The only reliable counter to a drone is likely another drone.
I suspect Peter F Hamilton got it close, in the Confederation series, with WASPs. They are space based weapon platforms. They carry a mix of offensive and defensive subsystems, and operate with swarm logic.
I could easily see a larger drone carrying a swarm of 1 shot micro drones. When close, some would be sacrificed to get better sensor data, others would go on the attack. Conversely, a defensive target would launch their own swarm. It’s goal would be to stop the attackers getting a good shot on a high value target. It might also counterattack, either against the mother ship drone, or backtracking to find the launch site.
Jamming would also be part of this. A jammer could easily cut off the swarm from external data sources. Live satellite or remote surveillance systems would be cut. Point to point lasers are far harder, as are burst transmissions. Local sensor drones could easily punch short range data back, or paint targets, until they are destroyed by defensive systems.
There are in fact a huge number of reliable counters to drones, including but not limited to anti-aircraft gun systems, anti-aircraft lasers, RF jamming devices (especially effective against cheap/makeshift drones), and several more.
Drones are currently an emergent threat without a robust countermeasure scheme, but given their massive role in the Ukraine war that is not going to go unaddressed for long. From a purely mechanical standpoint, small drone munitions are also physically very vulnerable, making them readily destroyed by anti-air autocannon fire or even laser weapons if you assume RF jamming will not solve the problem.
It’s worth noting we are at the start of an arms race. It will iterate all over the place.
For example, smoke and chaff deploying drones would make defensive fire harder. Anti air can be either baited (and so depleted) or rushed. Lasers can be shielded against, at least for a time. Jamming can be countered with line of site communications.
In turn, each of these can be countered.
A key thing of note is that your solutions are heavy. Fine for defending a static target, but problematic when dealing with defending a mobile unit etc infantry of transports. In those situations an extremely rapid, focused highly dynamic response would be required. The obvious way to deploy those fast enough is to have them automated and airborne, aka a drone swarm.
I might be completely wrong, current drone warfare is akin to the invention of the smoothbore musket. How it will develop remains to be seen (for better or for worse).
Anti-air guns are the countermeasure. RADAR good enough to detect drones + an aimbot and programmable air-burst round to “shotgun” your pellets to damage those soft plastic bits.
We’re going back to WW2 tech. AA guns were considered obsolete because Helicopters + Missiles had more range. But now we need to build cheaper AA Guns for the anti-drone role.
AA Guns are also useful vs infantry, so in an infantry vs infantry fight, having an AA Gun platform will be useful even without any drones around. Airburst and rapid fire is always useful, and I expect the computers that make RADAR possible will be far cheaper today than decades past.
It’s going up be interesting and scary when we see the first mega swarm of drones, a river of them just pouring through the sky and hammering from every direction at the defenses.
Constant evolution of drone and antidrone, a production race with frontlines being slowly shifting walls of drone combat, them pouring out of factories as fast as they can be made with the front moving based on who can make more per hour
I suspect it will be more subtle even if it’s only battery life limited. Huge swarms will also struggle against fixed defences. More likely it will be used in ambush. E.g. air deployed near an enemy convoy, or swarming from rooftops and windows onto an infantry unit. Counter deployment will have to be seconds to stop the lead elements. Potentially with heavier reinforcements flying in.
I’ve personally got visions of a Boston dynamics dogbot with a harness full of drones. 1 button press and a few dozen micro drones swarm out, with larger ones launching as needed.
I could also see facial recognition drones being deployed from a predator drone, like cluster bombs. A little akin to the bots used in the film minority report. They swarm a building or block, and try and identify all the faces they can find.
The key thing however will be battery life. Multicopters are power hogs. You need around 40% battery to get maybe 5-20 minutes flight times (depending on how the manoeuvre). Longer times can be achieved , but requires larger systems with higher costs. Is 1 system with a 2 hour flight time worth 20 smaller systems only good for 10 minutes?
The only reliable counter to a drone is likely another drone.
I suspect Peter F Hamilton got it close, in the Confederation series, with WASPs. They are space based weapon platforms. They carry a mix of offensive and defensive subsystems, and operate with swarm logic.
I could easily see a larger drone carrying a swarm of 1 shot micro drones. When close, some would be sacrificed to get better sensor data, others would go on the attack. Conversely, a defensive target would launch their own swarm. It’s goal would be to stop the attackers getting a good shot on a high value target. It might also counterattack, either against the mother ship drone, or backtracking to find the launch site.
Jamming would also be part of this. A jammer could easily cut off the swarm from external data sources. Live satellite or remote surveillance systems would be cut. Point to point lasers are far harder, as are burst transmissions. Local sensor drones could easily punch short range data back, or paint targets, until they are destroyed by defensive systems.
There are in fact a huge number of reliable counters to drones, including but not limited to anti-aircraft gun systems, anti-aircraft lasers, RF jamming devices (especially effective against cheap/makeshift drones), and several more. Drones are currently an emergent threat without a robust countermeasure scheme, but given their massive role in the Ukraine war that is not going to go unaddressed for long. From a purely mechanical standpoint, small drone munitions are also physically very vulnerable, making them readily destroyed by anti-air autocannon fire or even laser weapons if you assume RF jamming will not solve the problem.
It’s worth noting we are at the start of an arms race. It will iterate all over the place.
For example, smoke and chaff deploying drones would make defensive fire harder. Anti air can be either baited (and so depleted) or rushed. Lasers can be shielded against, at least for a time. Jamming can be countered with line of site communications.
In turn, each of these can be countered.
A key thing of note is that your solutions are heavy. Fine for defending a static target, but problematic when dealing with defending a mobile unit etc infantry of transports. In those situations an extremely rapid, focused highly dynamic response would be required. The obvious way to deploy those fast enough is to have them automated and airborne, aka a drone swarm.
I might be completely wrong, current drone warfare is akin to the invention of the smoothbore musket. How it will develop remains to be seen (for better or for worse).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rr7ym1zkda8
Anti-air guns are the countermeasure. RADAR good enough to detect drones + an aimbot and programmable air-burst round to “shotgun” your pellets to damage those soft plastic bits.
We’re going back to WW2 tech. AA guns were considered obsolete because Helicopters + Missiles had more range. But now we need to build cheaper AA Guns for the anti-drone role.
AA Guns are also useful vs infantry, so in an infantry vs infantry fight, having an AA Gun platform will be useful even without any drones around. Airburst and rapid fire is always useful, and I expect the computers that make RADAR possible will be far cheaper today than decades past.
It’s going up be interesting and scary when we see the first mega swarm of drones, a river of them just pouring through the sky and hammering from every direction at the defenses.
Constant evolution of drone and antidrone, a production race with frontlines being slowly shifting walls of drone combat, them pouring out of factories as fast as they can be made with the front moving based on who can make more per hour
I suspect it will be more subtle even if it’s only battery life limited. Huge swarms will also struggle against fixed defences. More likely it will be used in ambush. E.g. air deployed near an enemy convoy, or swarming from rooftops and windows onto an infantry unit. Counter deployment will have to be seconds to stop the lead elements. Potentially with heavier reinforcements flying in.
I’ve personally got visions of a Boston dynamics dogbot with a harness full of drones. 1 button press and a few dozen micro drones swarm out, with larger ones launching as needed.
I could also see facial recognition drones being deployed from a predator drone, like cluster bombs. A little akin to the bots used in the film minority report. They swarm a building or block, and try and identify all the faces they can find.
The key thing however will be battery life. Multicopters are power hogs. You need around 40% battery to get maybe 5-20 minutes flight times (depending on how the manoeuvre). Longer times can be achieved , but requires larger systems with higher costs. Is 1 system with a 2 hour flight time worth 20 smaller systems only good for 10 minutes?
Removed by mod