Rostec claims its 30mm anti-drone gun beats Western rivals

Russian state defense conglomerate Rostec is pitching its new 30 mm ZAK-30 “Tsitadel” anti-drone gun as a direct competitor to Western systems such as Germany’s Skynex and the U.S.-made Phalanx, saying its combat use has shown advantages in automation, cost per shot, and effectiveness on the world market.

Rostec made the claim in a statement this week, arguing that each of the Western systems has drawbacks Tsitadel avoids. The company said Germany’s Skynex, which fires 35 mm AHEAD programmable rounds, produces a powerful cloud of fragments but is heavier and more expensive because of its larger caliber. It said the American Phalanx and its land-based version, the Counter-Rocket, Artillery and Mortar system known as C-RAM, fire at very high rates from 20 mm Vulcan Gatling guns but do not use programmable “smart” rounds, so they burn through more ammunition for each target.

Tsitadel fires 30 mm shells packed with shrapnel and fitted with a remotely set fuze. The system’s computer works out the best point on the drone’s flight path to detonate each shell, so the round bursts just ahead of the target and showers it with fragments, which Rostec says means fewer shells are needed per kill than with ordinary rounds. The gun finds and tracks targets with both radar and an electro-optical sensor that works in visible light and infrared, and Rostec says the process from detection to engagement is highly automated.

“The Russian programmable 30 mm shrapnel round creates a deadly cloud of fragments right in front of the drone. When fighting drones, economics are extremely important,” Russian military commentator Dmitry Kornev told the newspaper Izvestia.

Kornev also said Tsitadel’s accuracy and effectiveness put it far ahead of older systems such as Germany’s Gepard. Ukraine has used Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, supplied by Germany since 2022, as one of its main weapons against Russian Shahed-type attack drones.

Rostec first unveiled Tsitadel in May at a security forum near Moscow, describing it as a system for protecting fixed sites such as plants, depots and energy facilities from both multicopter and fixed-wing drones around the clock. Russian media have reported that the gun module appears to be based on the BM-30-D Spitsa weapon station with the 2A42 cannon used on Russian infantry fighting vehicles, and that the system can hit fixed-wing drones at up to about 1 km (0.6 miles) and small multicopters at up to about 800 meters (2,600 feet). Russian industry sources have also said a mobile version mounted on Ural trucks is planned. At the time of the unveiling, Rostec said the system had already been tested in real combat conditions during the war in Ukraine.

The Western systems Tsitadel is being compared with have their own combat records. Germany has supplied Skynex to Ukraine to protect key sites from Russian drones and cruise missiles, while the U.S. Navy has used Phalanx aboard warships and C-RAM has defended U.S. bases in Iraq and Afghanistan against rockets and mortars.