Rheinmetall Air Defence recently presented the Skyranger air defense system to an international audience. Militär Aktuell was there.
There is great interest in the Skyranger models: invited guests from 26 nations came to the training grounds of Rheinmetalltraining ground, nestled in idyllic Swiss mountain scenery. Technical presentations, discussions with developers and operators of the system and a live-fire demonstration against stationary and flying targets made it possible to get to know potential applications of Skyranger.
Challenge and solution
As a mobile system, Skyranger can respond directly in the danger zone and in the hinterland to a wide variety of threats – not just from the air: Drones, grenades, missiles or aircraft are engaged as well as ground targets, including all-terrain vehicles and armored personnel carriers (APC). The Skyranger is therefore designed for a battlefield that consists of multiple and very different threats – in terms of the size, speed and distance of the enemy objects.
The solution must therefore be a dynamic system. “The threats in Nagorno-Karabakh (-> The Nagorno-Karabakh analysis: The drone plague) and now also in Ukraine (-> Current news from the Ukraine war) by drones, we have experienced a renaissance of ground-based air defense. The Skyranger is our answer to the current threat situation,” says Oliver Dürr, CEO of Rheinmetall Air Defence, to Militär Aktuell.
Versatile system
The Skyranger towers can be mounted on a variety of base models, including vehicles that were on display at the original event: Piranha from General Dynamics European Land Systems (GDELS) as well as Boxer, Lynx and Leopard (1 and 2) from Rheinmetall. This creates a broad solution model that is characterized by high mobility and fast and efficient hazard prevention. Austria was the first nation to decide to integrate the system (-> Rheinmetall: The Austrian army relies on Skyranger turrets). 36 Skyranger 30 turrets were supplied for the Pandur Evolution by General Dynamics European Land Systems-Steyr (GDELS-Steyr) in the first tranche – nine more turrets could be delivered later. Other customers include Denmark and Germany.
Clever target recognition
A three-man crew consisting of a commander, operator and driver is required to operate a Skyranger tower, although a two-man team is also possible. In any case, a Skyranger is rarely alone, as the system is designed in such a way that individual Skyranger teams are networked with other systems across several command and control levels. The combined sensor data allows a continuous assessment of the situation. Target recognition is facilitated by artificial intelligence, whereby human judgment is always the final authority. Part of the sensor package also includes the radar Spexer 2000M 3D MkIII from Hensoldt is also part of the package. If radio silence (EMCON) is required, the Skyrangers continue to work in small groups.
Broadly diversified
In addition to the mobility of the individual Skyrangers and the networking between them, the flexibility with which the Ahead ammunition can be used in the Skyranger turret (-> Rheinmetall: How does Ahead ammunition work?), is a defining feature of the overall system.
The programmable air burst ammunition (ABM) fires projectiles that – like a shotgun blast – shoot projectiles at the target. The special feature is that shortly before the projectile leaves the barrel, the fuse setting is programmed according to the distance to the target in a fraction of a second. The projectiles are then ejected from the barrel in a spiral pattern after a predefined time. In a salvo of just a few shots, a dense and efficient area of scraper bullets is created. 30 years of development have gone into this solution. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNhvOYfnJ7I The samples on display and the slow-motion videos on show leave no doubt as to the effectiveness of the system. Even small FPV drones are knocked out of the sky in short but optionally very fast bursts of fire at up to 3,000 meters (with SR30). The cadence (rate of fire) of the Skyranger 30 (caliber 30 x 173) is 1,250 rounds per minute, that of the Skyranger 35 (caliber 35 x 228) is 1,000 rounds, with less than 10 rounds being fired in a salvo. The shooting of a fast and flat drone, such as a Shahed, is also successful, as those present at the event were able to see. The ammunition can also be used against tanks and their sensors. Rheinmetall emphasizes that the Ahead ammunition is “combat proven”, meaning that it has already proven itself in action. The guided missiles that can be fired from the turret are also part of the Skyranger’s dynamic and adaptive solution concept. The system includes the Mistral 3 missiles from MBDA (-> Rheinmetall & MBDA bring SADM into the Skyranger) and FIM-92 Stinger from Raytheon. After firing a three-kilogram warhead, both of these missiles independently steer themselves towards the targets (fire-and-forget) and increase the range of the Skyranger system to around 6,000 kilometers.
Fire free
Rheinmetall’s performance demonstration showed the remarkable performance spectrum of the Skyranger and its armament. The Ahead ammunition was used to bring down a Shahed-type drone from the sky. The conditions were challenging, as the sensors were not allowed to simply focus on a flying object in the blue sky during the demonstration. Instead, the flat silhouette of the fast drone had to be filtered out of the contrasts in the mountainous background in conjunction with the radar. As the live images from the command center proved, the target acquisition was very fast and, above all, error-free. The Skyranger 35 ended the simulated attack with a short burst of fire.
The ground targets engaged by the Skyranger 30 were no different: The engine compartment of an off-road vehicle – parked on the forest road and barely visible to the naked eye – was shot through and dummy missiles were hit head-on with volleys of fire. Another special feature was the demonstration of the Anduril anti-drone system, which was developed in cooperation with Rheinmetall: After detecting the enemy drone, the company’s own interceptor drone flies directly to the enemy drone in the shortest possible time, positions itself around 30 meters below it and ultimately rams it from below with a powerful impact. While the enemy drone crashes to earth, the Anduril drone makes its way back to the starting point almost unscathed. The recovered target objects have a striking spiral pattern, which significantly increases the probability of hitting at least some of them. No less impressive is the depth effect of the projectiles, which push through many layers of metal.
A look into the future
Both on paper and in practice, the Skyranger family is a powerful system. Thanks to solution-oriented thinking, it has so far been possible to take a number of special customer requirements into account. For example, the turret for the Pandur superstructure had to lose a whole ton of weight, as Oliver Dürr reveals in the Militär-Aktuell interview reveals.
In discussions with developers, we learned that further detailed improvements are also being worked on – in close cooperation with customers – whereby the limits of what is possible are often actually being defined. Adapting a system to ongoing developments in the modern battlefield of the “war of the future” remains a challenge that requires a stable basis at all operational levels. The Skyranger system appears to have created such a basis.
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