Rafael’s Typhoon 30mm gun confronts drone threats on new modular platform
The Israeli firm has been pushing the weapon as a counter-drone solution amid high demand for ways to defeat the relatively cheap but deadly munitions.
The Typhoon 30mm gun mounted on a 20-foot modular platform during a test in February. A radar and electro-optic are also deployed on the same platform. (Rafael Advanced Defense Systems)
JERUSALEM — Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems is eyeing more uses for its Typhoon 30 Remote Controlled Weapon Station, having installed the gun on a modular platform that it says can be more easily used in different situations.
The company conducted counter-drone tests of the gun installed on the 20-foot platform last month and reported it “demonstrated the system’s advanced ability to neutralize drones at various ranges,” according to a company statement on Monday.
The Typhoon is already in use by the Israeli military, as well as by the militaries of the US, Australia and Canada, but in the last couple years Rafael has highlighted the 30mm gun as a solution to the growing threat of waves of unmanned aerial systems. (The Israeli military included the Typhoon in a series of counter-UAS experiments in the Negev Desert last year.)
Rafael said that in its recent test it emphasized the “adaptability” of the system as it can be mounted on the 20-foot surface. That platform resembles the rectangular footprint of a sea container, with a small radar mounted on a kind of mast near the gun, and an optical hub next to the gun itself.
The ability to deploy the system in a modular form would mean it could be deployed and incorporated more quickly on various platforms and in different configurations — from ground vehicles to fixed installations — rather than being restricted to the bows of naval vessels as it’s currently used. The company said the development step reflects a “commitment to delivering and installing its systems in modular configurations, ensuring flexibility and rapid deployment in diverse operational environments.”
Rafael says that the system is paired with electro-optical targeting and automatic fire correction. It uses Rada’s RPS-42 radar and the iSea-25 electro-optics made by Controp, a Rafael subsidiary.
Rafael’s offering of the Typhoon as a counter-drone system comes amid a rush in the defense industry to produce such solutions, brought on by the experience of combat in Ukraine. There drones have established themselves as a defining, inescapable threat, and by Israel’s own defense of its homeland from drones launched by Iran and Iran-backed groups in the region following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack.
