8 ms·

Even the MQ-9 has a top speed of 200 knots. Way too slow to overwhelm defenses. Most drones are hardly better than a typical fighter jet or a cruise missile. Cr

by foxyv 5y ago

Even the MQ-9 has a top speed of 200 knots. Way too slow to overwhelm defenses. Most drones are hardly better than a typical fighter jet or a cruise missile. Cruise missiles have been around for decades now and we have pretty good defenses for them. Drones cheap enough to be produced in massive quantities cannot carry enough payload to be effective against modern ships unless you are in such a short range you may as well shoot a shell at the target. However, the autonomous F-16 project is something else. Small radar cross section, datalink guided missiles, AIM-120Ds and ship killer missiles on an autonomous fighter platform is just scary.

ceejayoz 5y ago
> Way too slow to overwhelm defenses. Doesn't much matter if the battle group runs out of ammo. They've only got a few hundred anti-aircraft missiles between them; hundreds of drones wouldn't be fun to have to deal with. Imagine a thousand of something like these: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/kamikaze-drones-new-weapon-brings-power-peril-u-s-military-n1285415 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/kamikaze-drones-new-we... lining the Strait of Hormuz.
- enkid 5y ago
  They don't have to use a missile to shoot down every drone. [0] That being said, it's a good question, how many drones could a destroyer shoot down, between the missiles, CIWS systems and other defensive equipment? I have a feeling it's a lot, but I have nothing actually supporting that. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    CIWS has 1500 round magazines and fires 60-100 in a burst. As with the missiles, fairly easy to overload. I've no doubt a modern warship can shoot down a lot of drones, but at a few thousand bucks a pop, an adversary can field a lot of drones.
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      CIWS shoots bullets, which are cheaper than drones. Much much much cheaper than drones. EDIT: CIWS shoot 20mm autocannons, which are estimated to be $30 per shot.
      - lostlogin 5y ago
        > CIWS shoots bullets, which are cheaper than drones. Much much much cheaper than drones. Much cheaper until they run out. If (a big if) one drone can disable the ship, it’s all suddenly very worthwhile.
        dragontamer 5y ago
        Generally speaking, charging into an aimbot gatling gun that has the sensor-network + AI system to shoot down 500mph targets is a bad idea. Especially when said gatling gun reloads in just 4 minutes, you're over water with no terrain to hide behind except the horizon, the horizon is 30km out, and the supporting aircraft (E2-Hawkeye) can see 300km out because its the eye-in-the-sky. ------ Hoping that the enemy runs out of $30 bullets before you run out of $1000+ drones is... a bad bet I think
        lostlogin 5y ago
        That’s the strategy that has been employed by armies for a long time - see Vietnam, the WW2 eastern front and numerous other conflicts. But instead of equipment versus equipment it was lots of ill trained farmers versus relatively few well trained soldiers.
        dragontamer 5y ago
        I'm not entirely sure if the Russian strategy on the Eastern Front was a "good strategy", but the Russian soldiers at least had the benefit of knowing where the enemy was. A drone flying out to sea doesn't know where the enemy ships are. The horizon is 30km away to 50km, depending on how high the drone is flying. E2 Hawkeyes fly very high, so they see out 300km. Any reasonable fight will have the E2 Hawkeye spot the mass of drones long before the drones spot the ships. Once we account for how cheap bullets are and how effective they are on an aimbot (be it an F18 fighter or a CIWS on a ship), it seems impossible for a swarm of drones to even think about approaching any ship.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    > how many drones could a destroyer Destroyers aren't even anti-air. Cruisers are, since Cruisers have two CWIS per ship while Destoyers only have 1x CWIS.
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arleigh_Burke-class_destroyer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arleigh_Burke-class_destroyer absolutely perform air-defense roles. England's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_45_destroyer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_45_destroyer are primarily in an anti-air and anti-missile role, even.
      - dragontamer 5y ago
        I was under the impression that modern Destroyers were a combination of air-defense and anti-submarine defenses. While Modern Cruisers were closer to specializing in the air-defense role. But yes, Destroyers have lots of anti-air on them for sure.
    - jeffdn 5y ago
      Yes, but CWIS isn't the only anti-air defense on a US Navy ship -- there's also the RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile, as well as vertically-launched anti-air missiles (RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile). CWIS is the weapon of last resort, after all of the other anti-air options have failed. Additionally, ships are usually not alone. The other vessels in the battlegroup will also provide their anti-air capabilities. If they are with an aircraft carrier, then there are also planes to provide air defense.
      - dragontamer 5y ago
        The alleged argument... is apparently that quadcopter drones are cheaper than missiles. So the enemy can always deploy more suicide quadcopter drones than missiles. ------ Which seems like an insanely bad strategy to me, because of the whole CIWS thing. Sure, you negate the usefulness of missiles by making drones cheaper, but you can't negate the cheapness of a CIWS, or the gatling gun of an F18 Hornet / F35B / F35C. That's why we still use guns today: because bullets are really, really cheap.
- panzagl 5y ago
  Anything you can fit in a backpack is not causing damage to a warship.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    That's also a good point. Warships have the thickest armor out of everything in our armory by a significant margin. The M1 Abrams has 350mm armor, the biggest, baddest tank of the US Army. The Arleigh Burke Destroyer doesn't have one armor plate like the M1 Abrams: it has multiple plates wrapping other plates wrapping its hull which wraps Kevlar to protect the people inside. It turns out that boats can just have much much thicker armor than any tank, because floating is much easier than moving with an engine.

by foxyv 5y ago

ceejayoz 5y ago

> Way too slow to overwhelm defenses. Doesn't much matter if the battle group runs out of ammo. They've only got a few hundred anti-aircraft missiles between them; hundreds of drones wouldn't be fun to have to deal with. Imagine a thousand of something like these: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/kamikaze-drones-new-weapon-brings-power-peril-u-s-military-n1285415 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/kamikaze-drones-new-we... lining the Strait of Hormuz.

enkid 5y ago
They don't have to use a missile to shoot down every drone. [0] That being said, it's a good question, how many drones could a destroyer shoot down, between the missiles, CIWS systems and other defensive equipment? I have a feeling it's a lot, but I have nothing actually supporting that. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  CIWS has 1500 round magazines and fires 60-100 in a burst. As with the missiles, fairly easy to overload. I've no doubt a modern warship can shoot down a lot of drones, but at a few thousand bucks a pop, an adversary can field a lot of drones.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    CIWS shoots bullets, which are cheaper than drones. Much much much cheaper than drones. EDIT: CIWS shoot 20mm autocannons, which are estimated to be $30 per shot.
    - lostlogin 5y ago
      > CIWS shoots bullets, which are cheaper than drones. Much much much cheaper than drones. Much cheaper until they run out. If (a big if) one drone can disable the ship, it’s all suddenly very worthwhile.
      - dragontamer 5y ago
        Generally speaking, charging into an aimbot gatling gun that has the sensor-network + AI system to shoot down 500mph targets is a bad idea. Especially when said gatling gun reloads in just 4 minutes, you're over water with no terrain to hide behind except the horizon, the horizon is 30km out, and the supporting aircraft (E2-Hawkeye) can see 300km out because its the eye-in-the-sky. ------ Hoping that the enemy runs out of $30 bullets before you run out of $1000+ drones is... a bad bet I think
        lostlogin 5y ago
        That’s the strategy that has been employed by armies for a long time - see Vietnam, the WW2 eastern front and numerous other conflicts. But instead of equipment versus equipment it was lots of ill trained farmers versus relatively few well trained soldiers.
        dragontamer 5y ago
        I'm not entirely sure if the Russian strategy on the Eastern Front was a "good strategy", but the Russian soldiers at least had the benefit of knowing where the enemy was. A drone flying out to sea doesn't know where the enemy ships are. The horizon is 30km away to 50km, depending on how high the drone is flying. E2 Hawkeyes fly very high, so they see out 300km. Any reasonable fight will have the E2 Hawkeye spot the mass of drones long before the drones spot the ships. Once we account for how cheap bullets are and how effective they are on an aimbot (be it an F18 fighter or a CIWS on a ship), it seems impossible for a swarm of drones to even think about approaching any ship.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  > how many drones could a destroyer Destroyers aren't even anti-air. Cruisers are, since Cruisers have two CWIS per ship while Destoyers only have 1x CWIS.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arleigh_Burke-class_destroyer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arleigh_Burke-class_destroyer absolutely perform air-defense roles. England's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_45_destroyer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_45_destroyer are primarily in an anti-air and anti-missile role, even.
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      I was under the impression that modern Destroyers were a combination of air-defense and anti-submarine defenses. While Modern Cruisers were closer to specializing in the air-defense role. But yes, Destroyers have lots of anti-air on them for sure.
  - jeffdn 5y ago
    Yes, but CWIS isn't the only anti-air defense on a US Navy ship -- there's also the RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile, as well as vertically-launched anti-air missiles (RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile). CWIS is the weapon of last resort, after all of the other anti-air options have failed. Additionally, ships are usually not alone. The other vessels in the battlegroup will also provide their anti-air capabilities. If they are with an aircraft carrier, then there are also planes to provide air defense.
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      The alleged argument... is apparently that quadcopter drones are cheaper than missiles. So the enemy can always deploy more suicide quadcopter drones than missiles. ------ Which seems like an insanely bad strategy to me, because of the whole CIWS thing. Sure, you negate the usefulness of missiles by making drones cheaper, but you can't negate the cheapness of a CIWS, or the gatling gun of an F18 Hornet / F35B / F35C. That's why we still use guns today: because bullets are really, really cheap.
panzagl 5y ago
Anything you can fit in a backpack is not causing damage to a warship.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  That's also a good point. Warships have the thickest armor out of everything in our armory by a significant margin. The M1 Abrams has 350mm armor, the biggest, baddest tank of the US Army. The Arleigh Burke Destroyer doesn't have one armor plate like the M1 Abrams: it has multiple plates wrapping other plates wrapping its hull which wraps Kevlar to protect the people inside. It turns out that boats can just have much much thicker armor than any tank, because floating is much easier than moving with an engine.