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Drones are slow. You can pick them up easily with a fighter jet, and in some cases even with attack helicopters.

pclmulqdq 4y ago
The ones we use to spy on people and shoot small missiles are slow, but they are designed to stay in the air for a very long time. I assume they make drones today that are much faster (hypersonic missiles are very drone-like in some ways), we just don't know about them yet.
- elorant 4y ago
  In which case they won't be cheap so you can't deploy myriads of them.
Rygian 4y ago
Parent's point is "how many of them can you pick up?" as they can overwhelm in number.
hu3 4y ago
But they have a very small footprint, which makes them hard for radars and automated targeting systems. And I doubt jets and helis can effectively eliminate hundreds of drones in a timely manner.
nrclark 4y ago
Drones can be very, very fast. it just depends on the design. A drone is just an unmanned aircraft at its core. A drone could do maneuvers that would kill a pilot, kamikaze itself, or fly with only enough fuel for a one-way trip. It could have a jet engine, a rocket, or maybe both. Designing for human pilots is really a huge limitation. Drones can be smaller, lighter, cheaper, and can have any engine the designer decides to put on them. They’re the future of aerial combat for sure.
- elorant 4y ago
  Fast, cheap, heavy ordnance. Pick two.
  - slim 4y ago
    You can pick all three in three different drones
  - nrclark 4y ago
    All three of those goals are served by removing the cockpit and everything that goes along with it.
    - elorant 4y ago
      Even if you remove the pilot you’d still need a big drone to load air to surface missiles capable of destroying an airfield. In which case, you’d also have to add a jet engine to make the thing capable of lifting the weight and be fast enough. And now you have a fuel issue, so you add even more size to be able to carry a few tones of jet fuel. Eventually you’ll end up with something as big as a fighter jet, in which case you can’t just develop thousands of them because the cost will already be too high.
      - dirtyid 4y ago
        High is relative. Remove multiple pilots that cost 10M+ over course of life of air frame. Adopt hi-lo mix of master UAVs with full sensor suits mesh with simplified bomb truck units. Cutting out manned training will also dramatically reduce operation/maintenance costs, you don't need to waste 1000s of hours per air frame on training, just store the drones in a warehouse and "spin their tires" every once in a while. Hardware costs also goes down when most of fleet aren't optimized for service life. It's not 100:1 ratio, something like 3:1 can dramatically enhance capabilities.
        imtringued 4y ago
        Okay but now they can't do anything nrclark said.

The ones we use to spy on people and shoot small missiles are slow, but they are designed to stay in the air for a very long time. I assume they make drones today that are much faster (hypersonic missiles are very drone-like in some ways), we just don't know about them yet.

elorant 4y ago
In which case they won't be cheap so you can't deploy myriads of them.

Rygian 4y ago

Parent's point is "how many of them can you pick up?" as they can overwhelm in number.

hu3 4y ago

But they have a very small footprint, which makes them hard for radars and automated targeting systems. And I doubt jets and helis can effectively eliminate hundreds of drones in a timely manner.

nrclark 4y ago

Drones can be very, very fast. it just depends on the design. A drone is just an unmanned aircraft at its core. A drone could do maneuvers that would kill a pilot, kamikaze itself, or fly with only enough fuel for a one-way trip. It could have a jet engine, a rocket, or maybe both. Designing for human pilots is really a huge limitation. Drones can be smaller, lighter, cheaper, and can have any engine the designer decides to put on them. They’re the future of aerial combat for sure.

elorant 4y ago
Fast, cheap, heavy ordnance. Pick two.
- slim 4y ago
  You can pick all three in three different drones
- nrclark 4y ago
  All three of those goals are served by removing the cockpit and everything that goes along with it.
  - elorant 4y ago
    Even if you remove the pilot you’d still need a big drone to load air to surface missiles capable of destroying an airfield. In which case, you’d also have to add a jet engine to make the thing capable of lifting the weight and be fast enough. And now you have a fuel issue, so you add even more size to be able to carry a few tones of jet fuel. Eventually you’ll end up with something as big as a fighter jet, in which case you can’t just develop thousands of them because the cost will already be too high.
    - dirtyid 4y ago
      High is relative. Remove multiple pilots that cost 10M+ over course of life of air frame. Adopt hi-lo mix of master UAVs with full sensor suits mesh with simplified bomb truck units. Cutting out manned training will also dramatically reduce operation/maintenance costs, you don't need to waste 1000s of hours per air frame on training, just store the drones in a warehouse and "spin their tires" every once in a while. Hardware costs also goes down when most of fleet aren't optimized for service life. It's not 100:1 ratio, something like 3:1 can dramatically enhance capabilities.
      - imtringued 4y ago
        Okay but now they can't do anything nrclark said.