HackerTube

Rheinmetall Air Defence – Skynex truck-mounted engaging drone swarm

Rheinmetall – Der integrierte Technologiekonzern Cited 7× on HN, 2022–2025
YouTube
demo · general · 2022–2025 on HN

A Rheinmetall promo clip of its truck-mounted Skynex air defence system engaging a swarm of eight small drones with a 35mm revolver gun.

Used as an example of existing anti-drone-swarm defences in threads on drone warfare.

7 comments from Hacker News

@koonsolo2025-06 · in “Ukraine destroys more than 40 military aircraft in drone attack deep in Russia”

Oh please there are plenty of solutions, see ▶ this video for example. Bullets that explode into pellets thanks to an internal radar, etc.

@ThrowawayR22023-09 · in “The US Military Is Getting Smaller, Cheaper and Smarter”

-brrt- Drone swarm, what drone swarm? ▶ this video And this is simply the first iteration of such systems. Drones are slow (slower than WW2 aircraft), short ranged, and not particularly stealthy. Improving any of those aspects raises the price significantly, defeating the point of cheap drones. They are a threat but not as magical as some seem to imagine.

@scotty792023-09 · in “A.I. and the Next Generation of Drone Warfare”

Have you seen modern anti-drone defence? ▶ this video Basically a cannon that fires sort of smart bullets that contain shape charge that aims at the drone as it gets close to it and detonantes. Also targets are smartly assigned so you can shoot down small swarm of drones with a short burst from the cannon.

@jasonwatkinspdx2022-08 · in “Military drone swarms and how to combat them”

Yes. There are a couple point defense systems originally designed to counter rocket and cruise missile attacks that can readily attack drones as well. Example: ▶ this video This specific system uses a magnetic coil to measure the muzzle velocity of the shell as it's leaving the barrel, and sets a timing delay for the shell to burst. So that combined with the radar means this thing can put flack in very precise places.

@ThrowawayR22022-05 · in “Shaped Charges – Sheet of copper going through 1ft of solid steel (2010) [video]”

Then then drones meet ▶ this video or link for which each round is even cheaper than the cheap drone it's aimed at and, snap, crackle, pop, no more drones.