It may seem a bit odd, but the shotgun is a new battlefield weapon against drones, specifically First Person View (FPV) drones. Some innovative solutions may help soldier battlefield survivability.
Most FPV drones are small, typically quadcopters. These drones are electrically powered with four motors. They are being used in the hundreds of thousands in the Ukraine war and, according to some Russian sources, account for as much as three-quarters of the casualties on the battlefield, far more than from artillery strikes, rockets, or bombs. These drones can seek out even small army units and destroy them.
There is a big scramble throughout NATO and in Russia to come up with solutions to the carnage caused by small drones. No one is proposing shutting down the suppliers, unfortunately.
One approach, jamming, is in widespread use. However, newer drones work on multiple frequencies and are hard to jam electronically. Moreover, when you attack enemy drones electronically you also disable your own drones and other equipment.
Today, more advanced drones are using imaging and AI so that if a signal is interrupted, the drone can still carry out its task, provided it has already locked onto a target. But – so far – these “fancy” drones are the exception, not the rule, on the battlefield.
The Russians have also introduced drones connected to operators using fiber optic cables. These drones can’t be electronically jammed, but the fiber optic wire limits their range.
Other approaches involve using netting and wire cages to trigger drones or their explosives before they can hit a target. To a degree, this is successful at fixed locations, but it’s impractical in a moving battle.
A lot of work is going into many out-of-the-box solutions, including rapidly-firing anti-drone guns, nets to snare drones that can be launched from the ground, and lasers that can burn up a drone’s electronics.
One “solution” turns out to be an old weapon, the shotgun. A shotgun is a weapon of last resort on the battlefield, but shotguns are having some success against drones. The Russians and Ukrainians are using them.
There is some new shotgun technology that offers better chances to shoot down drones on the battlefield. One of the best developments is a proprietary design by the Italian shotgun maker Benelli. Benelli is owned by Italy’s premier gun company, Beretta.
Benelli’s new shotgun is called the M4 A.I. Drone Guardian. (The “A.I.” stands for advanced impact, not artificial intelligence). The weapon features a new gun barrel and gun choke designed to optimize the range the shot can reach and significantly improve the focus of the shotgun pellets.
The gun is matched to a new ammunition produced by a Swedish company, Norma. Norma designed the ammunition, AD-LER, specifically to work best with the Benelli M4 A.I. The ammo selected is #6 shot at 2.75mm. There are 350 pellets in each shot, together weighing 34 grams.
The material for the pellets is tungsten, which is an extraordinarily hard material. Other materials (lead, steel) were also evaluated, but military drones, as opposed to civilian drones, typically have harder shells and are more difficult to penetrate.
Shotgun choke design is important in being able to adapt the shotgun against drones. The choke is at the end of the gun barrel. It can be built into the barrel design, or in some cases the choke can be screwed into the barrel. This is handy for hunters who are targeting different kinds of game or shooting clay targets (skeet).
Most shotguns have simplistic sights, but the Benelli M4 A.I. is fitted with a site called the MPS made by Steiner Optics (also owned by Beretta Holdings). This can quickly bracket the target for the shotgun operator.
Aside from blasting a drone out of the air, there are other related technologies. One of them is an ammunition that shoots tethers and fragments that wrap around the drone’s propellers, causing the drone to be forced to the ground.
If a round misses its target, it’s designed to safely parachute to the ground, minimizing any risk of unwanted damage or injury. Called the Skynet A-4 round, it works with most 12 gauge shotguns but is most effective on guns with a rifled choke.
The Russians have their own solutions for the foot soldier. While they are using shotguns and developing anti-drone ammunition, they are also converting grenade launchers mounted on rifles to fire shotgun rounds.
The grenade launchers are GP 25 Kostyor (“Bonfire”), GP-30 Obuvka (“Shoe”) and GP-34. These units mount under a standard AK-47 assault rifle. They are designed to launch 40mm grenades.
A Russian company, INGRA-RU, has developed a 12-gauge adapter that can fit inside the grenade launcher and allows the AK-47 to operate both as a rifle and as a one-shot shotgun. The adapter is called Rozenka. It is 5 inches long and claims a range of 15 to 30 meters using standard shotgun shells. An aiming adapter is fitted to the AK-47 to help the operator correctly aim the shotgun.
Because the adapter has to be removed to be reloaded, in practice, it is a one-shot solution. Miss, and you are toast. Rozenka is priced at ₽ 9,300 or $102.
The Ukrainians have a number of shotgun-type solutions. One of them is made by Stellarium SV, a company located in Chernihiv in northern Ukraine. It is a hand-held plastic and polymer five-barrel device called MSD-5. The five barrels can be sleeved with stainless steel or titanium, allowing the device to fire shotgun shells.
The MSD-5 weighs about 800 grams and uses three CR-123A batteries like those used in many automobile key fobs. The device is priced at 430 euros ($473). The device has uses for signaling, fire suppression and other applications.
At the end of the day, a shotgun is a last-ditch weapon for the foot soldier. Using any of them requires training, and the operator has to be fearless to stand a few hundred feet from an attacking drone.
There are many other products, some machine guns with burst shells, others that can fire multiple shotgun rounds, but none of them so far promise to eliminate the drone threat. Even so, improving the chances for foot soldier survival is an important goal, and some of these new solutions hold promise to do so.
Stephen Bryen is a special correspondent to Asia Times and former US deputy undersecretary of defense for policy. This article, which originally appeared on his Substack newsletter Weapons and Strategy, is republished with permission.
