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Shotgun Cluster Bomblet

Man-Portable Delayed Submunition
 
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I wonder how well a type of Dragon's Breath shotgun shell or a similar round, but with delayed exploding submunitions would work on drones? I watched a fireworks display and the pyrotechnicians seem to have the delay down to a science already. Say each of the 9 balls in the 12g shell was a fragmenting, exploding grenade-in-a-grenade, a kind of mini cluster munition. If you could set a delay, an effective range for a given round to explode, say 70-110 feet for short range and 150-∞ for long range, you would have a choice of ammo. And the ability to time choke the detonation. The further the shot, of course, the less likelihood of a solid or multiple hit but it doesn't take much to bring one down. The rifle grenade is also a prime candidate for a delayed, fragmenting, ranged round. The problem has been the spherical dispersion that can kill the operator. A semi-shaped, delayed round like a tiny Claymore in a shotgun round or rifle grenade could make each infantryman a drone killer.
minoradjustments, Jul 19 2023

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       Wouldn't it be easier just to fire a weighted net that expanded with a delayed explosion? I've seen regular nets fired out of cannons, but expanding by delayed explosion would extend the range significantly due to lowered drag.
MisterQED, Jul 19 2023
  

       /a1/ Exactly the effect I'm looking for! Trying to get the tube eliminated and extra weight and bulk reduced to a pouch-friendly round. (Read rifle grenade). I don't think the fireworks would bring down a drone but real explosives and shrapnel certainly would. With minimal trail and smoke from launch the origin would be stealthier than AT munitions. I don't know why nobody made this yet. /MisterQED/ They've got net rounds but they lose momentum quickly, essentially being a perforated parachute. They work at very short range, like just before the drone releases its payload directly above you. Taofledermaus on YT tests novel shotgun rounds and he tested a net round. https://youtu.be/vF2tnFC_q8A Hard to manage accuracy.
minoradjustments, Jul 19 2023
  

       There is a munition designed to penetrate armour and then detonate secondary explosives or to detonate within a certain proximity of a target, releasing secondary explosives at that time to take out missiles, currently being tested in the Ukraine.   

       Can't remember it's name to find a link.
It will probably jolt me out of sleep at 4:30 in the morning.
  

       I hope you're happy!..   

       That's it! Thanks. I owe you one.   

       HESH is a solution to the opposite problem - a target that's easy to hit but hard to kill.   

       For killing drones, had anyone thought of using other drones to carry the nets? If you had two drones holding two corners of the net, they could fly past above the target drone to entangle it.
pertinax, Jul 20 2023
  

       ////For killing drones, had anyone thought of using other drones to carry the nets?////
//Yes//
  

       Has anyone thought about making a drone with a little display that could fly in front of the other drone and show it something misleading?
Loris, Jul 20 2023
  

       //Would you count GPS and radar spoofing? Or do you really want a little video screen, maybe showing a clip of an airport "follow me" car?//   

       I'd consider it. But I'd be thinking of a real-time render.   

       Failing that, maybe it could sneak up and hang a little 45-degree mirror off the camera mount, so it automatically responds naturally to any movement they make - but they call in their strikes 90 degrees off from where they intended.
Loris, Jul 20 2023
  

       This is very definitely in 8ths a//Say each of the 9 balls in the 12g shell was a fragmenting, exploding grenade-in-a-grenade, a kind of mini cluster munition. If you could set a delay, an effective range for a given round to explode, say 70-110//   

       It's relatively easy to stuff sophisticated things into artillery shells, they're quite big. A shotgun ball? 3-6mm maybe? You want timed fusing AND a meaningful amount of explosive AND resistance to the initial acceleration in that package? Good luck! As a guideline, we can make steerable 50caliber bullets, but they're a LOT bigger.   

       //a drone with a little display that could fly in front of the other drone and show it something misleading?//   

       There isn't much navigation that's done optically at the moment. Little screens would be easy to detect as they're devices specialized toward fooling the human eye, they only have red, green and blue light, humans see orange when red (650nm) and green (530nm) are combined, there's no actual orange (~600nm) but a machine optical system could be tuned to ignore/detect such a thing. Also, the screen would have to be massive/close. Much better to project at the lens, even easier to just blind it with a bright laser.   

       //Would you count GPS and radar spoofing?// GPS and radio coms jamming/spoofing is the way to stop consumer/commercial drones. More advanced stuff has inertial navigation as a supplement, compact inertial navigation has come a long way but it's still not up to the standard of big, power hungry gyroscopes.   

       Forms of optical navigation/targeting are being actively pursued, principally because the world's militaries have become somewhat addicted to GPS and this will be jammed/disabled in a conflict between two sophisticated adversaries. This makes delivery of precision munitions much more difficult and brings weather back as a major obstacle.
bs0u0155, Jul 21 2023
  

       These ultrasophisticated weapons & their ultrasophisticated countermeasures are getting so over the top, we'll be back to "beat enemy with stick" before too long.
neutrinos_shadow, Jul 24 2023
  

       //There isn't much navigation that's done optically at the moment.//   

       So? The surveillance drones do is predominantly optical.   

       //Little screens would be easy to detect as they're devices specialized toward fooling the human eye, they only have red, green and blue light, humans see orange when red (650nm) and green (530nm) are combined, there's no actual orange (~600nm) but a machine optical system could be tuned to ignore/detect such a thing.//   

       This is a strange objection. All systems have countermeasures. Insane convoluted strategies which are never going to work are generally going to be pretty easy to beat. I guess the corollary to that is if you can persuade your enemy that they need to invest in beating a system you're never going to actually develop, that's a win.   

       //Also, the screen would have to be massive/close. Much better to project at the lens, even easier to just blind it with a bright laser.//   

       Um, was it not clear that my proposal might have been a tiny bit facetious?
However, regarding your suggestion - using use of blinding lasers in warfare is covered by the "Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons"; Protocol IV of the 1980 UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. Blinding drones looks like it would legal, but you'd need to be really careful ("take all feasible precautions to avoid the incidence of permanent blindness to unenhanced vision.")
Loris, Jul 24 2023
  


 

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