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CRAM and CIWS are for point-defence; it would be very expensive to cover e.g. 100 miles of international border using those systems. Because drones are steerabl

CRAM and CIWS are for point-defence; it would be very expensive to cover e.g. 100 miles of international border using those systems. Because drones are steerable, they can fly between the gatling guns and on to their target. Of course, if the target has point-defence, that won't work! In Ukraine, it seems that a lot of the defender's drones are hybrid surveillance and attack, so they don't know what their target is at launch. You can't point-defend a trenchline. I think the Russians are relying on jammers. Broadband jamming must require a lot of power (and presumably impairs their own comms); narrowband jamming requires knowledge of the attacker's frequency. CRAM/CIWS generally consists of several weapons systems, and a command centre with the radar, communicating by radio. So those defensive systems are also exposed to jamming, which could be achieved by a high-altitude drone; these systems aren't designed to shoot things at 20,000 ft., although many of them can have a SAM system strapped on. Anyway, I suspect that drone-antidrone warfare is going to come down to a radio arms-race; i.e. jammer vs. anti-jammer. And you can defeat a jammer using beamforming.

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CuriousCosmic 2y ago
> 100 miles of international border using those systems Yeah that's not really the point. You use CRAM or CIWS at installations, cities, and maybe even towns. But then you use APS for military vehicles. You don't need to stop every attack along a border, you just need to protect important installations and population centers. > You can't point-defend a trenchline Sure you can't but you can point defend mobile artillery, tanks, and other mechanized infantry. This greatly reduces the actual value you get out of a drone strike. You won't be hitting high value targets without spending a lot of resources in a saturation attack. > I think the Russians are relying on jammers They try to and it's not particularly effective. > So those defensive systems are also exposed to jamming This is only the case if you communicate by radio. In an active combat environment, if you are setting up installations that may be the best you can do at the time but for regions that are currently at peace, you can absolutely run fiber-optics between the weapons systems, sensor systems, and command center(s), leaving radio comms as a fallback. It's definitely more expensive but if you are installing equipment in a city or permanent military installation, you probably already have access to fiber runs that could be procured as dedicated/dark fiber. > Anyway, I suspect that drone-antidrone warfare is going to come down to a radio arms-race That'll definitely be a heavy component of it but the defense side should be able to insulate themselves from the arms race as long as they invest in the infrastructure ahead of time rather than waiting until a hot war starts to protect soft targets.
- denton-scratch 2y ago
  Really, I was focused on the Russia-Ukraine conflict; Russia sends scores of drones over the border every night, aimed at civilian infrastructure, including power generation and distribution, medical facilities, ports and warehouses, as well as civilian housing. Just installing point defence for all the power generation would be expensive. Point-defence for e.g. Odessa or Kharkiv is impossible, because they are cities, not "points".

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CuriousCosmic 2y ago

> 100 miles of international border using those systems Yeah that's not really the point. You use CRAM or CIWS at installations, cities, and maybe even towns. But then you use APS for military vehicles. You don't need to stop every attack along a border, you just need to protect important installations and population centers. > You can't point-defend a trenchline Sure you can't but you can point defend mobile artillery, tanks, and other mechanized infantry. This greatly reduces the actual value you get out of a drone strike. You won't be hitting high value targets without spending a lot of resources in a saturation attack. > I think the Russians are relying on jammers They try to and it's not particularly effective. > So those defensive systems are also exposed to jamming This is only the case if you communicate by radio. In an active combat environment, if you are setting up installations that may be the best you can do at the time but for regions that are currently at peace, you can absolutely run fiber-optics between the weapons systems, sensor systems, and command center(s), leaving radio comms as a fallback. It's definitely more expensive but if you are installing equipment in a city or permanent military installation, you probably already have access to fiber runs that could be procured as dedicated/dark fiber. > Anyway, I suspect that drone-antidrone warfare is going to come down to a radio arms-race That'll definitely be a heavy component of it but the defense side should be able to insulate themselves from the arms race as long as they invest in the infrastructure ahead of time rather than waiting until a hot war starts to protect soft targets.

denton-scratch 2y ago
Really, I was focused on the Russia-Ukraine conflict; Russia sends scores of drones over the border every night, aimed at civilian infrastructure, including power generation and distribution, medical facilities, ports and warehouses, as well as civilian housing. Just installing point defence for all the power generation would be expensive. Point-defence for e.g. Odessa or Kharkiv is impossible, because they are cities, not "points".