Stopping The Shahed: A Ballistics Rethink
The skies over Ukraine have evolved into a cat and mouse game of attrition. The Shahed-136 “loitering munition” cheap, slow, and deadly has forced a rethink of air defence doctrine. While Patriot batteries hunt ballistic missiles, wasting million-dollar interceptors on “mopeds” (as the Shaheds are derisively known) is fiscally unsustainable.
Recent reports confirm that Ukrainian forces are increasingly deploying Mi-8 and Mi-24 helicopters with door gunners to intercept these drones. It’s a solution that echoes the Vietnam era, yet it brings a modern problem, gravity. What goes up must come down, and spraying 7.62mm or .50 cal lead over a densely populated city like Kyiv poses a severe risk of collateral damage.
The solution may lie in a radical switch to polymer-composite munitions. Here is why swapping “lead” for “plastic” isn’t just safer it’s a force multiplier.
The Urban Ballistic Problem: Why Polymer?
When a door gunner opens up on a Shahed drone over a residential sector, the primary concern is over-penetration and falling projectiles. Standard full metal jacket (FMJ) rounds can travel kilometres if they miss, and even if they hit, they often punch straight through the thin skin of a drone and continue towards the ground with lethal energy.
The industry is now producing frangible polymer-composite rounds (often used for close-quarters training or specific anti-drone roles).
- Kinetic Energy vs. Mass: These rounds are lighter but travel at hyper-velocity. They deliver enough kinetic shock to shred the fragile electronics and engine of a Shahed drone but lack the dense mass of lead.
- Reduced Danger Zone: If a polymer round misses the target, air resistance slows it down significantly faster than a lead bullet. Its terminal velocity on the way down is far less likely to be lethal to a civilian on the ground.
- Frangibility: Upon impact with a hard surface (or the drone itself), these rounds are designed to fragment or disintegrate, virtually eliminating the risk of the bullet passing through the target and striking a block of flats behind it.
Logistics: The Weight of War
Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics. The other major advantage of polymer-cased ammunition is the sheer weight reduction often 30% to 40% lighter than traditional brass-cased ammo.
For a helicopter crew, weight is fuel.
- Loiter Time: A lighter ammo load-out allows the helicopter to stay on station longer, hunting drones for extended periods without returning to base to refuel.
- Volume of Fire: Alternatively, crews can carry significantly more ammunition for the same weight penalty. When engaging a “swarm” of Shaheds, having an extra 1,000 rounds in the feed chute can be the difference between a clean sweep and a leaker hitting a power station.
- Supply Chain Strain: Reducing the reliance on standard brass/lead stockpiles relieves pressure on the frontline supply chain. Frontline infantry need every 7.62mm armour-piercing round they can get to fight dug-in troops; wasting them on soft-skinned drones is inefficient.
A Strategic Role for the “Home Guard”
Perhaps the most compelling argument for this doctrine is personnel optimisation.
Intercepting slow-moving drones over a city does not require the elite reflexes of a frontline fighter ace or the physical conditioning of a Special Forces operator. It requires patience, discipline, and good gunnery skills.
- The “Home Guard” Concept: By equipping Territorial Defence Forces or “Home Guard” units with older airframes (or even modified civilian utility helicopters) mounted with miniguns and polymer rounds, Ukraine can create a dedicated Rear-Echelon Air Defence (READ) force.
- Force Preservation: This frees up frontline combat pilots and modern attack helicopters for high-intensity missions in the Donbas or Zaporizhzhia sectors.
- Specialised Training: These rear-guard crews can focus exclusively on counter-UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems) tactics, becoming specialists in leading targets and night-fighting using thermal optics, without the distraction of ground support missions.
Conclusion:
As the drone war evolves, our ammunition must evolve with it. Firing 20th-century lead over 21st-century cities is a liability, whats the point of shooting down a drone to save lives when there is a high chance you are going to shoot into someones living room and killing them.
By adopting polymer-composite munitions, we solve three problems at once: we reduce the risk to our own civilians by reducing secondary penetration after the target has been hit, reduce chances of a lethal injury, extend the operational range of our interceptors, and we preserve our stock of higher lethality rounds for the front line. let a Home Guard type force sweep the skies safely.
