Ok, so I suppose I only stated the premise fully in the other thread, which is my fault. My premise is that 3-4 types of drones are needed, of different sizes.
I'll quote it here for convenience:
> I'm imagining at least 3-4 size categories, lets say. 1) Tiny, able to shoot down most quad copters. Top speed of 50-100knots. Price needs to be low enough to allow tens of thousands to be produced. Could potentially also double as anti-infantry weapons by strafing. 2) Small. Able to shoot down switchblade-sized drones. Top speed of maybe 200 knots. Can be produced in numbers of thousands. 3) Medium. Sutable to hunt small UAV's, such as Buyraktar. Top speed of several hundered knots, maybe just below Mach 1. Somewhat more expensive than the Buyraktar, but can also carry some of the same ordanance, like a tiny fighter-bomber. 4) Full-sized, possibly supersonic. Basically the same as the Loyal Wingman concept. Designed to counter other full-sized drones as well as manned aircraft.
Also, the hypothesis is that drones will take up a significant share of the military budget. Let say you start with ~$20 billion, what will it buy. Thats $5 billion for each size category when split evenly, one could get something like
Size 1 (price = $10000) : 500000
Size 2 (price = $100000) : 50000
Size 3 (price = $1000000) : 5000
Size 4 (price = $10000000) : 500
(EDIT: I realize that these categories are a bit smaller at the higher end than in the other thread, anyway it is primarily an order-of-magnutude estimate.)
Total number 555500 drones. Since these vary in size from roughly a quadcopter to close to a manned fighter, they provide capabilities of airial enemies of all sizes (unless the enemy is deploying insect-sized drones). It also comes with very significant air-to-ground capability and (if properly networked) extremely good sensory capability, even if the smaller 2 categories only have basic optics + perhaps some IR.
Even if you deploy only 10% of this, you can have a few of size 1 at every km of the front. (Also, by the time $20B has been spent, the first iterations may already have become obsolete.)
> The communication network you're describing doesn't exist,
We may not be fully there, but this is already a huge trend, and basically already implemented for the higher end of the air force (F35). Some protocols are already ready, some are under development.
Ideally, the drone capability described above should be co-developed with JADC2:
https://sgp.fas.org/crs/natsec/IF11493.pdf
> Basically what you're describing is something that's not currently available, nor possible in the near future.
I suppose we just plain diagree here. I think the basic technology for this kind of capability is already there, but still evolving quickly. In other words, this arms race has already started.
In fact, with the current exposure tech like this is already getting, I would be surprised if funds and effort is not already being directed to this as we speak.
> It's the same story that comes out from HN about how fighter jets are obsolete because a drone can fly more Gs than a manned aircraft.
Not just HN. Manned fighters are not obsolete. But more and more people in the industry seems to think that Gen 6 will be dominated by unmanned aircraft. For instance, this is part of the marketing for Kızılelma.
This is also not new. F35 was designed to be able to function as a kind of a drone host, and even with the capability to be converted to an UCAV*. This is also much of the reason why it was provided with as much compute- and sensory power as it was. In other words, even during the early design phase of the F35, enough people were predicting the end of manned fighters within the F35's lifetime for that to be included in the design.
* This is from my memory from when my country selected the F35 as our fighter, I'm not sure I have more recent sources on hand.