One of the most valuable types of weapons that Ukraine received to fight Russia is a relatively simple German system that has been in use since the 1970s: the Flakpanzer Gepard, writes Business Insider, citing Rador.

The Cheetah is a self-propelled anti-aircraft gun that uses two automatic guns to engage aerial targets. This was the first heavy weapon that Germany sent to Ukraine.

Despite being nearly 50 years old, the Cheetah plays an important role in Ukraine’s air defense network, destroying low-flying drones and missiles that are very threatening but too cheap and numerous to justify the use of surface-to-air missiles, complex for damage them down.

The effectiveness of the Gepard system in Ukraine has demonstrated the lasting value of simple mobile anti-aircraft systems in the 21st century, but Ukrainian systems face another problem far from the front lines: the country that produces the munitions for them has so far been unwilling to let Kyiv have more.

The Gepard was developed in the 1960s and entered service in the 1970s. Built on the chassis of the Leopard 1 tank, it is capable of speeds of up to 40 miles per hour and has a range of 340 miles.

Its main armament consists of two 35 mm Oerlikon GDF automatic cannons on either side of a specially designed turret. It holds about 320 shells for each gun, both of which can fire 550 rounds per minute. Ammunition tapes are fed to each gun through hermetically sealed chutes in the turret.

The Gepard can fire a variety of ammunition, including Tracer Sabot Disarding Armor Piercing, High Explosive Incendiary Tracer, and Advanced Hit Efficiency and Destruction. Depending on the ammunition they use, Gepard guns can engage targets at distances of around 6,500 yards.

An S-band homing radar is located at the rear of the tower, and a Ku-band tracking radar is located at the front. Each radar can detect targets approximately 9 miles away. The search radar, which rotates continuously at a speed of 60 revolutions per minute, determines the location of the target and transmits the data to the tracking radar, which ensures a continuous search.

With a crew of three – a commander, a mechanic-driver and a gunner – the Cheetah was designed to engage heavily armed and armored Soviet combat helicopters. Its set of targets later expanded to include low-altitude drones, missiles and projectiles.

German defense company Krauss-Maffei Wegmann built 570 Gepard systems between 1963 and 1980: 420 for the German Bundeswehr, 95 for the Dutch Army and 55 for the Belgian Army. The Netherlands and Belgium retired their Gepard tanks around 2006, and Germany did so in 2010. Since then, Brazil, Jordan, Qatar and Romania have purchased several decommissioned Gepard tanks.

Success in Ukraine

After criticism for its reluctance to send heavy weapons to Ukraine, the German government promised Ukraine about 50 Gepard tanks in April 2022. The first three arrived in July, and 27 more by the end of the year.

In March, 34 Gepard tanks were sent to Ukraine, and at least three more are planned to be delivered.

Cheetah tanks were almost immediately sent to the front line and proved effective in shooting down Russian cruise missiles and low-flying drones. They are particularly effective against Iran’s Shahed-131 and 136 drones, which Russia uses against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

Ukrainian Gepard tank crews were successful despite receiving only two months of training compared to the standard German training of 18 months. It is reported that the crew shot down 10 Shahed drones and two cruise missiles in one day near Odesa.

Cheetah tanks fill an important gap in Ukraine’s air defense network, which includes long-range systems such as the Soviet-era Buk and S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems, as well as Western-made systems such as NASAMS and MIM. – 104 A patriot who recently arrived in Ukraine.

Missiles launched by these systems are more advanced, but expensive and few in number. These missiles are also Ukraine’s main defense against Russian fighter jets and high-altitude fast bombers, and Ukrainian forces cannot afford to use them against any drones and cruise missiles. The Cheetah system is designed to destroy low-flying targets and is much cheaper to operate.

The various weapons worked in tandem — surface-to-air missiles forced Russian jets and cruise missiles to fly at lower altitudes, allowing Cheetah systems and Ukrainian missile forces to shoot them down — to create an integrated air defense system that officially corresponds to American soldiers. praised him.

Ammunition problems

The Gepard tanks’ high-explosive 35mm shells, which explode near targets and fill the air with shrapnel, are particularly useful for their mission, but access to these munitions can also be a limiting factor.

The only country that produces high-explosive munitions for the Gepard is Switzerland, which not only refuses to sell more munitions to Ukraine because of its commitment to neutrality, but also prohibits other countries from re-exporting Swiss defense products to the country at war.

As a result, Ukraine was unable to purchase more ammunition from Switzerland, and Germany was unable to send more ammunition from its stockpiles. Attempts to purchase ammunition from other countries failed for political and technical reasons.

Gepard tanks “shoot down drones, especially the Shahed,” Mark Montgomery, a retired U.S. Navy admiral who is now senior director of the Center for Cyber ​​and Technology Innovation and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said at the Alliance event. promotion of anti-missile defense, from Feb.

“They’re knocking them down. They’re doing fantastic, but they’re out of ammunition,” Montgomery added.

In February, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced that the German firm Rheinmetall would resume production of ammunition for the Gepard. The company said that two batches of 35 mm shells will be delivered to Ukraine: 150,000 APDS-T shells, which will arrive this summer, and 150,000 HEI-T shells, which will be delivered in 2024.

However, Ukraine’s need for ammunition for Gepard systems may increase. US intelligence documents released in February and leaked online in recent weeks show estimates that Ukraine’s main surface-to-air missiles could run out in May, meaning weapons such as Gepard tanks will have to be used more.

Request for SPAAG weapons

The operation of Cheetah tanks in Ukraine showed their usefulness to a wide audience, but many armies relied on self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, SPAAG, for decades.

Russia has three in service: 2K22 “Tunguska”, “Pantsir S-1” and the outdated ZSU-23-4 “Shilka”. China has two models, the old Type 95, which will eventually be replaced by the new Type 09. The Finnish Leopard 2 Marksman, the Japanese Type 87 and the Turkish KORKUT all use Oerlikon guns.

The US military retired its last SPAAG, the M163 VADS, in 1994. Since then, they have relied entirely on missile systems such as the Avenger (which fires Stingers), the Patriot, and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system. .

The primary air defense arm of the United States is the Air Force, which has maintained air superiority in every conflict it has been involved in since the end of the Cold War.

But U.S. Air Force officials don’t expect that dominance to last, and the U.S. military has stepped up its search for a SPAAG-like weapon to fill the air defense gap.

The US military, traditionally responsible for short-range air defense, launched an interim solution – the Maneuverable Short-Range Air Defense System. Based on the Stryker armored vehicle, the M-SHORAD is armed with four Stinger missiles, two AGM-114L Hellfire missiles and a 30mm M230 automatic cannon.

The US military in Europe was the first to receive the M-SHORAD system in April 2021.

Benjamin Brimelow, Business Insider (Rador pickup)