The Sikorsky MH-60R naval warfare helicopter has emerged as a key platform for defending US Navy (USN) warships from small, cheap unmanned air systems (UAS).
The USN operates 270 MH-60Rs, and the type provides an “unmatched capability” against surface and sub-surface targets, according to US Marine Corps Brigadier General David Walsh, the USN’s program executive officer for several rotorcraft types.
The MH-60R has also gained a new role: efficiently downing cheap UAS that adversaries might deploy against USN warships, as Yemen’s Houthi militant group has repeatedly in the Red Sea.
“We’ve continued to modernise the platform, continued to build the reliability and sustainability so we can sense the maritime battlespace with our multi-mode radar and electro-optical/infrared sensors.”
Data collected from the MH-60R can be shared, while the helicopter itself can engage targets with torpedoes, missiles, rockets, or guns.
“Recently we’ve established a capability for counter-UAS, [using our sensors] to identify small UAS as they threaten some of our surface vessels and prosecute them.”
The MH-60R has a range of options against UAS, including the relatively expensive Lockheed Martin AGM-114 Hellfire air-to-surface missiles, and cheaper options such as BAE Systems Advanced Precision Kill Weapons System (APKWS) rockets and .50 calibre machine guns.
In a typical counter-UAS engagement, the helicopter can detect the threat itself or be cued from another platform in the ‘kill-web’, such as a warship or another aircraft.
Given the low-cost of many UAS used in military engagements, it is essential for militaries to find less costly ways to dispose of them.
“We’re trying to minimise our cost per kill,” says Walsh. “Shooting exquisite weapons at low-cost drones, we’re trying to get away from that… a Hellfire is still kind of expensive, so we’re looking to get down to a lower cost weapon for those targets.”
Rich Benton, vice president and general manager of Sikorsky, adds that as recently as a year ago the MH-60R was not focused on counter-UAS capability.
“But you have a node on the network, and you have a threat, so we’re looking at different ways to take out those threats,” says Benton.
Benton adds that USN and Royal Australian Navy MH-60Rs are also in the process of getting a new, lightweight metallic anomaly detector, which improves the type’s ability to detect undersea threats like submarines or underwater drones.
Sikorsky is also experimenting with using the MH-60R as a platform to control unmanned underwater vehicles.
