Cool!
I would have thought full auto with tracers would be the preferred configuration for the rear seat “weapons officer.” But I am not one to argue with the people in the air and getting the job done with a red-dot sight on a semi-auto. Perhaps they are shooting a fragmenting round.
And, as long as the drone or its friends aren’t shooting back, I could see that being kinda fun.
Both Ukraine and Russia have developed multiple projectile rounds that can be fired from a service rifle and their SA clones. US has such in limited production and troops are training with them.
Somewhere, someone is thinking about a new USPSA class designation for this…..
The world is slowly getting more “Mad Max”-ish every day.
The anti-drone drone is the answer. They’ve got those racing-models that are uber-fast? I can see a layered defense strategy around fixed targets including a cloud of mother-ships loitering around, launching interceptors once contact confirmed (integrated web of sensors and radars, etc.). Think of the amount of hardware they all need to buy? And software licenses that need updating and training??!! Then the drones will have anti-anti-drone drones they fly with… the drone manufacturers are going to get rich! Smedley said it years ago, just a racket.
I would have thought a shotgun would be optimal for this.
In 100 MPH “wind” low velocity pellets are going to be difficult to get the windage lead correct. You can also carry much higher capacity magazines in 5.56 mm than 12 gauge.
I wonder what the statistical success rate is for the technique; how many rounds per drone to achieve a shootdown, total number of drones vs number destroyed, etc. And, of course, what caliber, etc.
I’m guessing that the drones are programmed to fly a steady course which would make the shooter’s job a little easier; sensors that would detect impinging aircraft and change the flight course enough to make shootdowns a lot harder would drive the per-drone cost up a lot.
And, what happens to the fired projectiles; in WWII falling schrapnel from anti-aircraft ammunition did cause damage, and some injuries, on the ground. Given the difference between a few ounces of shell fragments and a planeload of 500 lb bombs exploding, and that it was wartime, the falling fragments were accepted as the “cost of doing business.” I’m guessing the same is true with the fired projectiles here.
Not altogether unrelated, somewhere in the back of my mind I seem to remember a company in the US that had a shotgun vs RC aircraft course – they had RC planes that carried multiple “sensing” targets and flew them past shooters on a trap field, as I remember; when pellets hit the “sensing target” to emitted a puff of smoke, or something, and apparently the RC aisplanes held up well enough to make it financially feasible.