July 30, 2024: The use of drones in Ukraine has introduced a new and unexpected feature of modern warfare by causing most of the infantry’s casualties, as opposed to artillery during the past 110 years. Drones, also known as UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) come in various forms (quadcopter, small fixed wing aircraft) and while most are equipped with explosives, some are simply used for reconnaissance and surveillance. Ukrainian troops also suffer similar, but apparently fewer losses due to Russian drone activity. There are fewer Russian drones being used and the Ukrainians have begun using an anti-aircraft version of their drones to go after Russian drones. This Ukrainian innovation was recently implemented after only a few weeks of research and development. The Ukrainians have regularly been quicker to develop and implement new weapons and military technologies, especially against weapons Russia uses to attack Ukrainian targets. For example, the Iranian Shahed-136 drones are now being produced in Russia under license. Russian-made Iranian drones are called Geran and have recently entered service for attacks on civilian targets.

Ukraine developed an air-defense system against Shahed-136 and Geran. This involves thousands of modified cell phones distributed over likely avenues of drone approach. The cellphones sent audio signals of drone engine and propeller noise to powerful signal processors that served as a land version of submarine towed sonar arrays detecting stealthy submarines. This cell phone network allows detection of the general location, vector, altitude and speed of incoming drones, which the Ukrainian equivalent of the RAF’s Battle of Britain sector stations then send to the firing positions of Ukrainian infantry who have been carefully located along those avenues of likely drone approach. These soldiers use their assault rifles and machine-guns to fire on the sound of the approaching Russian drones, which are painted black and nearly impossible to spot at night. Such tactics enable the Ukrainian to destroy nearly 90 percent of the rather noisy Russian Geran and Shaded-136 drones.

NATO nations are supplying Ukraine with more Patriot and NASAMS air and missile defense systems, both of which are heavily used by the Ukrainians, especially NASAMS. This system was the most anticipated because of its reputation. NASAMS is far superior to the similar Russian Buk M1 system Ukraine and Russia use, or anything else in its class. NASAM systems began arriving in Ukraine during November 2022 and, by late 2023, there were eight NASAMS batteries in Ukraine. In 2024 more NASAMS systems arrived in Ukraine as well as longer range AMRAAM ER missiles for it. NASAMS has been very effective against Russian missile attacks, often intercepting all the Russian missiles headed for an area defended by a NASAMS battery. The impact of NASAMS on Russian missile attacks led the Russians to try and detect and destroy NASAMS batteries or components of batteries. As of early 2024, only one NASAMS battery has come under heavy Russian attack and lost some components. So far NASAMS has intercepted several hundred Russian missiles and UAVs.

The latest version of NASAMS has a missile range of 50 kilometers and a target detection radar with a range of 120 kilometers. The older and larger Patriot system has a missile with a range of 120 kilometers. NASAMS systems are more compact and mobile than Patriot and the Ukrainians have found that NASAMS and Patriot systems complement each other. In Ukraine Russia is having a difficult time finding worthy targets that are not defended by NASAMS or Patriot.

NASAMS was a system developed by Norway in the early 1990s and entered service in 1998. Norway pioneered the use of American AMRAAM air-to-air missiles as surface-to-air weapons and developed the fire control and launcher equipment needed to make it all work. It was a simple but very effective use of air-to-air missiles for air defense. Other air-to-air missiles have been used for ground-based air defense systems, but the Norwegian version is seen as the best of the lot. Norway has six NASAMS batteries for its own defense. Eleven other nations, like Hungary, Spain, Holland, Chile, the United States, Finland, Lithuania and Ukraine also use NASAMS, and production of the system has increased because of heavy and wildly successful use by the Ukrainians.

The NASAMS was initially developed for the Norwegian Air Force by Norwegian firm Kongsberg, in cooperation with American partner Raytheon, which produces AMRAAM. A major upgrade, NASAMS 2, officially entered service in 2007 and since then it has gained interest in more nations.

NASAMS’ popularity is due to a truly open architecture that, unlike competing systems, allows NASAMS to be used with a wide variety of radars. Initially NASAMS used the American made MPQ-64 Sentinel radar but some customers requested a system that can work with different radars and air-to-air missiles. NASAMS has been tested and configured to work with more than 25 different radar systems and can fire just about any air-to-air missile that can be fired from NATO aircraft. All that is required is modifications to the size and electrical connections in the NASAMS launcher cells and software modification of the fire control system. Since NATO has long-established standards for NATO weapons, NASAMS takes full advantage of this.

So far NASAMS has been configured with AIM-120 AMRAAM and its longer-range ER variant in addition to the heat seeking AIM-9X Sidewinder and the European IRIS-T. The last one is an interesting story. Norway has a big stock of IRIS-T for their F-16 fighters, but the new Norwegian F-35 is not compatible with IRIS-T, so they decided to use this very modern European missile as an anti-aircraft missile in NASAMS systems. This example clearly shows how flexible this system is while the competitor systems are tied to a limited number of missiles and radar.

A typical NASAMS battery consists of 12 launcher vehicles, each carrying six missiles, eight radar vehicles, one fire control center, and one tactical control vehicle. NASAMS does not provide protection for a large area because the max range of its missiles is 30-50 kilometers while range of battery radar target detection is up t0 160 kilometers. NASAMS batteries will be used to protect major cities. NASAMS is being used alongside existing Ukrainian S300 systems and American Patriot batteries Ukraine received as well. Patriot was especially effective at intercepting ballistic missiles. The success of Patriot and NASAMS as air defense weapons has provided Ukrainian civilians and soldiers with a morale boost.