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If you are a small country being aggressed against by a rich
powerful
one, what can you do? Military jets, and even thngs like cruise
missiles and military drones, are expensive. But personal
drones are
pretty cheap.
So buy a bunch of cheap drones. Use the onboard camera to see
an incoming
jet or cruise missile or military drone. Fly your drone directly
into an
engine intake opening of the oncoming enemy unit. You lose a
cheap
drone; they lose an expensive weapon.
Continue protecting your country with drones until the enemy
decides
the war costs too much, and quits.
Flying height
http://www.technik-...analysis/drone.html
There is a height at which attack weapons fly, and there is another height at which they typically make an attack run (not counting bombers, which were not mentioned in the main text). Since we want to protect from attacks, we only need to consider the second height. Also, if a defense-drone has a parachute, it can fly higher, without need to use the battery for descent. [Vernon, Apr 18 2016]
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Annotation:
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Altitude would be the probem - drones can't attain the height at which jets operate. |
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However, a "swarm" of drones trailing strands of titanium wire or kevlar with parachutes on the end (like the WWII PAC air defence system) are effective against helicopters at low level, by rotor entanglement. |
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The kevlar is slightly less effective, but has the advantage of being invisible to radar, and both are hard to spot on FLIR. LIDAR can spot them but it's not a common fitment on copters, except those tricked out for nocturnal NOE flying. |
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The concept is to provide a credible threat and force the copter to climb, making it vulnerable to other air defence systems. |
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The drones that don't intercept the target simply jettison their strands and "go home" to be collected for re-use. Single-use batteries are used to give superior power density for better endurance and payload. |
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Semi-Baked but not yet WKTE. |
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No, it has to be a credible threat. |
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You would need fantastically huge numbers of these
to have any effect. They are not going to be able to
move into the path of an approaching aircraft or
missile - they are simply not fast enough to move
appreciably unless the incoming aircraft follows a
precise, undeviating trajectory. |
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So, to take out even a proportion of the incoming
hardware, you will need millions of these things. |
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50 units can effectively embargo a 1km frontage, echeloned at different altitudes.The concept is to take down at least one of the opposition's ground attack air assets. The system can be deployed forward of the FDL in a concealed position and activated remotely, with unengaged drones returning across the line for recovery. |
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//50 units can effectively embargo a 1km
frontage// |
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That, I do not believe. Suppose your 1km
"frontage" is also 1km high (ie, you're only
interested in perversely low-level aircraft).
Suppose also that the frontal area of the aircraft's
engines is 1 square metre. The odds of any one
drone being intercepted by that 1 square metre of
engine intake is 1 in 1 million. Fifty drones give
you odds of 1 in 20,000. |
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If each drone can move by 5 metres in any
direction in the time it takes an aircraft to change
course, you improve the odds to roughly 1 in 200,
which is still not great. |
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This is specifically an anti-helicopter system relying on rotor entanglement. It's not intended to deal with fast fixed-wing jets. |
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Ah, right. In that case, problem solved. All you have
to do is write a nice letter to the enemy asking them
to use helicopters. |
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