Wes, as a graduate Aeronautical Engineer many many years ago, I am absolutely delighted that Ukraine and now Japan are using cardboard drones! Thank you for writing this. It made my day! PS I had no idea they even existed!
CIWS was designed to defeat Soviet antiship cruise missiles, which were both massive and hardened. For example the warhead fuzes are typically mounted behind the warhead making it nearly impossible to disable it. The short engagement range results in the missile being able to reach the target even with its wings shot off. Thus CIWS has to score many hits to literally break the missile apart. Hence the firing rate and long dwell time. Oh, BTW Soviet antiship cruise missiles have large radar cross sections in comparison to drones so repurposing CIWS to deal with drones is a non-trivial exercise.
Ship-mounted energy weapons as somebody wrote plus your own defensive drone swarm of autonomous interceptor drones.
Somebody is already talking about fielding a drone carrier I believe.
Design a 5 metre square room/compartment - each with say 4 flip-open lids and four mechanisms for feeding drones up to these openings. Sort of an upside-down version of those interceptor drone moutings on that Ukrainian twin-engine turboprop aircraft. So each 5 meter room can launch 4 drones at once and have a 'loaded' capacity of 12 or 16 drones. Now cover the flight deck with these 5 metre rooms. Super-cheap VLS system.
There's the small matter of networking the defensive swarm but that is where you put some of your saved expenditure. That and the counter-EW apparatus to maintain swarm control when an attacker is bathing the area with signal clutter.
Crazy to think that just five years ago even suggesting this would get you laughed at.
But on a ship they're great because that's one thing ships have, excess power. For portability and efficiency the relatively new GAN technology we see in our impossibly small device chargers is making these systems faesible. Lasers are coming along as well but there's so much noise out there on which one is good enough. Problem with our navy is they move at the speed of a glacier. Russia used to just slap new weapon systems on their ships without removing the old ones. I think we need to get something going asap and fine tune it later.
That Amazon delivery truck driving down the street may contain an entire air force of drones.
Exactly! I was just thinking I have a garage FULL of cardboard. I'll send it right over to Ukraine if it will help lol
An entirely new reason to recycle cardboard!
Wes, as a graduate Aeronautical Engineer many many years ago, I am absolutely delighted that Ukraine and now Japan are using cardboard drones! Thank you for writing this. It made my day! PS I had no idea they even existed!
For a good laugh consider the USA defense oligarchs ever allowing a cheap munition to be produced that could threaten their wunderwaffens.
Well written, concise and to the point. Thank you for this stack!
Thanks d!
CIWS was designed to defeat Soviet antiship cruise missiles, which were both massive and hardened. For example the warhead fuzes are typically mounted behind the warhead making it nearly impossible to disable it. The short engagement range results in the missile being able to reach the target even with its wings shot off. Thus CIWS has to score many hits to literally break the missile apart. Hence the firing rate and long dwell time. Oh, BTW Soviet antiship cruise missiles have large radar cross sections in comparison to drones so repurposing CIWS to deal with drones is a non-trivial exercise.
We’ll be fine, I’m sure Hegseth is on this like white on rice.
Or like a hobo on a ham sandwich...
Like a Deus Vult tattoo on a white nationalist.
ding, ding, ding!!
Or like an idiot on a microphone. 🙄
Ship-mounted energy weapons as somebody wrote plus your own defensive drone swarm of autonomous interceptor drones.
Somebody is already talking about fielding a drone carrier I believe.
Design a 5 metre square room/compartment - each with say 4 flip-open lids and four mechanisms for feeding drones up to these openings. Sort of an upside-down version of those interceptor drone moutings on that Ukrainian twin-engine turboprop aircraft. So each 5 meter room can launch 4 drones at once and have a 'loaded' capacity of 12 or 16 drones. Now cover the flight deck with these 5 metre rooms. Super-cheap VLS system.
There's the small matter of networking the defensive swarm but that is where you put some of your saved expenditure. That and the counter-EW apparatus to maintain swarm control when an attacker is bathing the area with signal clutter.
Crazy to think that just five years ago even suggesting this would get you laughed at.
That was a funny good one! Thank you
The US is close to having a microwave weapon which should make short work of these drones.
Yeah, it's been just around the corner for a good thirty years. Almost as long as high energy lasers.
Snarkiness aside the Achilles heel of directed energy weapons is their utterly dismal power conversion efficiency. Typically a few percent.
But on a ship they're great because that's one thing ships have, excess power. For portability and efficiency the relatively new GAN technology we see in our impossibly small device chargers is making these systems faesible. Lasers are coming along as well but there's so much noise out there on which one is good enough. Problem with our navy is they move at the speed of a glacier. Russia used to just slap new weapon systems on their ships without removing the old ones. I think we need to get something going asap and fine tune it later.