RAF eyes cheap drone-killer as Typhoon jet tests laser-guided rockets

BAE Systems has successfully tested a laser-guided rocket system with a Typhoon fighter jet from Britain's Royal Air Force (RAF) as a potential anti-drone weapon. It follows earlier trials in the US with the F-15E Strike Eagle. The defense firm says that it conducted tests at its development center in Lancashire, England, …

[the spectacularly refined chap]

It's probably ridiculous but $40,000 still sounds expensive to me. What's wrong with the cannon, or is that purely for ornamentation these days?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cannon

It's very difficult to hit a small target with a cannon, especially when there is a large difference in flying speed.

Typical drone speeds are ~100mph but a Typhoon or other military jet becomes difficult to control at speeds less than 250 kias. One of my friends has experience of flying F4 Phantoms over Germany and he has some interesting tales of trying to intercept slow flying aircraft (~100 knots) crossing from East to West Germany when he was struggling to control the Phantom at 250 knots.

Given the effective range of cannon fire (about 500m) and the fact that the Typhoon only has 150 rounds it's not going to be easy. You have about 6 seconds to acquire the (very small) target and shoot it down even at Typhoon minimum control speeds of ~250 knots.

In WW2 the original Hawker Tempests (follow on to the Typhoon) and late mark Spitfires found it difficult to shoot down V1s due to the small size.

For the trolls, I have both flying experience and 20+ years working with the RAF.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Cannon

Grapeshot would change your odds.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Cannon

An array of tethered hot-air balloons staffed by gentlemen with blunderbusses

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Cannon

>Typical drone speeds are ~100mph but a Typhoon or other military jet becomes difficult to control at speeds less than 250 kias.

Introducing the new Camel air defence fighter, featuring a fully analogue cockpit with unimpeded direct vision support and a dual redundant wing design

[Martin an gof]

Re: Cannon

(Camel)

Where is Biggles when you need him?

M.

[Dizzy Dwarf]

Re: Cannon

And where the hell was Biggles when you needed him last Saturday?

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Camel air defence fighter

Best not get BAE Systems to build it. They certainly could, but for £££ millions

[ChrisC]

Re: Camel air defence fighter

Which would give the beancounters in Westminster the right hump when it came to paying for it...

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Fairey Swordfish

Another one to dust off the blueprints for:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Swordfish

The Royal Navy could do with a few of these to patrol the waters around Blighty and escort vessels from unfriendly countries.

May be one day it could add a Russian or US warship to it's battle honours to join with the Bismarck

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Fairey Swordfish

Having sunk German and Italian fleets, surely it needs to get the French to complete the hat trick?

[DS999]

Re: Cannon

Its difficult for a HUMAN to hit a small target with a cannon.

Sounds like a perfect job for a computer though - the pilot just needs to identify "that's what I'm shooting at" and then the computer tracks it from then on and when firing accounts for the effect of the motion of the jet, air resistance, gravity, etc. on the projectile and leads the target as necessary. There's cost associated with that targeting computer but the projectiles are still very cheap.

I think this is basically what the Phalanx/CIWS does. Just need a scaled down version of that, and it'll have to handle more relative motion of the "cannon" than this ship mounted weapon does.

[druck]

Re: Cannon

And be able to lock on to the miniscule radar signature from a drone compared to what a Phalanx/CIWS normally defends against.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Cannon

A drone is no bigger than a wamp rat, that's impossible even for a computer

[DS999]

Re: Cannon

Radar, visual, IR, LIDAR...it would/should have multiple bands to acquire the target.

In addition since this is a jet wanting to kill the drone it isn't like it NEEDS over the horizon kill capability so long as it is hitting the target when it does acquire it. If it has to wait for the drone to get within a few miles that's fine. Ditto for any missiles the drone might fire.

[herman]

Re: Cannon

There already are optical tracking guns that can do this. For example the Bullfrog gun: https://m.youtube.com/shorts/LwNtjRH4PJA

[Tubz]

Re: Cannon

What you need is an inexpensive turboprop plane, with a Phalanx/CIWS turret in the rear being able to fire forward, side an mostly rear, as in the classic Boulton Paul Defiant WW2 fighter, it can carry thousands of rounds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulton_Paul_Defiant

[David Hicklin]

Re: Cannon

> turret in the rear being able to fire forward, side an mostly rear,

Being able to fire backwards would be a big advantage to avoid any resulting explosion of you shooting it down, plus it would be a zero deflection job.

I guess any WW2 bomber with a rear turret would do the job

[LogicGate]

Re: Cannon

"What you need is an inexpensive turboprop plane"

The problem with all slower platforms is that by the time you have intercepted your target it may already be too late, or the next target may just have shown up on the radar 200 km in the other direction.

Speed has a value in such a situation.

Also, simple ammunition will not stop if it misses the target, and may end up doing quite a bit of damage.

Smart munition with self destruction etc is not cheap, so the savings vs. a lower cost guided missile may not be that great.

Finally, I suspect that mass manufacture may bring the cost of these missiles down substantially. Build few and each item is gold plated.

[herman]

Re: Cannon

It already exists. Optical tracking guns mounted in helicopters are used to shoot UAVs down.

[may_i]

Re: Cannon

Already exists. From SAAB and called "Loke".

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Cannon

How much easier is it to target the drone with a laser? The difference in speed is still the same and the target needs to remain designated until the missile gets there.

[druck]

Re: Cannon

It's far easier to stabilise the targetting optics and the mirror in a laser designator than any on board kinetic weapon system, and time of flight for air to air is very short in any case.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Cannon

Thanks. I take it that something the size of a drone can still be targetted from far enough away that the result isn't - errm - embarrassing for the pilot.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Cannon

>How much easier is it to target the drone with a laser?

It means you can put all the large, heavy, power consuming tracking gear on the fighter and a simple laser detector on the missile

And you don't have to explode all that expensive kit on every shot

[cageordie]

Re: Cannon

High powered lasers are very difficult to put on aircraft, or even in small vehicles. They require a lot of power. That's likely a technology for the future though, a couple of anti drone lasers have been announced.

[ChrisC]

Re: Cannon

That's a valid answer if you're thinking about using the laser to attack the target directly, whereas what's being discussed here is merely being able to use the laser to *track* the target in order to allow the guided rocket to solve the attack part of the equation...

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

Re: Cannon

Given the effective range of cannon fire (about 500m)

That is a lot less than I expected!

Another problem is that if you're forced to engage over populated areas, those (uncontrolled) rounds have to come down somewhere...

[Korev]

Re: Cannon

>> Given the effective range of cannon fire (about 500m)

> That is a lot less than I expected!

And not forgetting that drone will probably be full of fuel and explosive

[BBRush]

Re: Cannon

Then why mount them on Typhons? The RAF has an existing platform that would work for this with an existing rep for low intensity/CoIn warfare: Tucano. It's also much cheaper to buy and fly than the Typhoon and, with a back-seater, they could handle the weapons leaving the pilot free to fly.

Or just do what Ukraine has done and mount a minigun in an AN-24 and fly alongside the drones to shoot them.

[ChrisC]

Re: Cannon

Texan, not Tucano (the former replacing the latter a few years ago).

As for why Typhoon, a few thoughts come to mind - it already has a laser designator, weapons hardpoints, and all the other stuff required to fire a rocket in the first place (beyond a "bit" of integration work to enable use of this specific type of weapon), it has the performance to close in on the drones earlier in their flightpath towards their intended targets, it provides the pilot with more options than the mere Mk.1 eyeball for being able to locate the drones prior to starting laser designation, and it still provides all of its existing air defence capabilities so wouldn't be a sitting duck if your enemy decided to sneak in a fighter or two amongst the drone swarm.

[BBRush]

Wolverine....

No argument there, integration with the Typhoon's existing kit would be possible, but there is already a version of the Texan (AT 6x Wolverine, and yes, I went down the Wikipedia rabbithole a bit looking up stuff after your tip!) that has all the necessary stuff for exactly this type of role. I think even the Afghan Air Force used them at one point before the withdrawl.

I'd be interested to see a price comparison based on conversion/integration time/cost for the Typhoon compared to purchase price/delivery time for the AT 6. Flight time would be way cheaper, same with maintenance costs. It's not like the pilots would need to be trained from the ground up either, they've already learned on them.

[Aladdin Sane]

Re: Wolverine....

Typhoon can meet the inbound drones much further out. 1,550 mph vs 364 mph

[ChrisC]

Re: Wolverine....

*Some* pilots will have already had experience with the Texan, *others* would have trained back in the Tucano days, and *none* will have had any experience (other than perhaps on exchange postings with other air forces) with the Wolverine variant, so either way there'd need to be at least a certain level of type training.

Whilst I agree it'd be easier to get a brand new pilot through training and qualified for anti-drone ops in a Wolverine than in a Typhoon, that's all they'd then be able to do, and right now the requirement for providing anti-drone defence doesn't justify creating a cadre of pilots capable of performing that role and that role only. So realistically it's going to come under the broader umbrella of air defence, which means the pilots who'd be flying anti-drone missions will need to be trained on Typhoon anyway...

[cageordie]

Too close!

To hit with the gun you need to get close. The rounds don't have much explosive, so even if you could proximity fuse them you'd still have to be an excellent shot. You'd also be heading straight for the thing that's about to turn into a cloud of shrapnel, so if you did hit you'd probably FOD your engines. I expect the drone killing version of APKWS would have a proximity fuze, and a lot more explosive. So that would mean getting quite close would be good enough, and it would still be a mile or more from you, plenty of time to avoid the results.

Last time I heard order value and shot count the maths worked out at $25k each. Prior to that it had been $20k. Maybe they have gone up again, or maybe this is a newer version more targeted to drones.

One thing is for sure, this takes an area weapon fired in pods and turns it into a one shot per target solution. I've seen video from Vietnam where they were firing four pods of Hydra in one pass just to suppress a target, keep their heads down. They spread all over the general area. Much cheaper to fire one, even if the one costs much more than a single Hydra. Google says a Hydra is a little under $3k and APKWS is $24,900 to $30,000. A pod of 19, as carried by UH1s in Vietnam, would cost about $57k to fire and maybe miss with all of them. So, $30k is half the price to achieve what you need, and you can do it another 18 times. Glad I'm not paying the bill though. Each one costs more than my car.

[TDog]

Re: Too close!

Well my car is lovingly pre owned (yerch). Not sure I would want a pre-owned APKWS, no matter if it had had only one lady vicar as the driver, who polished it religiously on every sabbath.

[IvyKing]

V-1's were defeated by radar controlled cannon

The combination of radar controlling guns via analog computers and shells equipped with proximity fuses downed enough of the incoming V-1's to allow fighter planes to mop up a good fraction of the rest. OTOH, rockets don't have the problems of extreme acceleration inherent with cannons and could allow for a larger explosive charge. With a proximity fuse, the guided rocket just has to get close.

[Aladdin Sane]

Re: V-1's were defeated by radar controlled cannon

They were defeated by number of things:

1. A layered defence system (fighters over the channel, AAA at the coast with radar and proximity fuses, another layer of fighters then barrage balloons).

2. Nazi agents in the UK were tasked with reporting where V-1s were falling. All of these agents had been turned so they reported that the V-1s were overshooting London. This meant that the targeting was shortened, leading to most V-1s not being able to reach London

3. Launch sites close enough to launch V-1s into Britain were captured as Allied forces pushed deeper into Europe (though that led to Brussels and Antwerp being targeted).

[EvilDrSmith]

The Ukrainians lost an F16 engaged in shooting down drones, with the speculation (last time I checked) being that it ingested debris from the drone / was otherwise damaged by the debris after the drone was destroyed.

Shooting down a drone with a cannon generally means getting in close.

[I ain't Spartacus]

EvilDrSmith,

Not only did Ukraine lose an F-16 (last Spring I think), they also lost a couple of Mig-29s in the first couple of months of the war, trying to take out Shahed drones with cannon. They carry at least 50kg of boom, as well as fuel - and enthusiastically scatter themselves in the direction of your engine intakes, if you're not careful. If you're dealing with cruise missiles, then you're around half a tonne of boom, with even more fuel, and that can get really messy - as was discovered in WWII, when the RAF were trying to shoot down V1s.

Plus, a rocket can have a fragmentation warhead.

I've also just read that BAE are doing a backup IR sensor for their APKWS kits, so that you can fire at multiple targets at once, with the plane moving its laser-designator between targets to keep the rockets on track, but presumably they do the final with their own sensor. But that sounds like a more complex software update than just adding a new weapons system and use for the targetting laser.

[Rol]

For the cost of a pigeon and some seed, you can get a very effective homing missile, as developed during WWII.

Alternatively, train seagulls to expect a bag of chips and some cigarette ends in every passing drone, and you could rule the skies.

[SnailFerrous]

Am I the only one who was expecting sharks with laser beams? Almost certainly cheaper than $40k.

[Paul Crawford]

Yea, but the flying fish tanks are not so cheap...

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Seagulls with laser beams !

[OrientalHero]

Until someone one unwraps their fish n chips in the open... :)

For the trollers also ;) , I've had personal experience with a very large gull at Brighton where I ate less of my fish n chips than I desired. It didn't need the laser to win that contention for resource!

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of many years ago, in the 90s, I was an engineer and we (two of us) were doing a job near Southport, North West UK, and decided to pop down to the beach to park up and eat our just bought fish and chips.

Past experience meant after noticing many gulls circling above, we decided to stay in the (company) car whilst eating.

My colleague dropped a chip (in the UK, so chips, not fries) on the floor, and trust me the 3 second rule did not apply for the car floor! And to avoid standing on it by accident, he picked it up and placed it on the top of the plastic dashboard, under the windshield, for later disposal.

For about the next 10 minutes or so, while we ate, we watched with amusement as gull after gull basically dive-bombed us trying to get at that chip, followed by them bouncing of the windscreen looking a little surprised!

We did eventually put them out of their misery (in the good sense), and threw the chip. along with a few other food scraps (not the paper, that went in the bin), out of the windows, and watched the gulls in a frantic feeding frenzy for the minute or so that it took them to eat everything.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Vultures

Of the winged variety, not those of The Register would have a larger payload capacity and are adapt at soaring, so can loiter on station for hours

[The Man Who Fell To Earth]

Failure

It's pretty obvious that after all these years and billion of dollars, directed energy weapons don't cut it. Probably because they can't direct enough energy fast enough to compete with a bullet or chunk of shrapnel in terms of damaging the target sufficiently to prevent it from completing it's mission.

[the spectacularly refined chap]

Re: Failure

directed energy weapons don't cut it. Probably because they can't direct enough energy fast enough to compete with a bullet or chunk of shrapnel

Keep still will you!

[cageordie]

Re: Failure

If you search for laser drone defense you'll find you haven't been paying enough attention. But they are high value targets, whereas most military combat aircraft could fire Hydra.

[SnailFerrous]

Re: Failure

Military types still really want them though, because they are just so darn cool.

Zap! Kaboom!

The development money will keep flowing.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Failure

The Man Who Fell To Earth,

Actually it's pretty obvious that laser weapons are now working and being deployed. Just that I've read about, the UK and Japan are deploying existing systems to ships in the next couple of years (UK was tested on an operational frigate in 2024. The US have one fitted to an Arleigh Burke destroyer, although I don't know if that's a test unit, or an early production model - given I thought the US Navy had plumped for a microwave anti-drone device for their ships. US Army also have a few laser anti-drone units, either early production or test.

However most planes don't generate sufficient electricity for the purpose. The US F47 program and GCAP/Tempest program are supposed to be getting fancy new engines with extra power generation that can allow them to be equipped with lasers. But whether there's a mount light enough to install on a fighter is something I've no idea about - the naval / ground turrets don't look that heavy though.

Only problem is, they're always going to be short range, and suffer attenuation because of weather or smoke. So can only ever be part of a layered defence, and not the only weapon available.

[Anonymous Coward]

I found plans on the internet that use the guts of a microwave and a pringles can.

[neilg]

Didn't you try to use AI?

?

[elsergiovolador]

BYE

BAE says trials could offer cheaper way to counter uncrewed aerial threats

The aerial threats are crewed, just the crew is sitting somewhere in the bunker. BAE wants to develop a system targeting the arrows, but more effective way would be dealing with the archers instead.

Sure, knocking arrows out of their path seems cool and probably valid first line of defence. But if you lobbed old fashioned missile where the arrows come from, that would be much more effective and lasting.

[cageordie]

Re: BYE

Ukraine certainly targets the operators, when they find them. There have been quite a few videos of drone facilities being hit on youtube. But when a drone turns up near you it's too late to find the person guiding it. There are also autonomous drones. Just like missiles, but not s fast.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: BYE

Even autonomous drones have crew, but sure fair point.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: BYE

elergiovolador,

As the recent war with Iran has shown, even shooting the archers doesn't let you get away with not having a defence. US and Israeli airstrikes reduced Iran's missile firing rate by 95% after just a couple of days. But never to zero. The only way you're going to kill the archers permanently is to take the ground they operate on - where that's not an option you will require a combination of both attack and defence.

The huge advantage of installing your defence on an aircraft, is that these aircraft can move at mach 2. Thus you don't have to defend the entire country with horribly expensive long range SAMs, or spend vast amounts of money and personnel on huge numbers of short range, but cheaper systems. You can use a layered combination of fighters and helicopters, plus short range guns at vital strategic points and long range missiles for the expensive threats or a cheap drone that might reach a vital target.

It's the old equation of a static defence, as opposed to a mobile one. If you try to be strong everywhere, you'll be strong nowhere.

[CheesyTheClown]

What would this be used for?

In warfare, you wouldn't use 1 big drone, only the US or the UK would do that. You would use 1000 small drones that are so small these missiles would miss and the drones would explode in the engines of the plane. Or you'd be using a $40,000 missile to shoot down a $300 drone. If I were the opposition, I'd really look forward to seeing who lasts longer in that game.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: What would this be used for?

In warfare, you wouldn't use 1 big drone, only the US or the UK would do that.

I don't know if you've been asleep since 2022 - I accept most people hadn't been following developments in drone warfare before the full scale invasion of Ukraine.

But Iran and Russia, have made extensive use of large drones, costing around $50k - Russia fire hundreds of them a night into Ukraine. They're called Geran, but based on the Iranian Shahed drone, which they first bought in large numbers, and then began licensed production of.

Iran's Shahed was allegedly somewhat copied from a ten year older Israeli drone, some of which they captured. And just this year the US government revealed that they'd copied the Shahed, and have spend the last month launching a few thousand of them back at Iran.

Meanwhile Turkey came up the Bayraktar ten years ago, a bit bigger admittedly, which Azerbaijan used incredibly effectively against Armenia in the 2nd Nagorno-Karabakh war in 2020 - and then Ukraine used to good effect back in 2022 - after Russia invaded, but before they got their air defence organised.

Both Britain and the US have multiple cheap drone projects, an example being Octopus - which is designed to be shipped by the hundreds of thousands to Ukraine and cost about $10k. It's just gone into production as well. That's an anti-drone drone or drone interceptor.

Finally, $1,000 drones are incredibly short ranged (just a few miles) and have tiny payloads. They're good for killing soldiers on the front line, or making resupply and movement difficult - they're not a strategic (or even operational) level weapon. Short range tactical only. Those you'd want to deal with the same guns you would use on the nearby enemy. Rockets on fighters is for hitting cruise missiles and mid-priced drones doing the same job.

[Boothy]

Re: What would this be used for?

These are specifically for going after the larger drones, such as the Shahed's and similar. i.e. fixed wing, not very manoeuvrable, not the quad-copter type $300 drones, those need a different solution.

Plus how on earth would these small drones, that can do typically 50 to 200 miles per hour, explode in the engine of a jet that is around 2-8km away (the min-max effective range of the missiles) and cruising at around 3 times or more of the speed of these drones? Even top end interceptor drones max out at around 280mph, nowhere near fast enough to catch any jet in cruise, and as far as I know, the only aircraft flying drones have shot down so far have been a few helicopters, mainly by flying in front of them.

The only jets I know of that have been shot down by drones, were from boat drones fitted with anti-aircraft missiles.

Also the Hydra 70 rockets that these APKWS kits fit to, can be fitted with both Air burst (timed) and Proximity Air burst fuses, along with things like Flechette warheads (usually for anti-personal), so they do not need to hit the target, just get close enough. Add to that the accuracy is stated (warwingsdaily) as being around 0.5 meters, and the Shahed 136 and derivatives (in active use with Iran and Russia) as an example of an expected target, has a length of 3.5 metres and a width of 2.5 metres, so a pretty big target well within the stated accuracy.

So no, you would not be using a $40,000 missile to shoot down a $300 drone, that's a different use case, and not relevant to this APKWS rocket system.

[khjohansen]

How drones @50mph end up in jet engines (300+mph)

You'll find that your very fast jet have to be pointed vaguely in the direction of the target at some point - thus it is not the drone catching the jet, it's the opposite!

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: How drones @50mph end up in jet engines (300+mph)

You'll find that your very fast jet have to be pointed vaguely in the direction of the target at some point - thus it is not the drone catching the jet, it's the opposite!

Only very briefly though. The advantage of a laser guided rocket is that the laser is on a rotating turret, somewhere under the fighter. Which means that the fighter can point in any direction it chooses, after firing, so long as it presents its underside to the drone.

In general, you don't fly fighters over enemy territory at low level because of MANPADs (man portable surface-to-air missiles) - which are considered to be able to get up to around 10,000 feet. They are much more dangerous than $100 (or even $1,000) drones. Short of arranging a very clever trap, those kind of drones are only really a threat to jet fighters at landing and take off. Because they don't have the speed, or altitude ceiling, to be able to get at them. Also fighters aren't going to be targetted at them, because they're too hard to detect, normally used too close to enemy ground forces (who have air defences) and not worth the weapons a fighter carries. You deal with the small cheap stuff with a combination of guns and defensive measures (anti-drone nets, bunkers). And also the cheaper drone interceptors.

Fighters are going after things like Shaheds, at a minimum. Which are cheaper, and less capable, cruise missiles.

Of course, the Russians have now started mounting small air-to-air weapons on some of their Shahed variants. Either MANPADs, or even proper short range air-to-air missiles. However, Geran (their Shahed variant) doesn't have radar, or even IRST (infra-red search and track) - so this is going to have to get very lucky to target a fighter directly, by camera only, and is more likely aimed at helicopters and and interceptor drones.

Also, the more complex and expensive crap you mount on your el cheapo one-way attack drones, the more expensive they become and the less good they are as a tool of asymetric warfare. Not that Russia are using them for that though, they're just unable to win their war through conventional means, and rather than make peace on favourable terms have resorted to terror-bombing civilians - despite how ineffective that has proven to be as a tactic for the last 110 years that it's been tried. It would also be cheaper to that terror bombing with the actual strategic bombers that Russia owns many of, but they're unable to overcome Ukraine's air defence in order to do so, and are having to resort to the cheapest method they have the technology and training to operate. At what point does it become cheaper to mass produce whatever their cheapest cruise/ballistic missile is and just use that instead - as they put more and more tech into their Geran variants and make them more expensive. Remember a proper missile can carry a half-tonne warhead, Geran is only about 50kg.

[Oh Matron!]

Tenuous connection....

Flew a Venture T2 Glider at Salmesbury one VERY cold morning back in the 80s :-)

[werdsmith]

Re: Tenuous connection....

Yes, reading that BAE are testing at a Lancashire facility I immediately thought of Samlesbury. Is there anyone in the Blackburn/Preston area can confirm that there are Typhoons firing live ordnance there?

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Tenuous connection....

werdsmith,

If you don't hear anyone answer, it could be because they've been using the local gliders for target practise?

[the spectacularly refined chap]

Re: Tenuous connection....

Warton is more usual for final assembly and testing, although there is a runway at Samlesbury my understanding is it's more commuting style stuff - they do fly staff between sites. As seeing them generally no, the first thing they usually do is head out over the Irish Sea - sonic booms and all that. If you see fighter jets they're generally RAF heading too/from the Lakes for low level training rather than installation flights from BAE.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lancashire, England

Is that England, UK?

[LogicGate]

Re: Lancashire, England

nope, it is England - Wisconsin

Known as the hometown of the worlds largest trashcan, as well as a riveting friday night Bingo.