Give that Drone Warfare is almost certainly the future, it is time for the inventive autists here to create the future's weapons. We are in the WWI stage of drone development where we are seeing what can works and what doesn't. It can be as silly and/or as boring as you want it to be.
>Give that Drone Warfare is almost certainly the future
It's not. Miniaturization of jamming equipment is being fast tracked as we speak. Loitering munitions have been huge recently because both sides are relatively inept at counteracting them. The US isn't investing heavily in them, which should tell you something.
>US isn't investing heavily in them
BS
>The US isn't investing heavily in them, which should tell you something.
If there is one thing the JSOC leaks have shown is that the US has had a heavy interest in utilising portable drones for years.
Sure. As far back as 2010 infantry units were getting small drones as company level assets for reconnaissance. This is absolutely very viable. What's less interesting is loitering munitions. Why in the world would you want a drone to drop a grenade on someone when you can instead fire for effect for 155s or call in the CAS?
>but what if you don't have air superiority?
America has air superiority. Its entire military is based on having air superiority. If we don't, we have much bigger problems that drones dropping grenades can't solve. America gains air superiority and then drops precision munitions. It's what we do.
Same reason you'd want tanks. It's a lot faster. Or on the larger scale, it's better for hitting moving targets which is why LASSO is buying Switchblade 600s.
>The US isn't investing heavily in them
August, Department of Defense (DoD) Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks announced the Replicator initiative, a DoD-wide process to accelerate the delivery of innovative capabilities to warfighters at speed and scale. In its first iteration, Replicator focuses on improving the United States’ ability to counter the People’s Republic of China’s military mass by fielding attritable autonomous systems in multiple thousands across multiple domains. Over the last several months, a dedicated team – led by the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) and working across DoD and with the Combatant Commands and Services – has come together to implement this initiative.
“The Defense Department has already demonstrated that, with concerted senior-level focus, the right technologies can make it across the various valleys of death, from capability development all the way through fielding to the warfighter,” said Deputy Secretary of Defense, Kathleen Hicks. “Replicator is about leveraging authorities that Congress has already granted the DoD to deliver combat-credible capabilities faster and at scale.”
>‘Disorganized and confusing’: Lawmakers, industry rip Pentagon plans for drones
>https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/17/pentagon-drones-replicator-program-funding-00132092
Boomers mad they're not using an old procurement program where politicians can dip their beaks lmao
Drone minelayers
Drone minecleaners
>mines
the drone equivalent of mines are vbieds.
if you are a real military with access to mines, you can also have actual missiles.
>nuclear powered drone
>drone mothership w/ slaves
>drone grenade launcher
>drone sniper
>drone infantryman
>drone trenches
>main battle drone tank
>drone fighter bomber
>drone interceptor
>drone patrol boat
>drone craft carrier
>drone battleship
>drone self propelled gun
>drone LMG
>drone HMG
>drone of the line
>drone hussar
>drone skirmisher
>drone knight
>drone onager
>drone trebuchet
>drone drone (double drone)
>honor guard drone
>speardrone
>drone w/ rock
Speaking of chicoms are making better gyroscopes now.
https://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/other/china-sees-boost-for-arms-stockpile-with-duv-breakthrough-for-chip-based-gyroscopes-paper/ar-AA185LiN
rocket artillery with drone submunitions, kind of like BONUS but not so ridiculously expensive
Some kind of system that lets a squad member wear Augmented Reality Goggles to paint and track targets while the drone does real time marking.
This. Augmented reality via drones being able to set up observation, tagging and marking threats, etc to the rest of a squad is probably the most likely development of drone use.
the second will be as deployable munitions, for smaller, precision placements - fly into an open window, instead of blowing the entire building, etc. stuff where air superiority and munitions arent the solution.
They must have something like that planned for IVAS
Drones with a home on jam mode.
I was surprised before the war that we didn't had tanks drone in dev. They already keep their nose on screens so why not moving the screens a few km away. Without all the space wasted by meatbag you could design something groundbreaking and with current AI level you could even have a fallback in case of jamming (and honestly AI would probably be better than a crew).
Same thing for fighters. Remove the crew and you can design a plane that can sustain as much G as it structurally can. It could evade supersonic with ease with moronic manoeuver and spread it's modules across several drone (radar, weapons, etc). You could network them so the radar of one can be used by the other.
It's kind of mind boggling that there aren't any project for that when everything seems so obvious.
>It's kind of mind boggling that there aren't any project for that when everything seems so obvious.
The NGAD programme is meant to develop the (manned) 6th gen fighter and its (unmanned) wingman drones, which have modules spread across different drones and networked together.
Our time is coming DEWbros
Ai driven drones that are inmune to jamming since they dont rely on external comunication.
baloon drone carriers (like ww2 barrage baloon) that have solar panels and can be used to recover ai drones that couldnt found a target and recharge them autonomosly.
optical and thermal active camo to counter
>suicide ai guided drones that are fired from long range artillery .
>JDAM drone dispenser that dispense 100s of ai driven drones from 100 km away
AI guided drones that can be left behind like mines so when they detect movement near they activate and start dropping or suiciding in what is moving around
High altitude balloons invisible to radar with gorgon stare.
Giving total battlefield surveillance 24/7 over hundreds of square miles
Then use AI to spot threats
The most valuable thing a drone provides is information, not death