“Germany must be ready for war by 2029. ” Those are the words of Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, spoken to the German Parliament at the beginning of June, and they’re a reflection of the gradual awakening of NATO as a whole to the threat of Russia. NATO increasingly believes war with Russia is coming.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has only fanned the flames of these beliefs, speaking numerous times about how Russia will have to “retaliate” for what it sees as NATO’s encroachment on his special military operation in Ukraine. The most recent of these threats came in mid-July 2024, with Putin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov claiming that Russia would “target” the major European capitals in response to the United States and its plans to deploy hypersonic missiles in Germany. Given that specified region, cities like Munich and Berlin would be obvious targets.
“We have enough capacity to contain these missiles,” claims Peskov, “But the potential victims are the capitals of these countries. Europe is a target for our missiles. Our country is a target for U.
S. missiles in Europe. ” Putin believes a missile standoff is coming.
He also believes that Russia will be able to overwhelm the major cities in each European NATO member country with aerial bombardments of missiles, drones, and aircraft. But he has failed to account for one thing. NATO knows how Russia would strike, and it has several German-made air defense systems ready to deploy at a moment’s notice if Putin’s missile threats come to pass.
Each of these defense systems offers powerful countermeasures against the likely Russian approach to war with NATO. They are each formidable. However, there is one system that stands above all others – the one that Russia truly fears – that could prove the one most capable of turning the tide of war in NATO’s favor.
Stay tuned if you want to learn about that impressive piece of technology as we run through the five German-made air defense systems that have shocked Russia. We start with the Millennium Gun. Designed in 1995, the Millennium Gun began life as a land-based anti-aircraft weapon.
Created by the Swiss company Oerlikon – which has since been acquired by Germany’s main weapons manufacturer Rheinmetall – it is essentially a large cannon that can fire a staggering 1,000 rounds per minute when used at its maximum capacity. The weapon can also be set to fire single shots, with which it reaches a rate of fire of 200 rounds per minute. Oerlikon soon realized that their new anti-aircraft gun had the potential to be adapted for naval use, with 2003 seeing it enter service as a shipborne cannon.
Said cannon is gas-operated and fires using a revolving mechanism that includes four chambers. The Millennium Gun also has a triple-coil muzzle velocity gauge and a fuze setter that allows it to fire Advanced Hit Efficiency and Destruction, or AHEAD, rounds in addition to its standard 35mm rounds. AHEAD rounds are very interesting from an anti-aircraft perspective, as they’re capable of splitting apart into several rounds just before striking a target.
The fuze setter plays a key role in this process. Two of the Millennium Gun’s three coils are set around 3. 9 inches apart, with the weapon using those coils to measure the intended projectile velocity.
Through these calculations, the gun determines a setting for the fuze that ensures it achieves a proper flight time. That setting gets sent to the fuze using both the third coil and a specially designed electro-induction system, with the data turning the fuze into a precise timer that uses the flight time calculations to detonate the projectile just before it strikes its target. The result?
A projectile that can shred metal surfaces in multiple places. The Millennium Gun weighs 992 pounds and is a little over 13 feet long. It’s also capable of firing armor-piercing discarding sabot, or APDS, and high-explosive incendiary, or HEI rounds, making the gun exceptionally versatile.
However, it’s the combination of exceptional range and high-speed firing that makes this weapon truly dangerous to Russia. A 1. 65 AHEAD round has a keep-out range of 11,500 feet when fired at an attack helicopter or fighter aircraft.
Though that drops for other usages – the range is 6,570 feet for cruise and guided missiles and 4,920 feet for sea-skimmer missiles – it still means the gun can dismantle most aerial threats before they ever come into close range of a target. As for the speed of fire, the Millennium Gun can rattle off AHEAD rounds at a speed of 3,445 feet per second, with HEI and APDS rounds being even faster – 3,854 and 3,950 feet per second respectively. It's this versatility that will have Russia so scared of the Millennium Gun.
Rheinmetall says the weapon system is equally capable of engaging several high-speed asymmetric targets when used in an anti-surface role, as well as covering the full range of Russian threats in an anti-air role. These threats include unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, which Russia may try to use to swarm ships or land-based targets. It’s also still effective for its original land-based usage – the Millennium Gun can handle rocket, artillery, and mortar fire.
In the Millennium Gun, NATO has a counter to most of the weaponry Russia has been using in Ukraine. This is a country that fires around 10,000 artillery shells per day in Ukraine, with the Millennium Gun being capable of shredding the artillery systems that fire these shells. Any Russian attempts to establish aerial dominance over Europe – or its waters – could be met with similar fire.
Worse yet for Russia, the Millennium Gun has naval and on-land variants offering coverage no matter how Russia chooses to attack. And again, Russia has burned through a ton of its stock in the Ukraine war already. Over 340 planes – along with 325 helicopters – have been shot down since the beginning of the Ukraine War.
The Millennium Gun could easily add to those figures if Russia enters a war with NATO. And this is only the start. Where the Millennium Gun can rattle off 1,000 rounds of artillery, missile, and plane-shredding rounds per minute, the next air defense weapon provides NATO with sorely needed mobility: The Skyranger.
Also developed by Oerlikon – meaning it’s now manufactured by Germany’s Rheinmetall, The Skyranger is a mobile ground-based air defense, or GBAD, system that is reminiscent of a tank. Army Guide says that it’s deployable in all weather conditions and works well in day or night conditions. But it’s the three main components that make up this anti-air system that make it dangerous to Russia.
The first of these is the Skyranger SRCN, which is the main command post vehicle that is equipped with the brand-new S-band AESA Multi-Mission Radar (AMMR), along with a separate reconnaissance radar. Combined, these radars allow a Skyranger vehicle to track aerial threats, such as drones and incoming missiles. As for dealing with those threats, the Skyranger has two options.
There is a Skyranger gun vehicle, which is equipped with a KDG 35mm revolver cannon and carries at least 252 rounds. That cannon fires even faster than the Millennium Gun, as it has a rate of fire of around 1,200 rounds per minute – ideal for taking out drones and damaging Russian aerial assets. Like the Millennium Gun, this component also uses programmable ammunition, with which the user can calculate time delays that allow the cannon to adjust to firing on even the smallest aerial targets.
There’s also the Skyranger missile launcher, which is a guided missile system that can be used to take our drones, incoming missiles, and even aircraft. Stinger and Cheetah missiles are the weapons of choice here, with both being capable of taking out helicopters and low-flying fighter jets. But the most worrying thing about Skyranger for Russia is that it’s a modular system.
One or all of these components can be integrated into almost any wheeled or tracked vehicle in NATO’s arsenal, meaning NATO can transform even a simple armored vehicle into a fully mobile aerial defense unit in a matter of days. In some cases, it’s possible to connect as many as six Skyranger guns or missile launchers to a single vehicle, creating a fully mobile solution that will be a clear threat to any aerial strikes Russia attempts on NATO soil. And there’s more coming.
Rheinmetall says that it’s working on several new weapons systems to integrate into its Skyranger catalog, with each adding more versatility to an already remarkable modular system. These include the Skyknight Missile Launcher, which is a short-range air defense missile that’s capable of destroying artillery shells and guided missiles. Skyknight will have a 3,700-mile range when utilized against hard targets, with that range rising to 6,200 miles when engaging soft targets.
Worse yet for Russia, a single one of these missile launchers can carry 60 missiles and launch at a rate of five missiles that each track individually assigned targets – perfect for handling saturation attacks such as those Russia has used often in Ukraine. There’s also the high-energy laser, which Rheinmetall believes will be ready for deployment in 2025. That laser has scalable performance – with the user able to adjust between 10 kilowatts and 60 kilowatts – and will be effective against drones.
It’s also a cheap weapon – the cost per engagement will be far lower than the Skyranger cannon due to the laser not requiring traditional rounds. Add to all of this the development of new sensors, such as the Skyranger Multi-Sensor Unit S that will have a detection range higher than 12. 4 miles, and you get a modular system that NATO can use to quickly adapt armored vehicles to handle aerial defense in multiple capacities.
All of this is bad news for Russia. Through Skyranger, NATO gets an anti-air system that’s at the top of its class when it comes to tracking incoming threats and dealing with an array of weapons systems. Drnes can easily be destroyed via its cannon, missiles, and upcoming laser systems.
Its sensors are so powerful that Skyranger can detect incoming missiles and aerial threats from several miles away. And again, the modularity is a key feature – any NATO nation equipped with this system can rapidly convert almost any armored vehicle into an anti-air defensive unit in a matter of days thanks to Skyranger. Given Skyranger’s capabilities, it’s likely that NATO would deploy it on the ground while using the ship-installed versions of the Millennium Gun to offer a first line of defense against missile and drone attacks.
NATO already has comprehensive anti-air defenses thanks to these two German-made systems alone. But it gets even worse for Russia with the introduction of the next system: Skyguard. Requiring a crew of four people, the ground-based Skyguard is a layered air defense system that combines cannons and missile launchers to offer close-range options.
Think of it like a third line of defense against Russian aerial threats – any that get past the Millennium Gun and Skyranger systems could still get taken down by Skyguard. The system combines two proven fire-control systems, with the first being a pair of 35mm towed anti-aircraft guns. These cannons have a range of about 2.
5 miles, making them effective for short-range combat against low-flying helicopters, bombers, and fighter jets. That’s concerning enough for Russia. As far back as December 2022, Forbes reported that Russia had switched to tactics that saw its pilots flying low to avoid Ukraine’s air defenses.
If Russia tried to do the same thing in a war with NATO to avoid the Millennium Gun and Skyranger systems, it would face Skyguard systems capable of shredding their planes and helicopters with close-range fire. The potential Russian losses would be staggering. And that’s without mentioning Skyguard’s missile systems.
Its cannons are paired with two surface-to-air missile launchers that can be configured to fire Aspide, Sparrow, SAHV-R, or Adats missiles with an effective range of 4. 3 miles. Each is fired from a four-round launcher mounted onto the carriage of the anti-aircraft system – again showcasing the modular approach that was seen in the Skyranger.
That modularity also allows the installation of different launchers depending on the type of missiles being used. Finally, the system combines a pair of radars – a pulse Doppler search and pulse Doppler tracker – to allow the crew to quickly identify and fire against threats as they emerge. So, where does all of this leave Russia in a potential war against NATO so far?
While it’s not accurate to claim that Russia’s aerial threat is completely negated by these three systems – Russia’s sheer numbers mean that some of its missiles, drones, and planes will get through – it’ll still see many of its aerial assets get destroyed quickly. The combination of the Millennium Gun and Skyranger gives NATO long-range anti-air capabilities from land and sea. Skyguard would likely be used to defend key military targets by offering close-range defenses against any Russian aerial assets that make it through the long-range defenses.
And it gets even worse for Russia. It will also need to find a way to overcome Skyshield. In many ways, Skyshield is a system that perfectly complements Skyguard.
It’s another close-range anti-air weapon, with the key difference being that it is almost entirely unmanned, with the seven-person crew being separated from the guns themselves in every instance. Army Recognition highlights this, showing that each of the guns is operated by a two-person crew positioned at a mobile desk around 165 feet away. The same goes for the single crew person operating the sensor unit, as they also get about 165 feet of separation.
As for the command post used to control the gun and analyze the data its radar systems pick up, that can be stationed up to 4,920 feet away from the guns and sensor unit, with the sensor unit also positioned up to 1,640 feet away from the guns. Why does all of this matter? Russia will have to destroy two guns, a sensor unit, and a command center in separate attacks to take a single Skyshield completely out of commission due to the sheer spread of the assets.
That creates even more risk for Russia’s pilots, especially if they’re coming in low to take out the command center. They’ll be fired on by the guns as they do, with the command center being positioned far enough away that it’ll be impossible for a Russian pilot to track the guns as targets while they try and take it out. It's an extremely clever system.
Speaking of Skyshield’s guns, the typical system has two 35/1000 Revolver Guns capable of firing 35mm AHEAD rounds. You already know how effective these rounds can be from the description of the Millennium Gun, with their ability to break into many smaller rounds just prior to impact, making them akin to highly precise shotgun pellets. Army Recognition says that just 25 rounds of AHEAD break up into 3,800 sub-projectiles, meaning each round contains 152 “pellets.
” Some Skyshield units come with four of these guns, enhancing NATO’s aerial defense options further. AHEAD rounds are especially effective against drones, making them ideal for saturation attacks in which Russia attempts to use a fleet of drones to take out a target. The same applies to missiles – multiple guns mean Skyshield can fire on several incoming missiles at once.
Similar to the Millennium Gun, each of Skyshield’s guns can fire up to 1,000 rounds per minute, with the time between detection and firing on a threat a mere 4. 5 seconds. Think about what that means for Russia if its aerial assets run into a single Skyshield deployed at a target.
Anywhere between 2,000 and 4,000 rounds per minute can be fired on a target within 4. 5 seconds of detection, meaning that the target is shredded before it has a chance to cause damage. Add to all of this a 2.
48-mile range for the cannons and you have a system capable of taking our missiles and drones long before they reach their targets. This is all without mentioning Skyshield’s missiles. NATO forces have the option of adding a pair of VSHORAD guided missile launchers, which can be integrated directly into the main gun units and extend Skyshield’s range dramatically.
With missiles, the weapon is capable of taking our targets at a range of up to 4. 97 miles, with these missiles also likely to pose a greater threat to income aircraft than the cannons alone. Add to all of this the mobility of guns – that can be palletized or carried in the beds of trucks – and NATO has a semi-mobile anti-air system.
That brings us to the final German anti-air weapon Russia would have to contend with in a war against NATO: Skynex. In January 2024, Germany announced that it would provide Ukraine with a pair of Skynex air defense systems to help Ukraine combat the mass missile, artillery, and aerial attacks Russia used to such great effect during the winter of 2023. Each of these systems costs $100 million to manufacture and, like Skyshield and Skyguard, provides close-range defense against missiles, drones, and artillery shells.
However, there are two key differences between Skynex and those other close-range systems – Skynex is modular and it’s powered by the incredible Skymaster command and control system. Starting with Skynex itself, The Kyiv Post describes it as a modular and mobile anti-aircraft system, with each of its components being containerized so they can be transported between locations quickly. Once unloaded, Skynet can be installed on the ground, again like Skyshield and Skyguard, or operated directly from a compatible armored vehicle.
Each system comprises up to four 35mm Oerlikon Mk 3 Revolver Guns, which have an effective combat range of 2. 48 miles and achieve a nominal rate of fire of up to 1,000 rounds per minute. By now, you’re likely seeing plenty of similarities with the cannons used in the other close-range systems discussed, as well as the Millennium Gun.
In rapid single-shot mode, the guns achieve a firing rate of 200 rounds per minute and, like many of Rheinmetall’s other anti-air defenses, the cannons can be equipped with lethal AHEAD rounds. Each gun is mounted in a remotely controlled turret, with directions coming both from a distanced command center and its array of radar and sensor equipment. Key here is the built-in fire processing unit, which can acquire and engage targets automatically while completing calculations in seconds to ensure the guns fire accurately on their targets.
Each gun comes with a standard load of 252 rounds, meaning it’ll expend its full load in around 15 seconds if firing at full capacity. Speaking of the gun’s sensors, they combine a tracking radar – used to identify targets – with a television that provides visuals and an infrared camera that allows for tracking in the dark or built-up areas. Laser range firers also help the gun to calculate the distance between itself and a target, with all of the data collected by these sensors enabling the built-in control systems to easily calculate where it needs to fire to land a direct hit.
That’s all very impressive, you may be thinking. But it’s not too different from what you’ve seen so far. The guns are the same as those used in Rheinmetall’s other close-range anti-air weapons, so what makes Skynex stand out as the weapon that Russia truly fears?
Skymaster. Advertised by Rheinmetall as a “versatile command and control solution,” Skymaster is capable of gathering a comprehensive aerial picture based on real-time data, with built-in algorithms allowing it to near-instantly identify threats and assign weapons to take on those threats. It essentially enables Skynex to slot into a network of aerial defenses – all controlled by Skymaster – that can also include SHORAD, VSHORAD, and a host of other medium-range weapons systems that all act upon real-time data delivered by Skymaster.
In other words, Skymaster is the hub through which NATO’s multi-layered aerial defenses would work. Once an aerial threat is being tracked by Skymaster, it can relay data to medium-range weapons systems to engage. It’ll continue tracking the threats, with any that make it through the medium-range defenses being instantly confronted with fire from Skynex, meaning any Russian missiles or drones need to break several layers of defenses before they can hit a target.
Skymaster is also compatible with legacy systems. Rheinmetall says that NATO forces will receive “plug and fight” capability through Skymaster, allowing them to connect older anti-air weapons to a network that includes Skynex to create multi-layered defenses with what they have available. It’s the pinnacle of the modular approach that the manufacturer – and the Swiss company it acquired – has focused upon during development.
Once installed, Skymaster will scan the skies over any zone or territory 24 hours per day, with the data it collects allowing Skynex and any other integrated systems to fire without human intervention. That’s not to say that humans aren’t part of the picture. The Skymaster system is fitted into a control node when it’s controlling the Skynex guns, with that node housing computers and several operator consoles.
These nodes are essentially 20-foot containers, each equipped with communication systems, air conditioners, and power supplies. From these nodes, operators can control all of Skynex’s weapons and sensors, allowing them to pick and choose targets as needed, perhaps meaning they can override Skymaster’s automated tracking and firing capabilities to ensure Skynex focuses on the most vital targets. Combine these five anti-air weapons systems with Skymaster oversight and you have a lethal mix that has Russia running scared.
It’s worth examining exactly why as we round out this video. In the introduction, we discussed Dmitri Peskov’s threats that Russia has missiles trained on every major European city in preparation for a potential war with Ukraine. That is likely the case, but Peskov wisely doesn’t mention that Russia’s missile situation is far weaker than it was before the Ukraine war started.
In February 2024, Reuters reported that Russia had launched more than 8,000 missiles in two years of fighting against Ukraine. It’s manufacturing missiles at a rate of about 60 cruise missiles, two Kinzhals, and five Iskander ballistic missiles per month, meaning its rate of manufacture isn’t keeping pace with its rate of loss. It’s attempting to overcome that disparity, with Iran International noting just Iran provided 400 long-range missiles in February 2024.
But the fact remains that if Russia’s main strategy will rely on missile bombardments of targets in major cities, the combination of these five German anti-air weapons offers a more than adequate defense. After all, it’s worth pointing out that Ukraine has been putting up a strong defense against Russia’s missile bombardments even before it received Skynex systems from Germany. In October 2022 alone, Ukraine claimed that Russia fired 83 cruise missiles in one day, followed by 28 the next.
Ukraine was able to shoot down 43 of the first batch of 83, followed by 20 of the 28 with far less advanced anti-air defense systems. A combination of these five anti-air systems would likely limit the impact of Russia’s missiles even further. If the war between Russia and NATO starts in the immediate aftermath of the Ukraine war – or even during it – Russia won’t have the opportunity to replenish its missile stocks to the point where they can be as effective as Peskov claims when faced with Rheinmetall’s defensive weaponry.
The problem goes even deeper for Russia. Barring the Millennium Gun, which is a naval weapon, all of these systems are capable of taking out artillery shells. Russia is already in a position where it’s having to dismantle Soviet-era artillery to replace the barrels in its more modern artillery.
It’s producing around 20,000 shells per day, but those shells are being loaded into increasingly antiquated guns that would be easy prey for the advanced targeting systems built into Germany’s anti-air weapons. While that may sound strange to say given that artillery is ground-based weaponry, remember that several of these German weapons are capable of firing at ground targets. And even those that can’t fire at ground targets have cannons that are so precise that they can take our artillery shells in flight.
NATO would use these capabilities to its advantage. Depleting Russia’s stock of artillery shells by simply firing as many as possible out of the air would strain Russia’s offensive capacity during a war. Given that we know Russia favors a slow ground-based approach – as seen in how the Ukraine war has become a meat grinder in which Russia attempts to advance through sheer manpower – making its ground offensives less effective would be key for NATO.
Russian advances would be slowed to a crawl, with counterattacks pushing the country’s troops back further. Finally, these German weapons would almost completely destroy any hope Russia would have of asserting aerial dominance. That’s an area where Russia has already faltered in Ukraine.
As mentioned earlier, it has lost over 600 planes and helicopters in around 30 months against a Ukraine that has far less advanced aerial defenses than those NATO would have thanks to the German weapons we’ve discussed here. It would lose far more than that fighting almost all of Europe armed with Rheinmetall’s weapons. That’s especially the case if Russia attempts the low-flying tactics it used during the early parts of the Ukraine war.
In June 2022, Forbes reported that Russian planes were flying so low to the ground to avoid anti-air defenses that they were crashing. They wouldn’t even have that option when facing this quintet of weapons – the ship-mounted Millennium Gun and the Skyranger will be able to take out planes and helicopters at range, with the three close-range systems shooting them down if they manage to come closer to their targets. That would leave Russia with drones as their only major aerial asset.
And as we now know, almost all of Rheinmetall’s systems are capable of firing AHEAD rounds that split into multiple rounds. When combined with their precision targeting, the guns could shred entire fleets of drones in seconds to prevent reconnaissance, kamikaze attacks, or drone-based bombing runs. Russia may be trying to build up to 1,000 drones per year – in addition to buying thousands of Shahed drones from Iran – but those weapons will again be mitigated by five German-made weapons that are ideal for countering Russia’s drone assaults.
And therein lies the real reason Russia is so scared of these weapons: It has no way to counter them back. It’s already relying on Soviet-era technology to fight against Ukraine, with that situation only worsening if it found itself battling against 30 European NATO members working together. With Skymaster giving each of those members the option of incorporating legacy systems into their aerial defenses, Russia will be forced into a draining ground-based conflict that will sap its manpower as it watches its aerial threat diminish with no way to fully fight back.
That assumes the fight between NATO and Russia is conventional. Add nuclear weapons into the equation and it would be a whole other story. But that’s a video for another day.
For now, we want to know what you think about Germany’s highly advanced anti-air weapons. Are they an example of how NATO can use superior technology to quell the Russian threat? Would Russia be able to find a way to counter these weapons and establish aerial dominance over Europe?
Tell us what you think in the comments and thank you for watching this video. Now go check out How The German Military Will Become Europe's Most Powerful or click this other video instead!
