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The US army really doesn’t use enough cheap, small drones. All the drones we use are large and expensive.
by huytersd 3y ago
The US army really doesn’t use enough cheap, small drones. All the drones we use are large and expensive.
- dghlsakjg 3y agoNot at all. There are a number of small drones (field launchable by a single person) used for surveillance and delivering kinetic payloads. This is one of many that are publicly acknowledged https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroVironment_Switchblade https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroVironment_Switchblade The RQ-11 is a hand launchable drone used by the US (among others) with more than 19k airframes having been delivered.
- mcculley 3y agoThat says unit cost is $52,914. Not cheap by most standards. Yes, cheap compared to military aircraft, but the interesting changes around doctrine are happening at cheap enough to be disposable.
- nabogh 3y agoI think this might be considered disposable by military prices. Missiles, torpedoes etc are very expensive
- mcculley 3y agoI am aware that missiles and torpedoes are very expensive. Disposable drones are changing doctrine in ways that more expensive missiles and torpedoes do not.
- tsimionescu 3y agoIsn't that much, much cheaper than most missiles?
- mcculley 3y agoYes. Disposable is different from “cheaper than most missiles”.
- akdor1154 3y agoSo you mean cheaper than the disposable missiles as well as the re-useable ones?
- mcculley 3y agoI used Polaroid cameras, which had disposable consumables. I find I use modern digital cameras in different ways.
- tsimionescu 3y agoCheaper than a missile, which are launched in the thousands in any operation, without any expectation that one specific missile will do any one specific thing, should be plenty cheap enough to consider each of these drones disposable.
- mcculley 3y agoThe lived experience in Ukraine makes clear that there is a difference between disposable drones and contemporary missiles.
- rob74 3y ago...and that's for the smaller version!
- paganel 3y agoThe Switchblade has been a failure in the most recent conflict in Ukraine, the Ukrainians themselves have come up with much better and, more importantly, much cheaper alternatives.
- lamontcg 3y agoCIA is probably teaching the Ukrainians to build cheap, small drones and presumably they're building prototypes in a lab somewhere.
- imtringued 3y agoI don't know why you would need "cheap small" drones when the US has the most advanced bombs on the planet. You don't even need planes to launch them anymore. A HIMARS on the ground is enough and you get 150 km range. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_Launched_Small_Diameter_Bomb https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_Launched_Small_Diamet...