mike wightman
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I didn't know they had made this sort of progress...
Anti-drone laser weapons
- Thread starter mike wightman
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Condottiere
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They need a cheap countermeasure.
And DARPA has been interested for decades.
Drones will become smaller - harder to spot, tougher to target, but easier to damage.
Ours is probably the laser point defence, with half a dice damage.
And DARPA has been interested for decades.
Drones will become smaller - harder to spot, tougher to target, but easier to damage.
Ours is probably the laser point defence, with half a dice damage.
mike wightman
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I would think the next drone development will be some sort of laser defence. Ablative coatings, heat conductors and coolants, that sort of thing.
Spinward Flow
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All of those countermeasures ADD MASS ... the enemy of ALL aerospace applications that require decent/high performance.
Even in Traveller, you can't add Reflec "for free" onto stuff.
There's not much point in that. Every defensive system you add to a drone you make it bigger and heavier or you keep it small and sacrifice payload or range. An impervious drone with a ten second endurance and postage stamp sized video would be pointless.
The best defense system for drones is being cheap enough to be disposable. If you can toss drones out like ammunition and they talk to some standardized control systems, it doesn't matter if they're shot down. You just toss up another. This same principal would let cheap attack drones saturate an active defense system.
mike wightman
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True, but if you don't then you may as well not field the drone.
There are developments with rotors that will give drones a bit more lift for the small ones, and the larger ones can already carry a sizable payload.
mike wightman
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Drones include the unmanned aircraft that carry radars, cameras and missiles, not just the small stuff.
The small ones only have to survive long enough to give targeting data to the anti-laser loitering munitions that will poke holes in the defence - then send in the next wave...
Condottiere
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Current affordable solution are Gepards, though I would have thought Shilkas would be more readily available.
Being worked on are sights for smallarms; I would suppose we could use laser carbines.
Being worked on are sights for smallarms; I would suppose we could use laser carbines.
Replacing the vulcans with mini-guns, from some of the old M-163's, and upgrading the electronics would be a 'cheap' fix.
Condottiere
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I think I saw it against a night sky.
Looks like latent beam lasers.
Looks like latent beam lasers.
That was my first thought. Afte that, it'd be a race between the unit shooting them down (laser and sensor/targeting system) and the time the swarm was within range- it the time was short enough then enough of the swarm may survive to reach the target.
Actually just use the ammo from CIWS guns, effectively 20mm shrapnel airbursts....
Condottiere
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Solar powered.
The first US laser weapon was fielded on the Ponce in 2014. From Wikipedia "The AN/SEQ-3 Laser Weapon System or XN-1 LaWS[1] is a laser weapon developed by the United States Navy. The weapon was installed on USS Ponce for field testing in 2014. In December 2014, the United States Navy reported that the LaWS system worked perfectly against low-end asymmetric threats, and that the commander of Ponce was authorized to use the system as a defensive weapon." The newer lasers they're working on are about 5-10x more powerful so can kill targets quicker, but the cost per shot is minimal compared to any rapid fire cannon. EW jamming is another big method for targetting drones, and a swarm there won't help.
mike wightman
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So you stick an ChatGPT derived AI on a chip to direct the drone if its link to the operator is spoofed.
The experimental Abrams X replacement tank is looking into doing something similar, using an AI system to operate the tank in the event the crew is stunned or can't react to a threat fast enough.
Take this video with a pinch of salt
The experimental Abrams X replacement tank is looking into doing something similar, using an AI system to operate the tank in the event the crew is stunned or can't react to a threat fast enough.
Take this video with a pinch of salt
