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• Extend the life of the aircraft that the KUB and Lancet loitering munitions, both built by Kalashnikov, had been used by Russia in Ukraine to strike ground targets. But it stated that there was little evidence of either being successful and said that earlier in the war “several KUBs were either downed by the Ukrainian military or crashed in civilian neighbourhoods without detonating, suggesting either a successful Ukrainian countermeasure or an internal malfunction.”

Although loitering munitions offer a stand-off strike capability, the larger ones still only have a range of up to 27-54nm (50-100km) and therefore the launchers will be vulnerable to longrange missiles or air attack. Furthermore, once in the air – although they are small and hard to detect – loitering munitions are slow moving and this makes them vulnerable to anti-air defence systems. It means that units operating loitering munitions will have to be well hidden and mobile, with the weapons best used in an unpredictable fashion to make best use of their attributes.

“There is a utility for loitering munitions in Special Forces-type operations at the smaller end of the scale where they can be carried in a bergen, [giving them] an ability not just to look over the next hill or street, but when a target is found, to actually engage it,” Barrie said. “It can give smaller units organic firepower and the ability to attack at range and with precision whereas previously other platforms –fixed-wing, rotary, artillery – would have to be called in to conduct a strike.”

In Syria, it was reported that Russian special forces were using the Lantset-1 and -3 loitering munitions from Zala Aero Group.

Urgent Operational Need

The US Army has been buying Switchblade 600 and 300 systems under successive contracts with AeroVironment. One contract in April 2020 was worth $76 million and another in April 2021 worth $45 million, acquired under an Urgent Operational Need Statement. The Army is also buying the Altius-600 loitering munition under its Air Launched Effects (ALE) programme. ALE is designed to test swarming tactics, which will be the next significant development for loitering munitions as a way of overwhelming air defences, providing decoys and striking lots of targets.

“If there is a surface-to-air missile battery in the area you could use a swarm of loitering munitions with a mix of decoys and actual loitering munitions that look the same,” Barrie explained, “This makes targeting much harder if there are 10 or so flying about in a coordinated attack and it is not possible to find the two that have warheads. It poses an inventory cost on the defender, which has to use its own munitions to eliminate all the loitering munitions or risk being destroyed.”

The question of the inventory cost for defenders comes down to the weapons that air defence systems will need to effectively counter loitering munitions in a cost-effective manner. If launcher platforms cannot be destroyed on the ground and swarms of loitering munitions are already airborne then point defence options will be needed.

These are likely to be similar to the range of counter-UAS systems in use that include mix of electronic warfare (EW), rapid firing gun systems and highpower directed energy/laser weapons. These can rapidly destroy numerous targets at low cost.

Future developments of loitering munitions will include their use fired from unmanned adjunct or ‘loyal wingman’ aircraft. This will mitigate against the limited range and slow movement of loitering munitions by using a fast air platform to deliver it to the area of operations at the right time. It means that the loitering munition will operate in a similar fashion to missiles but with a loitering capability so it can engage an emitting target that has stopped emitting or use its sensors and precision to pinpoint a target.

“There’s going to be a fair amount of experimentation on this as armed forces try to figure out how best to employ loitering munitions in different ways to maximise their capabilities, or use them in a mix of effectors,” Barrie said.

As the proliferation and subsequent use of loitering munitions increases in the future, there will be more incidents when the weapons will be launched and are unable to find targets. As these weapons are not recoverable, more ways must be found to ensure that when they run out of fuel, they can find adequate space in or near the area of operations with few or no civilians to safely selfdestruct without remaining a threat to the local population.

Autonomous targeting is also an issue for loitering munitions that raises a whole host of ethical and legal issues relating to international humanitarian law in armed conflict that have not been fully explored. But loitering munitions are here to stay and offer a valuable costeffective stand-off strike capability that fits neatly above that offered by artillery systems and below that of missiles.

But these are still early days of their use. Loitering munitions have limitations and although development is continuing rival forces will acknowledge the early successes of these weapons in recent conflicts and start to employ more effective countermeasures. The ways in which loitering munitions are used operationally and the extent to which countermeasures can defeat them will dictate the level of their future utility on the battlefield.