Comment by kds | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kds | Hacker News Reader

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The 1,5 million dollar missiles (and more expensive ones) will be used for destroying the command centres controlling the pilot-less planes. Most of them as current locations are known even now.

A flock of such air-crafts in a fleet formation if used for massive offensive action (like the Luftwaffe-style bombings in WW2) could be "switched off" with an http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse in the most severe case. Besides this extremity - a distributed but single-coordination-and-control battery of modern ground mobile anti-aircraft defence rocket complexes can deal with tens to up to a few hundreds flying units (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantsir-S1 ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9K22_Tunguska).

I don't think that in the observable future these drones could be something more than a single-plane single-mission reconnaissance tool used strictly against technologically vastly inferior armies/societies.

I would envision "single-plane reconnaissance" -missions. Lot's of them done from very low tech command "centers". More like a Toyota Corolla with some guy and a laptop, than bunker with tens of people. They would provide lot's to do for enemy fighters, while locating targets for artillery. Pantsir-S1 and Tunguska both have limited weapon systems, only good for targets below 15km. And spotting something that flies just above the tree-line is quite hard with radar.

I'm not saying someone would attack U.S. with huge drone flock. I'm saying that soon deploying marines to some distant country is going to be somewhat riskier.

From the respective wikipedia links:

"Tunguska-M1 offers a 360-degree field of view, a detection range of around 18 km and can detect targets flying as low as 15 m"

"The specific feature of the Pantsir-S1 system is the combination of a multiple-band target acquisition and tracking system in conjunction with a combined missile and gun armament creating a continuous target engagement zone from 5 m height and 200 m range up to 10 km height and 20 km range, even without any external support".

My point is that in the near future you can't expect much from drones in real-action offensive missions - regardless where the hit should come (from the drone itself or from somewhere else where the drone relays the gathered info) - against an army with the relevant technical base to counter either the drone or the in-flying tactical rocket.

Of course, now they are quite OK and up to the task to chase Taliban guerilla fighters, "police" the sky, or something like that. On the longer-term perspectives I can't say anything.

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