Deployed within the Center East to assist its companions, resembling Qatar, Kuwait or the United Arab Emirates, within the battle towards drones, France has already shot down greater than 80 Iranian drones of the kind Shahed because the begin of the battle, according to the JDD.
The French military deployed fourteen Rafalewho got here to strengthen the ten plane completely stationed within the area. The Military bolstered this technique by sending 4 Alat Tiger helicopters (Gentle Military aviation) to the Gulf.
The query now arises of adapting these gadgets to the specification of the fight against dronesto offer them with extra environment friendly, and above all more cost effective, vectors. Presently, the missiles Mica utilized by the Rafale, price between 600,000 and 700,000 euros per unit, whereas the Shahed drones focused solely price round 30,000 euros.
Integration in three weeks “as a substitute of twelve to eighteen months”
The Ministry of the Armed Forces introduced this Wednesday in a press launch that the “DGA (Directorate Basic of Armaments) of fight was mobilized from the beginning of the conflict in the Middle East to speed up the analysis of options that reply as shortly and pragmatically as doable to evolving threats.” The Knowledgeable Referent Facilities (CeR), created on the finish of 2025 with the purpose of finishing up work on short-cycle applied sciences, are thus “put to the take a look at by fireplace within the context of present conflicts”.
It’s particularly the Referent Knowledgeable Middle for the battle towards drones (CeRLAD), backed by DGA Missile Testing (EM), which made it doable from the very first weeks of the battle “to substantiate the capability of the Tiger helicopter to neutralize Shahed-type drone threats with its 30 mm cannon” and who really useful it to armies “as a cost-effective technique of combating drones”.
DGA Flight Assessments (DGA EV) has developed devoted assets “to allow the trade of tactical information between the Tigers and the operational bubble the place they’re deployed”. The L16 functionality (tactical information hyperlink normal of theI’ll take it for the trade of knowledge between navy models) was thus built-in by the DGA “in lower than three weeks, in comparison with twelve to eighteen months in accordance with a basic industrial course of”. The DGA EV and CeRLAD have additionally “carried out and efficiently examined the mixing of the Mistral 3 air-to-air missile on the Tigre to extend its interception capabilities”.
Engineers despatched “urgently” to Opex
On the identical time, the DGA has “launched work on the event of an anti-drone model of the laser-guided rocket, for purposes below Rafale and Tigre”. The primary flight take a look at firings are deliberate by the top of June, “for speedy deployment within the forces”. Pictures of a Rafale outfitted with laser-guided rockets, taken across the Istres air base (Bouches-du-Rhône), have circulated in current days and counsel that exams have even already began. The benefit of those rockets is that they’re much cheaper than Mica missiles. The military can also be in search of to switch the hearth management of the Rafale’s 30 mm cannons to permit them to shoot down drones.
Lastly, CeRLAD can also be mobilized “to guage drone interceptor drone techniques proposed by a number of producers, notably French”. It thus organized “at very brief discover, take a look at slots inside DGA Missile Assessments, each on its Landes web site and on its Levant web site, to place the proposed gear to the take a look at”. “In an emergency”, weapons engineers “had been additionally projected to strengthen French forces in exterior operations, to make sure, proper as much as the theaters of operations, the rise in energy and the implementation of those modern options. »
When the Reaper drone itself turns into a drone hunter
Initially of April, the Air and Space Force (AAE) had already introduced the variation of its drones MQ-9 Reaper within the battle towards drones, after having carried out “profitable take a look at firing of the Hellfire missile from an MQ-9 Reaper drone on drone-type aerial targets”. This functionality was made doable “solely three months after the Hellfire was put into service on Reaper, (whereas) this munition was initially supposed for floor targets. » This now permits the AAE to “have a variety of complementary, graduated responses tailored to the range of threats”.
The AAE additionally has Fennec helicopters, “notably suited to intervening towards comparatively sluggish or low-altitude threats”, and Mamba ground-to-air protection techniques (SAMP/T) to assist this anti-drone battle.
