Skynex

Skynex is a static, networked counter-rocket-artillery-mortar and counter-drone air defence system built by Rheinmetall , introduced around 2021 as the successor to the company’s earlier Skyshield generation. It is designed for point defence of fixed sites — airbases, command posts, energy infrastructure, urban areas — against the low, slow and small threats that have come to dominate modern airspace: loitering munitions, quadcopters, cruise missiles, and unguided rockets and mortars. A typical battery pairs a single X-TAR3D search radar and a Skymaster command post with up to four 35 mm Oerlikon Revolver Gun Mk3 turrets, distributed across the protected area and slaved to the same fire-control picture.

The technical heart of the system is the combination of the Revolver Gun Mk3 with AHEAD programmable ammunition. The cannon fires at roughly 1,000 rounds per minute, and each AHEAD round is programmed in the muzzle by an inductive coil that sets a time fuse based on the radar’s instantaneous range to the target. At the calculated point, the projectile ejects a cone of 152 tungsten sub-projectiles into the path of the incoming threat, producing a dense cloud of metal rather than relying on a direct hit. This makes the system effective against very small targets — including the foam-and-plywood airframes of one-way attack drones — without the cost or magazine depth problems of using surface-to-air missiles for the same job. The X-TAR3D provides the 3D track, while the Skymaster node handles threat evaluation, weapon assignment, and integration with higher-echelon air-defence networks.

Ukraine has been the most visible operator. Germany ordered Skynex units for its own inventory and committed two systems to Kyiv, the first of which arrived in late 2023 and entered service defending sites against Russia’s mass Shahed-136 and Geran-2 raids. Operators have publicly described the system as one of the more reliable means of stopping the drones before they reach their targets. Egypt is also a confirmed customer, with Skynex variants ordered for protection of strategic infrastructure, and Rheinmetall has marketed the system into other Gulf and European programmes.

Development continues around the same Revolver Gun core. Rheinmetall offers Skynex in fixed and relocatable configurations, and the cannon is shared with the company’s mobile Skyranger 30 turret, allowing customers to mix point and manoeuvre air defence under a common ammunition and fire-control logic. In a market crowded with directed-energy demonstrators and missile-based counter-drone systems, Skynex’s distinguishing argument remains the per-engagement cost of an AHEAD burst against a 50,000-dollar drone — and the fact that it has now been doing that work, in volume, in a real war.