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> I think that days of big expensive aircraft like modern fighters / bombers are numbered. They will likely be replaced with a swarm of drones, which are smalle

> I think that days of big expensive aircraft like modern fighters / bombers are numbered. They will likely be replaced with a swarm of drones, which are smaller, cheaper and harder to detect. For $100M (the price of just one fighter) you can field 10000 cheap drones and literally blot out the sun over the field of battle. Maybe that's true of regional militaries. The US wants to be able to project power - often quite far from bases. The drones you're talking about just don't have much of a range. I'm not saying they won't be used - I'm sure they will be. But there will also be much larger and more expensive drones as well.

jon-wood 6y ago
I could see a hybrid approach, where a bunch of drones are loaded into a mothership, possibly a repurposed bomber with a bomb bay full of drones. That gives you local control of the swarm, and a way to deliver them over much longer range.
- ohkaiby 6y ago
  CARRIER HAS ARRIVED
  - Alekhine 6y ago
    Headline: America switches to Protoss, rushes Fleet Beacon.
- xnyan 6y ago
  You've pretty much described the F-35 doctrine that the US is developing. The only major difference is that an aircraft carrier or some other ship holds the drones before launch, which makes sense as the you already need the carrier to launch the flight controller craft (the F-35)
- imtringued 6y ago
  Come on, let's be serious. What makes your idea distinct from existing weapon systems? Instead of making up new names for old things just look up what is serving the same purpose as your idea. "Drones" are just guided bombs or missiles. "Motherships" are just fighter jets or bombers.
reitzensteinm 6y ago
This may result in a situation that strongly favors the defender. If it takes ten drones to shoot down a fighter but they're only 1% the cost, countries that otherwise can't project air power internationally may become capable of defending themselves at home.
- nordsieck 6y ago
  > This may result in a situation that strongly favors the defender. If it takes ten drones to shoot down a fighter but they're only 1% the cost, countries that otherwise can't project air power internationally may become capable of defending themselves at home. This exists already. Those "drones" are more commonly called surface-to-air missiles. The limited factor is targeting: as has been well publicized, modern aircraft have been engineered with stealth in mind, which means they need to be quite close to radars before they can be detected. The solution, which was discovered in Yugoslavia, is to use low frequency radar to detect the stealth aircraft, and wait until they get close enough (defense in depth is necessary here!) before turning on your target grade radar at the last moment. As you might imagine, this is a difficult and dangerous process, and so has only been successfully accomplished once.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    So you're saying ground based defense systems should engage in stealth as well? Attackers use stealth but can also easily spot and fly around known defense systems.
caycep 6y ago
This reminds me of The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson...maybe not nanobots yet...but still..

jon-wood 6y ago

I could see a hybrid approach, where a bunch of drones are loaded into a mothership, possibly a repurposed bomber with a bomb bay full of drones. That gives you local control of the swarm, and a way to deliver them over much longer range.

ohkaiby 6y ago
CARRIER HAS ARRIVED
- Alekhine 6y ago
  Headline: America switches to Protoss, rushes Fleet Beacon.
xnyan 6y ago
You've pretty much described the F-35 doctrine that the US is developing. The only major difference is that an aircraft carrier or some other ship holds the drones before launch, which makes sense as the you already need the carrier to launch the flight controller craft (the F-35)
imtringued 6y ago
Come on, let's be serious. What makes your idea distinct from existing weapon systems? Instead of making up new names for old things just look up what is serving the same purpose as your idea. "Drones" are just guided bombs or missiles. "Motherships" are just fighter jets or bombers.

reitzensteinm 6y ago

This may result in a situation that strongly favors the defender. If it takes ten drones to shoot down a fighter but they're only 1% the cost, countries that otherwise can't project air power internationally may become capable of defending themselves at home.

nordsieck 6y ago
> This may result in a situation that strongly favors the defender. If it takes ten drones to shoot down a fighter but they're only 1% the cost, countries that otherwise can't project air power internationally may become capable of defending themselves at home. This exists already. Those "drones" are more commonly called surface-to-air missiles. The limited factor is targeting: as has been well publicized, modern aircraft have been engineered with stealth in mind, which means they need to be quite close to radars before they can be detected. The solution, which was discovered in Yugoslavia, is to use low frequency radar to detect the stealth aircraft, and wait until they get close enough (defense in depth is necessary here!) before turning on your target grade radar at the last moment. As you might imagine, this is a difficult and dangerous process, and so has only been successfully accomplished once.
- imtringued 6y ago
  So you're saying ground based defense systems should engage in stealth as well? Attackers use stealth but can also easily spot and fly around known defense systems.

caycep 6y ago

This reminds me of The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson...maybe not nanobots yet...but still..