Who'd Have Thought (back in 1984)?

[LoneCollector1987]

Originally Posted by castlebravo92

Within the next 10 years, probably within the next 5, you will have autonomous drone swarms deployed by the US and China, at a minimum, that will simultaneously deploy thousands to tends of thousands of drones into a combat zone to search and destroy any militarily valuable asset in a wide footprint. Ballistic missiles will be used to deploy drone swarms thousands of miles away.

The value of everything that is not a drone is fading rapidly, including manpower.

You may be right, but if you look at the current technology:
Who has functioning Hypersonicmissiles and deploys them?
Russia
If the media is to be believed (and yes, I am aware that the military doesnt tell us all) the USA is years if not decades behind Russia and China.

And to the drone swarms:
Do we even have the production capabilities to do so?

I dont want to sound conspiracy theorists but every chip from China is a potentially hole to hack them. So, we would need an entire industrial setup here in the west. And it would be best if every country has a factory or two of its own.

And yes, we should standarsize them. Find a body where you can fit multiple types of engines, armor and weaponsload and then every country can build their own drones.

A german unit finds a french drone with a damaged engine: put a german engine in it and use it.

But the greatest threat I see is Electronic Warfare. How do we make sure that our drones are not hacked?
According to WELT (german newspaper) Germany is under relentless assault (but below war threshold) by other states. And some attacks can be followed to Russia and China. But also other countries. And it is hinted that some of those other countries are NATO members, industrial espionage somebody?

So, do we have the Cyberwarfare capabilities against hacking and why do we hurt each other?

[castlebravo92]

Originally Posted by LoneCollector1987

You may be right, but if you look at the current technology:
Who has functioning Hypersonicmissiles and deploys them?
Russia
If the media is to be believed (and yes, I am aware that the military doesnt tell us all) the USA is years if not decades behind Russia and China.

And to the drone swarms:
Do we even have the production capabilities to do so?

I dont want to sound conspiracy theorists but every chip from China is a potentially hole to hack them. So, we would need an entire industrial setup here in the west. And it would be best if every country has a factory or two of its own.

And yes, we should standarsize them. Find a body where you can fit multiple types of engines, armor and weaponsload and then every country can build their own drones.

A german unit finds a french drone with a damaged engine: put a german engine in it and use it.

But the greatest threat I see is Electronic Warfare. How do we make sure that our drones are not hacked?
According to WELT (german newspaper) Germany is under relentless assault (but below war threshold) by other states. And some attacks can be followed to Russia and China. But also other countries. And it is hinted that some of those other countries are NATO members, industrial espionage somebody?

So, do we have the Cyberwarfare capabilities against hacking and why do we hurt each other?

I don't think hypersonics do anything that other platforms don't already do..they might do it better/faster, but they certainly don't do it cheaper.

Drones / loitering munitions lowered the cost of "smart munitions" with a high PKILL from millions of dollars (Tomahawk ALCM) to tens of thousands of dollars (JDAM) to hundreds of dollars (for the really cheap ones) and have inverted the cost to countermeasure cost curve. For example, a hypersonic cruise missile probably isn't any cheaper than a PAC-2 Patriot. A current production run FIM-92 Stinger is a tad under $500,000 per missile/launcher unit. A Switchblade 300 (on the very high cost side of suicide drones) runs about $50,000 per unit. So, you are losing money shooting down a Switchblade 300 with a FIM-92, and you are losing a LOT of money shooting down a $500 DIY suicide drone that HAMAS or the Houthis are launching. The only real cost argument for shooting down $300 drones with $50,000 missiles is it's probably cheaper than losing whatever the drone is targeting.

US munitions production capacity has really taken a hit over the last 20 years though. It is a fair point on whether or not we have the relevant industrial capacity to sustain a high tempo war for very long.

[LoneCollector1987]

Originally Posted by castlebravo92

I don't think hypersonics do anything that other platforms don't already do..they might do it better/faster, but they certainly don't do it cheaper.

Drones / loitering munitions lowered the cost of "smart munitions" with a high PKILL from millions of dollars (Tomahawk ALCM) to tens of thousands of dollars (JDAM) to hundreds of dollars (for the really cheap ones) and have inverted the cost to countermeasure cost curve. For example, a hypersonic cruise missile probably isn't any cheaper than a PAC-2 Patriot. A current production run FIM-92 Stinger is a tad under $500,000 per missile/launcher unit. A Switchblade 300 (on the very high cost side of suicide drones) runs about $50,000 per unit. So, you are losing money shooting down a Switchblade 300 with a FIM-92, and you are losing a LOT of money shooting down a $500 DIY suicide drone that HAMAS or the Houthis are launching. The only real cost argument for shooting down $300 drones with $50,000 missiles is it's probably cheaper than losing whatever the drone is targeting.

US munitions production capacity has really taken a hit over the last 20 years though. It is a fair point on whether or not we have the relevant industrial capacity to sustain a high tempo war for very long.

I do agree with you. Thats why it should be imperative to re-build the capacity of ammunition production.

And to the costs of shooting done drones: What if we use drones to shoot done drones?
If they attack with cheap drones: Two can play that game.
But using drones in this capacity would need a lot more computing power to control all of them.
I saw a trailer for a PC game: Ghost Recon Breakpoint
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lqj9aH3jLD0

Could we control such a drone swarm?