Gepard is Successful in Hunting Kalibr Cruise Missiles in Ukraine: How Does It Hit Fast-Moving Targets? - Technology Org | By The Digital Insider
Ukraine received 46 German Flakpanzer Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns from its partners. It is an armoured, tank-based, twin-gun anti-aircraft weapon in service since 1976. Now Gepard protects the Ukrainian capital from Russian cruise missiles and drones.
Gepard has been in service since 1976, but is still highly effective. Image credit: Hans-Hermann Bühling via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0)
The Flakpanzer Gepard is a self-propelled anti-aircraft gun based on the Leopard 1 main battle tank. The Gepard has two automatic 35mm cannons. Their total rate of fire is 1100 shots per minute. Of course, the Gepard fires short bursts to create an aircraft-impenetrable cloud of metal that simply tears apart drones, cruise missiles, and even manned planes and helicopters if they venture into the Gepard’s range.
The Gepard weighs about 47 tonnes and reaches 65 km/h on the road.
How can the Gepard hit fast-moving targets? The Gepard has an advanced radar and target acquisition system. It’s not like a soldier has to see the target with his own eyes and aim the weapons at it manually (although it is possible because the Gepard has good optics).
The Gepard tracks targets within a radius of about 15 km, recognizes their trajectories and chooses when and where it is best to create a cloud of bullets. The Gepard measures the speed of its rounds to adjust its own fire. Of course, all this is not done entirely without human intervention – the Gepard is an old machine, but the crew has quality data to make decisions.
By the way, if the Gepard itself becomes a target, it can aim its weapons lower, offering armour-piercing ammo to enemy tanks or infantry fighting vehicles. It can also hide using smoke screen devices.
The Gepard crew consists of three people: the commander, the driver and the gunner. The turret and weapons are computer controlled. The Unian TV channel talked to the Ukrainian Gepard crew and they said that controlling this air defence weapon is sort of like playing a video game.
“You use the joystick like in a video game. You find a target, there is a ring to capture the target, you lower the ring, follow it a little for 2 seconds, the target is acquired and the turret with the gun rotates towards it,” said Oleksiy.
Soldiers serving with the Gepard said that the first seconds of working with the system took their breath away. “You wait a month or two, there’s no target, and then it appears… You can’t make a mistake. And if it is missiles, then you just must make the decision in a few seconds and shoot them down,” the soldiers said.
Flakpanzer Gepard in Ukrainian service. You can see both 35 mm guns and the radar antenna. Image credit: AFU Joint Forces Command via Wikimedia (CC BY 4.0)
The soldier told reporters that despite the fact that these Gepards were produced almost 50 years ago, and Germany retired them in late 2010, they still work perfectly well and are useful. “Yes, this is an old machine. But looking at its work you wouldn’t say that it’s an old machine. When a Kalibr cruise missile worth millions of dollars can be shot down by a machine made in 1975-19780 with a calibre of 35 mm… I think all questions are gone,” he says.
Written by Povilas M.
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Published on The Digital Insider at https://bit.ly/40fU7Cq.
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