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No, a drone can take off and land. Show me a SAM that can fly back to its launcher and be used at a later date.

by greedo 12y ago

ceejayoz 12y ago
That's the "essentially" part. The key bit here is "cheap counter to the F-35 you can mass-produce in the hundreds or thousands for every F-35 you'll face". Nothing says you can't have a few dozen/hundred drones with SAMs, either.
- greedo 12y ago
  But you can't handwave away the difference without understanding how it would affect the cost of your "cheap counter to the F-35." Do you know how much an AIM-120 costs? How much it weighs? How much reinforcement the wing structure of a drone would require to carry, launch and land with this weaponry?
  - mikeyouse 12y ago
    > AIM-120 cost $300k - $400k > How much it weighs? 152 kg > How much reinforcement the wing structure of a drone would require to carry, launch and land with this weaponry? According to General Atomics; "With a 1,500 lb (680 kg) payload, its wings are 'more than sufficient' to mount larger air-to-air or air-to-surface missiles."
    - greedo 12y ago
      The last quote is for the Reaper, a new version of the Predator that costs 4x as much. $16m is much cheaper than a fighter jet, but when you start deploying them in swarms of 20:1 ratios, the numbers don't work.
      - ceejayoz 12y ago
        You're flailing around moving the goalposts at this point. The Predator/Reaper drones are more generalist platforms than you'd need for a disposable drone built around an air to air missile.
        branchan 12y ago
        You cannot just blindly put missiles on a drone without any radars or sensors. The current Predator platform should be how much it would cost...minimum.
stcredzero 12y ago
I bet we could get a cruise missile to "land" on a runway. The only catch is that it usually does this concurrently with a planned rapid disassembly.
baddox 12y ago
In general, you don't want a missile to land. You want it to blow up really close to the bad guy.
serf 12y ago
Well, no. Originally drones could not land. That's a modern feature. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_drone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_drone

No, a drone can take off and land. Show me a SAM that can fly back to its launcher and be used at a later date.

by greedo 12y ago

No, a drone can take off and land. Show me a SAM that can fly back to its launcher and be used at a later date.

That's the "essentially" part. The key bit here is "cheap counter to the F-35 you can mass-produce in the hundreds or thousands for every F-35 you'll face". Nothing says you can't have a few dozen/hundred drones with SAMs, either.

greedo 12y ago
But you can't handwave away the difference without understanding how it would affect the cost of your "cheap counter to the F-35." Do you know how much an AIM-120 costs? How much it weighs? How much reinforcement the wing structure of a drone would require to carry, launch and land with this weaponry?
- mikeyouse 12y ago
  > AIM-120 cost $300k - $400k > How much it weighs? 152 kg > How much reinforcement the wing structure of a drone would require to carry, launch and land with this weaponry? According to General Atomics; "With a 1,500 lb (680 kg) payload, its wings are 'more than sufficient' to mount larger air-to-air or air-to-surface missiles."
  - greedo 12y ago
    The last quote is for the Reaper, a new version of the Predator that costs 4x as much. $16m is much cheaper than a fighter jet, but when you start deploying them in swarms of 20:1 ratios, the numbers don't work.
    - ceejayoz 12y ago
      You're flailing around moving the goalposts at this point. The Predator/Reaper drones are more generalist platforms than you'd need for a disposable drone built around an air to air missile.
      - branchan 12y ago
        You cannot just blindly put missiles on a drone without any radars or sensors. The current Predator platform should be how much it would cost...minimum.

stcredzero 12y ago

I bet we could get a cruise missile to "land" on a runway. The only catch is that it usually does this concurrently with a planned rapid disassembly.

baddox 12y ago

In general, you don't want a missile to land. You want it to blow up really close to the bad guy.

serf 12y ago

Well, no. Originally drones could not land. That's a modern feature. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_drone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_drone