Recently, a US Marine Corps officer "broke the news" that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had shot down about 40 percent of its own drones in recent combat operations! As soon as this brilliant "achievement" was announced by the US military, Israel's air defense network, which had been "mythical," suddenly fell off the "altar." However, instead of laughing at Israel, the US military believes that the Israeli air defense system has made a mistake now, and it will be difficult for the US military to avoid it when fighting China in the future. The reason is simple: the air defense forces of the US military cannot effectively distinguish between drones and cruise missiles on both sides of the enemy!
While the U.S. Marine Corps officer did not say where and when the IDF's "40 percent" false hit rate occurred, he suggested that it was Israel's "recent" operational data, specifically noting that it was an operation following a "terrorist attack" in the south of the country. In other words, this figure was generated by the IDF since October 7 last year, when it fought against Hamas and several surrounding anti-Israel forces.
It is not known how many Israeli drones were shot down by the "Iron Dome".
In fact, the U.S. Marine Corps officer did not believe that the fact that Israel had shot down a large number of its own drones was an Israeli negligence or a defect in the air defense system, but that it was the correct response of the IDF to the front line in the face of drones that did not immediately authenticate themselves. Because it can take only a few seconds for an attack drone on the battlefield to be detected and it completes its attack, the air defense system is set to immediately shoot down any air target that fails to quickly identify friend or foe.
In fact, as early as 2021, there was already a "misfire" incident with Israel's "Iron Dome" air defense system. On May 7 of that year, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced that one of its own Skylark drones had been shot down, and that the "perpetrator" was the Iron Dome, the backbone of Israel's defense against Hamas rockets. But the Israeli drone was shot down against the backdrop of a war in which Hamas fired more than 4,300 rockets into Israel in two weeks, and the skies over many parts of Israel were filled with rockets and drones. The downed "Skylark" drone may have been "mixed in" at that time, carrying out reconnaissance missions for the Israeli army. Although the Israeli military did not announce the cause of the accidental attack after the incident, it is generally believed that the "Iron Dome" mistook its "Skylark" drone for a Hamas rocket or drone.
Although the fact that Israel's air defense system has shot down its own drones on many occasions is very worrying, in the eyes of US Marine Corps officers, this is tantamount to giving the US military a "big wake-up!" Because all branches of the US military, including the US Marine Corps, are now equipped with many small unmanned aerial vehicles and cruise missiles, and they can be easily launched by ground vehicles, unmanned boats, and even individual hand-helds. And China, which is also a big country in UAVs, will naturally be equipped with a large number of various UAVs with excellent performance. Then, the US air defense forces will be faced with the same problem as Israel: How to quickly distinguish between drones or cruise missiles on both sides to prevent the occurrence of "accidental hits"?
A miniature transponder developed by Sagetech in the United States
According to the normal solution, in fact, it is enough to install a "friend or foe identifier" on the drone. In this way, as soon as the ground-based air defense system detects a suspicious drone, it can quickly distinguish between "friend and foe" by authenticating it with an interrogator. And the American company actually developed a "miniature friend or foe transponder" suitable for small UAVs as early as 2020, and it also passed the US military certification in 2021. This equipment is light in weight and small in size, not much larger than a coin, and can basically meet the needs of unmanned equipment such as cruise missiles.
The "friend or foe identifier" cannot guarantee that the US military will not have a "false attack"
However, the problem is that since the US Marine Corps is still using this issue to emphasize the shortcomings of the US military in this regard, it shows that the practical application efficacy and adaptability of this equipment may have encountered some trouble. Otherwise, according to the description of the equipment manufacturer, such equipment would have perfectly solved the current "false hit rate" of up to 40% of Israel's own drones, and the US military would not have to worry about making the same mistake as the air defense system in the future when fighting China. For example, in 1994, the U.S. military had a serious accident in Iraq caused by the failure of the "friend or foe identifier", when two F-15 fighters shot down two U.S. UH-60 helicopters that had replied to the wrong identification code, killing 26 senior U.S. military and multinational force officials.
Currently, the United States and NATO use more complex "Mode 4" transponder coding
And even if a large number of small UAVs and cruise missiles can be installed with such a thing as "friend or foe identifier", the ground air defense system will also face the problem of "skyrocketing numbers". After all, in an actual engagement, the US military's ground air defense system needs to identify all targets on the radar, and if our UAV "swarm" sends it identification information coded according to NATO standards, even if it is wrong, it can still "shut down" the US air defense system by relying on the instantaneous influx of hundreds or thousands of air target data that need to be identified. And this "tactic" is actually not difficult to do, Russia has already achieved part of it, and I believe that our army can do the same.
Russia has developed a NATO-compliant "friend or foe identification interrogator" for Turkey's S-400
In order to integrate Turkey's S-400 into NATO's air defense network, Russia has also specially manufactured a "friend or foe identification interrogator" that meets the requirements of NATO's Mk-XII IFF system. Enables the S-400 to transmit the "Mode 4" Identification Friend or Foe number developed in accordance with NATO (STANAG) 4193 standards, enabling friendly identification of NATO aircraft. Although it is not known where Russia obtained the NATO coding rules, since the (STANAG) 4193 standard is not classified, it should not be difficult for us to carry out "imitation coding" according to its requirements, after all, it is mainly to occupy the processing time of the US air defense system, so it is correct or not.
In fact, this concern of Israel and the US military has just opened up a way of thinking for our military in the face of an invasion by a strong enemy! Perhaps we can take advantage of our leading edge in the "swarm" of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to "flood" the US air defense system with a large number of unmanned aerial vehicles and cruise missiles. Overload it with calculations and misuse interceptor weapons, thus creating opportunities for our more powerful missiles to follow!