- Joined
- Jan 10, 2023
Nope, the direction that warfare is going favors middling quality and in high quantity. The era from the 1980s-2010s of extreme high performance, low run equipment has ended, the Predator/Reaper systems have been exposed as overly expensive boondoggles compared to these cheaply made consumer drones with grenades attached to them pioneered by ISIS, $500 dollar drones holding grenades with shuttle cock feathers attached to them, each Reaper costs 15m to produce and they're highly susceptible to SAM, Manpads and Fighters since they're so huge. The cheap Iranian, Russian, and Turkish suicide drones do not have these issues, in fact their radar signature is so small that fighters have more trouble getting lock on than they would an actual stealth fighter, not to mention the price differential is so huge that it cannot be hand waved away any longer. The Ukrainians have lost Mig-29s chasing these things all over because they can't get missile lock and have to use cannons to shoot them down, this Ukrainian pilot was so close that he got caught up in the debris field which smoked his plane and turned it into a debris field as well.
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The problem with these cheap little drones though is the payload and range. Great as a terror and PTSD inducer though.
They just can't carry enough ordnance to be of use compared to a reaper/predator/grey eagle.
For instance every single video (20+) I've seen of these drones destroying tanks, it's abandoned/knocked out MBT's with open hatches in the middle of a field. Show me one video of them dropping a grenade into a crewed MBT, moving or firing in combat please.
Compare that with say a ripple of Hellfire II's from a reaper.
Regarding MANPADS all the above UAV's can fly at 30,000ft + (50,000 for the reaper) and can engage ground targets from around (25,000ft).
A stinger has a max range of 15,000ft.....
A Strela has a max range of 10,000ft....
They are susceptible to SAMS and Fighters as you said but do carry decoys (chaff/flare) and also FOX 2 sidewinders for AA, remember these are heat seeking missiles so it's not like the UAV has to dog fight just fire and forget, (which will put most planes on the defence straight away even if they shoot the drone down later).
What I really don't understand though is why there dropping tiny grenades from the drones instead of mortar rounds? In Iraq/Syria that's what ISIS was doing to great effect.
Now that's effect on target!
ps don't worry the Humvee was crewed by sand people so apparently it's ok.