John Cockerill‘s Chief Marketing Officer Simon Haye revealed the upgrade for the 1030 turret in an interview with Army Recognition.
The C-UAS capability will consist of 30x173 mm airburst ammunition and radars for detection/tracking. 1030 turret has a high elevation limit of 70 degrees, allowing for the engagement of UAVs approaching the top of the vehicle.
The Russo-Ukrainian War has shown us that small drones dropping munitions on weak spots are one of the most frequent threats to armoured vehicles, in addition to ATGMs/RPGs. This has caused some weapon systems manufacturers to revise their designs with a self-defence capability.
Airburst munitions for main guns are highly common for the time being, thanks to the ease of integration and the lethality against these small but fragile drones. On the other hand, RCWS on turrets is also being revised to work as C-UAS effectors at short ranges, exemplified by FNSS’s utilisation of 7.62 mm RCWS for this purpose on PARS ALPHA armoured vehicles.
Some manufacturers have also started installing jammers on vehicles to cut off the signal as a soft-kill measure. However, jamming isn’t guaranteed to stop the attacks every time.
Hard kill ensures destruction, while soft-kill can defeat or degrade the threat at longer ranges. When the two approaches are compared, it isn’t hard to see that both hard-kill and soft-kill measures should work in tandem to maximise the chances of protection.
