Comment by mrep | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mrep | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> they just shook up the world's militaries

For the good ones, I doubt it.

Israel today has trophy [0] which can detect if an rpg is going to hit its tank and shoot it out of the sky.

(from wiki): The system allegedly relies heavily on high-speed computational technologies. Upon detection of an incoming projectile, the system automatically computes various parameters, such as the approach vector, nature of the threat, time to impact, and angle of approach. The defensive projectiles are launched by two rotating projectile launchers positioned on the sides of the vehicle. These launchers deploy a number of small EFPs (Explosively Formed Penetrators), forming a precise and closely spaced matrix, targeting an area in front of the anti-tank projectile.

And that's one country with 10 million people and a mere $46.5 billion in military spending. And BTW allies generally share tech (we the US suck right now (sorry)) but Trophy is being integrated with multiple allies [1].

Developing automated drone shooting destroyers I think we can do.

EDIT: To add, I bet those drones can be shot down by 1 minigun or shotgun shell which aren't relatively expensive.

Edit 2, the dutch already have a badass automated minigun too [2, 3].

Edit 3: multiple countries have similar systems but they are all mainly for boats. I think we can adapt the to army bases [4].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophy_(countermeasure)

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophy_(countermeasure)#Intern...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goalkeeper_CIWS

[3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AaUNipuygE

[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-in_weapon_system

There’s been plenty of anti missile systems deployed to Ukraine and the tank losses have still been absolutely insane.

Fundamentally it’s not about building anti-missile technology, it’s about doing it cheaply and at scale. That is a much, much tougher problem.

These drones cost less than a thousand bucks, and if each interception cost you 100k (the cost of a trophy shot) you’re going to lose a lot of equipment. It only takes one miss.

Now imagine scaling that system to protect an entire airfield. That seems next to impossible when these drones have a range of 10+ miles and are basically unjammable. You need China level surveillance across your entire county as a bare minimum.

Check out my edit 2. The Dutch already have an automated minigun. Bullets aren't that expensive relative to those shitty consumer drones which would get torn apart by them.

Also, ukraine doesn't have Trophy or any minigun/shotun defense system that I know of yet.

Having automated miniguns/shotguns near civilian areas definitely creates a challenge but I think our defense budget can handle that.

The Goalkeeper CIWS costs something like $3000 per second that it is firing. It's not a cheap system!

It could be scaled down to the size of a normal minigun, but even that is about $50 per second.

Meanwhile drone costs keep falling, Ukraine is well below $500 per drone now.

$500 for a drone including its bomb that can incapacitate a military aircraft and can survive multiple bullets?

Also, I don't think you need 30 mm bullets to take out a drone. Those bullets are for much more hardened targets.

All of these weapons fire a 1-2 second burst to make sure they hit the target. Don’t forget that the drones are moving, there’s wind, etc…

Modern CIWS will use radar to track their own outbound bullets and adjust their aim in real time to hit the target.

An increasing number of drones being used aren't the shitty consumer ones either. They are still relatively cheap, but their guidance systems and payloads are improving dramatically compared to the start of the war. Saturation attacks are still possible on automated kinetic kill systems, and for a price that is sustainable for the attacker.

> but their guidance systems and payloads are improving dramatically compared to the start of the war

But can they survive a small bullet or a shotgun hit?

These naval CIWSs are massive. ~6 tonnes with a minute of ammunition. They cost tens of millions. All of this is probably acceptable for base defense.

But all high rate fire guns have short operation limits before their barrels melt. About 15 seconds before a 10 minute cool-off, maintenance and reload cycle. It's comically easy to saturate that with waves of decoy drones.

Those CIWS are designed to take out much more hardened targets than shitty drones. I bet you a shotgun shell can easily take out one of those drones.

Upgrade your drone defenses and now your drones cost more...

I don't work in the military so take everything I say with a massive grain of salt but I bet offense and defense scale in cost similarly and NATO + allies have WAY more money than the russians.

And note a big weakness of CIWS in port: what's your backstop? When the wave of drones comes in at low altitude over the city the port is at what happens???

That's built to kill an inbound missile. And it's almost certainly possible to bleed it for less than it's own cost.

What we need is cheap systems that can be deployed in large numbers that fire wimpy short ranged stuff so it doesn't do too much damage when it falls back. Shotguns are good at this, the smaller pellets do not fall back with lethal energy.

Trophy systems are like $2m and drones are cheap.

Trophy is designed for fast moving anti tank missiles. These cheap drones can be shot down with a shotgun. I think we can make anti drone systems a little cheaper.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com