy day fund it already drained to cover a deficit it created.
Days ago, retired first responders including former Congressman Dave Reichert sued the state to stop it. The bill passed the House 55-39 and was advanced out of Appropriations without a public hearing. Every yes vote was a Democrat. The governor signed it in April.
“Missouri Supreme Court Upholds New Congressional Map.” “The Missouri Supreme Court once again upheld the state’s new Congressional map, which would break-up the Kansas City Democratic seat and give Republicans a 7-1 advantage.”
They’ve got themselves into a position — which began with Barack Obama’s hollowing out of the party over a decade ago — in which they can’t afford to lose the next couple of elections, even as their position erodes.
Due to an “accidental error” in the 2020 census, blue states got more seats in the House — and more electoral votes — than they were entitled to. When that “error” is fixed, the situation will be worse for them. Then there’s the flood of refugees from blue states to red, further expanding their Congressional majorities. (But beware of the refugees who continue to vote blue. Where’s my “welcome wagon” proposal?)
Meanwhile, the Trump Administration is choking off the flood of taxpayer money that has kept leftist organizations and institutions afloat, buying votes with taxpayer dollars. And the federal workforce has shrunk 10% with more “draconian cuts” on the way.
It’s a bit like Winfield Scott’s “Anaconda Plan” to choke off the Confederacy — which worked once it was actually employed. (And Trump is doing something similar with Iran, choking it off gradually rather than going for a swift coup de main, which is disappointing some people but which will work at a much-reduced cost in lives. But that’s another essay.)
This is why the Democrats, and the left, but I repeat myself, are unhappy. They feel it happening.
Click through to hear the lamentations of their women.
Right after the ceasefire expired: “FP-2 Drones Swarm Russian Positions: Multiple Hits on Multiple Targets–Ammo Dumps, Training Centre.”
Finland officially became NATO’s newest member on April 4, 2023, becoming the 31st member of the alliance, about one month after neighboring Sweden joined.
One of the so-called “justifications” for Vladimir Putin’s utterly unjustifiable full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was that he didn’t want NATO expanding to his borders. Not counting Kaliningrad, that stretch of Russian territory between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea, at the start of 2022, Russia had 446 miles of shared border with NATO members Norway, Estonia, and Latvia.
Finland shares 883 miles of border with Russia, so now that Finland is in NATO, Russia has 1,279 miles of shared border with NATO members, almost three times as much as before the invasion. It is a beautiful thing to see military territorial aggression backfire so thoroughly.
Considering Finland’s long and tense history with Russia, some might have expected the country to end up in the NATO alliance sooner. Once a territory of Sweden, then of Russia, Finland declared its independence in 1917. In August 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which relegated Finland to a Soviet sphere of influence. By November, Finland and the Soviets were fighting the three-month Winter War; this was when Finnish sniper Simo Häyhä, nicknamed the “White Death,” believed to have killed more than 500 enemy soldiers during the conflict, the highest number of sniper kills in any major war, and considered one of the deadliest snipers in history. (I suspect he is the only Finn to be featured in a video of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, taking on the Red Baron.) Finland resisted bravely against overwhelming Russian forces, but at the war’s end it was forced to cede about 9 percent of its territory. In June 1941, Finland and the Soviet Union returned to conflict in the Continuation War, with Finland a cobelligerent of Nazi Germany.
Finland argued that it was fighting a parallel but separate “continuation war” against the Soviet Union and had no formal treaty of alliance with Germany. While the U.S. ended diplomatic relations for a period, it never declared war against Finland.
When World War II ended, Finland retained its independence, but Soviet troops remained at its doorstep. In 1948, the Finnish government announced the “Treaty of Friendship,” declaring that Finland was committed to staying out of international conflicts between the great powers and limiting Finnish defense cooperation with third parties. “Finlandization” became a term to describe a state of technical independence and sovereignty, but heavy influence by the Kremlin.
The Finns’ preferred public stance of neutrality remained after the Cold War ended, and if not for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Finland might have remained a “NATO partner,” but not a member. In January 2022, public opinion polling found 30 percent of Finns supported Finland applying for NATO membership. Forty-three percent of respondents opposed applying for membership, and 27 percent were unsure of their position. About one month later, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, and by April, 68 percent of Finns supported applying for NATO membership.
You may have noticed that the Russian “special military operation” that was supposed to last four days has now lasted more than four years, the Russian military couldn’t spare any tanks for the Victory Day parades in Red Square this year, and a new estimate calculates that about 352,000 Russian soldiers have died in the war against Ukraine through the end of 2025. That is about six times the American in-theater deaths in the Vietnam War. Throw in the wounded and missing, and the Russian military has lost an estimated 1.4 million men.
The terrorists shot their eyes, their faces and their breasts, and even targeted their most intimate parts, to destroy their beauty and rob their loved ones of a final goodbye.
Women were stripped, bound, stabbed, shot and burned. They were executed both during and after rape amid an orgy of violence in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage.
Heads were decapitated. Pelvic bones shattered. Even after death, sexual assault continued.
…
At Kibbutz Be’eri, nails, sharp objects, and pieces of metal and plastic were similarly embedded in a woman whose body was discovered naked and bound. On another victim, grenades were used.
…
Those taken hostage were assaulted in front of loved ones and young relatives forced to commit sex acts on each other, an intentional, premeditated strategy of kinocide to destroy family units even after release from captivity.
…
There was a recurring pattern of rape and gang rape; sexual torture; mutilation; targeted shooting to the face, head and genital area; forced nudity; binding and restraint; genital burning; objects inserted into intimate areas; post-mortem sexual humiliation; and execution during or after sexual assault.
Indeed, when Hamas led other terror groups into Israel they carried Arabic-to-Hebrew phrase lists commanding victims to ‘take off your pants’, ‘lie down’, and ‘spread your legs’.
This is the group the ideological core of the Democratic Party will do almost anything to back.
🧵🚨 MAJOR BREAKING: International actors are involved in the State Department led color revolution 🚨🚨
This is not speculation; it’s straight from a recorded call.
Ex-USAID employees describe how, before January 20, they moved internal groups off government systems and into encrypted Signal chats, then quickly linked with foreign partners and NGOs after the inauguration. This attempt at creating a color revolution isn’t new news; this part was already reported in NOTUS earlier this year.
But what’s not reported is the international aspect. One participant explicitly frames it as “a global anti-authoritarian movement,” connecting U.S. officials with “colleagues from around the world who have dealt with this directly.”
They reference coordination with Johns Hopkins, “international democracy and conflict mitigation spaces,” and efforts to mobilize across borders against what they perceive as domestic authoritarianism.
🧵🚨 MAJOR BREAKING: Inside The New Pluralists: how billionaires weaponized the Biden Administration, targeted Charlie Kirk, and are quietly financing America’s color revolution 🚨🚨
In 2017, a quiet meeting brought representatives of Soros, Koch, Rockefeller, and Ford foundations together for one purpose: to rethink how philanthropy influences politics.
Out of that meeting came the “New Pluralists,” a coalition that would go on to shape the Biden White House’s United We Stand summit, fund censorship-adjacent projects, and eventually intersect with investigations into Turning Point USA … and the color revolution that’s brewing in the United States now.
“Legal group exposes heavy use of Minnesota’s ‘vouching’ system to override voting ID rules. The records, which were obtained through a public records request, showed that Minnesota’s Election Day Registration process allows registered voters or certain residential facility employees to verify another voter’s residency in place of standard identification or proof-of-address documents.” “According to the data released by AFL, almost 18,900 Election Day registrations in 2024 involved the use of vouching. Of those, 13,441 were updates to existing voter registrations, while 5,457 involved new voter registrations.”
(Hat tip: Director Blue.)
One of Britain’s ‘first gay dads’ and his husband have both been charged with rape, sexual assault and modern slavery trafficking for sexual exploitation.
Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, 57, also the UK’s first openly gay football club owner, and his husband Scott Hutchison, 32, will appear at Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court today …
Drewitt-Barlow and his ex-husband Tony made headlines in 1999 when they became one of the first gay couples in the UK to have children through a surrogate mother.
An Essex Police statement said today: ‘Detectives have secured charges against two men in connection with an investigation into human trafficking for sexual exploitation, rape and other sexual offences.
‘Officers from the Serious Crime Directorate at Essex Police carried co-ordinated searches at premises in Danbury, Maldon, and Braintree on Wednesday and arrested two men. Since then we have been liaising with the Crown Prosecution Service.
‘We can now confirm that 57 year-old Barrie Drewitt-Barlow and 32 year-old Scott Drewitt-Barlow, both of Danbury, have both been charged with multiple offences including rape, sexual assault, and modern slavery trafficking for sexual exploitation.
Pennsylvania Democrat Sen. John Fetterman has reiterated that he is done with the insanity gripping his party. In a series of raw appearances on Bill Maher’s show and a new Washington Post op-ed, Fetterman is torching the reflexive anti-Trump obsession, the normalization of radical left ideas once dismissed as smears, and the sloppy 24-hour news cycle that turns opinions into “news.”
Fetterman made clear he refuses to play along with the extremes. “My colleagues and people that are running, whether for the Senate where the House, they are literally running on f*ck Trump,” he said.
“I mean, that’s literally—they have campaign commercials with that. It’s absurd,” he noted, adding “And we are getting to that point and I refuse to engage in that extreme, those terms. And we have to find a better way forward.”
Fetterman repeated the sentiments in an op-ed in The Washington Post, titled “I Haven’t Changed. Here’s What Has,” writing “My party cannot simply be the opposite of whatever President Donald Trump says.”
He stresses, “Working across the aisle is the only way forward” and calls “pointless pile-ons and attacks” unproductive. Fetterman highlights once-mainstream Democratic positions on border security, support for Israel, and avoiding government shutdowns that have now become “toxic” to the party’s fringe base.
He declares, “Someone who comes here illegally and commits a violent crime should be deported. Full stop.”
This week’s Democrat acting as a spy for the communist Chinese is the mayor of Arcadia.
A California mayor admitted to acting as an illegal foreign agent of China, resigning from her position in a shocking federal plea deal unsealed on Monday.
Democrat Eileen Wang agreed with prosecutors that she worked with the People’s Republic of China to boost propaganda with a fake news website on US soil between 2020 and 2022. She was elected to the city council in Arcadia — a city in the San Gabriel Valley within LA County — in November 2022.
Wang, 58, worked with her then-fiancé, Yaoning “Mike” Sun, on a website called “U.S. News Center,” which claimed to be a news source for Chinese Americans, according to court documents.
But in reality, the pair were carrying out Beijing’s orders through the site.
Wang and Sun “executed directives” from the Chinese government, posting propaganda designed to boost China, all while reporting back to their masters with screenshots showing how many people viewed the stories, according to the plea agreement.
“Harris County Treasurer Arrested for Second DWI in Office, After Burglary Charge Dismissed. Carla Wyatt was arrested in Galveston County last weekend.”
Harris County Treasurer Carla Wyatt has been arrested for a third time since taking office in 2023, while county commissioners consider abolishing the treasurer’s office altogether.
Galveston County law enforcement arrested Wyatt on Saturday for allegedly driving while intoxicated (DWI) and she was being held on a $3,000 bond with an addendum hold.
Wyatt was arrested for DWI in Harris County in December 2023 after testing indicated she had a blood alcohol level of 0.15 percent, which is nearly twice the legal limit of 0.08 percent.
Court records indicate Wyatt did not comply with the terms of her bond conditions on at least two occasions, including one in which she failed a blood alcohol blow test in March 2024. She reportedly completed a pretrial diversion program, however, and her DWI charge was dismissed in August of that year.
In December 2025, Wyatt was arrested again in Harris County and charged with breaking into a vehicle with intent to commit theft, but a grand jury declined to indict her and the charge was dropped last month.
Wyatt’s attorney Christopher Downey has argued that Wyatt struggles with medical issues, including alleged cerebrovascular disease, which affects the flow of blood to the brain.
So the excuse for her lawbreaking is literally “Her brain don’t work right.”
An Orange County Democrat’s struggling campaign is fighting back after ex-staffers accused the candidate of turning a discussion about her fake boobs into an all-hands meeting.
Janet Keo Conklin, a real estate agent and La Palma council member who is seeking to become Orange County’s next assessor, has denied allegations that she forced staff to feel her breasts while claiming she had no feeling in her nipples.
On Friday, LAist reported that Conklin — who is also accused of misusing campaign money on personal expenses — allegedly told two staffers that “she has no feeling in her nipples” and placed their hands on her chest to “give it a squeeze.”
I wonder if adding a “nipples” tag would help or hurt my page ranks…
A problem not just in Texas, but nationally: “Finals Week for Texas Schools, Universities Delayed by Hack of Education Service Canvas. Some students’ screens showed a message from the hacking group ShinyHunters.”
A cyberattack on Canvas, a system used by schools and universities throughout the nation, disrupted finals week for thousands of students in Texas, though it is now back online.
According to Baylor University, on Thursday, May 7, several universities reported that access to the Canvas system was blocked by a ransom notice. Canvas, which is owned by the company Instructure, is utilized by 41 percent of higher education institutions in the U.S. According to Instructure, Canvas has over 30 million active users.
Canvas is a cloud-based management system that houses grade books, submissions, teaching materials, and classroom communications.
The data breach was traced to “Free for Teacher” accounts within the Canvas system. The free parts of the site, which were particularly susceptible to a data breach, are now disabled according to Instructure. As of Saturday, Canvas is available for most users, but parts of the cloud system remain under maintenance.
Consider this yet another reason to implement rolling offsite backup for all mission critical data.
Tyler Brown, the man who allegedly opened fire on passing cars on a Boston highway on Monday, was previously convicted of the attempted murder of a police officer and released after serving just five years in prison.
Brown, 46, is accused of firing 50 to 60 rounds at random passersby on Memorial Drive in Cambridge, hitting dozens of cars. Two people were hit and remain in critical condition in a nearby hospital. Video of the incident taken by an eyewitness shows Brown running back and forth in the traffic lanes, firing at random.
A State Police trooper and Marine veteran caught in the traffic jam that resulted from the incident shot Brown, who is now in custody at a Boston-area ICU.
Troopers found witnesses hiding under their cars, Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said during a press conference Monday.
Brown is from Boston and has been under the supervision of either the Massachusetts Probation Department or Department of Parole, Ryan said.
In May 2020, Brown opened fire on a pair of police officers who were responding to a 911 call, firing 13 rounds, one of which was fired at “close range.” The two cops returned fire, but no one was hit.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has called the nuclear phaseout a “serious strategic mistake” that left Germany short of firm power that turned the Energiewende into the most expensive energy transition on the planet. This is an early marker for a developing worldwide retreat from policies that sidelined nuclear power and demonized coal, oil, and natural gas.
Germany stubbornly closed its last three functioning nuclear reactors in April 2023 right in the middle of a crippling energy crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine. As pragmatists predicted, German citizens now suffer under punishingly high electricity prices and remain heavily dependent on imported energy.
The green dream was sold as a route to “cheap” renewables, yet the reality for German households and factories has been record‑high electricity prices, complex subsidies for favored businesses and individuals who conform to the climate narrative, and a grid that struggles on windless days or under gray skies.
Japan made a remarkably similar error but is finally correcting course. After the Fukushima disaster, the government panicked and shut down all 54 of its nuclear reactors. Today, Japan is slowly restarting those idle units.
The pattern is plain to see. Countries abandon dependable power sources under political pressure, then spend years rebuilding what they had demonized and dismantled.
Jim Geraghty has a pretty cool look inside Finland’s civil defense infrastructure.
Perhaps no other city in the world has done more to prepare for being bombed than Helsinki. What started as a response to hard lessons from the bombing of Finland’s cities in World War II by the Soviets accelerated through the era of nuclear fears of the Cold War, and continues to this day and demonstrates a particularly Finnish approach to how you protect your citizens from aerial bombardment. Join me for a walk through one of the largest and most complex underground structures in the world.
Helsinki, Finland — In the downtown of this capital city, just off Hakaniemi Market Square, the entrance to Arena Center Hakaniemi could easily be mistaken for an elevator and stairway to an underground parking garage. In fact, the underground complex does include a parking garage — alongside a gym, several youth soccer courts, and a whole lot else.
But the stairs go deep — eight flights, and each landing of each flight is made of metal grates, creating the unnerving sense that you can see all the way down, beneath your shoes.
But there’s a purpose to this flooring, even if it’s no friend to any user unnerved by looking down from a great height. If some sort of terrible explosion occurred at the entrance to the stairs, some of the concussive force from the blast would pass through the flooring of the stairway landings, hopefully keeping the stairway intact.
Arena Center Hakaniemi is part of a vast network of underground civil defense shelters.
Snip.
After [World War II], the Finns decided that if bombs ever fell on their cities again, everyone in the country would have access to an underground shelter.
The result is more than 50,000 civil defense shelters across the country, with space for 4.8 million people, which is almost sufficient for the population of 5.5 million people. The shelters underneath Helsinki collectively have room for 940,000 people; the city has about 700,000 residents.
As Atlas Obscura puts it, “No Finnish government official would ever mention Russia as the reason for such defensive preparations, but they don’t have to.”)
While many of these bunkers were built during the Cold War, the construction of mandatory shelters in new buildings is still a standard requirement in Finland. Residences or workplaces, or any building above 1,200 square meters that is permanently occupied, must have a shelter, as must any industrial building more than 1,500 square meters. The construction cost is not subsidized and must be covered by the owner of the building.
Once you get to the bottom of Arena Center Hakaniemi, you are greeted by two large doors. Our guide, Civil Defense Planning Officer Jukka-Pekka Schroderus, explains that the first massive and thick steel door is to protect anyone inside the shelter from any explosive blast wave; the second is to protect those inside from chemicals, potential biological weapons or toxins, gases, or radiation.
Snip.
The underground shelters are built with ventilation, autonomous water supply, and air filtration systems. The shelters do not have stored food; Finns are expected to have a “go bag” with proof of identity (although it’s not required to enter the shelter), food, personal medication, and hygienic supplies for up to three days. Finnish civil defense authorities also recommend sleeping bags, flashlights and batteries, and iodine tablets. Alcohol is not permitted, which is probably wise but disappointing. In any circumstance where I would need to hastily evacuate to a vast underground shelter, I could probably use a drink.
It’s hard to imagine Finns not drinking.
Here’s what makes the Helsinki shelters particularly surreal: They’re used all the time for other non-emergency activities. As mentioned above, Arena Center Hakaniemi has gyms and indoor soccer fields, as well as a kids’ bounce house and a snack bar. Other underground shelters have pools. The Finnish authorities hope that they will have 72 hours to prepare the shelters for emergency protective use — draining the pools, removing extraneous equipment, etc.
Schroderus explained that it was important that civilians use the shelters for non-emergency purposes on a regular basis for several reasons. First, regular use exposes maintenance issues — leaks in the ceiling, lights that have burned out, etc. Second, in case of an emergency, Finns will already be familiar with the nearby underground complexes.
Off topic from civil defense, but of interest to those following anti-drone technology:
Later in the day, my group of American journalists visited the Finnish technology firm Sensofusion, which manufactures anti-drone weapons — jammers, as well as smaller, faster drones that deploy in small groups and intercept and down incoming drones. Sensofusion’s CEO and founder, Tuomas Rasila, told us his company wanted to develop the best anti-drone defense systems but had no interest in building weapons to kill human beings.
One of Sensofusion’s ideas in the works is a “Tactical Drone Factory,” which the company touts as a “fully self-contained drone manufacturing facility built inside a standard shipping container. Equipped with industrial 3D printers, an electronics assembly station, and a complete parts inventory, a single Drone Factory can produce approximately 50 interceptor drones per day. The factory can be operated by a small team and deployed anywhere in the world.”
Read the whole thing.
WTF? “School district kicks out Christian student ministry because founder opposes tax increase.”
Student ministries that provide “released-time” Bible instruction during public school hours and opponents of tax increases have separately clashed with school districts over their constitutional rights to equal treatment with secular groups and free speech, respectively.
The Rev. Gady Youmans endured a double whammy when Georgia’s Vidalia City Schools retaliated against his Sweet Onion Christian Learning Center for Youmans’ Facebook posts criticizing the school board’s proposal to raise property taxes in light of its top-heavy administrative structure, a new lawsuit alleges.
Superintendent Sandy Reid explicitly told Youmans that she and the board were ending Vidalia High School’s 11-year relationship with Sweet Onion because of his posts on the “tax issue,” but when Youmans protested, Reid also vaguely referred to parents who pulled their children from his program because of how it was taught, according to the suit.
History Matters has a video up covering why Germany didn’t stop in 1939 after having annexed so much land.
Hasan Piker attacks Shoe0nHead for daring to criticize Hasan Piker. He does not come out well in the exchange.
Artificial intelligence platforms may be just as susceptible to social engineering as human beings, but they are proving remarkably good at finding security vulnerabilities in human-made computer code. That reality is on full display this month with some of the more widely-used software makers — including Apple, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla and Oracle — fixing near record volumes of security bugs, and/or quickening the tempo of their patch releases.
As it does on the second Tuesday of every month, Microsoft today released software updates to address at least 118 security vulnerabilities in its various Windows operating systems and other products. Remarkably, this is the first Patch Tuesday in nearly two years that Microsoft is not shipping any fixes to deal with emergency zero-day flaws that are already being exploited. Nor have any of the flaws fixed today been previously disclosed (potentially giving attackers a heads up in how to exploit the weakness).
Sixteen of the vulnerabilities earned Microsoft’s most-dire “critical” label, meaning malware or miscreants could abuse these bugs to seize remote control over a vulnerable Windows device with little or no help from the user.
Snip.
May’s Patch Tuesday is a welcome respite from April, which saw Microsoft fix a near-record 167 security flaws. Microsoft was among a few dozen tech giants given access to a “Project Glasswing,” a much-hyped AI capability developed by Anthropic that appears quite effective at unearthing security vulnerabilities in code.
Apple, another early participant in Project Glasswing, typically fixes an average of 20 vulnerabilities each time it ships a security update for iOS devices, said Chris Goettl, vice president of product management at Ivanti. On May 11, Apple shipped updates to address at least 52 vulnerabilities and backported the changes all the way to iPhone 6s and iOS 15.
Last month, Mozilla released Firefox 150, which resolved a whopping 271 vulnerabilities that were reportedly discovered during the Glasswing evaluation.
“Since Firefox 150.0.0 released, they have been on a more aggressive weekly cadence for security updates including the release of Firefox 150.0.3 on May Patch Tuesday resolving between three to five CVEs in each release,” Goettl said.
Rick Beato delves deeper into the New York Times ridiculous Top 30 Living Songwriters list and discovers ignorant, pretentious, social justice-infected Ivy League grads who have no idea what they’re talking about. “Here’s four Ivy League educated people. You’ve got two from Yale, one from Princeton, and Mr. Harvard there, that are the most pretentious, cork sniffing, smug people that are all music critics with no background in music. Exactly what you would expect from a New York Times music critic.”
Here’s a tab-clearing roundup of longer videos on the Russo-Ukrainian War, drones, tanks, etc. I’m not going to go point-by-point on everything covered here, just pull out a few of the more important bits.
First up: Perun does one of those “tier rankings” so popular on YouTube, this one about supposed “game changing” weapons in the war.
He ranks glide bombs, used heavily by the Russians, as one of 2025’s most effective weapons. “In 2025 there has been no month where the Ukrainians claim the Russians dropped fewer than 3,000 of these things, roughly 100 per day. In April that number was north of 5,000, getting close to the likes of 170 per day.” I had no idea the numbers were that high.
Also top tier: Drones. “Far from drones fading away as people found ways to counter them over time, I’d argue that drones have just become more dominant with every month that passes. Drone performance improved, their payloads became more dangerous, their operators more expert, the tactics of their use evolved, and the relevant production figures added progressively more zeros. To the point where, while in 2022 drones were a significant enabling element on the battlefield, in 2025 they are one of the most definitive elements. Back in February, RUSI assessed that Ukrainian drones now account for about 2/3 of Russian losses. But if you factor in their contributions to the use of other systems, providing reconnaissance for the infantry, spotting for the artillery and the air force, resupply for forward elements, and all the tasks the Ukrainians leverage UAS to do, I’d argue it goes well beyond even just that. And at the core of the military challenge here is the fact that drones are just very effective, very accessible, and hard to counter.” “So far I’d argue in Ukraine for example, small drones have evolved faster than the defenses intended to counter them.” He also covers the rise of fiber-optic drones. More on drones in another video below.
Also ranked very high: Ukraine’s passive acoustic drone detection systems, which are cheap and widely dispersed, and are key to guiding anti-drone kill teams deep behind the front lines to the right spots to take out drones.
Ukraine is also having a lot of success designing and manufacturing cheap interceptors to take out drones. “During one recent Russian attack, about 20% of all the incoming Russian UAVs were brought down by interceptor drones.”
Just about all the Russian wunderwaffen (like the Oreshnik missile) gets ranked pretty low. (He also wants to see more of Ukraine’s Flamingo cruise missle, as he had only one confirmed strike on that. See below for more on that topic.)
Combat shotguns are making a return as anti-drone weapons, but they’re last-ditch options and not ideal.
Russia is still using turtle tanks (AKA “assault sheds”) as the leads for mechanized assault columns. They can soak up a lot of punishment and mount a lot of drone-jamming equipment, but are still getting taken out by skilled drone operators or artillery. “A lot of Russian shed-equipped vehicles now appear to dispense with the main gun.” They also look even more Mad Max now, with arrays of spikes and branches to further tangle drones. “This isn’t just an approach being used by armored vehicles, and also it is not just the Russians. Drones are a survivability problem for everyone.”
Next up: Nicholas Moran talks about what armies can do to counter the drone threat without shiny new anti-drone weapons. “Getting away from the M is US Army speak for talking about something other than equipment. The M stands for material and is one of the factors in DOTMLPF.” (Doctrine, Organization, Training, Material, Leader Development and Education, Personnel, Facilities.)
“Drones have been around since World War II, but it’s only been ten years since the US military officially declared the small UAS as a significant threat. We are still very much in the early phases of integrating such drones into warfare. And nobody knows exactly where the chips are going to lie down when they complete their fall.”
“We’re now some five years on from what quite a few would consider the first war in which drones were highly influential and three years into a major large power conflict. So, I think we can at least have a couple of trends observed by now, which are forming.”
“We see lots of videos of drones killing things which are selectively released often from equipment which inherently has inbuilt cameras. The 60 to 80% of drone strikes which don’t kill their target normally aren’t released as there’s not much propaganda benefit to doing so. Artillery shells don’t have cameras and an ISR drone footage of an artillery strike is not really particularly dramatic anymore.”
“The whole truth does not come from videos. The big killers in war today are the same that they’ve always been. Mines, then artillery. Not for nothing are we seeing the largest minefields in history, or a shortage of artillery ammunition and tubes.”
“Now, to be fair, in early 2025, drones were being estimated to have caused more Russian casualties than artillery, but that was also during a period of shortage of indirect fire assets in Ukraine. At the same time, both armies on the front lines of Ukraine have dispersed to incredible amounts by 20th century standards. Not for fear of a small drone with an explosive charge, which frankly really doesn’t care if you dispersed or not, but because they don’t want to be a tempting clustered target for artillery or SRBMS.”
“Infantry is still king or queen. Ultimately, to take and hold ground, someone with hand grenades and a rifle, maybe with a stabby thing on the end, is going to have to close with and destroy the enemy supported by everything else in the inventory. And it’s going to be someone in the dugout with their own grenades and rifles, supported by everything else in the inventory, trying to stop them.”
“Drones are also not great at killing tanks. As one general put it, the only place more dangerous than being in a tank in the Ukraine battle area is not being in a tank in the Ukraine battle area.” More on this below as well.
“There there are always exceptions, but the vast majority of tanks which have been destroyed by drones have first been immobilized by something else, such as mines, artillery, ATGM, cannon fire, whatever. The response times for kinetic drones right now are just too long to have practical effect unless they happen to be in the right place and they don’t show up in mass. Then when the tank is immobilized by these other assets, the drone can come at its leisure and try to hit the stationary or abandoned tank which likely has the hatch still open as nobody bailing out after a hit is going to be standing on the top of the tank trying to close the hatch in an ongoing battle. And if something happens to that drone, which historically is quite likely, another drone can be sent and another and another.”
“Some disabled tanks have had a score of drones try to destroy them. Still didn’t work until finally one drone might show up, which actually does the job. Now, yes, an argument can be made that this is still beneficial on a pure dollar value basis, but it also comes with a slew of caveats related to anything from the availability of recovery assets through to the lack of anything more important for those drone operators to be doing that particular moment in time.”
“Some Ukrainian crews have simply given up counting how many times their tanks have been hit by drones. The best Ukrainian units are reporting a 40% hit rate with their FPVs. Typical units won’t be that good, and that’s flying one drone at a time over the course of hours. Hardly something suitable when a major battle starts, but perfectly suited for the current static warfare environment that we see. Now, that’s the hit rate, not the kill rate.”
“They are also not capable of all weather operations, at least the flying ones. Many are just too small. And when it gets to nighttime, for obvious reasons, the drones used are a little bit more expensive. If an enemy attacks in a storm, you want to have something other than quadcopters to rely upon for your defense. What drones have also failed to do is change the nature of war. The principles of war have not changed. The fundamentals of the offense or the defense have not changed.”
“Drones come and kill things, hardware. Then jammers come to get them to lose control, hardware. Then fiber optic cables come to reduce the vulnerability to jamming hardware. Then kill systems like cannons come. Hardware.”
But we don’t fight with things, we fight with formations that use things.
“A drone may not be able to easily kill a tank but it certainly has a reasonable effect on a bunker, on somebody riding an ATV, or on a supply truck for that tank.”
“I believe the claim is that DJI are making a drone a second and they are being used by both sides in Ukraine. The leader being the Mavic 3.” For more information on that, see here.
“As of early last year, 10,000 drones a month were being expended. And the chances are that that figure is well higher now. The things are being expended like ammunition and a low proportion of them are self-exploding. Most are being shot down, forced down, or crash.”
“Currently, the pendulum is swung in favor of the offensive use of drones. And well, defense is playing catch-up. As it currently stands, the dollar exchange is pretty much in favor of the drone.”
“Using a $200,000 stinger to drop a $10,000 surveillance drone is economically questionable, even if it has to be done. Because if you don’t do that, that $10,000 surveillance drone is going to call in a target for a $400,000 ballistic missile, which will then drop on your $2 million brigade headquarters if you don’t expend a $3 million Patriot missile to kill it. As a result, kill mechanisms need to get cheaper, and the drones need to be forced to become more expensive. And both are happening again.”
“Things like DJIs are civilian grade. They’re not equipped to handle electronic attack. The change and counter change in EM spectrum right now is its own battle which is apparently going on four-week cycles. But if you want to equip the drone so that loss of signal doesn’t immediately result in loss of drone or worse that the drone doesn’t just get hijacked, other measures need to be taken. Be it some form of self-targeting, the use of fiber optics, which leads to its own set of limitations and expense.”
“Then there is resistance to hard kill electronic systems. Currently, microwave weapons are the leading contenders. A single microwave can quickly and efficiently fry the electronics of a whole bunch of drones at once for not much cost.”
“Systems have been demonstrated that are in effect remote weapon stations such as you’ll find on top of a Stryker, or you can put in the back of a pickup truck. They are capable of autonomously detecting, identifying, tracking, and engaging small UAS with a short burst.”
“The reality is the drone swarms don’t work for the simple reason that they take up too much jammable bandwidth talking to each other or controllers. And there aren’t enough operators with enough magazine depth to make a go of it by coordinating conventional operations.”
“Drones may end up flying in packages. Bandwidth concerns may limit the feasibility of true automated swarming.” Better AI may help solve that problem.
“One of the organizational problems or doctrinal problems that the army needs to work on, and this will apply to all armies, is how do you set up the layered network so that the most efficient system is used to engage the best target. So, just because you can shoot down a bomber drone with a Coyote doesn’t mean it’s the best move. Maybe it’s worth letting him get a lot closer to be shot down with a caliber 50 or a microwave.”
“The intent is that ground troops will always make first contact with the enemy by use of a drone or UGV. Now, there are advantages to both. I still haven’t seen the front line of robots in official doctrine, but I still think it’s coming.”
The army is already experimenting with self-driving road vehicles for logistics.
Some of the lessons the Ukrainians have learned may not be appropriate for the more modern and well-equipped U.S. armed forces. ” To kill Orlan and the like at altitude, the Ukrainians have been resorting to things like mothership drones and balloon lifted drones. The US has an air force capable of dominating at 15,000 ft and an F-35 or F-15 with a couple of APKWs hydropods would be a reasonably cost-effective and more responsive way of dealing with the problem. The US has satellite or airborne recon abilities which may take care of tasks that other nations may need drones for. Just how good is an F-35’s radar? Can it detect a number of drones and then hand off to a cheaper system to engage? Or maybe it can illuminate for passive radar purposes without being at risk itself.”
“If we are dramatically reducing our command post sizes, increasing dispersion, massively increasing our air defense EW components, reintroducing air guards, or telling people to break out their ET tools like in the old days, then it’s very obviously demonstrating the case that the US has understood that we need to change things.”
“Remember the [Hans] von Seeckt appraisals after World War I? Nearly four years of terrible trench warfare followed the German attempt at maneuver warfare. After chewing on the matter a bit, the German response about 1921 was the key is still maneuver warfare. And they were right.”
“The trend appears to be that we’re going to use automation to further enable what we’re doing, not change what we’re doing. Is the how, not the what.”
“The characteristics of the offense remain concentration, audacity, tempo, and surprise.”
LazerPig takes aim at what he calls Hurr Durr Drone Syndrome (HDDS), including the idea that drones have made tanks obsolete. He goes into more detail about how the ability of drones to take out tanks is considerably overstated, noting that “cheap” drones capable of taking out tanks aren’t really cheap any more.
(Note: LazerPig had to reupload this video due to a copyright strike, so there’s a chance some of the below is no longer in this version.)
“Symptoms of HDDS include flashy clickbait titles that proclaim any new technology from tanks to jets is doomed, because why spend billions of dollars on a weapon system if a 20 buck drone can take it out?”
“It makes casual references to the ever-increasing loss of Western tanks on the Ukrainian front. Makes grandiose gestures that inflate the actual capability of small FPV drones and surreptitiously, usually just by not knowing any better, parrot Russian propaganda that all Western tanks are too big and too heavy.”
“It ignores the actual opinions of Ukrainian tank crews and fails to take into account that of the 95 Western tanks that have been lost on the Ukrainian front, very few of those were actually taken out by drones. And of that 95, 73 were highly outdated models that have either since been replaced or are in the process of being replaced. Out of those 73, 71 were models built before 1990, and 21 of those were tanks designed in the 1960s.”
“Even under the less than ideal conditions Ukraine fights in, with a comedic list of tanks from various periods and in various states of repair, at the time of recording, for every one Western tank they have lost, 43.7 Russian tanks have been destroyed.”
He says those $20 commercial drones are useless for combat. “The simplest of drones currently on the Ukrainian front cost in excess of $400 to make each. And that is with volunteers, 3D printers, and importing the cheapest made parts from TEMU. And these factories don’t run at a profit. They absorb the full cost through donations, not selling the drones to the military.”
“In the UK, a vast number of drone factories were set up in the hopes of cashing in on the drone military craze. And most of them have failed to expand beyond a single office, 3D printers, small teams of eager 20somes, and a dream. simply because, well…
“Firstly, the actual cost of setting up mass production is far greater than first anticipated, especially when one realizes that it’s not just drone parts they’d need, but camera equipment, night vision, thermals, long-range battery packs, and radio equipment capable of resisting interference, triangulation, and interception, most of which is beyond the capability of these companies.”
“All of this is how a $400 drone becomes a $10,000 drone. Even then, those $400 drones carry about enough munitions to kill a person or knock out light vehicles or generally unarmored targets.”
“In some of these interviews, they have talked about how tanks generally survive multiple hits from drones because the Russians don’t always have access to the heavier munitions required to take them out. Those are considerably more expensive, harder to produce, and considerably more rare, allowing those tanks to race into drone hotspots, take out their target, and withdraw before those munitions arrive.”
“A good example of one of those munitions is the famous Russian Lancet. In a full-time war economy, one of these costs around $20,000 to manufacture, or to put that in perspective, the cost of five artillery shells. This is of course assuming Russia is telling the truth when it gives these numbers up and aren’t just calculating the cost of materials and not including labor setup or the cost of the launcher.”
“The thing about the Lancet is it’s a drone in name only. It’s technically a loitering munition which have been around for quite some time. Every country has been developing them for the past 10 years and some of those were given to Ukraine.”
Just about every country that produces tanks is working on loitering munitions versions for tanks to launch.
“The Switchblade, currently in use by both the US and Ukrainian Army, costs around $60,000 per unit, with the more dedicated anti-tank version costing somewhere in the region of $100,000 per
unit.”
He says he had to delete a long rant about the difference between the Lancet and the Switchblade. “What you need to know is the Switchblade can be carried by one soldier in a backpack, thrown on the ground, and then fired like a mortar within seconds. It’s got infrared as standard. It can do a whole bunch of really clever things like guide other Switchblades onto targets or coordinate with other drones and have multiple Switchblades hit multiple different targets simultaneously, you know, to lower the chances of your enemy going, ‘Oh no, a drone.’ And then doing something really wild like taking cover.”
“The Lancet does none of that. It’s basically just a TV missile on a catapult.”
Cheap drones started out effective until units adapted. “As they develop new systems or techniques or tactics against this cheap weapon, then that system is going to gradually become less effective over time and therefore must evolve to remain potent. The Lancet has gone through multiple versions, each time trying to increase its lethality or counter the defenses Ukraine has developed specifically against it.”
“The Lancet, though it is estimated at costing roughly $20,000 to manufacture via various Russian reports. It was offered at export at $32,000 back when it was only seeing use in Syria. And now it’s no longer offered for export. And that $20,000 number has never been updated as the weapon has grown in complexity…the reality is we don’t know how much it actually costs.”
“It has more than likely now matched the Switchblade in terms of cost.”
We don’t know how effective Lancet is because our information comes from Russian propaganda websites, and Russia has claimed Lancet tank kills on western tanks that were clearly taken out by other means.
“In the later stages of 2022, in response to Ukraine’s increased counterbattery effectiveness, the Russians began pulling hordes of towed artillery out of storage, some of which dated as far back as the Second World War. Yet with the limited ability to retain these units in service due to excessive barrel wear or move them around after they had been fired through the loss of transport vehicles, Russia’s artillery dominance has finally began to wane. And as a result, systems like the Lancet have been forced into this role. The irony here being that a $20,000 drone system, is now doing the work of an artillery shell, which the Russians once bragged they could make for under $1,500.”
“Both sides are potentially lacking the equipment that would have traditionally performed that job and are falling back onto cheaply-made drones to fill the gap.”
HDDS also ignores all the anti-drone technology developed in the last three years.
“In spite of the existence of heavy drone-based munitions that can take out tanks, Ukraine still uses tanks quite a lot.”
One correction: LazerPig says the cope cage were deployed in response to Ukraine’s use of drones, but mentions actually date to the beginning of the Russian invasion in 2022.
“In the first days, Lancets were being used on mass, the Russians would be forced to stop jamming the frequency that the Lancet was being used in. The Ukrainians would simply cycle through frequencies, find the one that wasn’t being jammed, and then jam it themselves, causing the lancets to just fall out of the sky.” The technical difficulties involved here make me wonder if this is a “just so” story.
“In a response, the Russians are now forced to turn off their jamming systems when firing a Lancet to prevent the Ukrainians from figuring out the frequency.”
Counter-jammer technology is not something you find on a $400 drone.
“You might think the best defense against [jamming] is to simply have the drone change frequencies, and you’d be right. But changing frequencies isn’t as easy as pressing a button or changing a dial. In fact, in many cases, the aerial assembly has to be completely ripped off and replaced with one with a newer frequency. Hence why a lot of drones [are] shipped without an aerial, allowing the receiving unit to add their own as needed.”
“Sometimes the drone automatically picking one that is not actively being jammed is quite expensive. And another reason why things like the Switchblade are more expensive than the Lancet. But that’s the old idiom, you get what you pay for.”
“Putting soldiers lives at risk with cheaper equipment that might not always work is the lesson the US military has learned the hard way. Ask any US veteran and they will happily bitch to you about any number of equipment problems based entirely on that topic, often for several hours without ever stopping for breath. It’s quite impressive.”
The response to drone jamming has been the advent of fiber-optic drones. “These drones have caused all kinds of hell for both sides, to the point where parts of the front lines are littered in webs of fiber optic.”
The response to fiber optics has been barbed wire and more cages. “In the front lines of both sides, supply routes are now covered in large arc structures, a cope cage supreme, if you will, that prevent drones attacking convoys and supply trucks. And both sides will typically spend days or often weeks trying to find holes or discreetly make holes in these nets and then have several drones lie in weight across the road ambushing any vehicles they find.”
“This has led to Ukraine up armoring everything from medevac to supply trucks in order to minimize the damage caused by these ambush drones. In much the same way US and British forces in Iraq were forced to up armor their patrol vehicles owing to the threat of IEDs.”
“Ukraine’s best counter to drones remains, and has surprisingly remained, old radar-guided anti-air systems from the Cold War.” Most drones are not remotely stealthy.
“Mobile anti-air systems like the Gepard have proven exceedingly effective at taking them down. Meaning to avoid systems like this, drones have to fly low to the ground, which makes finding targets considerably harder.”
Countries are also developing electronic warfare and laser systems to take out drones. “Where these systems fit into our current doctrine is still being written. And where these things are now technologically will be considerably different in a few years time. Ultimately, these weapons will need mounting onto something. And why can’t that something be a tank? Laser tanks are finally here.”
“It is not the biggest army that wins. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”
A lot of this is true, but I’m wondering if the atomized nature of the Ukrainian front isn’t a big factor against cheap drones here. I imagine smaller, cheaper drones with only a few pounds of explosives might be considerably more useful in an urban combat environment that limits jamming and countermeasures. There’s also, I think, a drone class heavier than the lightest drones but lighter than Lancet or Switchblades that could still be racking up mobility kills against tanks and other armored vehicles in such an environment.
Next up: Megaprojects Simon Whistler breaks down Ukraine’s new Flamingo cruise missile.
“If the missile you’re launching at the enemy is easy to take down because it’s not very fast or stealthy, the least you can do is pack it with so many explosives, you basically guarantee complete destruction if just one of them breaks through the enemy lines. And this at least is the basic logic behind the FP5 Flamingo, Ukraine’s new heavy hitter missile.”
“Experts, both domestic and foreign, hailed its arrival. But they warn against obsessive optimism. Because while the Flamingo packs a hell of a punch, it also leaves a lot to be desired.”
“The missile “is constructed mostly of recycled ordinance and aircraft parts.”
“The Flamingo excels in two key areas: warhead capacity and range. The missile is armed with a 1.15 ton or 2500lb warhead, which is just a comically large amount of explosive material for a single missile. For comparison, the BGM 109 Tomahawk land attack missile, which is a reliable American long-range missile, packs about 450 kilos or 1,000 lb of explosives, and the Flamingo comes with 2.5 times that.”
“The engine used with the Flamingo is believed to be the AI-25. This engine is comparably much larger than engines on similar missiles, and it’s used with several aircraft, including Turkey’s combat drone, the Bayraktar. The use of a large engine, one that measures 3.3 m in length and 62 cm in diameter with a weight of over 350 kilos or 770 lb, allows the engineers to skip miniature turbo jets and turbo fans. These propulsion systems are usually preferred for long-range cruise missiles, but they’re really expensive, unlike the AI-25.”
“The AI-25 was incredibly available for Fire Point to purchase in huge numbers from stockpiles. Officials said that they found thousands of these engines at dumps and landfills around Ukraine, in a very practical and literal showcase of the adage, ‘One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.’ Fire Point did not restore these engines to full usage, which would allow them a maximum flight time of 10 hours, but only enough power for the Flamingo to go for 4 hours. They replaced the titanium parts with cheaper materials to save both time and money, and engines that were deemed too damaged were used for spare parts.”
“The biggest advantage of such a powerful engine, which is usually used with much heavier aircraft, is the incredible range of this missile, which is reported to be 3,000 km or about 1,850 miles. This is almost double the range of the block five Tomahawk missile mentioned earlier, and it’s more than enough to strike Russia anywhere in the European part of the country.” Though he notes that claim hasn’t been verified yet.
“The missile travels at speeds about 900 km or 560 mph, which is comparable to the speeds of western missiles.”
“The Flamingo does not have a complex visual guidance system, such as terrain contour matching systems or digital scene matching area correlation systems, which are very common with Western missiles, which are also, of course, a lot more expensive. It does, however, use satellite navigation to guide itself toward the target.”
“The Flamingo uses a jamming resistant controller reception pattern antenna layout, which kind of feels like word salad, doesn’t it? But what it means is that the antenna layout is designed to resist radio jamming and spoofing, keeping the missile on its course.”
“However, the Flamingo lacks any technology to hide from radar, which makes it extremely unstealthy.” But it’s fiberglass construction is less visible on radar than metal.
“Similar to how the A-10 Warthog is an aircraft built around a 30mm rotary cannon, the FP5’s airframe is built around its massive warhead.”
“At first glance, it might remind you of the V1, but the Flamingo is much larger at a length of between 12 and 14m and a wingspan of six.”
He notes the missile’s vulnerability to Russian fighter aircraft, but given how heavily those are overtaxed, I wonder how much they can “fly cap” over the vast distances of Russian airspace, especially after the further dispersion away from Ukraine following successful drone attacks on Russian airbases.
Skipping the history of Ukraine development/acquisition of long range strike platforms.
“After the official unveiling on August the 17th, 2025, production rolled out at a rate of about 50 missiles a month, and Fire Point announced that they plan to increase production to seven missiles a day by the end of the year.”
“The majority of the missile is created from already existing components that can be put together in a factory that’s relatively safe. Even if the factory were to be destroyed, the Flamingo is so easy to put together, the entire manufacturing process can be moved as long as the warheads and the engines are kept safe.”
“And Ukraine’s not alone in this task either. To help streamline production, Denmark announced that a Fire Point subsidiary would start solid fuel production in Denmark by the end of the year.”
“At the time of recording, there is only a single documented use of Flamingo missiles by Ukraine. And their effectiveness is, to quote the Chernobyl TV show, not great, not terrible. Three missiles is a nice reference. Not great, not terrible.”
“Three missiles were launched in a poorly defended target in northern Crimea, and yet only two arrived on site, proving the Flamingo is fairly easy to shoot down. One of the missiles that actually arrived missed the target by about 100-200 meters. The second missile, however, caused significant damage to the building, also damaging six hovercraft despite landing between 15 and 40 meters away from the target.”
“This shows that there are still a lot of kinks for Fire Point to work through to perfect these missiles. The claimed accuracy of the Flamingo is 14 meters, but neither of the two missiles hit within that mark. However, the missile that hit the closest still managed to cause enough damage to deem it a successful strike, showing that the massive warhead can compensate for the lack of accuracy.”
Skipping over his analysis of which Russian air defense systems can shoot it down, since there’s ample evidence of numerous Russian systems letting a wide range of drones and missiles through without shooting them down.
Also skipping over his analysis of the Ukraine campaign against Russian oil infrastructure, as that’s been well documented here. But: “To add insult to injury, the FB5 Flamingo makes the drones used in those attacks look like firecrackers.”
“With this in mind, it’s almost guaranteed that Ukraine won’t be mindlessly launching flamingos at Russia, but will instead carefully plan the flight routes to maximize their effectiveness.”
The Flamingo currently takes a lengthy 20 minutes to set up and launch.
“Valerie Romanenko, a leading aviation expert and researcher with the Ukrainian State Museum of Aviation, says that upon exploding, the Flamingo will destroy any production plant. The facility will be impossible to rebuild because the explosion will result in complete destruction, leaving behind itself a 20 meter crater.”
Large Russian oil facilities are, naturally, likely to be targets.
“It’s interesting how all of the news outlets used Novosibirsk as the designation point of the Flamingo’s range capabilities, because Novosibirsk just happens to be close to Biysk, the home of the Biysk Oleum plant. The Biysk Oleum plant is Russia’s largest producer of military grade explosives and artillery shells. Every month, Russia supplies its forces with about 120,000 artillery shells. And normally, these shells are produced in Nizhny Novagrod, which is about 1,300 km away by road from Ukrainian borders, which means that the shipments are well within the reach of Ukrainian weapon systems. Because of this, Moscow decided to move their production to the Biysk Oleum plant, thinking that production there would be safe.”
“Cue the Flamingo: A huge missile that could in theory destroy the entire plant with one strike and a 3,000 km range. The is just outside of the Flamingo’s range by a few hundred km. But both Ukrainian and Russian forces are well aware that the Flamingo is a huge threat for this production plant.”
“The Biysk Oleum plant isn’t the only arms manufacturing factory at risk. Shahhead drones, which Russia has adopted from Iran, are produced in Yelabuga and Izhevsk factories which are well within range for the FB5. And the same can be said for the Oreshnik missile factory in Votkinsk.”
“Ukraine, for its part, obtains the capability to destroy virtually any defense industrial facility on the Russian territory. This entails a fundamental change in the balance of power.”
The usual new weapon system caveats apply.
As I’ve stated before, one of the first targets for a long-range drone with a large warhead (assuming they can make the targeting more accurate) should be the Omsk Transiberian railway bridge over the Irtysh river, some 2500km from Ukraine. As far as I can tell, that’s the only rail line in Russia that connects Moscow with Russia’s far eastern territories, and is presumably a key supply gateway to China. Russia could reroute some traffic through Kazakhstan’s rail network (which runs on the same Soviet 1,520 gauge rails), but I imagine there would be considerable pain in rerouting things that way. Plus the sort of floating bridges needed to repair that span seem to be in short supply.
Anyway, I though all of those videos had interesting points to make, even though that’s a lot of video to watch (or texts to read).
With the widespread advent of drone warfare, a whole lot of air defense doctrine needs to be rewritten. Ground-To-Air interceptor missiles that were cost-effective for multi-million fighter planes aren’t for thousands upon thousands of cheap drones, some of which cost less than $1,000 a pop. Cheap kinetic kill shells, AKA “ack-ack,” the mainstay of World War II, are making a comeback in a big way.
“This is the [Rheinmetall] Skyranger, a new unmanned weapon that blasts 30 mm rounds at a facemelting 1,200 rounds per minute.”
“Germany just ordered 600 of these bad boys for the total price of €9 billion, roughly $10.4 billion.”
“The plan for these is to be slapped on to their new boxer vehicles.” In fact, Skyranger the weapons platform is independent of the chassis it rides on. You can theoretically mount it on any modern BMP or tank chassis.
“Also it’s not just the gun. It’s a series of four optionally manned air defense systems you can slap onto any vehicle that can handle the weight and includes a dedicated radar platform. Two designed to fire missiles and one with the big gun on top.”
The gun comes in 30mm and 35mm flavors, to match whatever ammo the purchasing army is using.
“These are classified as SHORAD platforms, or short-ranged air defense.”
“While things like Patriot batteries are designed to be stationary long range assets, the idea behind Skyrangers and other SHORADs is that they’re integrated with maneuver formations. So while tanks and infantry push forward, these will hang back a bit and create a nice little defensive bubble in the airspace for the fighty boys to work under.”
Discussion of rotary cannon vs. rotary barrel cannon snipped. But single barrel cannons make it much easier to program burst modes on the rounds right before they exit the cannon.
“The gun itself has a max range of 3,000m, a little short of 2 miles.” With coverage extended with the missile-firing turrets, which can use a variety of munitions, “everything from old Stingers to future ones like the Sky Knight missile.”
“There are two different kinds of rounds currently used in the 30 mm version. The PMC 308, which is the same air burst round used on the Puma IFV, and the newer PMC 455, which manages to nearly quadruple the number of tungsten projectiles and the same round can carry for the same weight by making it smaller.” More projectiles mean a better chance of a kill for a small target like a drone.
“Because the turrets are unmanned, it means it doesn’t take any space up in the actual hull of the vehicle, which means big or small, you can slap that shit on anything.”
I’m going to skip over the “cold start” vertically-launched anti-tank missile system covered at the end (fascinating though that technology is) as off-topic for this particular post.
“According to all accounts, so far for the German Flakpanzer Gepards that were donated, they’ve been performing pretty decently in Ukraine, targeting both small and large drones on top of slower moving cruise missiles.”
Speaking of Gepards, Suchomimus has impressive footage of a Gepard actually taking out a Shahed drone:
The Gepards are just shy of a half century in service, and were actually retired by Germany before being hauled back out and shipped off to Ukraine, where they seem to be doing solid work, there just aren’t enough to cover the wide the vast expanse of airspace the war encompasses.
Just about every country of any size is worried about the possibility of drone attacks against their infrastructure. Saudi Arabia is no different. Seeking to protect their oil production facilities, they contracted to buy several anti-drone systems.
Saudi Arabia has become one of the first countries in the world to acquire Chinese laser-based air defense systems and anti-air missiles, purchasing China’s SkyShield integrated counter-drone system and HQ-17E to protect key sites and expensive air defense assets from drone attacks.
But operational experience in the kingdom’s harsh environment has revealed severe limitations of the Chinese HQ-17E and Laser Weapon.
The SkyShield system uses a layered approach that combines counter-drone radars with both “hard kill” and “soft kill” options. Each battery consists of four vehicles: a 3D TWA Radar, an AESA (Active Electronically Scanned Array) counter-drone radar with three side-facing panels providing 360-degree coverage without rotation; two JN1101 counter-drone jamming vehicles, which feature both interception and electronic jamming capabilities; and the Silent Hunter Laser Directed-Energy Weapon, intended for direct destruction of drones.
However, the radar failed to provide targeting data to both the jamming and laser elements, integrating the system into a single defensive package. The HQ-17E and Laser weapon’s integrated radar fails to detect targets and does not launch interceptors on time.
The HQ-17AE is a short-range surface-to-air weapon system advertised to operate in all weather conditions and capable of intercepting targets flying at low and medium altitude. Developed by the Second Academy of the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC), it is an export version of the HQ-17A, itself derived from the Russian Tor system. The HQ-17E failed to operate in Saudi Arabia because the radar could not discriminate targets when used in clutter.
Saudi Arabia procured the SkyShield as part of its broader effort to counter the rising threat of unmanned aerial attacks on critical infrastructure. The system was fielded with assistance from Chinese specialists, and its initial demonstrations showed strong results.
However, a former Saudi military officer who coordinated the project said performance has not met expectations under operational conditions.
“Despite the strong performance demonstrated during trials, in real conditions the SkyShield components have lower effectiveness than promised,” he said.
The Silent Hunter laser, developed by China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC), in particular was limited by environmental factors.
“In some cases, it took between 15 and 30 minutes of continuous targeting and laser illumination to guarantee a drone kill,” the officer explained. Dust and sand disrupted optical tracking and weakened the laser beam. Continuous exposure also caused abrasion to the optical systems, while the high desert heat forced much of the system’s power into cooling rather than firing.
15-30 minutes? You’d get better results from David’s sling. And I don’t mean the Israel air defense system, I mean a guy with an actual sling, chucking rocks.
Or a Boy Scout with a BB gun. (Or whatever has replaced the Boy Scouts these days.)
The chances of a drone standing still for 30 minutes while you laser it are about as good as a 7-Eleven hot dog roller garnering three stars from Michelin.
“Rather than being a point and shoot offensive weapon, Leonidas is meant to provide defensive area coverage, creating less a contiguous force field in the surrounding area and more an area of denial where no unfriendly drone system can operate.”
“The core of the Leonidas system is its use of high power microwave energy fired in beams that create an electromagnetic pulse or EMP.”
“EMPs are nothing new in modern warfare, and their effects are well known, primarily their ability to disable electronic systems.”
“But rather than, say, the natural EMPs that come from lightning strikes, or the uncontrolled EMPs that result from the detonation of nuclear weapons, the EMPs that come from the Leonidas system are able to be channeled precisely.”
“Cutting in a wide beam, they can fry anything in their path neutralizing say an oncoming drone swarm all at once, orthey can focus on precise individual targets, sniping drones out of the sky one by one as soon as they violate perimeters.”
“Using specialized transistors rather than traditional magnetrons to generate its microwave beam, Leonidas is considered more compact than would otherwise be expected for a weapon of this kind, and at a relatively low cost of energy expenditure.”
“It can focus a beam for a relatively long duration of time, or fire off shots in Rapid succession relying on a digitally beamformed antenna that beam is kept tight and highly precise, such that it’s unlikely that nearby friendly drones will be impacted when the beam is targeted against a single foe.”
“Leonidas can fire very rapidly without overheating, and its effect on a target is near instantaneous, rather than needing to train the beam on the target for any length of time. It doesn’t require reloading, and its voltage is low enough that humans nearby aren’t in danger from its emissions.” All of this sounds almost too good to be true.
“It’s efficient, it’s easily transported, and by all indications it’s highly effective against the consumer grade drone technology that the US military is so worried about. Any drone of that sort that comes into Leonidas’s protective bubble will be fried, regardless of the specific internal electronics.”
It too can fit on a Stryker. It can also fit in the back of a pickup truck “without too much trouble.”
“The system has been adapted into an aerial attachment pot, giving it the option to be fitted onto a heavy lift drone of its own and defend in midair.”
“It’s just as successful in stopping fully autonomous drones that don’t require active operator control in order to function.”
Can also take out sea drones.
Designed to be modular and upgradeable.
“The ground-based version is ready for testing. In January of 2023, the U.S. cut the Epirus corporation a check for $66 million after it beat out six different competitors, with the expectation that the check would be used to develop four prototypes as soon as possible. 14 months later, all four prototypes have been delivered and for about half a year now, they’ve been in the hands of the US government.” Some are reportedly being tested in the middle east.
Called Indirect Fire Protection Capability (IFPC) Increment 2, the U.S. program will include a range of technologies—guided-missile interceptors, high-energy lasers and high-power microwave blasters—to shoot down multiple threats and provide a layered defense against weapons such as drone swarms. Each of these technologies is already in development and being readied for troops over the next two years.
IFPC’s high-power microwave component should be ready for operational use as soon as next summer. In January the Army tapped a Los Angeles–based company called Epirus to build four prototype microwave systems as one layer of its planned IFPC. These prototypes are versions of Epirus’s Leonidas system. Each one sits on a wheeled trailer that can be detached for remote operation and has a square panel that rests on a gimbal so it can pivot 360 degrees. This panel is packed with software-controlled radio frequency amplifiers that tailor the energy and frequency of the microwave blast.
“The Leonidas design incorporates a lot of lessons identified coming out of Ukraine and a lot of forecasting into what we think a fight in the Western Pacific might look like,” says Aaron Barruga, vice president of federal growth at Epirus.
Leonidas’ HPM prototype passed muster with Army evaluators in early November, and testing is underway as the Army develops tactics, techniques and procedures for the system’s operational use. The goal is to put the four prototype high-power microwave weapons into the hands of operationally deployed units—possibly in the Middle East—next summer.
All of this sounds a bit too good to be true. Designing microwave ICs means dealing with mixed signal and analog design, and analog is something of a dark art. RF engineers are in high demand and pricey when you find them. Various microwave weapons have been announced over the years, and none seem to have made it to volume production.