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Comment by rblatz | Hacker News Reader

So I thought about it, and even if a small drone was loaded with explosives it really couldn’t damage a war ship. Unless it attacked the sensors.

A shaped charge hitting the EOSS, the radar dome, or parts of the Aegis system’s sensor array could potentially cripple the ship’s ability to defend itself.

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No not by itself. Honestly I know very little about modern explosives but I could imagine a swarm of drones, made of or carrying explosives could converge on a critical section of a target additively making a substantial explosive force.

I know just enough about material science to say probably not. A munition needs to break or penetrate a surface to be effective. To do that it needs to apply a great deal of force in a short period of time- spreading the force out over space or time reduce the destructive capability of the munition. So getting hit 500 times by 1 lbs bombs is not the same as getting hit once by a 500 lbs bomb- it’s not additive, the 500 lbs destroys things the 500 1 lbs can’t.

That being said, I’d imagine being on the receiving end of 500 1 lbs explosives is still a very bad day.

Right, if I apply 1 pound of force to your head 520 times, you’ll be really annoyed with me. If I apply 520 pounds of force to your head once, I’ve just crushed your skull.

If each of those 1 lb bombs lands precisely on one of the ship's sensors, then that ship is out of action, even if its hull has not been breached anywhere.

One could imagine other payloads like chaff, smoke, or even paint or flash bangs to disable equipment and injure the crew perhaps. Not sure how efficient that would be though.

100 drones for misting gasoline, 10 drones for igniting it?

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