The allies attempt to “out-math” the Russians. Bullets are cheaper than Shaheds.
WES O’DONNELL
Aug 3, 2025
AFU
Every now and then, military history throws up a punchline so good you almost feel bad for laughing. Ukraine’s solution to Russia’s relentless Shahed drone blitz?
Not lasers, not AI, not even the “world’s most advanced” anything.
Instead: a 1970s West German self-propelled gun with two angry autocannons and a work ethic forged in the Cold War.
Today, let’s look at the Gepard, the 2025 MVP of Ukraine’s drone defense.
So how did a German tank-on-wheels become the gold standard for swatting Iranian drones out of the sky, and what does this mean for the future of air defense, when the attacks just keep getting bigger, faster, and cheaper? Let’s dig in.
The Gepard (“Cheetah” in German, which is honestly misleading given its top speed) is a Cold War artifact built to shoot down low-flying Soviet aircraft. Armed with twin 35-mm Oerlikon autocannons and a radar system that wouldn’t look out of place in a 1980s Bond movie, it was the pride of the West German air-defense arsenal in the days before anyone took drones seriously.
Fast-forward to 2022. Germany, under pressure from allies, starts shipping Gepards to Ukraine. In the months that followed, those “obsolete” gun tanks quickly proved they were anything but. Ukraine now operates about 80 Gepards, including nearly identical ex-Jordanian Cheetah SPAAGs, some routed through US military aid programs.
The actual count is constantly shifting, but deliveries continued through 2024 and are likely to push above that 80 mark as more are pulled from storage and refurbished. The goal is 110 units.
Ukraine’s air defenders call them “Shahed magnets.” Russian drone pilots just call them bad luck.
In fact, last month Germany sent 220,000 rounds of ammo for Ukraine’s Gepards. That might sound like a lot, but when a single Gepard can fire 1,100 rounds per minute, those projectiles go fast.