Colombian Black Hawk Downed by Drone Is a Glimpse of What's to Come
Posted4 months agoActive4 months ago
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Drone WarfareMilitary TechnologyAsymmetric Warfare
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Drone Warfare
Military Technology
Asymmetric Warfare
A Colombian Black Hawk helicopter was downed by a drone, sparking discussion on the potential obsolescence of traditional military aircraft and the rise of drone warfare.
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Unless, of course, reliable countermeasures can be developed.
But due to cost imbalance, drones being so cheap, it doesn't look good for the military vehicles.
Those haven't made manned tanks obsolete yet.
There's going to be value in having a human "on site" to make decisions about engaging targets for quite a while from now.
For fixed targets, that's something artillery and Shahed-like cruise "missiles" can deal with.
How is it subsonic and mach 4?
Drones of all sorts out front with more numerous "ripsaw"-like vehicles with shoot-on-the-move mobile artillery (RCH 155) and air defense (AAA like Skyranger 30 and SAM like M-SHORAD) just behind.
I obviously know very little about battlefield armaments so forgive the potentially stupid question - but have drones made combat helicopters obsolete?
You sure it's not asking if bullets made spears obsolete"?
Which drones?
Helicopters are vulnerable to small quadcopter drones when landing and taking off. This limits some traditional uses of helicopters (anything that involves landing in enemy territory becomes much more risky) but still leaves others (shooting missiles at surface targets).
Helicopters are very effective at shooting down large fixed-wing drones.
Helicopters are very effective at sinking drone boats without air defenses, but are in turn very vulnerable to drone boats equipped with SAMs.
A swarm of small drones is easily accessible by every regular Joe and can asymmetrically project more power.
There is a proper citation below, but you can enjoy this quick read at his dusty website here :
http://www.skyhunter.com/b2.htm
The B-2 Lottery · Marc Stiegler · published in New Destinies, Vol. IX/Fall 1990 ed. Jim Baen (Baen 0-671-2016-3, Sep ’90 [Aug ’90], $3.50, 286pp, pb, cover by David A. Hardy) Original anthology of eight stories plus six non-fiction pieces on space and technology.
Bringing police tactics to an infantry fight will get you dead every time. Helicopters have always been sitting ducks dependent largely upon tactics to survive in even the most slightly unfriendly airspace.
It really is a marvel of modern technology that you can have a decent shot at defending yourself from a helicopter with something that costs under $1k and fits in a briefcase.