F-16s with human pilots and a2a missiles vs cheap drones? That’s one hell of an asymmetry and doesn’t seem robust enough to handle 100x the scale.
Just think the small Cessnas and pipers littered around that could be used for a similar task.
https://youtu.be/GrzzYTXgnMQ?is=zChAgYfc5ZEi25gt
Edited out bad grammer
I think the next natural step in Russia's defense against Ukrainian drones countermeasures like this, shooting them down with shotguns, will be to arm the drones. Then it will be up to Ukraine to counter that threat and the cycle continues as always.
Unfortunately it's been long discontinued and it's successor Skyranger is still facing some technical difficulties as of recent reports.
- At one-a-day scale, political and risk considerations probably favor the expensive solution.
- Using F-16's reveals nothing about your current anti-drone defenses. (Yeah, it's also a real-world basic competence test for your air force - for better and for worse.)
- If your intel people want more data on the drones, an F-16 can haul a whole lotta intel-gathering equipment to the show.
- If you're dealing internally with some head-in-the-sand traditionalists dragging their heels on updating your doctrine/equipment/training to deal with drones, then "real world, right now" examples are probably useful.
(BTW - do the articles say "a2a missile" anywhere? F-16's typically mount a 20mm cannon, a cheap drone is not a hard target, and cannon rounds are dirt cheap by compare.)
https://www.zona-militar.com/en/2026/02/09/ukrainian-f-16am-...
Also, Wikipedia gives a 3km effective firing range for the M61 - but it'd be no surprise if the F-16's standard targeting optics can't achieve that against small airborne targets.
Hopefully a decent defense contractor or few sees business opportunities here.