ZALA Lancet attack drone. © Marina Lystseva/TASS
Russia’s Rubikon advanced unmanned technology center published on October 13 video footage showing, for the first time, the destruction of an American-made Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment (VAMPIRE) short-range air defense system of Kiev forces.
The system was targeted with a Lancet loitering munition, according to the center, which said that the strike took part some 47 kilometers behind the frontline in the Sumy direction, without elaborating.
The VAMPIRE was developed by L3Harris Technologies mainly to counter drones. The system consists of an electro-optical targeting system, typically a Canadian-made WESCAM MX-10D, and a four-barreled Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) rocket launcher that can be mounted on trucks.
The APKWS is a kit developed by British BAE Systems in cooperation with Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics of the United States to convert Hydra 70 unguided rockets into precision-guided munitions.
The munition is equipped with a distributed aperture semi-active laser seeker that allows for a circular error probable of less than 0,5 meter.
However, the destructive power of the munition is limited, as Hydra 70 rockets are typically armed with warheads weighing between 3,9 and 4,2 kg.
The VAMPIRE is reported to be capable of intercepting a drone from a range of five to eight kilometers. The system can also be used to hit ground targets.
Interestingly, the system was developed to take down drones like the Lancet which eventually managed to take one out in Ukraine.
The Lancet was developed by the ZALA Aero Group, a subsidiary of Russia’s defense giant Kalashnikov Concern. The company produces two versions of the loitering munition, the Izdeliye-52 with an endurance of 30 minutes and a one-kilogram warhead and the larger Izdeliye-51 that has an endurance of 40 minutes and is armed with a warhead weighing three kilograms.
The Lancet flies towards the designated area with a GLONASS-aided inertial navigation system. After arriving in the area, the operator utilizes an onboard electro-optical system via a two-way data-link to detect, track and lock on the target. A laser-ranging system then controls the detonation of the warhead.
The loitering munition recently received an upgrade enabling artificial intelligence capabilities for both navigation and targeting.
Ukraine began receiving VAMPIRE systems from the U.S., in addition to a very similar APKWS-armed system developed by Germany’s Arnold Defense dubbed the Land-LGR4 in 2023. It is unclear how many such systems are in service with Kiev forces.
While it is hard to evacuate the effectiveness of these systems due to the lack of any transparent data from the Ukrainian side, it can be said after nearly two years of deployment that they had no real impact.
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