China's PLA runs rare live-fire counter-drone drill combining lasers, microwaves and anti-aircraft guns

TLDR

• Chinese state broadcaster CCTV aired rare footage of a PLA 75th Group Army brigade running combat-oriented, live-fire counter-drone drills in a Gobi Desert environment.¹
• The drills combined what the report calls an "iron triangle" of anti-drone systems: laser weapons, integrated missile-gun systems, and vehicle-mounted high-power microwave weapons.¹
• A simulated drone swarm was detected by radar at extremely low altitude, then broken up with "optical dazzling and electromagnetic suppression" before interceptor drones and anti-aircraft guns engaged the survivors.¹
• Military commentators cited by CCTV framed the drills as a response to the Russia-Ukraine conflict's lessons on cheap drones creating an "unfavorable cost exchange" against expensive missile interceptors.¹

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV broadcast rare footage on Sunday of a brigade from the People's Liberation Army's 75th Group Army running live-fire, combat-oriented counter-drone drills in a Gobi Desert environment, with scenarios spanning daytime into nighttime operations.¹ The exercise combined three categories of anti-drone equipment the report described as an "iron triangle": laser weapons firing high-energy beams at individual drones, integrated missile-gun systems pairing a six-barrel rotary cannon with short-range air-defense missiles for close-range terminal defense, and vehicle-mounted high-power microwave weapons designed to emit pulses that "damage a drone's internal electronic components, causing it to fail and fall," striking multiple drones across a wider area at once.¹

In the drill sequence, networked radar first detected a simulated drone swarm flying at extremely low altitude; laser and microwave systems then used "optical dazzling and electromagnetic suppression" to break up the formation before interceptor drones and anti-aircraft gunfire engaged the targets that got through.¹ After controllers declared the unit's position "exposed," the brigade practiced rapid relocation and camouflage, then continued operations into nighttime using infrared and electro-optical tracking.¹ PLA servicemen Jia Jingcheng and He Qing, quoted by CCTV, said the exercise tested troops' ability to "assess complex aerial threats" and build "rapid reaction, mobile defense and sustained readiness" in unfamiliar terrain.¹

Military affairs commentators cited in the report, Song Zhongping and Zhang Xuefeng, tied the drills to lessons from the Russia-Ukraine war, with Song saying China's drone and counter-drone technology are "among the world's most advanced" as a result, and Zhang noting that cheap drones create an "unfavorable cost exchange" against far more expensive missile interceptors, a dynamic the layered laser/microwave/gun approach is meant to address more cheaply.¹

Why it matters: the drill is a rare public look at how the PLA plans to counter mass drone-swarm attacks cheaply, by layering directed-energy weapons (which cost little per shot but need line-of-sight and power) with traditional guns and missiles, the same cost-asymmetry problem that has driven similar counter-drone investment in the US, Europe, Ukraine and India in recent weeks.