10 ms·

I disagree on air defense inherently being very costly. Old school was guns. Price per round was cheap. But the expensive missile kills the platform holding

I disagree on air defense inherently being very costly. Old school was guns. Price per round was cheap. But the expensive missile kills the platform holding the cheap gun, you have to go with missiles. But the drone war is a different beast entirely. Drones can't shoot back. Thus the answer is guns. How well will their light drones fare against a Cessna armed with an automatic shotgun? How would the jet drones fare against a WWII warbird? Lots of cheap, mobile guns. No meaningful self defense but doctrine is to always depart after shooting. The naval one is much harder because you're not free to disperse your ship into many pieces. But, still, consider your cannon. Let's step down a bit, cheaper cannon with a 90% kill rate--but you put several of them.

loglog 6mo ago
There are videos on the internet of drones being shot down with an assault rifle out of a 50 year old training plane, 1914 style.
aftbit 6mo ago
IMO, modern sensors paired with robot controlled guns are one of the most promising hard kill solutions for drone combat. Gepard and the newer Skyranger 30 have proven themselves against low-spec threats in Ukraine. C-RAM (aka Land Phalanx Weapon System) is an already deployed system that is very effective against even higher spec threats like missiles. Of course, there are always tradeoffs. Even the best guns have much shorter ranges than air defense missiles, and that means you need more systems to provide the same area coverage. As you mentioned, the guns themselves (and the sensors and networks feeding them) become a target. As usual though, likely the solution will require a mix of capabilities across the spectrum, working to cover each others' weaknesses. Nothing is fool-proof, but all can force costly adaptations. Take EW for example. Nothing is cheaper than jamming out the drone's comms or nav. This forces adaptation to autonomy or fiber optic drones, which have their own costs, supply pinch points (Russia now consumes somewhere around 10% of the world's fiber, for example), and tradeoffs. This is nothing new - layered air defense has been around a long time. The new thing is the explosion of cheap, low-spec threats forcing development of a cheap and sustainable answer to them. Nets, EW, beam weapons, gun systems, interceptor drones, AMRAAM, Patriot, SAMP/T, etc etc... all fill an important role in targeting different threats.

loglog 6mo ago

There are videos on the internet of drones being shot down with an assault rifle out of a 50 year old training plane, 1914 style.

aftbit 6mo ago

IMO, modern sensors paired with robot controlled guns are one of the most promising hard kill solutions for drone combat. Gepard and the newer Skyranger 30 have proven themselves against low-spec threats in Ukraine. C-RAM (aka Land Phalanx Weapon System) is an already deployed system that is very effective against even higher spec threats like missiles. Of course, there are always tradeoffs. Even the best guns have much shorter ranges than air defense missiles, and that means you need more systems to provide the same area coverage. As you mentioned, the guns themselves (and the sensors and networks feeding them) become a target. As usual though, likely the solution will require a mix of capabilities across the spectrum, working to cover each others' weaknesses. Nothing is fool-proof, but all can force costly adaptations. Take EW for example. Nothing is cheaper than jamming out the drone's comms or nav. This forces adaptation to autonomy or fiber optic drones, which have their own costs, supply pinch points (Russia now consumes somewhere around 10% of the world's fiber, for example), and tradeoffs. This is nothing new - layered air defense has been around a long time. The new thing is the explosion of cheap, low-spec threats forcing development of a cheap and sustainable answer to them. Nets, EW, beam weapons, gun systems, interceptor drones, AMRAAM, Patriot, SAMP/T, etc etc... all fill an important role in targeting different threats.