Spain's Aracne counter-drone system shoots down drones by direct impact in Army hard-kill trials

· Drones

TLDR

  • Infodefensa reports Spain's Aracne counter-drone system shot down drones by direct impact in Army hard-kill trials.1
  • Indra and EM&E are building 14 systems under a €30 million programme; Aracne entered Army service in early October.12
  • Testing continues at the Atlas 26 exercise, with Army, Navy and Air and Space Force systems taking part.12

Infodefensa reports on 18 October that Spain's Aracne counter-drone system has shot down drones by direct impact during the operational evaluation of its destructive, or hard-kill, capability.1 The first firings took place in Huelva during preparations for the Atlas 26 exercise.1 Infodefensa says the Army had already validated the first phase, soft kill, which disables drones without physically destroying them.12

Aracne is developed by Indra and EM&E and entered service with the Army's 71st Antiaircraft Artillery Regiment in early October, Infodefensa says.1 The €30 million programme provides 14 systems in fixed and mobile versions: 10 for the Army (five of each type) plus a simulator, and one fixed and one mobile system each for the Navy and the Air and Space Force.12 The mobile version spreads its equipment across two Vamtac ST5 vehicles and was recently evaluated by the Army in Slovakia during NATO trials.12

Go Aragón gives the system's stated specifications: the Nemus radar is said to detect a 1 square metre target at 12 to 15 kilometres and a 0.01 square metre mini-drone at 4 kilometres, and the Guardian 2.0 remote weapon station was fitted with a 40mm MK-19 grenade launcher for these tests.2 Envanter Medya adds that the grenade launcher is effective between 200 and 700 metres, and that the hard-kill option is aimed at swarms and fibre-optic drones that radio jamming cannot stop.3 Go Aragón and Envanter Medya both draw on the Infodefensa report, so they are not independent confirmation of the direct hits; the trial results themselves rest on Infodefensa.23

Why it matters: the trials show Spain adding a physical interception option to a jamming-based counter-drone system it has only just put into service; because the only account of the direct hits is Infodefensa's, and no hit rate or engagement count is given, how reliable the hard-kill capability is will only become clearer after Atlas 26.

Sources

  1. El sistema C-UAS Aracne del Ejército de Tierra afina la puntería y derriba ya drones por impacto directo (Infodefensa)
  2. Aracne Counter-Drone System Downs Drones by Direct Impact (Go Aragón)
  3. Spain's ARACNE Drone-Defense System Scores First Direct Hit (Envanter Medya)