Ukraine has made pretty clear that drones will play a huge roll in future major conflicts. It's crazy that we haven't already shifted major portions of the defense budget from legacy weapons systems (e.g. tanks) to drones.
https://www.marines.mil/News/News-Display/Article/2857680/fo...
I'm not sure if I'd be rooting for this eventuality.
Small drones do not assume the role of tanks. Drones assume the role of WW1 aircraft: artillery spotters and very light bombing capability. They have this role there because both sides have SAM superiority over the other's airforce.
Drones solve the problem that combat aircraft are too expensive and too easy to shoot down.
I'm not saying they do. I was replying to a comment.
Define "light". Ukraine is fielding FPV drones with EFPs attached that can easily slice into anything armored.
My genuine hope is that secretly we actually are really good with drones and just strategically have decided not to broadcast it, but I don't think that's the way forward. It needs to be known that we've absolutely mastered them.
You know, kind of like the Chinese have done with their drone shows at the Olympics and similar events.
What would you call the Reapers and such? The US has a massive fleet of large, armed drones, remotely operated, and quite a few are capable of being armed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanned_aerial_vehicles_in_th...
It's different from the consumer/small commercial drones being talked about here, but the US Military is pretty darn good at UAVs.
It's definitely a concern as part of a larger attack, but I don't think a quadcopter drone swarm alone is likely to sink a carrier or leave it combat ineffective in the long term.
A few nice miniguns with radars sensitive enough to pick up birds that fire flak.
Auto cannons.
Missiles.
... Lasers.
I am confused.
The US has massive fleets of military drones of every type and size that have been proven in combat environments. They literally pioneered the development of this type of military system and have been using them operationally decades before anyone else. Did everyone just forget this?
The US has extremely mature and capable drone technology, much better than a lot of what is being used in Ukraine. Really the only question is the ability of the US to scale production if it needed to.
The US leads in larger drones, like the Global Hawk, which is the size of a regional airliner, can stay airborne for more than a day, and cover tens of thousands of kilometers in that time. The smaller and cheaper ones are just expensive toys, far behind what's seen in Ukraine in terms of actual usefulness. A cheap Chinese agricultural sprayer drone with equally cheap 3D-printed drum of infantry grenades or an anti-tank mine strapped to it outperforms most "military grade" commercial offerings like Switchblade that cost ten times as much and are good for only a single use, unlike the sprayer, which returns home after dropping its payload.
There is much to learn about drone warfare from Ukraine but I would not expect a conflict with advanced technical capabilities to look similar.
But would this still be the case for a conflict with US involvement?
That's what those capabilities are designed to do ("SEAD"), but they're very expensive. And so strategic that the US wasn't willing to let the Ukranians have any.
If they work like they should on paper and can keep the opponents pinned to the ground under US air supremacy it'll be great but there's always that little doubt that it will work as well against a more evenly match opponent like a theoretical US v Russia/China when it's not punching down so far.