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The modern battlefield seems to be jam-packed with remotely piloted vehicles, from the older-school US Predator\/Reaper large drones to small reconnaissance drone the size of a pack of smokes, or even smaller. Some are armed with on-board missiles, some with guns, some are basically remotely-piloted bombs. Control could be by on-board programming, data-link, even fine fiber-optic cable (which is virtually unjammable.) The main question, though, is how to bring ’em down.<\/p>\n
There have been quite a few suggestions – our own AW1Ed is on record favoring a Remington 870, some others here favor Mossbergs – but they are all shotguns. And shotguns by their nature are relatively short-range weapons – at halitosis range very lethal, but by the time you get out to 50 yards they may become marginal depending on the loads used. It’s probably safe to say that a load which won’t reliably kill a bird at a given range may not be too lethal to drones, either.<\/p>\n
Norma, the Swedish ammunition company, has developed an anti-drone round optimized for military drones. It has a payload of\u00a0 350 roughly 1\/8″ (2.75mm to be precise) tungsten pellets at a muzzle velocity of 1327 fps. Even Norma says this has an effective range of about 60 meters, which if the drone is shooting at you is pretty darn close.Defense Express<\/a><\/p>\n The Russians have developed a DIY solution – reportedly they have found they can heat-shrink seven 4.5mm round balls (from Crosman, the American air rifle companies!) into a projectile which when fired from their AK-74s is supposed to function as a 5.45mm mini-shotgun. Pull the bullet from a round, insert this projectile in a cartride case, and they hope to down a drone. Unfortunately, battlefield reports report a dismal lack of success<\/p>\n \u201cWhen shooting you are static, which makes it easier for the operator to aim the drone,\u201d warns a Ukrainian manual on drone protection. Stopping to shoot, rather than taking cover, makes you an obvious target.\u00a0\u00a0Forbes<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The article mentions, too, that typically in an attack\u00a0 now each soldier is being targeted by at least two drones. Stop to shoot at one, and you’re easy pickin’s for the other?<\/p>\n The Marines are taking another path. They propose adding a different aiming capability in a “smart scope” which will enable a Marine rifleman to hit a drome further than 60 meters away.<\/p>\n \u201cThe SMASH 2000L will give the rifleman the ability to quickly obtain a positive firing solution and increase their probability of kill when engaging Unmanned Aircraft Systems,\u201d Flanagan wrote, describing the SMASH 2000L advanced fire control system.<\/p>\n \u201cThe SMASH 2000L provides easily attachable components that will enable a standard M4 to be utilized for targeting and defeating sUAS with conventional small arms fire while still enabling the Marine user to utilize that same weapon system to engage other\/ground targets.\u201d\u00a0Marine Corps Times<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n A rifle bullet can engage a flying target far more effectively at a distance, true, but ya gotta hit the target. Supposedly the SMASH 2000L will allow the rifleman the firing solution to do just that.(H\/t to Jeff LPH for this one.)<\/p>\n Reminds me of a story about W.D.M. Bell, widely considered one of the, if not THE, greatest elephant hunters in African history. Among other things just pushing through brush trailing elephants he was said to have worn an inch of wood off the side of his rifle stock. Think about that a second.<\/p>\n Bell once attracted attention when he was living near Lake Victoria and some bird hunting aficianados witnessed him repeatedly shooting down fast-flying cormorants flying 100 yards above the local falls, well out of most shotgun’s effective range. When they sought him out, they were surprised to find he was running through some old .318 RIFLE ammo – he was disposing of 6,000 rounds of unreliable ammo which misfired a third of the time by shooting it. Imagine the skill needed to knock down a fast moving bird a hundred yards away… with an open-sighted rifle.\u00a0 We should shoot as well. (from from “Death in the Silent Places” by Peter Hathaway Capstick.)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/960x0-300x212.jpg\")
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