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Comment by decafninja | Hacker News Reader

My understanding is that the latest versions of the Apache and Cobra are very different from their original incarnations, despite looking similar, no?

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Avionics for sure, but there's not really anything like a "5th gen" helicopter. Helicopters are mostly close air support. No one is going to send fleets of helicopters to engage in air to air combat with other fleets of helicopters.

Have we gotten to a point where the CAS role can be fully handled by drones of various types?

I know we have Hellfire toting drones, but their payload seems very limited versus existing attack helicopter platforms or the A-10.

I’m actually surprised we don’t have a drone attack helicopter - basically an unmanned Apache.

Or has that entire concept basically become obsolete in favor of just sending over swarms of loitering suicide drones?

I suspect that the US likely has effective means of jamming drone communications. If you have a seeker that doesn't need human intervention, why use electric motors when you can use rocket motors for your drone, aka "missile".

The drones I would see as maybe being effective is some kind of anti radar drone that can loiter in an area without comms and strike when the radar lights up.

That said the CAS role requires radio comms to the helicopter / airplane, so I mean maybe a drone with an LLM that can use human comms to figure out friend from foe.

Obviously the drone has to send back a TV signal to the controller, I think the US would figure out some kind of HARM missile that would just lock onto the drone transmitter. Or a CIWS system with a radar that locks on to the transmitter.

I think solid fuel rocket motors are cheaper than electric motors and batteries.

Maybe drones are the future, but I sort of see it as 2 broke countries duking it out. There's probably a reason why Ukraine wants US weapons like ATACMS and not a container ship full of drones. If you look at the $120 billion in aid to ukraine, that would buy you 100 million drones at $1200 per drone. Or 10 million at $12,000 per.

I guess what I'm saying is if NATO fought Russia it would be over in a few weeks and no one would care about drones. I think drones, except for Ukraine's sea drones, are highly useful in this conflict but probably not many others.

Sea drones could be a game changer, its a super long range torpedo and for anyone fighting the US, its probably safe to assume vessels beyond the vessel that launches them, are those of the US military / the enemy.

You know, there is an argument to be made that if you just abandoned having an army, and bought 1 million drones that would just target anything vehicular or human, you could just let the drones self guide on some kind of, go that way, kill something if you see it, or return for fresh batteries if you don't kind of algorithm.

The problem then is all the OPFOR has to defend against is cheap shitty drones.

The Cobra hasn't been in use since the late 90s.

The Apache has been incrementally upgrade over the years, so yeah, it is much different.

I mean, it’s technically the “Super Cobra” of “Viper” now, but isn’t it still a direct line from the original Cobra?

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