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FenrisDEFENCE · FD-0001
SystemsGARM
IN PRODUCTION

Garm

TRAINING · AERIAL TARGETLive-fire aerial target system

A steel drone silhouette, loaded with clay pigeons and flown on a realistic profile by a heavy-lift carrier. Gunners engage a moving aerial target with live shot and score it by the clays they break. The plate comes home and flies again.

TARGET
STEEL PLATE
SCORING
CLAY PIGEONS
CARRIAGE
SLUNG, AERIAL
CONSUMABLE
CLAYS ONLY

Counter-drone gunnery has a training problem that nothing on a static range solves. A drone is small, it moves in three dimensions, and it does not hold still at a known distance. Units end up practising on clay birds thrown from a trap, which teaches the swing but not the picture, or on expendable drones, which teaches the picture once and then costs another airframe. GARM is a steel plate cut to a drone silhouette, seated with clay pigeons and slung under a carrier that flies it through a representative profile. Shot breaks the clays and rings off the plate. The score is visible from the firing point, the plate is recovered, and the only consumable is a clay.

Contents07 SHEETS
Design intent
0101 / 06

Practise on the threat, not a substitute

A clay thrown from a trap teaches the swing. It does not teach the picture: the size, the height, the way a drone holds a line and then does not. GARM flies the shape you are actually being asked to hit.

0202 / 06

The only thing you expend is a clay

Live-fire drone training normally consumes an airframe per engagement, which is why it happens twice a year. The plate is recovered, reloaded and flown again, so the cost of a sortie is a box of clays.

0303 / 06

The score settles itself

A clay is broken or it is not. There is no telemetry to interpret, no adjudicator, and no argument about whether that counted, which is what makes it usable for qualification rather than familiarisation.

0404 / 06

Steel outlasts the training cycle

Plate takes hits and stays a target. It pits and it marks, and neither stops it flying. This is the trade against a self-healing compound: no ricochet-free claim, but a life measured in seasons rather than hits.

0505 / 06

The aircraft is never in the arc

The target hangs well below the carrier on a long sling, and the carrier is flown outside the briefed firing arc. If anything goes wrong the target can be released in flight.

0606 / 06

It resets in the time it takes to walk out

Recover the plate, seat fresh clays, hook on, fly. There is no repair step and no cure time between runs, so a detail gets sorties rather than a demonstration.

How it works
N.01

Why the range does not solve this

Ask a unit how it trains counter-drone gunnery and the answer is usually clays from a trap. That is genuinely useful for the swing and the lead, and it is nothing like the problem. A trap throws a fast, falling, predictable arc across a known line. A drone is slower, higher, holds a heading, stops, and changes its mind.

The alternative is to fly an expendable airframe and shoot it down. That teaches the right picture exactly once, and the cost of the lesson is a drone. Units that can afford it do it rarely; units that cannot do not do it at all, and go into the problem having never engaged a moving aerial target that behaves like one.

GARM sits between the two. The carrier flies a briefed profile at a briefed height and speed, so the picture is the one the gunner will actually see. The target is a steel silhouette that does not care how many times it is hit. The consumable is a clay pigeon.

N.02

Steel, and what that costs

The obvious alternative is a self-healing rubber compound. It absorbs shot, closes behind it and does not throw fragments back, which is a real advantage and an honest one. We have not used it.

A cut steel plate does not self-heal. It pits, it marks, and it deflects: a steel target has to be angled, engaged with shot rather than solid projectiles, and shot from beyond a stated minimum distance, and none of that is optional. The range plan is part of the system, not an afterthought to it.

What steel buys is durability of a different order. A compound target is rated in hits and eventually reaches the end of them. Plate is rated in seasons. For a unit running a detail through repeated sorties, the arithmetic favours the plate, and the safety case is one range staff already know how to write because it is the one they write for every steel target on the range.

N.03

Scoring that does not need a referee

The clays are the scoring system. They sit in moulded seats along the target, and a hit that would have mattered against a real aircraft breaks one. From the firing point that is visible without optics and without anybody adjudicating it.

The plate itself is the second record. A steel strike rings, so a gunner knows immediately that they connected even when no clay went, and fresh marks are counted when the target is recovered. Two independent confirmations, neither of which requires the target to be instrumented.

That matters more than it sounds. Instrumented targets fail, disagree with each other, and turn a shoot into a data-reconciliation exercise. This one cannot: a clay is broken or it is not.

Employment

Where it is used

  • 01Counter-drone gunnery qualification
  • 02Air defence detachment work-up
  • 03Ship's close-range weapon training
  • 04Base and installation defence rehearsal
  • 05Law-enforcement and protective-detail training
  • 06Trials and doctrine development

What it will not do

Every sensing method has a blind spot. These are GARM’s, stated plainly. A capability you find out about in the field is worse than one you were told about here.

Steel deflects. Plan for it

This is not a self-healing compound and it does not pretend to be. Shot comes off a steel plate. The target is engaged with shot only, from beyond a stated minimum range, on a range plan written for steel. If your range cannot support that, this is the wrong target.

It is a target, not a drone

GARM presents the right size, height and speed. It does not manoeuvre like an aircraft under a pilot's hand, it does not evade, and it does not fly a profile nobody briefed. It trains the engagement, not the duel.

The carrier is the limiting factor

Sortie length, target mass and wind tolerance are set by the aircraft doing the lifting, not by the plate. A heavy target on a windy day is a short sortie, and the plate is not the part that decides that.

Somebody has to load the clays

Between runs the target comes down, gets reseated and goes back up. That is minutes rather than a repair cycle, but it is not nothing, and a shoot needs to be planned around it.

Specification
TARGET
ConstructionCut steel plate, drone-representative silhouette
FinishWeather-exposed. Strike marks are expected wear
Clay seatsMoulded holders, hand-loaded between sorties
Effect of hitsClays break. Plate is recovered and reflown
ConsumablesClay pigeons. Nothing else is expended
Plate lifeTBC
Clay capacityTBC
Target dimensionsTBC
Target massTBC
CARRIER
ConfigurationHeavy-lift multirotor
CarriageTarget slung well below the airframe
StandoffCarrier held clear of the engagement volume
ReleaseTarget jettison available in flight
ProfilesFlown to a briefed track, height and speed
Payload capacityTBC
EnduranceTBC
Sling lengthTBC
SCORING
PrimaryClay breaks. Unambiguous from the firing point
SecondaryAudible ring off the plate on a steel strike
Post-sortieFresh strike marks counted on recovery
AdjudicationNone required. A clay is broken or it is not
RecordingTBC
SAFETY & RANGE
AmmunitionShot only. No slug, no ball, no solid projectile
RicochetSteel deflects. A managed range plan is required
Minimum engagement rangeTBC
Firing arcBriefed. Carrier kept outside it at all times
AuthorityRange control retains abort. Carrier can jettison
ApprovalsRange-dependent. We support the safety case
Questions

Asked and answered

What buyers ask about passive detection, answered without the hedging. Anything not covered here, put to us directly.

Ask us something else
Q.01Why steel rather than a self-healing rubber target?

Durability, and honesty about the trade. A compound target absorbs shot and does not deflect, which is a genuine advantage, and it is rated in hits. Plate is rated in seasons. We took the longer-lived option and accepted that it needs a ricochet plan, which is the same plan a range already has for every other steel target on it.

Q.02What ammunition can be used against it?

Shot only. No slug, no ball and no solid projectile of any kind. This is a shotgun target flown at a shotgun engagement, and firing anything else at it is outside what the system is for.

Q.03Is the carrier at risk?

It is flown outside the briefed firing arc, and the target hangs well below it on a long sling. The target can also be released in flight. The arc and the standoff are part of the range brief, not something left to the pilot on the day.

Q.04How is a hit confirmed?

A clay breaks, which is visible from the firing point without optics. A steel strike also rings audibly, and fresh marks on the plate are counted when it is recovered. No instrumentation is involved and nothing needs adjudicating.

Q.05How long does a reset take?

Recover the target, seat fresh clays, hook on and fly. There is no repair step and no cure time. In practice the limit is how quickly the detail can walk out and back.

Q.06How many times can the plate be used?

TBC

Q.07Can it fly a specific threat profile?

The carrier flies a briefed track, height and speed, so the profile is set by whoever writes the serial. What it will not do is manoeuvre like an aircraft under a pilot's hand; it presents a target, it does not fight back.

Q.08What does a range need to approve this?

The safety case for a steel aerial target engaged with shot: minimum engagement range, firing arc, carrier standoff and the danger area behind the target. It is range-dependent, and we support the case rather than leaving you to write it.

Q.09Does it work at night or in poor visibility?

TBC

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Engagement

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