Hacker News Reader

Comment by btbuildem | Hacker News Reader

I get the motivation here, but it seems like the people who came up with the "solution" are using an outdated mindset vs those who came up with the "problem".

One, large, central weapon against a swarm of hundreds of small ones? It's a deadly assumption that an entire swarm would come from one direction, for example. Or that it would appear all at once. I'm sure volumes will be written about the strategies yet to come, but if what we've seen in the 20 years of occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq is anything to go by, asymmetric warfare is very effective at tying up resources.

Watching what the twichy youngins do with FPV drones gives me the heebiejeebies -- this has already transferred to battlegrounds in Ukraine, with some serious impacts (no pun intended).

View on HN

High energy weapons and EW are the only realistic way to deal with it without slinging 100k or 2m dollar missiles around. One problem is these missiles still have debris, though less deadly than an armed drone, they can still be hazardous. Lasers and other high energy weapons are probably the most cost effective and reliable solution for sub 10 pound drones. You generally need only knock out the MEMS gyro, overheat a motor or blind its sensors.

The problem is that drones are cheap and easy to slip around defenses. The other issue is weapon system reliability... the US military expects an extraordinary amount of reliability from munitions / weapon systems and they are supposed to be near 100% reliability. When they launch a missile, it's unacceptable for the missile to not launch.

The Coyote[1] is an interesting counter UAS concept and could be much more cost effective solution.

[1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raytheon_Coyote

What about classic flak cannons operated by AI, or things like Phalanx CIWS ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS ) or various automated systems that fire proximity fused ammo?

Just speaking from the US side of things, there aren't any 20/30/40/80/120mm AA rounds being produced in mass quantity and it is more of a scaling issue. Systems like CIWS are also incredibly bulky, requiring a few semi trucks worth of equipment to operate.

There are some German AA guns that have been used for counter UAS, but their export laws are a fucking nightmare to deal with if you ever want to sell, give or trade those systems later on.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com