Europe is making a cheap anti-drone rocket for Ukraine that blasts a cloud of steel balls

• A European manufacturer has been ramping up production of an airburst warhead for its 70mm rocket.
• The FZ123 warhead disperses thousands of small steel balls that intercept an enemy drone.
• Business Insider visited Thales Belgium to get a closer look at the warhead and its rockets.

Ukraine’s drone war is fueling the rise of a new rocket in Europe: a helicopter-fired munition tweaked to create a small steel cloud in the sky.

As Russia barrages Ukraine with growing waves of Shahed one-way attack drones, European weapons manufacturer Thales has been fitting an airburst warhead on its 70mm rockets to counter such threats.

The new FZ123 warhead is filled with thousands of tiny steel pellets blasted out by two pounds of high-explosive material.

When the warhead detonates, the pellets burst out in an area of about 80 feet in diameter to take down a drone or drone swarm, much like the way birdshot spreads from a shotgun shell. Depending on how far the rocket has been flying, the steel balls can be spread even wider.

Ukrainian troops rely on shotguns to shoot small drones at extremely close range. Similarly, the rocket-carried warhead is an inexpensive means to destroy NATO-standard Class II drones — which include the Shahed — and heavier Class III drones at up to 10,000 feet away with air bursts.

The FZ123 was unveiled last year during the Eurosatory 2024 defense exhibition in Paris. Thales Belgium hosted Business Insider at one of its production facilities in the eastern city of Herstal to give us a closer look at the warhead and its delivery rockets.

Thomas Colinet, Thales Belgium’s domain director for vehicles and tactical systems, confirmed that the weapon is being deployed in Ukraine, and that Kyiv’s demand is greater than what the firm can produce.

“The good thing for us is, if they are asking for more, it means they are happy with it,” said Colinet.

Costlier than drones, cheaper than missiles

Ukraine, hard-pressed for cost-effective defenses against Russia’s Shahed waves, has also been building new types of first-person-view drones that fly fast enough to catch up to the loitering munitions and intercept them.

These interceptor drones typically cost $500 each, and it’s rare for one to be more expensive than $5,000.

By comparison, 70mm rockets are far costlier than interceptor drones but much cheaper and easier to make than missiles. More recently, the US used such munitions to destroy about 40% of the Houthi drones it intercepted over the Red Sea.

Thales Belgium declined to reveal the cost estimate for its 70mm rockets with the FZ123 warhead. But even its most expensive rockets, with laser guidance kits, are generally a fifth the cost of a conventional missile. Cheaper air defense missiles, such as the AIM-7 Sparrow, cost roughly $125,000 each.

“I will not give numbers, of course, but if you have to compare that to a missile? There is no fight. The rocket is kind of a low-cost missile,” Colinet said of the cost.

He also declined to say how many warheads have been sent to Kyiv’s forces. Thales Belgium’s production capacity, however, can provide some clues.

The FZ123 is one of the warheads that can be delivered via Thales’ laser-guided 70mm rocket originally made for attack helicopters.

Thales Belgium aims to produce roughly 3,500 of these rockets by the end of the year, and hopes to scale up to an annual capacity of 10,000 by 2026.

The anti-drone warhead can also be fitted onto an unguided version of the 70mm rocket, of which Thales Belgium says it can now build 30,000 a year. If its Herstal factory works double shifts, it might reach an annual capacity of 60,000, though its suppliers would also have to step up production.

Still, this doesn’t mean all of these rockets carry the anti-drone warhead — Thales Belgium also builds air-to-ground and ground-to-ground variants. Some of its 70mm rockets, for example, are used to destroy uncrewed ground vehicles deployed by Russia.

The company also sells some of the rockets to its regular customers in Europe and some non-NATO countries, such as India.

How the FZ123 and its rockets work

Compatible with standard NATO 70mm launchers, the rockets are currently fired by Ukraine’s Vampire systems, which are multibarrel launchers manufactured by L3Harris that can be mounted on trucks.

Some versions are also fired by Ukrainian MI-8 helicopters that were retrofitted to shoot NATO munitions.

Truck-mounted 70mm rocket batteries with the FZ123 could be useful for point defense, and helicopters can fluidly intercept drones in flight with these short-range weapons.

The laser-guided rocket faces some challenges. To down a Russian attack drone, Ukrainian troops will have to consistently illuminate their target until the rocket reaches it, when a proximity or impact fuze would detonate the warhead.

Moscow’s forces have recently started flying Shaheds at higher altitudes and often pick nights with bad weather conditions for big waves, making the drones harder to track and destroy. Still, this difficulty applies to many other air defense systems.

Olivier Heuschen, head of strategy and marketing for vehicles and tactical systems at Thales Belgium, said that if the 70mm guided rocket can’t detect a laser, it flies toward its last-known target for five seconds before continuing in ballistic flight.

Scrambling to meet skyrocketing demand

With drone warfare concerns soaring in Europe, Thales has been surging rocket production, increasing staff by fivefold in the last five years to about 300 employees at its Herstal plant. Heuschen said it also plans to work with Ukraine to assemble and repair some 70mm rockets there, an agreement announced in November by officials in Kyiv.

A series of high-profile drone incursions over the last month in Poland, Denmark, and Romania has heightened anxieties even further.

Alain Quevrin, country director for Thales Belgium, said his company has been fielding an “unbelievable” flood of inquiries about the 70mm rocket this week.

The firm, owned by the French-headquartered Thales Group, is the only main builder of 70mm rockets in Europe.

“All the European countries are showing interest, for sure,” Quevrin said.

When Poland reported more than a dozen Russian drone incursions within one night, NATO scrambled fighter jets, including F-35s, to intercept the platforms.

At least some of these drones were found to be decoy versions of the Shahed.

Ukrainian military bloggers balked at the cost of the missiles reportedly used — million-dollar AIM-120 air-to-air munitions, and Warsaw and Copenhagen have since announced partnerships to learn how Ukraine produces cost-efficient drone defenses.

“They are really raising questions,” Quevrin said of the countries asking about the 70mm rocket. “‘Do we have the right system to address this concern?'”

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