Swedish defence manufacturer Saab has unveiled a new munition designed specifically to target swarms of small drones.

Known as Nimbrix, the small “fire-and-forget” guided missile will have a 2.7nm (5km) range and use an air-burst warhead designed to detonate in the vicinity of small drones or other uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), bringing down multiple at a time.

Saab says the weapon is its first missile dedicated to counter-UAS (CUAS) missions. Requirements for such weapons have gained importance amid a massive rise in the use of armed drones in Ukraine, Russia and the Middle East.

“Nimbrix is our answer to the unmanned aerial threats which have escalated in the last few years,” says Stefan Oberg, head of Saab’s missile systems business.

The missile is ground-launched and operated independently or within air-defence networks, Saab says. Mounting options include vehicles or fixed emplacements.

“Nimbrix benefits from our long experience of air defence, together with an agile way of responding to new needs,” Oberg adds.

While the company does not disclose prices, Oberg describes Nimbrix as “cost effective”.

Price-per-shot is a critical metric used to evaluate CUAS defences. Unlike conventional ground-based air defences designed to target relatively few high-speed, high-altitude aircraft, CUAS systems face high-volume swarms of slow, cheap and low-flying drones.

These could be armed quadcopters or one-way UAS like the Iranian-origin HESA Shahed family, which essentially function as small, low-speed cruise missiles.

Such systems cost only a few thousand dollars each; far less than complex precision weapons like Raytheon AIM-120 Advanced Medium Air-to-Air Missiles, which are used in some ground-based air defences and cost more than $1 million each.

Reducing cost-per-shot to a price equivalent to or less than offensive UAS weapons is seen as key to an industrially sustainable CUAS defence.

“The cost-effective nature of the missile contributes to maximising deployed numbers to generate sufficient air defence coverage,” Saab says of Nimbrix.

Other defence manufacturers have rolled out similar low-cost CUAS options.

Raytheon is under contract with the US Army to provide Coyote, a jet-powered, rail-launched UAS-missile hybrid that is meant to protect against group one-, two- and three-sized UAVs, which range in weight between 9.1kg (20lb) and 599kg.

Start-up Anduril Industries in 2023 launched its own answer to the CUAS problem – Roadrunner, which chief executive Palmer Luckey says was cheekily named as a response to Raytheon’s Coyote.

Roadrunner is container-launched and powered by two small jet engines. Similarly straddling the missile and UAS categories, it is reusable, with ability to land vertically if it fails to find targets.

When launching Roadrunner in 2023, Anduril said the system cost in the “low six figures” and that it aimed to further reduce the price.

Other CUAS options are modified from existing weapons and technologies, like BAE Systems’ AGR-20 Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II (APKWS II) rocket. L3Harris built its laser-guided Vampire CUAS system around APKWS at a cost of roughly $35,000 per round.

Lockheed Martin F-16 strike fighters from the US Air Force have paired Northrop Grumman Litening advanced targeting pods with air-launched APKWS rockets.

Other CUAS options incorporate so-called “non-kinetic” means, such as directed-energy lasers and electronic-warfare systems to jam or destroy hostile UAS with radio or microwaves.