3 ms·

Shaped charges can blast a sizable hole through any material, likely big enough to fly the next drone through. Only so many hits to get through a hull.

kragen 4y ago
Yeah, in a realistic scenario, if the carrier can take out 360 drones before the drone wave reaches it, the adversary would launch 700 drones, not 361. I hadn't even thought about hitting the carrier in the same place over and over again. But supposedly carriers aren't even designed with thick armor?
- ThrowawayR2 4y ago
  If drones are so magically cheap, the carrier deploys its own magically cheap defensive drone swarm to protect itself when attacked by drones and remains unscathed.
  - marshray 4y ago
    What if a defensive drone swarm, to be effective, must be generations more advanced than the attacking drone swarm? There could be an interim period of many years where very important stuff is very vulnerable.
  - dogcomplex 4y ago
    Would expect this to be the dominant countermeasure in the case where drones are a significant threat, yeah. Though actually I'm coming around to the idea that a bunch of AI-targeted flak guns are sufficient, and that carriers are probably fine either way due to how close a series of missiles containing the swarm would have to get anyway.
  - kragen 4y ago
    Yeah, that's the future I'm pointing to: the aircraft carrier itself is no longer militarily relevant, because what counts are the drone swarms. But there's no particular reason to expect that this future will be a Mohist one in which peace is ensured because magically cheap defensive drone swarms make every fortress impregnable and thus combatants' home territories always remain unscathed; at least as likely is a Second Variety future in which drone swarms are more effective for attack than for defense, perhaps even after all the human combatants are dead.
- dogcomplex 4y ago
  Nope, ain't that thick (< 1 inch). Probably built with multiple expendable flood chambers though, so swarm would likely need to make its way through the first hole. Plausible a single shaped charge does enough damage, but more likely some single-digit of hits needed. Swimming + flying cheap drones doable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC9EJhs0pc0&ab_channel=RutgersToday https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC9EJhs0pc0&ab_channel=Rutge... At (wild overestimate) $1k per drone an attacker can wield 13 million drones for the equivalent cost of an aircraft carrier, not including ongoing expenses.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    The sort of shaped charge you could put on a thousand dollar missile could probably pierce small holes in the hull of a ship (too small to fly anything through, that is fantasy. Shaped charges are bigger than the holes they make.) But even hundreds of holes like that that wouldn't sink a ship. Not least because the ship is filled with sailors trained in damage control, and that sort of damage wouldn't be particularly hard to patch up. Clearing the flight deck with antipersonnel warheads would probably work better, but I wouldn't count on that to keep a carrier out of action for very long. If you really want to sink a ship, either use proper anti-ship warheads or don't bother trying.

kragen 4y ago

Yeah, in a realistic scenario, if the carrier can take out 360 drones before the drone wave reaches it, the adversary would launch 700 drones, not 361. I hadn't even thought about hitting the carrier in the same place over and over again. But supposedly carriers aren't even designed with thick armor?

ThrowawayR2 4y ago
If drones are so magically cheap, the carrier deploys its own magically cheap defensive drone swarm to protect itself when attacked by drones and remains unscathed.
- marshray 4y ago
  What if a defensive drone swarm, to be effective, must be generations more advanced than the attacking drone swarm? There could be an interim period of many years where very important stuff is very vulnerable.
- dogcomplex 4y ago
  Would expect this to be the dominant countermeasure in the case where drones are a significant threat, yeah. Though actually I'm coming around to the idea that a bunch of AI-targeted flak guns are sufficient, and that carriers are probably fine either way due to how close a series of missiles containing the swarm would have to get anyway.
- kragen 4y ago
  Yeah, that's the future I'm pointing to: the aircraft carrier itself is no longer militarily relevant, because what counts are the drone swarms. But there's no particular reason to expect that this future will be a Mohist one in which peace is ensured because magically cheap defensive drone swarms make every fortress impregnable and thus combatants' home territories always remain unscathed; at least as likely is a Second Variety future in which drone swarms are more effective for attack than for defense, perhaps even after all the human combatants are dead.
dogcomplex 4y ago
Nope, ain't that thick (< 1 inch). Probably built with multiple expendable flood chambers though, so swarm would likely need to make its way through the first hole. Plausible a single shaped charge does enough damage, but more likely some single-digit of hits needed. Swimming + flying cheap drones doable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC9EJhs0pc0&ab_channel=RutgersToday https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC9EJhs0pc0&ab_channel=Rutge... At (wild overestimate) $1k per drone an attacker can wield 13 million drones for the equivalent cost of an aircraft carrier, not including ongoing expenses.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  The sort of shaped charge you could put on a thousand dollar missile could probably pierce small holes in the hull of a ship (too small to fly anything through, that is fantasy. Shaped charges are bigger than the holes they make.) But even hundreds of holes like that that wouldn't sink a ship. Not least because the ship is filled with sailors trained in damage control, and that sort of damage wouldn't be particularly hard to patch up. Clearing the flight deck with antipersonnel warheads would probably work better, but I wouldn't count on that to keep a carrier out of action for very long. If you really want to sink a ship, either use proper anti-ship warheads or don't bother trying.