Some notes and additions regarding small drones: 1) All the material from military sources seems to assume a "cooperative target", drones that hover high in the air. However small drones are perfectly capable of flying very close to the ground. Kamikaze drones can and will use cover to sneak up on targets in the future. This is currently not done because it is unnecessary due to the lack of anti-drone hardware, not because because drones can't do that. 2) The camera systems, even on cheaper commercial drones, are good enough to stay out of range of every proposed or tested anti-drone system I have seen so far. The longer range improves the effectiveness of camouflage tough. Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see how these systems could deal with a drone that has good optics and a mortar team. 3) Jammers are already obsolete. Off the shelf, fully autonomous drones are available for a couple of years now and GPS is not a hard necessity. Most smartphones have enough computation power to visually identify and track objects and is so easy to implement that school kids to it on a regular basis. At the moment the only software to combine drone control and tracking I'm aware of is ROS (Robot Operating System) and it is not super easy to use, but that will change fast. Commercial autonomous drones can follow someone on a mountain-bike riding at a decent speed trough a forest to give some perspective. 3a) A quick and easy counter to jammers is using a second drone as spotter and radio relay, moving the antenna of the attacking drone to the top and shielding it from below from radio waves, puts the reviving antenna of the attack drone into the radio shadow of the jammer while still receiving control signals from the spotter drone above. That has limits, flight angle and reflections from the environment could still cause problems, however it makes jammer a very shaky solution. 3b) Some people already put software defined radios on drones to do radio direction finding. The latency is terrible (multiple seconds) but with the current prices and performance a drone equivalent to HARM missiles seems absolutely possible. If we don't see HARM drones, compact man portable ELINT drones will probably be a thing. Look up RTL-SDR and other projects if you are interested. 4) Entry level racing quadcopters accelerate in one second from 0-200 Km/h, that is an acceleration of around 5.6 g in any direction. I could not find much data about the traverse speed of AA and LASER turrets and how fast the fire control system can react to direction changes of the target but my gut feeling (and some very basic calculations) tells me that drones will come out on top starting at around 600 m. Would be great if someone with more knowledge about military turrets could chime in. The use of cover, erratic maneuvers and attacking from multiple vectors would also reduce the number of drones needed for a saturation attack. 5)My experience with lasers is limited to operating some laser cutters and range finders. However from the literature the range of military lasers in the lower atmosphere is very limited, mostly because of atmospheric absorption and thermal blooming. The ranges quoted for in use or tested ground defense systems are around 2 to 8 Km, additional info would be appreciated. But the biggest problem are particles in the air, fog, smoke, dust, rain, snow and smog drastically reduce the range to the point of being useless. 5a) Another problem with LASERS could be that they are really bad at cutting certain materials, my 120 Watt Co2 laser cannot cut 2 mm carbon fiber composite. That is at 1 cm distance and with multiple passes. But it doesn't have to be expensive cc, carbon foam impregnated with organic material offers similar protection. Where do you get carbon foam? Well, forget some bread in the oven, dunk it in paint and presto, LASER armor. Large LASERS can behave very differently, especially if they use short pulses, so I would be curious how well that would work if anybody knows. My summary, team Otis has to be taken very seriously.
Great comment. I agree with everything. The only thing that I will add is that we are moving to much smaller and much more autonomous weapons whether we like it or not. The robotization of armies is happening as we speak because there is no other way to fight. Just for perspective. A $10K Lancet is superior than classic carpet bombing Vietnam style! A single DJI drone is superior to sending a recon special forces team. A single 20 gram super mini helicopter can detect where the enemy is hiding in a multi-floor building. And that mini drone might be used to assasinate the enemies generals. And this is todays technology.
LASERS are dead on arrival. A mirror surface cost next to nothing and if you add just a thin termal protection behind it you can reduce the LASERS everctiveness hundreads if not thousands of times. They can just barelly drop unshielded targets from a few miles right now imagine when you need to bring 100x more power to the playground.
Large lasers with very short pulses may even be worse, as they create a vapour from the impact point that absorbs further incoming radiation. The actual phenomenon is disputed in academia, but the results are not. Powerful laser with extremely short pulses produce significantly less damage than they ought to.
@@minhucovu6321 Thanks for clearing that up. Sometimes pulsed lasers are used to ablate surface material more effectively than continuous lasers, I think that is why I was unsure.
While thinking in terms of laser cutting might be tempting, spectrum of possible soft and hard-kill that laser can cause to uav is much wider than that. Optical sensors can be blinded temporarily or permanently (this requires low intensity). Overheating. Parts loose strenght due to temperature. Thermal stress will cause deformation or fracturing. Some materials may catch on fire. Perhaps other effects which I can't think of right now. Single laser vehicle could have different turrets for different targets. Small fast tracking blinding turrets for trash drones and big turrets for larger targets.
The trade off in cost is not only calculated by cost of the offensive weapon and the defense used. It must include the cost of the damage the offensive weapon will do. Using a $50k SAM to stop a $10k drone is a good trade if it stops $200k damage at a power plant or fuel depot.
Underrated comment. However than is only true for a single encounter. In a ongoing conflict you have now one SAM less to defend all of your assets and it gets worst with every fired missile.
Man this is where the advance swarm drone's with longer ranges enter the war and if they are guided by a mother drone which is hundreds KM away from the main war zone and it is also receiving instructions from other ground stations which is thousands KM away from the war is what is more of a lethal weapon
yeah that is true, but if they send let's say 5-10 drones on the target the cost would quickly outweigh the return, because having to shoot down 10 drones would cost you 500k as opposed to 100k, for a target that is worth 200k, and that's considering you destroy all the drones before they get to target, because even if just one gets through then they achieved their objective, all whilst costing the enemy around a total of 700k for only 100k (this is only an example), this is why Russia is producing the Lancet drone because they are starting to see that there is huge potential for these kinds of drones, because 1. if the enemy does decide to shoot them down they are depleting their air defenses leaving an opening for cruise missiles and air superiority (as Russia has already shown by launching massive amounts of missile attacks in recent days without much opposition to them, and Russia also deploying strike aircraft in the Donetsk to great effect in recent days) 2. the cost outweighs to price of shooting these down by a huge margin, even if you shoot all of them down.
@@loganknezovich8394 a fuel depot or power plant has a replacement cost far more than 200k. If you do not intercept a swarm of 10 drones ate the cost of $500k, you most like end up with a replacement cost, if it's possible to rebuild or replace, that is far more than $500k. This may not be the case with smaller military targets, but currently for civilian targets. The cost of loosing a power plant, water station, or fuel depot would extend far beyond the targets themselves. You loose civilian lifes for months after as a result and increase in cot to truck in fuel and water. I personally think a few CIWS at the high value civilian targets is the best option with SAMs being used for the larger cruise missiles and high attitude recon drones.
yeah but you are still going to be losing economically, spending 5 times more than your enemy, and your only destroying disposable drones and missiles, not actual enemy units or positions. and this would not prevent ukraines cities being devastated, because there are always some that slip past the defenses, because they attack all at once to overwhelm defenses.
At 7:52 - China's Casic anti-UAV system package’s ZK-K20 tactical command control ZK-K20 and FK-3000 truck-mounted armaments platform are meant to protect high-value installation such as airports, harbors, power plants, key bridges, armor or artillery brigades; and command centers. It is not meant to be used everywhere on the battlefield by infantry troops.
Another important difference is that while expensive aircraft needs a large logistic footprint in a centralized place, an airbase or an ACC which is an easy target to attack with mass cruise missiles and drones. The Geranium drones and cruise missiles can be mass launched from trucks and can launch from literally anywhere.
1:39 Thanks for stating that clearly. Particularly for nations with reserve currency status or lines of credit, money is everywhere in war. It is used to distract from the resource drain. If a nations spokesperson had to stand at the podium and say we are diverting 10% of construction steel, cement, and electricity to support a foreign war people would understand the impact better.
Excellent analyses, and a very hard to refute conclusion. I fear we have only seen the tip of the iceberg. If I had to defend, I would much prefer to defend against one incoming weapon worth $1million, than against 1000 targets worth $1000 each. Even if the 1000 only have a predicted success rate of 1% each……..
" Even if the 1000 only have a predicted success rate of 1% each…….." worst part is they have at least a 50% chance of hitting their target after they likely pass through the AA screen.
@@anasevi9456 no they have 50% chance to get away with all king of defences including multilayered laser defence AA machine guns defence electronic jamming defences, why i am saying this cause the new swarm drone's the defence manf are working on are fitted with AI which can sense the defence systems like jammers and laser system and can do some irregular maneuvers or they can also have some range of anti jamming capabilities for military standard drone's and can first destroy the defence system before engaging and destroying the enemy battalion
I think the better solution is probably to switch from a primarily defensive posture to a primarily offensive posture. Eliminate threats before they start mass producing drones. Less nice West, more aggressive West.
@@loganwolfram4216 Drones are easy to produce in a decentralized plant and with low tech so stopping production is very difficult. also what if they are produced in a neutral country? You cant strike those manufacturing plants without drawing in that country and possibly others in the area.
Thank you for the information. I saw this video mentioned on discord yesterday. I waited to see if it would find it's way into my recommended vids. This morning it was right near the top. Not sure why it's taking longer than it used to. FYI.
Interesting would also be how direct energy weapons play out when effective not only against drones but also against incoming artillery and mortar rounds.
The point about increasing complexity of force structure is an interesting one. Intelligence and command systems need to be sophisticated to coordinate everything. The increased complexity probabbly favours larger tactical units; brigade size vs battalion size.
The return of conventinal warfare, as opposed to curbstomping some small near-irrelevant force of barely armed insurgents also kind of pushes organizational level and tactics back to beigade and even division level.
Cannon Anti air systems with opto electrical tracking is your best bet right now. Shilka and Tunguska style platforms with cannons can easily shoot down slow drones big and small and for big UCAVS you use the missiles.
@@joachimschreiber7835 Apparently Shilka and Gepard perform better than Pansir against light drones in Ukraine. Modern systems probably have all the hardware to kill drones. But they need a software update. On older systems much more depends on the operator.
@@orbiradio2465 and the are more in danger of anti radar rockets because i am pretty sure they do not use the canons while they are moving and they do not have pulsed radar but permanently shine on the target... And Ukraine has no ammo for Gepard
I really love the originality, production quality and personality (especially humour) that goes into these videos. I have spent a long time thinking this through over the last decade and, for every countermeasure we could deploy there is an obvious counter countermeasure that is going to be cheaper to deploy than the countermeasure. For example directed electronic energy can be countered by using drones using increasingly accurate over time solid state INS and image recognition of terrain and targets. Also, if the jamming is directional, just have several.drones attack the jammer simultaneously from different directions using terrain screening to get as close as possible, or simply direct artillery onto the emitter. Gun systems like Skynex are very expensive and relatively short ranged. Their ammunition is hideously expensive and they can easily be overwhelmed by simultaneous attacks from different axes. Drones themselves can be used as kinetic kill vehicles but a killer drone would probably be more expensive than one used to attack ground targets. I honestly think we are getting into MAD territory here. The only solution against state actors is to have more and better drones than they have and survivable recon assets and command and control.to target them. For this to work all.the systems employed need to be cheap, easily mass produced and stockpiled, massively redundant and (for the command and control and recon elements) survivable.
What you describe would cause a sea change in the Western way of war. The focus on few high-end systems has led to low production rates and questionable industrial capacity, plus, as mentioned, an unwillingness to accept casualties, which are always high in wars against a peer enemy. Manpower will probably become a high priority again.
Could it be that we are closer to making war obsolete or at least much less likely for benefit to outweigh cost: if offense becomes cheaper and cheaper but defense can still somewhat keep up, lagging only slightly behind such that no one's infantry can ever really be sufficiently secure, and similar kinds of impasse happen in the aerial mid and long range space possibly also becoming cheaper over time...due to the already stunning degree of accuracy of surveillance and targeting...a non nuclear MAD situation distributed across a multipolar geopolitical environment...or am I dreaming...
@@janinetrue No I think you might be onto something. I thought it was hilarious when the Russians started to deploy those Iranian knockoff UAVs and all the armchair Military experts sneered about how slow and unstealthy (you could hear them miles away) and how unprofitable, and hence how unpopular they would prove with the MIC. Only to see the wretched things buzzing along at tree top height at a hundred some knots with practically no heat or radar signature. Coppers blowing off a cuppla mags of AK fire hopelessly trying to hit the thing as it went overhead in a blur. You cant jam them because they use GPS and have no ground command. Some are even retain identifying. They are sneering on the on the side of their noses now. Still doent worry powderensky or his Washington mates - they still have thier mansions in Malibu. . Might piss off the locals though. The ones in the dark and cold with no water. Has a kind of 1917 ring about it.
Yet another thought provoking technological and tactical analysis thank you. The rise of the drones makes me question whether the management class in our western militaries are up to the task of understanding what equipment they need to buy and how to deploy it. Or will they, as usual, just receive the arms company salespeople and be talked into buying whatever appears good in the sales video. There were after all, plenty of salespeople selling sabres to cavalry units when WWI broke out.
I think the counter to "small" drones will be other drones. That can controlled by computer in a vehicle with a simple objective intercept, fly close and shoot off a simple cheap payload, like birdshot shotgun shell. Return and you can rearm/recharge them for next encounter. The benifit of a mobile drone system to a anti-drone laser vehicle is that your drones can be used for other objectives as well. When not used for intercepting drones there is nothing to stop you from controlling your drones and drop mortars or even fly down and shoot soldiers in the trenches. Atleast until laser systems becomes efficient/small enought to just mount as an extra hard kill system on your standard vehicles.
*Panzir S1M, a new variant of a Russian air-defense system, replaces the top row of two anti-air missiles with eight small missiles.* Regular Panzir S1 has three rows with two missiles each, six missiles total. The new variant would have four bigger missiles and eight small missiles. This allows to use way cheaper missiles against drones, though it is not an ultimate solution since Panzir S1M is still pricey. They need to create a smaller, cheaper system only for those small anti-air missiles. This system can be manufactured much more plentifully.
Yeah. Also the original Pantsir radar wasn't good enough for low RCS drones and had many issues in Libya. Those anti-drones systems need state of the art radars that cost millions. Otherwise the UCAV might send them an antiradion missile and bye bye multimillion dollar "anti drone weapon".
@@johnzach2057 Panzir S1M has an updated radar system, of course. With more targets tracking and also better smaller and slower targets recognition. But, as I explained, it still not a good solution. Needs to be smaller and cheaper.
@@matheuscerqueira7952 It has those bigger missiles that Panzir also has. Newer small missiles are not yet made into independent thing that can be put on any chassis.
I remember a report by the Pentagon that they had lost a simulated battle for the coastline of Iran because in the Simulation Iran used very low tech means of communications like carriers an the US had to expend a lot of resources trying to crack their codes to no effect and that was a deciding factor in the outcome of the battle. It kinda reminded me of this. Iran seems to excell in asymetric warfare.
There were some other issues with that simulation (such as severe disagreements about the speed at which motorbikes could deliver messages), so while still an interesting study, it's not really a good one to base analyses on.
Yeah exactly, "seems". We have seen little slivers of their military in actual action...and theyve been complete dogshit. Typical dictatorship military: all bark, little- no bite
That's the problem right. If Ukraine could hit moscow with drones... but the problem is Russia does not care if every single civilian in occupied Ukraine dies. Heck the Russian leadership doesn't really care about Russian soldiers dying. And the west doesn't want to hit Russian cities. So Ukraine can't respond symmetrically. So the West must be prepared to pay $100 for every $1 Russia spends. The West needs to step up even more.
I could see there being more drone vs drone combat, basically drone dogfights. Then again that might not be cost effective or viable option if the enemy implements drone swarm tactics. Unless the defending drones have some kind of automatic AI to engage incoming drones. The future battlefield will be interesting that's for sure.
Drone swarms won't work under heavy jamming and effective dron on drone combat is a fantasy - systems that can reliably detect drones at distance are too expensive to use them on one time use anti-drones. Only one actually viable solution in a near future is medium calibre AA with programmable fuses. Platforms is relatively cheap and each Intercept is even cheaper.
fantastic video, drones really are the future and as always the adage "countries prepare to fight the previous war" shows and will likely continue to show as drones change war in unexpected ways
I agree, as drones exponentially increase the SI of the units utilising them. The cheap ability to use human brains as a guidance package will also be highly resilient to countermeasures.
Drones can be ... sooo many different things. So yes, I agree that it will be like nothing else. If nothing else, even if it was modeled after traditional forces, it would be able to do things traditional forces can't. For example a remote or AI controlled plane, can go on kamikaze missions, so even if the plane/drone is exactly the same, the fact that there is no pilot will make a huge difference. And then it could be modeled for missions that piloted vehicles can't.
Perhaps a good option would be to fight fire with fire: create a massive fleet of cheap drones with anti-air capabilities to take out incoming cheap drones, perhaps using very small-caliber machine guns. Basically WW1-style air combat, but with smaller, automated machines.
Defense is way harder then offense with these types of weapons. You could use off the shelf gps to guide a suicide drone. You ain't going to knock a incoming drone out of the air with such cheap components.
Low cost weapons can be stopped by a lower cost solution. That defensive system vs offensive system is exponential and not linear. High cost offensive systems need a higher cost defensive system to stop it.
Breaking the GPS connection or the connection to the controller doesn´t make a drone fall out of the skies. It usually just enters rth mode and turns back to its starting position or until the connection is reestablished. And that´s just for commercial drones. You might think military standards are up to a similar approach at least. You will have to jam a lot more than just GPS or the remote signals to achieve a crash.
I know of 2 programs designed to handle the threat of cheap drone swarms. One is the new APKWS lazer guided rockets, one rocket costs about the same as one Shahid. It can also be mounted on a pickup truck and shipped on one standard shipping palate. The other system is the "Coyote," and I don't know much about it at all other than it's also a hard kill. solution.
I guess it helps a lot having a subject matter expert to hand... Otis deserves credit :) Edit: Perhaps small man-carried and operated hunter-killer drones could be used?
Man-carried is too expensive. It needs life-support, ejection, space and the weight and bad maneuverability just makes them cumbersome. The best could be a killer-drone drone. Powerful radars on mini AWACS. Ground AA guns for drones. All with AI's for target acquisitions and classification. Those systems are for platoon defense or above, including high-value target defense. Iron Beam, IRIS-T, NASAMS are for static, high value defense against missiles. HAWK should all be given to Ukraine so we can get rid of it already.
@@BBBrasil Man-carried means that the man carries the drone. As in the infantry has a drone in their backpack. From your objections it sounds you were thinking the other way around: a man riding a drone. But that is just an aircraft
@@GM-xk1nw reusable means cheap in long run. Half of my friends would pay for their own fighter drone if the government would let them legit fly them into battle
You cut to the heart of the matter ------ this is a huge problem Hopefully the US and West will actually do someting to fix it and not ignore th issue.
Singe board inertial guidance systems exist, which protects direct attack drones from GPS jamming. These drift over time and distance, but for short & maybe medium range use they will likely be adequate. Combined with programed on launch paths the only EW solution is one that damages or resets the drone computer. Which needs a lot of power.
I think we are going to see evolution of systems like the SHORAD system from the US. There are several parts to that system and some of them are too expensive. First there needs to be detection systems. For these short ranged systems, they probably need to be integrated in order to have effective fire control. Some missile systems might be appropriate for faster/higher systems. Electronics might be an option, but I think in the end a proximity fused cannon (20mm+) seems like what is going to work the best. Just need to get it all integrated into packages with vehicles that have different mobility capabilities. Some tracked, some wheeled armored, and some wheeled unarmored.
Company or platoon-level beltfed automatic shotgun. Use a cheap, short-range radar for automatic targeting, and an infrared camera to detect a coded blinker on *your* UAVs for IFF.
Really good analysis. Laser is weather dependent, I’m thinking either other drones or a sort of cheap unmanned drone ECM system loitering around or even smaller drone units using a tethered ballon or loitering small long flying autonomous drones with and ECM unit. I fly drones too, and the major problem is interference. A portable device, cell phone size that provides that, could deviate the drone from target within a certain range. Could be part of a radio kit. A similar AUV could d9 the same, launched from a backpack.
Agree! Guided missiles are just too expensive for a large scale war. Laser weapons and armor piecing bullets are the most cost effective to be equipped on drones.
Every single vehicle will need 360 degree terminal drone defense, able to protect an area measured in meters, perhaps 100-400 meters or so. I imagine a layered defense where small missiles, EW, and lasers/AA guns target drones up to 1-5 miles out and each vehicles local defense system handles drones inside that radius. Forests, hills, and urban areas will remain challenging.
Small racing drones whit smal fragmentation warhead, proximity fused. Even if missed target can be targeted again. TV/contrast terminal guidance, since IR signature is to small. A220 russian 57mm or Bofors 40mm whit programable fused cannons are last line of defence.
A problem with just cutting off the drone from it's controller is that there are already commercial drones that will automatically return to it's launch site if it looses connection and drones that run AI to perform simple tasks even without being controlled. Just a side thought, pneumatic rifles may be a cheap alternative to shoot down drones.
If a target is attacked by N drones each with a probability of P to get through defenses, then the odds of at least one getting through is equal to 1-(1-P)**N For example if 10 drones each with a1% chance, then the cumulative chance of getting through is 1 minus .99 to the 10th power or 9.6%
I do wonder if we will get more done fighters other armed uav whose mission is to shoot down other low-cost drone. I do wander if barrage balloons might comeback as a low-cost counter for fixed positions
Sounds like scaled down auto-cannons, perhaps based around the 7.62mm mini-gun, should be put together using existing hardware. Also, auto-correcting scopes have been tested against drones in the past. Such sighting equipment with military spec durability is being tested now. The potential is to give any grunt the ability to target and take down small drones with his service rifle.
The projectile should be self destructing to be safe. 20mm seems like the smallest practical for it. I think id rather go for a larger caliber with time detonating fuse. Like a 40mm. It just needs the accuracy and tracking to defeat targets with relatively few shots
problem is simply that we dont supply CRAM systems which are already able to deal with low cost threats at a low cost per kill. The radar and tracking is already able to differentiate threats and to assign specific threats to specific defense systems. Dumb as we are we still force Ukraine to defend itself with some of the most expensive missiles in airdefense.
At least Spain and Israel are mofiying rifle and remote weapons station's aiming systems to figth drones. Also, I think the main problem is detection them. For that it could possible to use sound detection as de it would be affordable and totally passive.
35mm ammo can be overkill for small drones. so stations with 12,7 mm or even smaller for small drones. that will require lots of maybe land drones. inexpensive small vehicles that would have very small radars protecting only against very small drones. a bit bigger vehicles against a bit bigger drones and so on... or air killer drones. something that could approach such drones fast enough to cover bigger area.
You need a fleet of attack drones. Cheap and persistent. Fly towards enemy drone and detonate a small warhead. A flying hand grenade if you like. Will need some sort of better radar coverage to coordinate - perhaps a tethered balloon to give some height and range.
Lasers don't necessarily need to knock a drone/loitering munition directly out of the sky at first but can possibly "sow" a swarm of drones with progressive damage like burned out cameras and seized rotors. If the swarm recovers then it can be "reaped" or prioritized for more attention. Ground laser defenses if they're mobile could also be used to blind thermal sights/cameras on opposing vehicles, BUT this admittedly would be highly risky and likely something advertised but never doctrinally espoused
Enter the CV90LVKV. A standard CV90 IFV with a trusty Bofors 40mm, but with a radar on the turret and slightly more gun elevation. -> Ad datalinking to all the other CV90's on the frontline so that they can use the LVKV's targeting data for their own 40mm guns. Cheap ammo, works against infantry, armor, helicopters, cruise missiles and drones.
Like no other is an exaggeration, the machine gun was at least as disruptive. It gave 1-2 soldiers the ability to replace dozens and pretty much permanently ended the possibility of employing massed infantry formations.
Definitely yes, EMI has temporarily knocked out my drones more than once but they usually recover and keep flying. But remember the inverse square law, the range would not be great, electromagnetic interference (EMI) is a complex topic but I can give some practical examples. The following is completely fictional of course. Most military training grounds in Germany are open to the public if not in use. But because it is hard to keep ppl out of such large areas, there could have been multiple occasions where someone wandered into the radar cone of a powered on PATRIOT radar and came relatively close to take a look. Their phones worked fine afterwards. It is possible but I highly doubt the practical usability. Also turning on a radar in a war-zone is always a delicate thing, frying a drone is nice, getting a visit from a HARM missile not so much.
Remember watching an american admiral/general talk about this topic... must be at least 10 years ago now. Though if memory serves he was talking about the asymetric cost of scud like misiles and the abms used to shoot them down. Cant remember the exact numbers but something like 200 million in abm missiles to shoot down a 100k in scud. He had a great phrase for it, which fails me now. His point was however that the us just couldn't afford those numbers. This is even worse on ships where they no longer have the ability to do underway replenishment of vls tubes. Heck i even heard that the ships go to sea without a full compliment of missiles, not sure if its true, but given their cost... it wouldnt be all that suprising.
I feel like doing the WWII thing of slapping .50cals on literally everything but more high tech might work. Make them CROWS (or similar)remote turrets that can datalink a radar/ir targeting vehicle and be controlled by that vehicle. So the only impact to the unit would be the added weight of the CROWS and the addition of a targeting vehicle. Might need to modify the CROWS to increase rotation and elevation. On the plus side you have a lot of angles of fire. Collectively a high volume of fire. Doesn’t disrupt the unit significantly. Is still an effective weapon Thoughts?
I wonder if we will se a rush into the storages and western military dusting of cheaper anti air canons and slap a little radar and laser range finder on it, just to cover up in the short term.
slow firing Auto Cannons of enough high calliber, like a Bofors 40mm, backed by Radar and some good AA FC system are probably the best solution against Drones, that can also be used on other tasks, like supression of Infantry.
The presumption is that drones would always be dependent on communication feedback with operators (for targeting) or with positional satellites. With AI this would not be the case!
A laser system may be capable, but there is another problem, the HEAT signature of a laser system, would make them a bigger target, imagine a drone, has be disrupted from it controller, but it's got a secondary programme function, of locking to the nearest heat signature and hitting a target. This becomes a win win for the offensive side
I'm surprised that you didn't mentioned Iron dome, it is built exactly for this reason. It is correct that isn't economical for large scale wars but it is with mentioning. Secondly, Turkey also has a solution for Shahed 136. TB2 and other drones will start to carry a variant of sungur missile which is Turkish equivalent of Stinger.
@@georgekaradov1274 As I said, Turkish equivalent of Stinger which specially designed cheaper version of that missile thus it will make economical sense.
@@neosinan1 if it is a stinger type of missile, even if it is made by Turkey, it will not cost as little as 20K as the Iranian drones. The estimated cost of a new stinger in 2020 is around $120K US.
@@georgekaradov1274 And how much of that is labour, if your currency is worth as little as the Lira you might be able to crank it out for less than half of the cost. Also it's telling that Iran has to make Shahed's are made from US electronics, and that these supplies can be throttled through sanctions.
@@georgekaradov1274 Soviet Strela, Igla are also "Stinger-like missiles" and they cost thousands, not hundreds of thousands. Anyway, you do not need a heat-seeking head to kill Mavic nor will it work. There is no silver bullet for all kinds of drones. You need a ladder of solutions, with each rang cheaper than the target it can kill. From 5.56 machine guns controlled by a computer with cameras to 20-30mm autocannon with airburst rounds all the way to anti-satellite missiles. But necessarily cheap, which American MIC cannot produce due to being for-profit and corrupt.
The obvious solution to me is to deploy a lot of versatile C-RAM systems which can destroy incoming rockets, artillery, and mortar rounds. From what I understand the C-RAM is being upgraded to also detect and destroy drones and the ammunition would be much cheaper than launching missiles.
It’s a cost exchange ratio… been part of calculus for military force design for a long time. But by the time you shoot your little drones I’ll have leveled your SAM sites and bunkers with bombers.
A good defense for drones would be BB or plastic pellet shooters substituted for guns. If fired at high rates then they would do damage for a cheap price
well done! this is the modern transition that is currently happening within military tactics. bringing economic warfare into a tactical conflict will have a huge effect. I am surprised this hasn't been publicly seen as the threat it really is. our high dollar MIC simply can't compete or defeat this threat. the newest of fighter's simply cannot perform anywhere near as cost effectively as UCAV's or drones. our most modern fighters cost more to fly (does not include munitions) then UCAV's used effectively to hit targets even if some are lost in the process. loss of a single f35 (modern fighter) would cost $100 million plus...100 $1 million drones or UCAV's could be purchased and operated far cheaper for just the $100 million fly away cost of a new fighter. this is a huge problem for western nations that are tied to a high cost for profit MIC manned fighters should still play a role as "quarterbacks" to ensure a human that can be held responsible is in the loop. the idea of spending huge on a fighter without considering use of forward low cost unmanned teaming is irresponsible. our current western MIC WILL fight the change to lower cost equipment in order to maintain their profits...regardless of the detrimental effect. our as it seems current "for profit" only MIC is a concern for democracy.
The scary thing is that none of these modern drones are even close to being a slaughterbot swarm. If you can't deal with unsophisticated threats like this, how will you deal with a coordinated assault by a million tank-killing bees that cost close to nothing to produce?
I think what we are basically parallels the impact of aircraft on WW1, initially largely invulnerable, or at least uneconomic to shoot down. The historic lesson is that the aircraft changed considerably once they started to meet. The answer to a drone is another drone, potentially with a very simple weapon (laser beam rider missile maybe? or even a small machine gun/shotgun). Loitering air defence drones can double up as intelligence gathering assets, while still being cheap enough that they are uneconomic for manned aircraft or primary air defences to deal with. I foresee tactical air warfare becoming much more fractal in nature, with the smallest drones being hunted by larger drones, and a whole chain up till you hit aircraft as large as current fighters. I don't see expensive energy weapons coming out any time soon, and soft kill isn't that hard to defend against. Part of the problem with systems like that is that they are easily baited* and expensive targets. It would reveal its position against a minor target, and immediately be hit by a dedicated weapon. It isn't just the price per shot, the value of the assets risked to do the job also have to be considered, as well as how much risk they are under. *If it is not firing at every target then it has already lost. The concept is not able to 'pick its shots' to stay safe, so cannot be expensive.
Lasers can also target mortar shells and protect from anti-tank missiles, it will likely be defensive in nature and may replace AAA entirely. Also the problem with EW is that it might be indiscriminate hence Russia's reluctance to use it in the early days of the war, and each EW piece lights itself up like a christmas tree when it activates.
Lasers are nullified by mirrors, which cost nothing to paint... Lasers are only useful against sensors, be it cameras are human eyes, which by definition have to be vulnerable to light.
I doubt lasers will be effective against mortars or AT missiles. You get a lot more time on target when using against drones compare to the other two, which means the laser needs to be many times more powerful.
@@Ilamarea what I am saying is there's a massive difference between the energy requirements between the two, which means it might not be resource efficient to use the same system on both
What about tying something like a CROWS turret to the kind of sensors used for Active Protective Systems on armored vehicles? Drones might be cheap, but with a better fire control system, machine gun rounds are cheaper.
I feel like the obvious answer to drone warfare is counter-drone warfare. Then it comes down to who can get the most drones to the right place at the lowest cost.
Some notes and additions regarding small drones:
1) All the material from military sources seems to assume a "cooperative target", drones that hover high in the air. However small drones are perfectly capable of flying very close to the ground.
Kamikaze drones can and will use cover to sneak up on targets in the future. This is currently not done because it is unnecessary due to the lack of anti-drone hardware, not because because drones can't do that.
2) The camera systems, even on cheaper commercial drones, are good enough to stay out of range of every proposed or tested anti-drone system I have seen so far. The longer range improves the effectiveness of camouflage tough. Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see how these systems could deal with a drone that has good optics and a mortar team.
3) Jammers are already obsolete. Off the shelf, fully autonomous drones are available for a couple of years now and GPS is not a hard necessity. Most smartphones have enough computation power to visually identify and track objects and is so easy to implement that school kids to it on a regular basis. At the moment the only software to combine drone control and tracking I'm aware of is ROS (Robot Operating System) and it is not super easy to use, but that will change fast. Commercial autonomous drones can follow someone on a mountain-bike riding at a decent speed trough a forest to give some perspective.
3a) A quick and easy counter to jammers is using a second drone as spotter and radio relay, moving the antenna of the attacking drone to the top and shielding it from below from radio waves, puts the reviving antenna of the attack drone into the radio shadow of the jammer while still receiving control signals from the spotter drone above. That has limits, flight angle and reflections from the environment could still cause problems, however it makes jammer a very shaky solution.
3b) Some people already put software defined radios on drones to do radio direction finding. The latency is terrible (multiple seconds) but with the current prices and performance a drone equivalent to HARM missiles seems absolutely possible. If we don't see HARM drones, compact man portable ELINT drones will probably be a thing. Look up RTL-SDR and other projects if you are interested.
4) Entry level racing quadcopters accelerate in one second from 0-200 Km/h, that is an acceleration of around 5.6 g in any direction. I could not find much data about the traverse speed of AA and LASER turrets and how fast the fire control system can react to direction changes of the target but my gut feeling (and some very basic calculations) tells me that drones will come out on top starting at around 600 m. Would be great if someone with more knowledge about military turrets could chime in.
The use of cover, erratic maneuvers and attacking from multiple vectors would also reduce the number of drones needed for a saturation attack.
5)My experience with lasers is limited to operating some laser cutters and range finders. However from the literature the range of military lasers in the lower atmosphere is very limited, mostly because of atmospheric absorption and thermal blooming. The ranges quoted for in use or tested ground defense systems are around 2 to 8 Km, additional info would be appreciated. But the biggest problem are particles in the air, fog, smoke, dust, rain, snow and smog drastically reduce the range to the point of being useless.
5a) Another problem with LASERS could be that they are really bad at cutting certain materials, my 120 Watt Co2 laser cannot cut 2 mm carbon fiber composite. That is at 1 cm distance and with multiple passes. But it doesn't have to be expensive cc, carbon foam impregnated with organic material offers similar protection. Where do you get carbon foam? Well, forget some bread in the oven, dunk it in paint and presto, LASER armor.
Large LASERS can behave very differently, especially if they use short pulses, so I would be curious how well that would work if anybody knows.
My summary, team Otis has to be taken very seriously.
Great comment. I agree with everything. The only thing that I will add is that we are moving to much smaller and much more autonomous weapons whether we like it or not. The robotization of armies is happening as we speak because there is no other way to fight. Just for perspective. A $10K Lancet is superior than classic carpet bombing Vietnam style! A single DJI drone is superior to sending a recon special forces team. A single 20 gram super mini helicopter can detect where the enemy is hiding in a multi-floor building. And that mini drone might be used to assasinate the enemies generals. And this is todays technology.
LASERS are dead on arrival. A mirror surface cost next to nothing and if you add just a thin termal protection behind it you can reduce the LASERS everctiveness hundreads if not thousands of times. They can just barelly drop unshielded targets from a few miles right now imagine when you need to bring 100x more power to the playground.
Large lasers with very short pulses may even be worse, as they create a vapour from the impact point that absorbs further incoming radiation. The actual phenomenon is disputed in academia, but the results are not. Powerful laser with extremely short pulses produce significantly less damage than they ought to.
@@minhucovu6321 Thanks for clearing that up. Sometimes pulsed lasers are used to ablate surface material more effectively than continuous lasers, I think that is why I was unsure.
While thinking in terms of laser cutting might be tempting, spectrum of possible soft and hard-kill that laser can cause to uav is much wider than that.
Optical sensors can be blinded temporarily or permanently (this requires low intensity).
Overheating. Parts loose strenght due to temperature.
Thermal stress will cause deformation or fracturing.
Some materials may catch on fire.
Perhaps other effects which I can't think of right now.
Single laser vehicle could have different turrets for different targets. Small fast tracking blinding turrets for trash drones and big turrets for larger targets.
The trade off in cost is not only calculated by cost of the offensive weapon and the defense used. It must include the cost of the damage the offensive weapon will do. Using a $50k SAM to stop a $10k drone is a good trade if it stops $200k damage at a power plant or fuel depot.
Underrated comment. However than is only true for a single encounter. In a ongoing conflict you have now one SAM less to defend all of your assets and it gets worst with every fired missile.
Man this is where the advance swarm drone's with longer ranges enter the war and if they are guided by a mother drone which is hundreds KM away from the main war zone and it is also receiving instructions from other ground stations which is thousands KM away from the war is what is more of a lethal weapon
yeah that is true, but if they send let's say 5-10 drones on the target the cost would quickly outweigh the return, because having to shoot down 10 drones would cost you 500k as opposed to 100k, for a target that is worth 200k, and that's considering you destroy all the drones before they get to target, because even if just one gets through then they achieved their objective, all whilst costing the enemy around a total of 700k for only 100k (this is only an example), this is why Russia is producing the Lancet drone because they are starting to see that there is huge potential for these kinds of drones, because 1. if the enemy does decide to shoot them down they are depleting their air defenses leaving an opening for cruise missiles and air superiority (as Russia has already shown by launching massive amounts of missile attacks in recent days without much opposition to them, and Russia also deploying strike aircraft in the Donetsk to great effect in recent days) 2. the cost outweighs to price of shooting these down by a huge margin, even if you shoot all of them down.
@@loganknezovich8394 a fuel depot or power plant has a replacement cost far more than 200k. If you do not intercept a swarm of 10 drones ate the cost of $500k, you most like end up with a replacement cost, if it's possible to rebuild or replace, that is far more than $500k. This may not be the case with smaller military targets, but currently for civilian targets. The cost of loosing a power plant, water station, or fuel depot would extend far beyond the targets themselves. You loose civilian lifes for months after as a result and increase in cot to truck in fuel and water. I personally think a few CIWS at the high value civilian targets is the best option with SAMs being used for the larger cruise missiles and high attitude recon drones.
yeah but you are still going to be losing economically, spending 5 times more than your enemy, and your only destroying disposable drones and missiles, not actual enemy units or positions.
and this would not prevent ukraines cities being devastated, because there are always some that slip past the defenses, because they attack all at once to overwhelm defenses.
At 7:52 - China's Casic anti-UAV system package’s ZK-K20 tactical command control ZK-K20 and FK-3000 truck-mounted armaments platform are meant to protect high-value installation such as airports, harbors, power plants, key bridges, armor or artillery brigades; and command centers. It is not meant to be used everywhere on the battlefield by infantry troops.
Thank you for your coverage.
I recognize the effort you are putting into diction, it shows.
I also recognise the effort you are putting into listening.🤣😅
I have to say, I certainly don't mind a slower flow if it helps reduce the friction of the diction
I enjoyed the video. Very informative and clear to understand. Also, I appreciate the humor lol. I subscribed and liked. Thank you
Another great video. Great to see you back
Great episode as usual. However gray text super imposed on a gray drone is illegible!
Another important difference is that while expensive aircraft needs a large logistic footprint in a centralized place, an airbase or an ACC which is an easy target to attack with mass cruise missiles and drones.
The Geranium drones and cruise missiles can be mass launched from trucks and can launch from literally anywhere.
8:04 You have a very sophisticated taste in stock footage my man 😉😉
😆
1:39 Thanks for stating that clearly. Particularly for nations with reserve currency status or lines of credit, money is everywhere in war. It is used to distract from the resource drain. If a nations spokesperson had to stand at the podium and say we are diverting 10% of construction steel, cement, and electricity to support a foreign war people would understand the impact better.
Excellent analyses, and a very hard to refute conclusion. I fear we have only seen the tip of the iceberg. If I had to defend, I would much prefer to defend against one incoming weapon worth $1million, than against 1000 targets worth $1000 each. Even if the 1000 only have a predicted success rate of 1% each……..
" Even if the 1000 only have a predicted success rate of 1% each…….."
worst part is they have at least a 50% chance of hitting their target after they likely pass through the AA screen.
And that crappy $1000 drone might have much much much better guidance than the best soviet anti-ship missile.
@@anasevi9456 no they have 50% chance to get away with all king of defences including multilayered laser defence AA machine guns defence electronic jamming defences, why i am saying this cause the new swarm drone's the defence manf are working on are fitted with AI which can sense the defence systems like jammers and laser system and can do some irregular maneuvers or they can also have some range of anti jamming capabilities for military standard drone's and can first destroy the defence system before engaging and destroying the enemy battalion
I think the better solution is probably to switch from a primarily defensive posture to a primarily offensive posture. Eliminate threats before they start mass producing drones. Less nice West, more aggressive West.
@@loganwolfram4216 Drones are easy to produce in a decentralized plant and with low tech so stopping production is very difficult. also what if they are produced in a neutral country? You cant strike those manufacturing plants without drawing in that country and possibly others in the area.
Thank you for the information.
I saw this video mentioned on discord yesterday. I waited to see if it would find it's way into my recommended vids. This morning it was right near the top. Not sure why it's taking longer than it used to. FYI.
You are always providing a rich perspective on interesting and not trivial topics. Keep it up!
Interesting would also be how direct energy weapons play out when effective not only against drones but also against incoming artillery and mortar rounds.
A 20kW fiber laser can do that. It has been tested too.
The point about increasing complexity of force structure is an interesting one. Intelligence and command systems need to be sophisticated to coordinate everything. The increased complexity probabbly favours larger tactical units; brigade size vs battalion size.
The return of conventinal warfare, as opposed to curbstomping some small near-irrelevant force of barely armed insurgents also kind of pushes organizational level and tactics back to beigade and even division level.
Another interesting development are drones vs drones. Ones was being developed by Andruil. Not sure if this is already in service.
Awesome video 👍
As usual, your video is actual and informative. Thx.
Cannon Anti air systems with opto electrical tracking is your best bet right now. Shilka and Tunguska style platforms with cannons can easily shoot down slow drones big and small and for big UCAVS you use the missiles.
This is patently wrong! The radar cross section and flight behaviour of a drone makes the fire control systems go nuts.
@@rosomak8244 yeah of a 1970 shilka or Gepard but not of a 2022 MANTIS
@@joachimschreiber7835 Apparently Shilka and Gepard perform better than Pansir against light drones in Ukraine. Modern systems probably have all the hardware to kill drones. But they need a software update. On older systems much more depends on the operator.
@@orbiradio2465 hard to compare. Isn't pansir with AA rockets while the other systems are with machine canons?
@@orbiradio2465 and the are more in danger of anti radar rockets because i am pretty sure they do not use the canons while they are moving and they do not have pulsed radar but permanently shine on the target... And Ukraine has no ammo for Gepard
Very intelligent analysis. I will visit this channel frequently.
I really love the originality, production quality and personality (especially humour) that goes into these videos. I have spent a long time thinking this through over the last decade and, for every countermeasure we could deploy there is an obvious counter countermeasure that is going to be cheaper to deploy than the countermeasure. For example directed electronic energy can be countered by using drones using increasingly accurate over time solid state INS and image recognition of terrain and targets. Also, if the jamming is directional, just have several.drones attack the jammer simultaneously from different directions using terrain screening to get as close as possible, or simply direct artillery onto the emitter. Gun systems like Skynex are very expensive and relatively short ranged. Their ammunition is hideously expensive and they can easily be overwhelmed by simultaneous attacks from different axes. Drones themselves can be used as kinetic kill vehicles but a killer drone would probably be more expensive than one used to attack ground targets. I honestly think we are getting into MAD territory here. The only solution against state actors is to have more and better drones than they have and survivable recon assets and command and control.to target them. For this to work all.the systems employed need to be cheap, easily mass produced and stockpiled, massively redundant and (for the command and control and recon elements) survivable.
What you describe would cause a sea change in the Western way of war. The focus on few high-end systems has led to low production rates and questionable industrial capacity, plus, as mentioned, an unwillingness to accept casualties, which are always high in wars against a peer enemy. Manpower will probably become a high priority again.
@@chahineyalla4838 I completely agree with you.
Or how about negotiate in good faith at Minsk?
Could it be that we are closer to making war obsolete or at least much less likely for benefit to outweigh cost: if offense becomes cheaper and cheaper but defense can still somewhat keep up, lagging only slightly behind such that no one's infantry can ever really be sufficiently secure, and similar kinds of impasse happen in the aerial mid and long range space possibly also becoming cheaper over time...due to the already stunning degree of accuracy of surveillance and targeting...a non nuclear MAD situation distributed across a multipolar geopolitical environment...or am I dreaming...
@@janinetrue No I think you might be onto something. I thought it was hilarious when the Russians started to deploy those Iranian knockoff UAVs and all the armchair Military experts sneered about how slow and unstealthy (you could hear them miles away) and how unprofitable, and hence how unpopular they would prove with the MIC. Only to see the wretched things buzzing along at tree top height at a hundred some knots with practically no heat or radar signature. Coppers blowing off a cuppla mags of AK fire hopelessly trying to hit the thing as it went overhead in a blur. You cant jam them because they use GPS and have no ground command. Some are even retain identifying. They are sneering on the on the side of their noses now. Still doent worry powderensky or his Washington mates - they still have thier mansions in Malibu. . Might piss off the locals though. The ones in the dark and cold with no water. Has a kind of 1917 ring about it.
Yet another thought provoking technological and tactical analysis thank you. The rise of the drones makes me question whether the management class in our western militaries are up to the task of understanding what equipment they need to buy and how to deploy it. Or will they, as usual, just receive the arms company salespeople and be talked into buying whatever appears good in the sales video. There were after all, plenty of salespeople selling sabres to cavalry units when WWI broke out.
Precision artillery strikes and demoralization is the key. Russia is hardly a legitimate threat these days, they can’t even feed their frontline.
I think the counter to "small" drones will be other drones.
That can controlled by computer in a vehicle with a simple objective intercept, fly close and shoot off a simple cheap payload, like birdshot shotgun shell.
Return and you can rearm/recharge them for next encounter.
The benifit of a mobile drone system to a anti-drone laser vehicle is that your drones can be used for other objectives as well.
When not used for intercepting drones there is nothing to stop you from controlling your drones and drop mortars or even fly down and shoot soldiers in the trenches.
Atleast until laser systems becomes efficient/small enought to just mount as an extra hard kill system on your standard vehicles.
all the hours in flight sims will finally pay off
*Panzir S1M, a new variant of a Russian air-defense system, replaces the top row of two anti-air missiles with eight small missiles.*
Regular Panzir S1 has three rows with two missiles each, six missiles total. The new variant would have four bigger missiles and eight small missiles.
This allows to use way cheaper missiles against drones, though it is not an ultimate solution since Panzir S1M is still pricey. They need to create a smaller, cheaper system only for those small anti-air missiles. This system can be manufactured much more plentifully.
Yeah. Also the original Pantsir radar wasn't good enough for low RCS drones and had many issues in Libya. Those anti-drones systems need state of the art radars that cost millions. Otherwise the UCAV might send them an antiradion missile and bye bye multimillion dollar "anti drone weapon".
@@johnzach2057 Panzir S1M has an updated radar system, of course. With more targets tracking and also better smaller and slower targets recognition. But, as I explained, it still not a good solution. Needs to be smaller and cheaper.
Sosna-r, can be installed in any chassis and the missiles are dirty cheap
@@matheuscerqueira7952 It has those bigger missiles that Panzir also has. Newer small missiles are not yet made into independent thing that can be put on any chassis.
Is that about the 57E6M-E Gvozd missile?
I remember a report by the Pentagon that they had lost a simulated battle for the coastline of Iran because in the Simulation Iran used very low tech means of communications like carriers an the US had to expend a lot of resources trying to crack their codes to no effect and that was a deciding factor in the outcome of the battle. It kinda reminded me of this. Iran seems to excell in asymetric warfare.
There were some other issues with that simulation (such as severe disagreements about the speed at which motorbikes could deliver messages), so while still an interesting study, it's not really a good one to base analyses on.
@No-one in particular yup, just good soundbites for motivational "KISS " speakers.
Yeah exactly, "seems". We have seen little slivers of their military in actual action...and theyve been complete dogshit. Typical dictatorship military: all bark, little- no bite
@@cameronspence4977 You're talking nonsense lol.
@No-one in particular "Keep It Simple, Stupid"
To counter swarm of cheap drones you need your own swarm of cheap drones.
That's the problem right. If Ukraine could hit moscow with drones... but the problem is Russia does not care if every single civilian in occupied Ukraine dies. Heck the Russian leadership doesn't really care about Russian soldiers dying. And the west doesn't want to hit Russian cities. So Ukraine can't respond symmetrically. So the West must be prepared to pay $100 for every $1 Russia spends. The West needs to step up even more.
Hey now, thats a clever and smart solution!
Nice shots at Duxford too.
I haven’t been for a few years - am jealous.
I could see there being more drone vs drone combat, basically drone dogfights. Then again that might not be cost effective or viable option if the enemy implements drone swarm tactics. Unless the defending drones have some kind of automatic AI to engage incoming drones. The future battlefield will be interesting that's for sure.
Australia's Ghost Bat AI drone can track and lock on to over 6 targets at once
Drone swarms won't work under heavy jamming and effective dron on drone combat is a fantasy - systems that can reliably detect drones at distance are too expensive to use them on one time use anti-drones.
Only one actually viable solution in a near future is medium calibre AA with programmable fuses.
Platforms is relatively cheap and each Intercept is even cheaper.
Very good analysis - as always.
👍👍
Fantastic video.. you sir are a realist. THANK YOU..
fantastic video, drones really are the future and as always the adage "countries prepare to fight the previous war" shows and will likely continue to show as drones change war in unexpected ways
I agree, as drones exponentially increase the SI of the units utilising them. The cheap ability to use human brains as a guidance package will also be highly resilient to countermeasures.
Drones can be ... sooo many different things. So yes, I agree that it will be like nothing else.
If nothing else, even if it was modeled after traditional forces, it would be able to do things traditional forces can't. For example a remote or AI controlled plane, can go on kamikaze missions, so even if the plane/drone is exactly the same, the fact that there is no pilot will make a huge difference. And then it could be modeled for missions that piloted vehicles can't.
Perhaps a good option would be to fight fire with fire: create a massive fleet of cheap drones with anti-air capabilities to take out incoming cheap drones, perhaps using very small-caliber machine guns. Basically WW1-style air combat, but with smaller, automated machines.
Sounds like a fun thing to watch
It seems very likely.
American weapons won't come cheap. They need huge profits....🤣🤣🤣
Defense is way harder then offense with these types of weapons. You could use off the shelf gps to guide a suicide drone. You ain't going to knock a incoming drone out of the air with such cheap components.
Extremely dumb idea, the suicide drone is going to blow up on the target before you can scramble your drones to do a intercept
Low cost weapons can be stopped by a lower cost solution. That defensive system vs offensive system is exponential and not linear. High cost offensive systems need a higher cost defensive system to stop it.
Hey heard you have some Health problems. I hope you receive the best care and have a full recovery! All my best.
Super video thanks
Breaking the GPS connection or the connection to the controller doesn´t make a drone fall out of the skies. It usually just enters rth mode and turns back to its starting position or until the connection is reestablished. And that´s just for commercial drones. You might think military standards are up to a similar approach at least.
You will have to jam a lot more than just GPS or the remote signals to achieve a crash.
I know of 2 programs designed to handle the threat of cheap drone swarms. One is the new APKWS lazer guided rockets, one rocket costs about the same as one Shahid. It can also be mounted on a pickup truck and shipped on one standard shipping palate.
The other system is the "Coyote," and I don't know much about it at all other than it's also a hard kill. solution.
Fantastico, grazie per questo video!!
I guess it helps a lot having a subject matter expert to hand... Otis deserves credit :) Edit: Perhaps small man-carried and operated hunter-killer drones could be used?
Had the same idea. Use cheap drones to take down drones. However give them additional abilities, so they are still usefull without enemy drones.
@@StepiaCreation They're called manpads
He is as expert as i am a balley dancer. He is just a typical mix of western arrogance and ignorance.
Man-carried is too expensive. It needs life-support, ejection, space and the weight and bad maneuverability just makes them cumbersome.
The best could be a killer-drone drone. Powerful radars on mini AWACS. Ground AA guns for drones. All with AI's for target acquisitions and classification.
Those systems are for platoon defense or above, including high-value target defense.
Iron Beam, IRIS-T, NASAMS are for static, high value defense against missiles. HAWK should all be given to Ukraine so we can get rid of it already.
@@BBBrasil Man-carried means that the man carries the drone. As in the infantry has a drone in their backpack. From your objections it sounds you were thinking the other way around: a man riding a drone. But that is just an aircraft
I liked the museum clips mixed into the video.
What about using cheap drones against cheap drones?
impossible to be cheap
@@GM-xk1nw reusable means cheap in long run. Half of my friends would pay for their own fighter drone if the government would let them legit fly them into battle
Probably the idea of the wing loong III
There is NO cheap drones made in USA. Only China and Iran can do it !
You cut to the heart of the matter ------ this is a huge problem Hopefully the US and West will actually do someting to fix it and not ignore th issue.
Singe board inertial guidance systems exist, which protects direct attack drones from GPS jamming. These drift over time and distance, but for short & maybe medium range use they will likely be adequate. Combined with programed on launch paths the only EW solution is one that damages or resets the drone computer. Which needs a lot of power.
What about a low-tech solution like barrage balloons or aerial drone nets.
That was my thinking too.
I think we are going to see evolution of systems like the SHORAD system from the US. There are several parts to that system and some of them are too expensive. First there needs to be detection systems. For these short ranged systems, they probably need to be integrated in order to have effective fire control. Some missile systems might be appropriate for faster/higher systems. Electronics might be an option, but I think in the end a proximity fused cannon (20mm+) seems like what is going to work the best. Just need to get it all integrated into packages with vehicles that have different mobility capabilities. Some tracked, some wheeled armored, and some wheeled unarmored.
Company or platoon-level beltfed automatic shotgun. Use a cheap, short-range radar for automatic targeting, and an infrared camera to detect a coded blinker on *your* UAVs for IFF.
@@userequaltoNull You need the vehicle to carry and power the radar anyway.
I love your explanation and expertise analysis
Really good analysis. Laser is weather dependent, I’m thinking either other drones or a sort of cheap unmanned drone ECM system loitering around or even smaller drone units using a tethered ballon or loitering small long flying autonomous drones with and ECM unit. I fly drones too, and the major problem is interference. A portable device, cell phone size that provides that, could deviate the drone from target within a certain range. Could be part of a radio kit.
A similar AUV could d9 the same, launched from a backpack.
Not pulse Lasers , they are not weather dependent
Agree! Guided missiles are just too expensive for a large scale war. Laser weapons and armor piecing bullets are the most cost effective to be equipped on drones.
Every single vehicle will need 360 degree terminal drone defense, able to protect an area measured in meters, perhaps 100-400 meters or so. I imagine a layered defense where small missiles, EW, and lasers/AA guns target drones up to 1-5 miles out and each vehicles local defense system handles drones inside that radius. Forests, hills, and urban areas will remain challenging.
Small racing drones whit smal fragmentation warhead, proximity fused. Even if missed target can be targeted again.
TV/contrast terminal guidance, since IR signature is to small.
A220 russian 57mm or Bofors 40mm whit programable fused cannons are last line of defence.
Barrage Balloons with fishing net’s hanging from them. Simple and cheap. They worked well in WW1 and WW2
But then balloons are targeted first.
I find your videos to be salient and interesting.
There are ways around electronic counter measures.
A problem with just cutting off the drone from it's controller is that there are already commercial drones that will automatically return to it's launch site if it looses connection and drones that run AI to perform simple tasks even without being controlled.
Just a side thought, pneumatic rifles may be a cheap alternative to shoot down drones.
If a target is attacked by N drones each with a probability of P to get through defenses, then the odds of at least one getting through is equal to 1-(1-P)**N For example if 10 drones each with a1% chance, then the cumulative chance of getting through is 1 minus .99 to the 10th power or 9.6%
I do wonder if we will get more done fighters other armed uav whose mission is to shoot down other low-cost drone. I do wander if barrage balloons might comeback as a low-cost counter for fixed positions
Depends what you are defending too
Sounds like scaled down auto-cannons, perhaps based around the 7.62mm mini-gun, should be put together using existing hardware. Also, auto-correcting scopes have been tested against drones in the past. Such sighting equipment with military spec durability is being tested now. The potential is to give any grunt the ability to target and take down small drones with his service rifle.
The projectile should be self destructing to be safe. 20mm seems like the smallest practical for it. I think id rather go for a larger caliber with time detonating fuse. Like a 40mm. It just needs the accuracy and tracking to defeat targets with relatively few shots
problem is simply that we dont supply CRAM systems which are already able to deal with low cost threats at a low cost per kill. The radar and tracking is already able to differentiate threats and to assign specific threats to specific defense systems.
Dumb as we are we still force Ukraine to defend itself with some of the most expensive missiles in airdefense.
At least Spain and Israel are mofiying rifle and remote weapons station's aiming systems to figth drones.
Also, I think the main problem is detection them. For that it could possible to use sound detection as de it would be affordable and totally passive.
35mm ammo can be overkill for small drones. so stations with 12,7 mm or even smaller for small drones. that will require lots of maybe land drones. inexpensive small vehicles that would have very small radars protecting only against very small drones. a bit bigger vehicles against a bit bigger drones and so on... or air killer drones. something that could approach such drones fast enough to cover bigger area.
One of your best presentations
A laser truck would be good against enemy armour by destroying its sensors. Using it against infantry is almost definitely a war crime
You need a fleet of attack drones. Cheap and persistent. Fly towards enemy drone and detonate a small warhead. A flying hand grenade if you like. Will need some sort of better radar coverage to coordinate - perhaps a tethered balloon to give some height and range.
Lasers don't necessarily need to knock a drone/loitering munition directly out of the sky at first but can possibly "sow" a swarm of drones with progressive damage like burned out cameras and seized rotors. If the swarm recovers then it can be "reaped" or prioritized for more attention.
Ground laser defenses if they're mobile could also be used to blind thermal sights/cameras on opposing vehicles, BUT this admittedly would be highly risky and likely something advertised but never doctrinally espoused
Main problem is that you have got to be in the right place and that's thousands of places 24/7
Enter the CV90LVKV.
A standard CV90 IFV with a trusty Bofors 40mm, but with a radar on the turret and slightly more gun elevation.
-> Ad datalinking to all the other CV90's on the frontline so that they can use the LVKV's targeting data for their own 40mm guns.
Cheap ammo, works against infantry, armor, helicopters, cruise missiles and drones.
Like no other is an exaggeration, the machine gun was at least as disruptive. It gave 1-2 soldiers the ability to replace dozens and pretty much permanently ended the possibility of employing massed infantry formations.
One has to wonder if a sufficiently powerful AESA radar could be used to fry the electronics.
Why not just use a PESA? An AESA that powerful would defeat its purpose.
Definitely yes, EMI has temporarily knocked out my drones more than once but they usually recover and keep flying. But remember the inverse square law, the range would not be great, electromagnetic interference (EMI) is a complex topic but I can give some practical examples. The following is completely fictional of course. Most military training grounds in Germany are open to the public if not in use. But because it is hard to keep ppl out of such large areas, there could have been multiple occasions where someone wandered into the radar cone of a powered on PATRIOT radar and came relatively close to take a look. Their phones worked fine afterwards.
It is possible but I highly doubt the practical usability.
Also turning on a radar in a war-zone is always a delicate thing, frying a drone is nice, getting a visit from a HARM missile not so much.
Remember watching an american admiral/general talk about this topic... must be at least 10 years ago now.
Though if memory serves he was talking about the asymetric cost of scud like misiles and the abms used to shoot them down.
Cant remember the exact numbers but something like 200 million in abm missiles to shoot down a 100k in scud.
He had a great phrase for it, which fails me now.
His point was however that the us just couldn't afford those numbers.
This is even worse on ships where they no longer have the ability to do underway replenishment of vls tubes.
Heck i even heard that the ships go to sea without a full compliment of missiles, not sure if its true, but given their cost... it wouldnt be all that suprising.
Exactly. Missile defences are on the wrong side of the equation.
I feel like doing the WWII thing of slapping .50cals on literally everything but more high tech might work. Make them CROWS (or similar)remote turrets that can datalink a radar/ir targeting vehicle and be controlled by that vehicle. So the only impact to the unit would be the added weight of the CROWS and the addition of a targeting vehicle. Might need to modify the CROWS to increase rotation and elevation.
On the plus side you have a lot of angles of fire. Collectively a high volume of fire. Doesn’t disrupt the unit significantly. Is still an effective weapon
Thoughts?
Totally true! Iranian drones are useful even if shot down! Even a MANPAD is 3x4 times more expensive.
I wonder if we will se a rush into the storages and western military dusting of cheaper anti air canons and slap a little radar and laser range finder on it, just to cover up in the short term.
Straight up knowledge!👏👏👏👍
slow firing Auto Cannons of enough high calliber, like a Bofors 40mm, backed by Radar and some good AA FC system are probably the best solution against Drones, that can also be used on other tasks, like supression of Infantry.
The presumption is that drones would always be dependent on communication feedback with operators (for targeting) or with positional satellites. With AI this would not be the case!
Yes, at some point the drones can become autonomous, closed network, and tampering resistant because of AI. And they will still be cheap.
**Ace combat 7 music starts to play**
A laser system may be capable, but there is another problem, the HEAT signature of a laser system, would make them a bigger target, imagine a drone, has be disrupted from it controller, but it's got a secondary programme function, of locking to the nearest heat signature and hitting a target.
This becomes a win win for the offensive side
I'm surprised that you didn't mentioned Iron dome, it is built exactly for this reason. It is correct that isn't economical for large scale wars but it is with mentioning.
Secondly, Turkey also has a solution for Shahed 136. TB2 and other drones will start to carry a variant of sungur missile which is Turkish equivalent of Stinger.
Stingers are way more expensive that the Irania drones. You still lose the economic war in the end.
@@georgekaradov1274 As I said, Turkish equivalent of Stinger which specially designed cheaper version of that missile thus it will make economical sense.
@@neosinan1 if it is a stinger type of missile, even if it is made by Turkey, it will not cost as little as 20K as the Iranian drones. The estimated cost of a new stinger in 2020 is around $120K US.
@@georgekaradov1274 And how much of that is labour, if your currency is worth as little as the Lira you might be able to crank it out for less than half of the cost.
Also it's telling that Iran has to make Shahed's are made from US electronics, and that these supplies can be throttled through sanctions.
@@georgekaradov1274 Soviet Strela, Igla are also "Stinger-like missiles" and they cost thousands, not hundreds of thousands.
Anyway, you do not need a heat-seeking head to kill Mavic nor will it work.
There is no silver bullet for all kinds of drones. You need a ladder of solutions, with each rang cheaper than the target it can kill. From 5.56 machine guns controlled by a computer with cameras to 20-30mm autocannon with airburst rounds all the way to anti-satellite missiles. But necessarily cheap, which American MIC cannot produce due to being for-profit and corrupt.
The obvious solution to me is to deploy a lot of versatile C-RAM systems which can destroy incoming rockets, artillery, and mortar rounds. From what I understand the C-RAM is being upgraded to also detect and destroy drones and the ammunition would be much cheaper than launching missiles.
This not sure why it didn’t appear in the video
This shows why drones are awesome.
They make even less expensive assets much more capable.
Artillery becomes as powerful as any smart bomb.
It’s a cost exchange ratio… been part of calculus for military force design for a long time.
But by the time you shoot your little drones I’ll have leveled your SAM sites and bunkers with bombers.
I wonder if laser based drone control links that cant easily be jammed or detected are possible
But you're also broadcasting your location to the enemy.
Guess Codm does a Great demonstration on how effective the swarm scorestreak is.
A spitfire or a hurricane and some warning radar would seem to be more than a match for a cheap drone.
A good defense for drones would be BB or plastic pellet shooters substituted for guns. If fired at high rates then they would do damage for a cheap price
So we need additional personnel to man the systems protecting the personnel?
0:48 Augie: Did you visit Duxford? I seem to recall that SA-3 being there.
That’s a Bristol Bloodhound.
@@numberstation You're right.
@@b.griffin317 👍
well done!
this is the modern transition that is currently happening within military tactics.
bringing economic warfare into a tactical conflict will have a huge effect. I am surprised this hasn't been publicly seen as the threat it really is.
our high dollar MIC simply can't compete or defeat this threat. the newest of fighter's simply cannot perform anywhere near as cost effectively as UCAV's or drones. our most modern fighters cost more to fly (does not include munitions) then UCAV's used effectively to hit targets even if some are lost in the process. loss of a single f35 (modern fighter) would cost $100 million plus...100 $1 million drones or UCAV's could be purchased and operated far cheaper for just the $100 million fly away cost of a new fighter. this is a huge problem for western nations that are tied to a high cost for profit MIC
manned fighters should still play a role as "quarterbacks" to ensure a human that can be held responsible is in the loop. the idea of spending huge on a fighter without considering use of forward low cost unmanned teaming is irresponsible.
our current western MIC WILL fight the change to lower cost equipment in order to maintain their profits...regardless of the detrimental effect.
our as it seems current "for profit" only MIC is a concern for democracy.
Lol why there is Australia's MQ28 Ghost Bat AI drone and it outperforms humans by 5 times in combat so far in it's tests.
Cheap and quick to replace
The scary thing is that none of these modern drones are even close to being a slaughterbot swarm. If you can't deal with unsophisticated threats like this, how will you deal with a coordinated assault by a million tank-killing bees that cost close to nothing to produce?
How about defensive loitering ammunitions? made for speed and manouverability and just smash against the on-coming threat?
I think what we are basically parallels the impact of aircraft on WW1, initially largely invulnerable, or at least uneconomic to shoot down. The historic lesson is that the aircraft changed considerably once they started to meet. The answer to a drone is another drone, potentially with a very simple weapon (laser beam rider missile maybe? or even a small machine gun/shotgun). Loitering air defence drones can double up as intelligence gathering assets, while still being cheap enough that they are uneconomic for manned aircraft or primary air defences to deal with. I foresee tactical air warfare becoming much more fractal in nature, with the smallest drones being hunted by larger drones, and a whole chain up till you hit aircraft as large as current fighters.
I don't see expensive energy weapons coming out any time soon, and soft kill isn't that hard to defend against. Part of the problem with systems like that is that they are easily baited* and expensive targets. It would reveal its position against a minor target, and immediately be hit by a dedicated weapon. It isn't just the price per shot, the value of the assets risked to do the job also have to be considered, as well as how much risk they are under.
*If it is not firing at every target then it has already lost. The concept is not able to 'pick its shots' to stay safe, so cannot be expensive.
Lasers can also target mortar shells and protect from anti-tank missiles, it will likely be defensive in nature and may replace AAA entirely.
Also the problem with EW is that it might be indiscriminate hence Russia's reluctance to use it in the early days of the war, and each EW piece lights itself up like a christmas tree when it activates.
Laser weapon is too fragile for such frontline purpose. Even a fragment can break the emitter.
Lasers are nullified by mirrors, which cost nothing to paint... Lasers are only useful against sensors, be it cameras are human eyes, which by definition have to be vulnerable to light.
I doubt lasers will be effective against mortars or AT missiles. You get a lot more time on target when using against drones compare to the other two, which means the laser needs to be many times more powerful.
@@comediangj4955 They already work on mortars and missiles.
It's just that it's easy to counter with reflective paint.
@@Ilamarea what I am saying is there's a massive difference between the energy requirements between the two, which means it might not be resource efficient to use the same system on both
Electromagnetic measures are always a compromise, because you have to ensure that friendly systems are not affected.
What about tying something like a CROWS turret to the kind of sensors used for Active Protective Systems on armored vehicles? Drones might be cheap, but with a better fire control system, machine gun rounds are cheaper.
As airplanes go (primarily) against airplanes and tanks are (mostly) engaging tanks, the worst opponent of a drone is another drone. Period.
could image recognition software- as in smartphones be used to aim weapons independently for not much?
I think I've already know this when I was 10 year old kids, when there is no drones in military use.
I feel like the obvious answer to drone warfare is counter-drone warfare. Then it comes down to who can get the most drones to the right place at the lowest cost.