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Microwave weapon downs 49 drones with a single blast
In a demonstration not so much of marksmanship but more of the advantages of microwaves, an Epirus Leonidas directed energy, high-power microwave (HPM) anti-drone weapon has knocked 49 Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAV) out of the air with one shot.
Named after the Spartan king who held off a Persian invasion with a vastly inferior force at the Battle of Thermopylae, Leonidas is one of a family of weapons based on using long-pulse microwave beams to burn out the electronics of small drones. The idea isn't new, but Epirus has improved on previous iterations by using Gallium Nitride (GaN) semiconductors to generate microwaves instead of fragile, power-hungry magnetron vacuum tubes. In addition, Leonidas is software driven and can tailor its waveform for optimum effect, it is safe to use around humans who may be in the field of fire, and the present system has twice the range of the 2022 version.
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