By 2045 expect a couple dozen drones and anti drone missiles with your happy meal. :)
In all seriousness, I wonder aloud if blowing things up might be intrinsically cheaper than shooting down the means of said up-blowing.
I would wager that the floor is lower for s2s than s2a simply because there is so much s(urface)
ElevenLathe•47m ago
Maybe we can come up with an atoms-vs-atoms way of making cheap drone interceptors, but IMO the smart money is on lasers. We finally have the technology we only assumed would shortly materialize when we started the Strategic Defense Initiative. We also finally have an economic (rather than "merely" political) rationale for doing so, which is an important precondition to birthing something new in a society ruled entirely by the market.
1attice•39m ago
I think the smart money is always on "nope" but that has more to do with the laws of thermodynamics :)
Attenuation is going to be wild at any reasonable distance, and you can always just be reflective (or highly and harmlessly absorptive, eg self ablating paint).
Lasers are good for jamming sensors though, which could I suppose, matter, although fibre optic drones or swarmwork could make that less useful as well
Tostino•23m ago
I have seen reports of high-powered lasers being used to sweep an area, cutting through the fiber optic cables on drones that have passed by but not yet reached their targets.
But yeah, they do seem to always be future tech that just doesn't materialize as a reliable weapon system.
fakedang•49m ago
Loitering munitions are all low-altitude, low-flight hovering weaponry. The best solution is to simply just use aircraft sorties or even helicopters to shoot them down with their autocannons/machine guns, but obviously you can't build a military industrial complex around that.
1attice•42m ago
Yes everyone knows a billion dollar F-35 flying at stalling speed is the best approach here
Tostino•32m ago
~100M*, but your point stands.
1attice•27m ago
Not if you factor in the R&D
Tostino•20m ago
That's roughly the export price for them I've seen reported, which I would assume would cover some of the R&D.
fragmede•32m ago
You can't? Lockheed Martin's new drone attack helicopter would like to have a word.
1attice•53m ago
In all seriousness, I wonder aloud if blowing things up might be intrinsically cheaper than shooting down the means of said up-blowing.
I would wager that the floor is lower for s2s than s2a simply because there is so much s(urface)
ElevenLathe•47m ago
1attice•39m ago
Attenuation is going to be wild at any reasonable distance, and you can always just be reflective (or highly and harmlessly absorptive, eg self ablating paint).
Lasers are good for jamming sensors though, which could I suppose, matter, although fibre optic drones or swarmwork could make that less useful as well
Tostino•23m ago
But yeah, they do seem to always be future tech that just doesn't materialize as a reliable weapon system.