7 août 2018 | International, Terrestre
Marines increase ways to detect and kill air threats, from hobby drones to cruise missiles
By: Todd South As Marine units face evolving drone threats from terrorist organizations and at the same time shore up their air defenses against near-peer air attacks, a few key pieces of gear in the most recent defense bill could vastly strengthen overhead protection. Until recently, Marines tasked with taking down drones or short-range missiles had to link into a vast array of detection devices and then perform a practically 20th century task to take them out. Essentially, a Marine with binoculars scans the air for drones while another Marine zeroes in with a Stinger missile ― first fielded in the 1980s but upgraded since ― to shoot down what is often a few hundred dollars' worth of a patched together, weaponized or surveillance-type commercial drone. But a review of the past five years of Marine Corps budget requests and approvals for two systems, the Ground Based Air Defense-Transformation, or GBAD, and the Ground/Air Task-Oriented Radar, or G/ATOR, have more than doubled in the past five years and are projected to maintain or increase from now until 2022, when a GBAD with a laser component is expected to field. Beginning as far back as 2013, the Marines have been purchasing the G/ATOR, an advanced radar system that executes the function of a combined five legacy systems. Full Article: https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2018/08/06/marines-increase-ways-to-detect-and-kill-air-threats-from-hobby-drones-to-cruise-missiles/