Russia has fundamentally changed the drone war over Ukraine. Gone are the slow, buzzing Shaheds of the past; in their place are turbojet-powered Geran-4 and Geran-5 drones flying at 600 kilometers per hour and altitudes up to nine kilometers. With Ukraine’s mobile gun trucks unable to reach them and interception rates dropping to 55%, Ukrainian F-16 pilots are being forced to fire million-dollar missiles at cheap flying bombs. Enter the APKWS: a 70mm rocket with roots in the 1940s, upgraded with precision laser and thermal seekers to kill drones at a fraction of the cost. Discover how this $30,000 rocket is rewriting the economics of air defense, how dual-mode heat seekers are turning F-16s into flying shotgun platforms, and why a global shortage of rocket fuzes could decide the air war over Ukraine.
Source: The Military Show
