Posted on 11/13/2023 10:12:29 AM PST by Retain Mike
More recently, the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war have demonstrated the effectiveness of UASs. In those conflicts, unmanned systems have been used at a scale and sophistication far beyond those of any previous conventional war. UASs and loitering munitions (LMs) proved crucial to Azerbaijan’s victory. Ukraine’s Turkish-built Bayraktar drones grabbed headlines early in the 2022 invasion when they destroyed Russian vehicles with precision munitions.2 Russian Lancet-3 LMs have likewise been documented destroying high-value Ukrainian targets such as surface-to-air missile systems and howitzers.3
In addition to purpose-built systems, Ukrainian volunteer groups have used commercially purchased and custom-built unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) armed with obsolescent Soviet antitank hand grenades to great effect. One of these drones costs around $20,000 and boasts a four-kilometer range.4 This is comparable to the range of an antitank missile, but the drone is much cheaper—and, unlike a missile, it has the advantage of being reusable.
The threat, in other words, is considerable.
(Excerpt) Read more at usni.org ...
“Remember the Star Trek movie Inserection when drones were just science fiction?”
I never thought about them that way. I always thought of them as the future way of doing battle.
Drones are going to change the way ground wars are fought. There is no risk of life for a drone operator.
So the USMC needs to spend more time at the skeet range?
At the end of WW2 the Japanese built thousands of Kamikaze planes out of wood in preparation for the invasion. Wooden planes didn’t show up well on radar and would not set off the 5” AA shells the USN used so successfully against Vals and Zeroes. I can see a move back to more primitive designs in the electronic battlefield. Balsa RC planes with grenades attached. Canvas Biplanes.
Give ‘em no more than a year. Advances in portable (hummVee) lasers designed to take them down will kill them off easily.
Another five years after that and aerial superiority will be a thing of the past.
As to operators, another drone sent up to find the signals controlling the attackers will make it suicide to hold a remote. There is no security on those.
It’s all going to change when the robot drones walking and carrying machine guns get fielded. Worse when the FBI, ATF, LAPD, etc start using them. Better pile up some black tip.
“Even though they frequently operate from behind the frontlines, the drone controllers often leave an electronic trace if they aren’t careful, which allows the enemy to pinpoint and follow them, The Economist reported this week.
“A lot of people want to become drone pilots because they think the work is further back and safer,” one front-line commander told the outlet. “The reality is that it’s extremely dangerous to be flying battlefield drones.”
“Hummer,” a commander in Ukraine’s 47th brigade operating along the Zaporizhia front, told The Economist the Russians fire with everything they’ve got as soon as they identify a target.”
Laser weapons would be a suitable alternative against wood aircraft. Light them up well before they get close enough to deploy the onboard ordnance.
DEW (laser/microwave) applied from air to ground will serve as a counter-measure to vehicle borne lasers. The perpetual upgrades on either side keep the defense contractors in business.
You have to detect them first.
I believe Russia is trying to incorporate A.I. into them.
Supposedly they have some systems good enough…right now in use…that will take over when the suicide drone is close to the target. It can discern between other non-valuable and false targets like burned out hulks, or other vehicles, sheds etc and steer the drone to the correct target.
I’m sure the west is working on similar.
Really I don’t like this entire incorporating A.I. into military use. Seems like someone else already thought if the way this could go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5knSEDXDa_0
We need home-defense anti-drone ammo for our shotguns. Maybe some kind of netting packed into shot shells that will entangle them and bring them down. Regular ammo would pose a hazard to the neighbors; nets would not.
Rifle and gun fire.
I like it myself. Better than eating up humans. But no matter what one thinks. Its coming
Not necessarily.
Even with microprocessors, small drones are highly vulnerable.
I assure you that they’re working on ‘drone defense in a box’ that will be fielded in the coming months.
Additionally, counter fire upon the operators will be brutally swift & accurate.
The age of ‘cheap/effective’ offensive drones may already have passed.
Assuming, of course, that US DOD changes direction...
Counter fire aimed at operators depends on the operator having their transmitting antenna located where they are. A one hop relay results in the counter fire hitting around a telephone pole or a tree, or flying right by another flying drone acting as the relay.
When multiple relays moving in real time exist, and probably located over your own territory, it isn't so easy to launch counter battery fire. Particularly when the relays make it look like the transmitter is sitting in the middle of a friendly base.
Drones are here to stay, its time for the US forces to use the technology in every way possible.
But, it doesn't take a life if they are shot down, and they are relatively cheap. The main vunderablity of drone now is ECM, and with AI drones will be able to operate without communication with the base.
“Drones are going to change the way ground wars are fought. There is no risk of life for a drone operator.”
That’s a very static way of looking at it. The same was said about tanks.
Electronic Countermeasures are already a common component in the battel field because of drones. They don’t work so well when attacked electronically, and the operators are easy to find. Fox Hunting is a century old skill.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.