The largest destroyer of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces "Izumo".
Straight news: Regarding the Japanese quasi-aircraft carrier "Izumo" being broken through by a drone and secretly filmed, the Japanese defense minister admitted that this was a serious safety accident. Mr. Wu, what do you think about this? What are the intelligence challenges posed by drones?
Special Commentator Wu Wei: In my opinion, the incident of the "Izumo" being secretly photographed is more like a common "black flight incident", which translates to the civilian drone flying friend operating the drone in a sensitive military control area and shooting some sensitive material. This is a sensitive matter in the category of military leaks.
Of course, now that Japan is in peacetime, the "Izumo" is not that advanced, and it can basically be studied through open source intelligence information. It's just that the military port is, after all, a military-controlled area, and civilian drones easily crossed the top of the aerial photography without permission, which really made the Japanese side break out in a cold sweat. If someone modifies the drone a little and throws a few Molotov cocktails on the island where the "Izumo" precision instruments are stacked, this thing will probably have to be "hospitalized" for a while.
UAV "black flight" is a common challenge all over the world, in related fields, the active and passive defense methods for "low, slow and small targets" have become obvious, and all kinds of targeted products have sprung up. I will give you the most intuitive example, Russia in wartime conditions. Not long ago, a few of my friends went to Moscow to watch the Victory Day parade. During the celebration, in the heart of the city of Moscow, you turn on your phone and you find that there is a very serious error in the GPS navigation, you are walking on street A, but your phone shows that you are standing still at intersection B. This is a very typical means of UAV countermeasures, in which the Russian security services interfere with the GPS communication link, which UAV navigation relies most on, through the mastery of electromagnetic power. Of course, this is only a "soft kill" means, there are harder means. That is, the "Pantsir" artillery integrated air defense system, which is on duty 24 hours a day on the roof of the Russian defense building, the radar is on, and the missiles and shells are on standby. This kind of "hard kill" means can effectively prevent drones from appearing over sensitive areas, and once they appear, they will fire and sweep you down.
But as I mentioned earlier, "air defense and air defense, ten defenses and nine air". With the full popularization of unmanned aerial systems, the intensity of the air defense game has increased unprecedentedly. If you want to really prevent drones, it is probably not enough to prevent the "last mile", but also to find a way at the source. For example, the attack on the enemy's UAV production capacity, the formation and destruction of the corresponding units of the enemy's UAV, or the complete suppression of the relevant airspace through electronic warfare confrontation, no one's UAV will want to fly.
Straight News: Regarding the large-scale application of drones in two large-scale wars around the world, the Washington Post published an editorial summarizing the so-called "lessons of emergency air defense" and questioning the US-led NATO escort operations in the Red Sea, which is like a cannon hitting mosquitoes. What do you think about this?
Wu Wei, Special Commentator: From the Russian army's "Dagger" attack on Kyiv sounding a fierce air defense siren, to the missile piercing the sky of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, to the exhaustion of NATO's Red Sea escort fleet struggling to deal with frequent mistakes and omissions, the past year is probably the most intense page in the history of modern human warfare. It is said that "air defense and air defense, ten defenses and nine air", mankind's military science and technology are changing with each passing day, but no one is absolutely sure that he dares to pat his chest and say: My sky is foolproof. The Israeli authorities' unilateral boast that they "successfully intercepted 99 percent of Iran's incoming targets" will be laughed off by knowledgeable friends.
This editorial in the American newspaper once again directed everyone's attention to the Red Sea. The mighty NATO escort fleet has been fighting hard in these waters for several months, and under the propaganda package of "Perseverance and Perseverance" is the successive emergence of German and Danish naval vessels. The "Standard-2" anti-aircraft missile launched by the frigate "Hesse" of the German Navy almost killed the drone of the big brother of the US military, but fortunately, the reliability of the missile did not cause a catastrophe, and the face of the German captain can be imagined. In a fight with the Houthis, the radar and fire control systems of a Danish frigate were down, resulting in the delay in the launch of anti-aircraft missiles, and finally relied on two 76mm naval guns and fired hundreds of shells to destroy the Houthi drone, and the Danish captain's face is not difficult to imagine.
The editorial did not disclose these embarrassing moments for NATO, but instead turned around and calculated an economic account: NATO escort fleets need to launch an average of two Standard-2 missiles to intercept a Houthi drone. I checked, the data released by the former US Department of Defense officials shows that the purchase price of a "Standard-2" is about 2.1 million US dollars, and the unit price of a "Aster 15" launched by the French Navy is also about 2 million US dollars, so what is the price of the UAV on the Houthi side? Ranging from $2,000 to $20,000. In other words, if all the weapons thrown out are converted into dollars, the NATO fleet can also be called a "bloody fleet". The Chief of Naval Operations admitted during congressional hearings that the US military has consumed $1 billion in armaments since the launch of the escort operation.
On the other hand, it is necessary for me to introduce another, more professional perspective. That is, from the point of view of military operations research, the cost-effectiveness ratio of air defense operations is not only to calculate the price ratio between incoming ammunition and interceptor ammunition, but also to strictly measure the price at which the defender will bear losses in the event of a failure in an air defense operation. In this sense, although the NATO fleet has fired millions of dollars of missiles, they have effectively protected the fleet worth hundreds of millions of dollars and even the inestimable fleet and shipping routes of the United States and the West, so in this context, this money is cost-effective.
Judging from this logic, it is actually cost-effective for the Israelis to defend the skies of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv by using the "David's Sling" and "Iron Dome" air defense systems to fire dollars into the sky. In the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the air defense game between Kyiv and Moscow is also based on this logic.
Of course, to measure the total cost of war from the perspective of a greater military-cost ratio, the asymmetric combat method of drones is indeed a headache for all countries. You know, there are a lot of items in the military ledger that need to consume resources, and if air defense operations eat up a lot of resources, then other types of operations that are starving will inevitably manifest the consequences in the specific battlefield front. Therefore, a cheaper and more efficient mode of countermeasures against UAVs is imperative.
Author丨Wu Wei, senior chief writer of Straight News, special commentator of Shenzhen Satellite TV's "Live Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan".