Suspected russian drones overflew Arrow 3 missile defense radar at 100m altitude two days before deployment, evading troops

cross-posted from : https://sh.itjust.works/post/53141995

Germany back in 2023 signed a contract with Israeli company Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) for supplying Arrow 3 missile defense systems worth $3.5 billion. Already on December 1, 2026, at an airbase near Annaburg city in Saxony-Anhalt, the system was deployed and reached initial combat readiness.

However, it turned out that two days before official deployment, three unknown drones flew over this system. Moreover, Defense Romania noted that they flew at approximately 100 meters altitude directly over the radar station from Arrow 3 composition.

G27P assault rifles were used for this, equipped with Israeli Smash X4 smart sights, which have recently been actively promoted as a anti-drone solution. However, they failed to shoot down the unmanned aircraft, which then disappeared from the scene.

Later, German counterintelligence and military police classified this incident as an act of deliberate espionage. Defense Express adds that despite all importance of this system which, besides costing over $3.5 billion, is nearly Europe’s only defense against russian Oreshnik and intercontinental ballistic missiles Germany couldn’t protect it from three drones flying directly over it.

  • NaibofTabr@infosec.pubEnglish
    361·
    2 days ago

    Although multi-layered air defense is always built around such objects. But now allowance can be made that this system was just put into operation, and such defense simply wasn’t built yet.

    wut.

    This, er, attempt at journalism doesn’t list an author, and the writing sure sounds like AI garbage that was trained on elementary school essays.

    • toynbee@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10·
      2 days ago

      Part of the defense is time travel. They may have gotten confused about some of the details though.

  • LeeBeeG@piefed.socialEnglish
    178·
    2 days ago

    in Europe we really need to stop being so soft. Shoot the damn things down and imprison the people who used them. No hasitation.

    • brachiosaurus@mander.xyzEnglish
      15·
      2 days ago

      What makes you think europe governments are being soft? Fly a drone with the palestian flag in any european city and let’s see how soft they are about it.

      • JensSpahnpasta@feddit.orgEnglish
        2·
        2 days ago

        There are two outcomes out of this: Big chances are that nobody cares. There are a lot of people flying drones in cities, even if they shouldn’t. If you’re unlucky, the police will catch you and you’re in trouble, but that really has nothing to do with palestine, but rather the fact that flying drones in cities is illegal in nearly every european country for good reasons.

  • Mika@piefed.caEnglish
    81·
    2 days ago

    I wonder if there is a single country in Europe ready to receive the amount of Shahed drones Ukraine receives almost daily. All those systems vs oreshnik aren’t worth shit if you can’t down 300 drones that come with one oreshnik too.

    • Ooops@feddit.orgEnglish
      4·
      2 days ago

      I wonder if there is a single country in Europe ready to receive the amount of Shahed drones Ukraine receives almost daily.

      Yes, all of them in fact. It’s called deterrence.

      Nobody is building systems to constanty destroy hundreds of drones each day. Just like no one (but a few very persistent morons) builds walls to keep attackers away. The actual protection is the consequences for the attacker. Guess what Ukraine would pick between ten thousands of anti-air systems (the amount you would need to protect an actual country, not just some points of strategic interest) and EU-/NATO-membership.

      • Mika@piefed.caEnglish
        2·
        2 days ago

        Ok, so what consequences could Europe do? Cause USA signals that they won’t take part.

        • Ooops@feddit.orgEnglish
          1·
          1 day ago

          What couldn’t Europe do? They are easily ⅔ of NATO in equipment and soldiers. What the US is bringing is mostly the logistics for force projection over-seas. And they increase the number of nukes from enough to destroy the world a few times to a hundred times. Which is totally irrelevant for Europe defending against a country in Europe (that’s where the relevant parts of Russia are) on European soil.

          People have spend to much time soaking up US propaganda about how they are all paying for Europe’s defense. Just the non-US part of NATO is still on a completely different level than Russia. And the few categories where they can somewhat compete still requires to value every single piece of ancient ex-soviet equipment as equal to modern western stuff. They also spend (in today’s war time conditions) a fraction of Europe’s 2020s defense budget.

          So an actual war with Europe instead of screaming Russian propagandists telling funny fairy tales about being “at war with NATO” for years now is consequence enough.

    • Warl0k3@lemmy.worldEnglish
      30·
      2 days ago

      Arrow 3 is an exo-atmospheric anti-ballistic missile system:

      it’s not exactly useful in an anti-drone role, unless those drones happen to be coming in from space.