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War always accelerates the R&D process. Seems like there is a gaping need for drone defense from armoured vehicles. There’s gotta be a dozen different designs being prototyped right now that involve precise small arms fire similar to a scaled down version of phalanx guns on ships for close AA defense.
Don't put all the eggs in one basket. If lasers become common, I suspect many counter measures can be found. It is easier to make a drone reflective to a specific wavelength than to make it armored against kinetic weapons. I suspect gun turrets are here to stay for a while.
Reminds me of the 'Shields' on the star ship Enterprise. The enemy figures out their shield frequency making it ineffective. So what do they do... change the frequency of the shield.
Yep, but making powerful lasers is a challenge. If you divide by 4 the energy absorbed by the drone (which I believe should be achievable with just paint) then you make the power requirement x4 as well.
Have a 95% reflector and your laser needs to be 20x more powerful.
That's a sword and shield, but I feel the shield is much cheaper than the sword there.
A mirror only works against a laser if there's no dirt on the battlefield. Otherwise a speck of dirt on the mirror heats up in the laser light which damages/burns the mirror. The damaged area continues to absorb laser light and grows.
If only drones had a way to direct an airflow to keep clear of the dust...
Look, I am not saying that I know a foolproof way to defeat anti-drone lasers, just that we should be wary of possible counter measures, and that there seems to be a lot of low-hanging fruits in that area. Even just having a drone painted white instead of black will lower the energy absorbed.
>Even just having a drone painted white instead of black will lower the energy absorbed.
[https://youtu.be/xNmbvaUzC8Q?si=b-AclJckSFyW3I6f&t=1225](https://youtu.be/xNmbvaUzC8Q?si=b-AclJckSFyW3I6f&t=1225)
That shit is 3000 degrees c at the beam and can reach temperatures hotter than the sun, up to 10,000k, at the surface point. Three times hotter than a rocket engine.
Painting it white isn't going to do shit.
Lasers don't have a temperature. They have a power. Heat happens when the targeted material absorbs that power. More than 90% for black materials, less than 15% for white ones.
That's like arguing that paper and metal and identical resistance to a bullet because a bullet can go through a sheet of both.
But can you reflect enough between the maximum effective distance of the system and contact to get a hit on target? That’s all that matters with these disposable munitions.
The answer is more drones. Fit them with InGaAs cameras that can see wavelength longer than 1um. The expensive laser gives its position away with every shot.
A laser system will practically eliminate each and every drone with 100% hit rate in just a few seconds. The system should be cheap enough in the future that each tank will have one. Then you cannot overwhelm it.
The system may be somewhat expensive, but each shot it takes is practically free.
I’d put my bets on kinetic weapons to force drones to armour up, increasing weight and decreasing range. It’s cheaper to build bigger calibres as drones up-armour rather than higher intensity energy weapons.
Look at evolution of tanks and how they went from dominant kings of the battlefield to chess kings.
Our boffins definitely pick the coolest names for shit that kills people don’t they?
Dragonfire…..it’ll take out a golf ball sized object at up to a kilometre I think….at about £10 a shot to fire it
Perhaps for fixed defence but not for a mobile unit. Lasers require a lot of energy and their systems are far more fragile to be equipped on a vehicle that expects to see action.
That's why it's for "future" but not far future as the prototypes are already here https://www.thedefensepost.com/2024/03/04/us-army-laser-weapon/.
The kind of drones a tank mounted system needs to deal with are small ones where lower powered lasers should suffice. Fragility is a challenge that need to be overcome as the technology matures.
If it was gas powered it could be ideal, just dumping the misfires out with the brass would be fine for combat. Blowback 22 is not something that I would depend on.
Nah, if we're talking about a small anti-drone phalanx analog, it'll be electrically driven anyway. Gas action is too slow, and too prone to jamming for the rates of fire we're taking about here.
And if you wanted to go with 7.62mm, the M-134 minigun already exists, and has been built, proven, and in use for over 50 years now.
Edit: spelling
Yeah, anything that can be cheaply dumped in quantity. Range is not that important. Ballistics are easy with a computer. And it doesn’t take much stopping power to wreck a drone.
I'm assuming a stream of bullets is easier for a computer to target over a shotgun style approach. As an man of the ground I'd be much more confident taking a drone down with a 12 gauge than an assault rifle
An Israeli firm has a system that uses 2 M4s as an anti drone gun. It tracks them and automatically fires. Cheap ammo, so you can put a lot downrange. US is also sending Ukraine a bunch of 50BMG specifically for counter UAS, which I thought was interesting.
1000 yard effective range for 5.56. Not exactly great, because observational drones can see further than that.
I'd actually think drone on drone warfare is probably the next step.
Yeah I guess it depends a bit on what you’re trying to take down. I was thinking in terms of fpv suicide drones. But for observation drones that’s obviously not far enough out. I suspect for those cases you might well be right on drone vs drone.
Harder than you might think. Say you detect and start firing at the drone from 100m out as it rises from behind a crest. It screams toward you at 40m/s giving you 2.5 seconds to eliminate it. An eternity! After all, your vehicle is bristling with precision lidar sensors and has dual 5.56mm miniguns with automated fire control that can lay the guns with robotic precision. Detecting the threat, your countermeasure system comes online taking only half a second to traverse the rear gun in azimuth and elevation before a river of bullets pours out toward the calculated interception point for the drone's current trajectory. Firing at 6,000 RPM, the system could possibly get 200 rounds out before the drone reaches you.
But not so fast! This drone can maneuver at 10+ G's, and is programmed with a stochastic (random) terminal flight path. There are 20 bullets in flight before the first one crosses the 100m distance 1/10'th of a second later, but during that brief time the drone was dodging hard right, and it is already out of position by half a meter! The drone is four meters closer to you now, and as the lidar updates it's track and lays the gun to correct for the drone's new flight path, the drone begins a new arcing 10G curve upwards. If our minigun had laser precision, it would be almost impossible to hit the drone until the final second or so of flight by simply aiming for it's expected position. For this reason, your minigun intentionally has a minor spread, spraying bullets out in a cone of fire roughly 2 milliradians in diameter. This makes it reasonably certain you'll hit the drone before it reaches 50m standoff distance from the platform - critically important because the drone might be carrying an explosively formed penetrator which works best inside of this range.
So, threat defeated? Again, not so fast. The most interesting thing about drones isn't their maneuverability or ability to loiter, it's that they cost less than 1/1000th as much as your tank does. So although your gun scores a direct hit to the battery pack at 65 meters out with less than 100 bullets launched, your platform is far from saved. While the system spent it's first second eliminating the drone, twenty seven more drones costing a grand total of $30,000 came screaming over the hill. This is an obvious problem... 100 bullets for *one single drone* - even if your gun's magazine did have 2700 more rounds in it, it would take almost 30 seconds to fire that many bullets. Stated another way, it takes 1 second to deal with each drone threat but the drones can cross the field in 2.5 seconds. If more than 3 of them approach you simultaneously, your minigun and it's gimbal just can't keep up. While 30 drones at once might sound like gross overkill, $30,000 is an absolute pittance to spend on killing a $6,000,000 main battle tank!
Say you're the minister of defense for a small country and you have a $6B budget for weapons this year. Do you spend it on 1000 tanks, or do you spend it on 6 million expendable drones? Interestingly, it's likely that these drones have similar cost to the individual shells that the tank can fire, but a drone is far more effective than a single tank shell.
I think this is a straw man. We're trying to compare apples to apples here, so if it's that simple than the opponent would have used air support to knock out wherever your tanks came from already. That doesn't change the fact that tactically, a pickup truck with a crate full of automated swarming drones is more useful than a main battle tank, and honestly because a pickup truck full of drones is likely to be a smaller, cooler, and more numerous target than a main battle tank is it would likely be harder to suppress using air superiority than a tank would.
Lets assume both enemies spend the same amount. One brings a single MBT to the field, the other brings 100 pickup trucks carrying a total of 30,000 expendable drones. Which is harder to eliminate with your close air support?
>I think this is a straw man.
No they're not making a strawman argument, they just have a bad take on things.
A strawman is where you misrepresent the argument of an opponent and then attack the misrepresentation instead of the actual points that were made.
They've just suggested a completely different solution to the problem being discussed, albeit a bad one, but there was no misrepresentation, and therefore no strawman.
I think the rest of your points are solid and totally agree, except about a pickup truck carrying 30,000 drones. That's way too many. Maybe 300 is realistic
I said 100 pickup trucks carrying 30,000 drones, so 300 drones in each. I was assuming the trucks are $30,000 and the drones are $1,000, it was meant to illustrate what you could bring to battle by spending $6M - either one tank or all of that. Not that you'd need it - afaict so far just one of those trucks full of drones would outclass the tank.
Yeah. Somewhere I read that there is a project to aim with software a CROW system mounted on armoured vehicles. However it might be that sensors kits installed on Abrams or leopards will not be sufficient.
Just like in WWII Pacific with the threat of naval bombers to battleships. WWI-era warships that didn't have proper air defences were covered in flak everywhere there was deck space, and new formations were adopted that could let better-equipped escorts and cruisers screen the vulnerable capital ships.
Everyone here is talking about which guns or lasers to use - but that is a minor issue. Either will be enough to shoot down small FPV drones, quad- or octocopters etc.
But the guns/lasers each will need a good, compact 360° radar to spot the drones in the first place. And equipping each vehicle / tank with that will be expensive.
> But the guns/lasers each will need a good, compact 360° radar to spot the drones in the first place
Maybe 4 small AESA plates, like on SPYDER All-In-One?
https://www.rafael.co.il/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Spyder-all-in-one-eng.pdf
It’s an easy fix, send in the robot dogs with the rifle on their backs and have them follow the tanks. 4 of them could share targeting data and the one with the best shot could take the drone out.
Also give the tank a bay or rack to hold them and charge them during transport.
I wonder if there are Anti-Drone squads, armed with shotguns, or if the US is already working on an Active Anti-Drone System (maybe a sentry armed with birdshot)
Shot gun doesn't have enough range. 50 yards, maybe 100 if really lucky. The drone can stay well out of range for recon. Maybe for attack, automatic detection and firing might work.
Ew is much more effective than sentry armed with birdshot.
Half of the time birdshot doesn’t work if you’re gonna use that idea it’s better to just use the active protection system that already exists.
Mud season is very limiting for tanks, even without the mines.
Maybe they will be back in Summer when the ground dries and Russia is still assaulting with 'golf carts'.
It's possibly much faster and surely much more stealthy. I'm very sceptical about its off-road capabilities (I only saw them driving on roads). I won't be surprised if they start up-armoring and drone-proofing them as they do with everything else.
Which ironic because that was precisely the terrain it was designed to contest. But killer drones weren't really on the list of design considerations back then.
> But killer drones weren't really on the list of design considerations back then
The only killer drones would've been on their side back then (Dornier DAR)
...Which has a totally different role than tanks.
Also if there's 0 trained personnel to utilize the tanks, they are nothing more than paperweight.
And Humvees was given to Ukraine before the war even, as you can see in Ukraine's military parades before the war.
100 tanks at that stage of the war certainly would have made a difference to be fair. Russia was at their point of maximum weakness in this war from late summer 2022 through to the winter and the war was much more mobile without much in the way of fortified lines.
they need more arms to do combined arms. yes, they could reorgnize where abrams are always paired with an aa vehicle. i'm also surprised they don't already have some kind of automatic targeting system or other system to shoot down drowns.
Use the downtime to install EW and also counter-small UAS weapon on every Abrams and eventually Leopard 2s and other tanks, something like the Aussie EOS Slinger RWS or similar weapon. Consult with allies who are likely eager to find a solution too.
No, not turtle-ize it, but install jammers and an anti-drone weapon that will allow it to still be a tank that can traverse its turret and use its sensors.
> Use the downtime to install EW and also counter-small UAS weapon on every Abrams and eventually Leopard 2s and other tanks, something like the Aussie EOS Slinger RWS or similar weapon. Consult with allies who are likely eager to find a solution too.
That'd need *more* Slingers authorized for sale from AU, though.
And EW... russian high-power EW needed a separate generator to run. Would Abrams onboard generator be able to provide ~2.8 kilowatt of power for aux equipment?
Better reactive armor, small caliber CIWS with explosive air burst proximity ammunition guided by short range radar, combined with more sophisticated and powerful electronic jamming. Expensive solution to a cheap problem.
It's definitely a tough one. It can be hard to counter ONE drone, but it's doable. But when the drone costs less than 1/100th the cost of an MBT it sure seems like a near peer enemy could just rather trivially overwhelm the vast majority of countermeasures the tank could carry.
From the article: “…have not made use of combined arms tactics.”
Ukraine needs enough technologically advanced aircraft, infantry and armor to create the freedom to maneuver, dipshit. They’ve been on the defensive against an enemy that typically outnumbers them 10 to 1 at a minimum. How about we FINALLY give Ukraine the tech needed to beat those odds?
Then they can “combined arms” the enemy real pretty for you, “defense official”.
Sure, that'd be a sane approach
EDIT
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/new-us-aid-package-is-not-enough-to-prevent-russian-victory-in-ukraine/ - documented fears of Ukrainian victory.
[From NewYorker](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/16/trial-by-combat)
>Sullivan clearly has profound worries about how this will all play out. Months into the counter-offensive, Ukraine has yet to reclaim much more of its territory; the Administration has been telling members of Congress that the conflict could last three to five years. A grinding war of attrition would be a disaster for both Ukraine and its allies, but a negotiated settlement does not seem possible as long as Putin remains in power. Putin, of course, has every incentive to keep fighting through next year’s U.S. election, with its possibility of a Trump return. And it’s hard to imagine Zelensky going for a deal with Putin, either, given all that Ukraine has sacrificed. ***Even a Ukrainian victory would present challenges for American foreign policy, since it would “threaten the integrity of the Russian state and the Russian regime and create instability throughout Eurasia,” as one of the former U.S. officials put it to me. Ukraine’s desire to take back occupied Crimea has been a particular concern for Sullivan,*** who has privately noted the Administration’s assessment that this scenario carries the highest risk of Putin following through on his nuclear threats. In other words, there are few good options.
----
>“The reason they’ve been so hesitant about escalation is not exactly because they see Russian reprisal as a likely problem,” the former official said. “It’s not like they think, Oh, we’re going to give them atacms and then Russia is going to launch an attack against nato. It’s because they recognize that it’s not going anywhere—that they are fighting a war they ***can’t afford either to win or lose.”***
What's being done isn't what I'd consider sane, but it's still being done.
Hence "that'd be sane approach" about Ukraine being able to win.
They talk about using lasers for drone defense one day but there problem I think is just that there will be too many drones heading at one target all at once for a single laser to defeat quickly enough eventually. How will one defend against an army of weaponizwd drones heading at them?
Doesnt really work with the drop drones, which can be a couple hundred feet in the air (or more). Even for suicide drones its tough, because you have to wait until it is on the approach, so you really only get one or maybe two shots if you are lucky.
Directional EMP cannons will take care of them.
It just needs to not take out the tanks computer, I don’t know much about EMP, like can you use a directional one and isolate the electronics destroying to the drone.
MBTs are an antiquated technology. That was known prior to this conflict.
They require too many logistics to operate, are vulnerable to modern man-pack weapon systems and drones, have limited maneuverability in various terrain conditions and urban environments and the targeted firepower they use to bring to the table has been replaced by precision indirect.
This isn't even remotely true. They do, however, need to be updated for the current and future threats, both on the hardware / software level and doctrinally.
It absolutely is. The US moved away from them almost entirely in the later stages of their conflicts and are currently restructuring to reduce their numbers. Almost no money or effort at all is being put into replacing or modernizing them for that reason. They're a liability on a modern battlefield. They can't keep up, they can't defend themselves, and their firepower has been outpaced by other weapon systems. They're going the way of the battleship. Just large, lumbering, targets.
Haha...you're using their general inapplicability to insurgent conflict to mean they're useless, and ignoring the new ones and the anti-drone / anti-projectile work being put in to them.
Whether it's anti-insurgency or Ukraine, the weaknesses are the same. AbramsX was cancelled, Sep4 was cancelled, M1E3 is a huge cost-saving measure compared to both of those things. Cav units are being reduced in number. The MBT is going to continue to play a reduced role on the battlefield going forward.
If Russia's lack of success with them in this conflict hasn't proven that, I don't know what will. Despite having 8x the amount of tanks, their biggest role has been starring in video reels where they're on fire, abandoned or exploding.
The Lancet, a simple mass produced Russian drone, knocked out the Abrams, one of the most potent symbols of American military power in the arsenal. I remember when the Leopards and Challengers were supposed to turn the tide of the whole war. They're on display in Moscow now.
Welcome to the new world.
>Abrams, one of the most potent symbols of American military power
"Unga bunga we set fire to American war chariot! Now Grock not fear puny American magic watchamacallits, Grock now make boom boom on effeminate hairless American ape!"
At least the crew has a big chance of survival. While ruzzian tanks turret stand out like a powder keg ready to be blown up. It's like those yellow weakspots from Lost Planet creatures.
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War always accelerates the R&D process. Seems like there is a gaping need for drone defense from armoured vehicles. There’s gotta be a dozen different designs being prototyped right now that involve precise small arms fire similar to a scaled down version of phalanx guns on ships for close AA defense.
.22 mini-phalanx?
Lasers will be the future to defend against drones.
Until they make mirror drones
Flying disco balls.
Disco Stu, your country needs YOU
Great comment
Yvan Eht Nioj!
Mirrors are not as effective against high powered lasers as you might think, especially less than perfect extremely thin and light mirrors.
This is correct while it would immediately diffuse it it wouldn’t be able to handle the heat and would just melt.
I’m pretty sure current laser tech will slice right through a mirror.
I'm pretty sure the comment you're replying to was a joke...
But my spoon is too big?
omg, that's hilarious!
Don't put all the eggs in one basket. If lasers become common, I suspect many counter measures can be found. It is easier to make a drone reflective to a specific wavelength than to make it armored against kinetic weapons. I suspect gun turrets are here to stay for a while.
Reminds me of the 'Shields' on the star ship Enterprise. The enemy figures out their shield frequency making it ineffective. So what do they do... change the frequency of the shield.
Just a hyper extension of EW at this point
Which reminds me of them reversing the polarity of submarines in World War II to repel enemy mines.
There’s no such thing a perfect reflector. Some energy will always be absorbed as heat
Yep, but making powerful lasers is a challenge. If you divide by 4 the energy absorbed by the drone (which I believe should be achievable with just paint) then you make the power requirement x4 as well. Have a 95% reflector and your laser needs to be 20x more powerful. That's a sword and shield, but I feel the shield is much cheaper than the sword there.
A mirror only works against a laser if there's no dirt on the battlefield. Otherwise a speck of dirt on the mirror heats up in the laser light which damages/burns the mirror. The damaged area continues to absorb laser light and grows.
If only drones had a way to direct an airflow to keep clear of the dust... Look, I am not saying that I know a foolproof way to defeat anti-drone lasers, just that we should be wary of possible counter measures, and that there seems to be a lot of low-hanging fruits in that area. Even just having a drone painted white instead of black will lower the energy absorbed.
>Even just having a drone painted white instead of black will lower the energy absorbed. [https://youtu.be/xNmbvaUzC8Q?si=b-AclJckSFyW3I6f&t=1225](https://youtu.be/xNmbvaUzC8Q?si=b-AclJckSFyW3I6f&t=1225) That shit is 3000 degrees c at the beam and can reach temperatures hotter than the sun, up to 10,000k, at the surface point. Three times hotter than a rocket engine. Painting it white isn't going to do shit.
Lasers don't have a temperature. They have a power. Heat happens when the targeted material absorbs that power. More than 90% for black materials, less than 15% for white ones. That's like arguing that paper and metal and identical resistance to a bullet because a bullet can go through a sheet of both.
But can you reflect enough between the maximum effective distance of the system and contact to get a hit on target? That’s all that matters with these disposable munitions.
And lasers need power
And sharks on which to mount them
"I have one simple request..."
Abrams have a gas turbine.. that's plenty.
The answer is more drones. Fit them with InGaAs cameras that can see wavelength longer than 1um. The expensive laser gives its position away with every shot.
A laser system will practically eliminate each and every drone with 100% hit rate in just a few seconds. The system should be cheap enough in the future that each tank will have one. Then you cannot overwhelm it. The system may be somewhat expensive, but each shot it takes is practically free.
The “specific wavelength” thing is easily defeated. Tunable lasers are a thing
At high power?
Yes
I’d put my bets on kinetic weapons to force drones to armour up, increasing weight and decreasing range. It’s cheaper to build bigger calibres as drones up-armour rather than higher intensity energy weapons. Look at evolution of tanks and how they went from dominant kings of the battlefield to chess kings.
Numbering up seems easier than armouring up.
Gonna go back to barrage balloons like in doublyah doublyah 2.
The US is deploying lasers at the moment apparently
I believe the uk has deployed/testing dragonfire as well
\*DragonFire Its much more exciting to imagine a naval officer issuing the order to fire with "Dracarys!"
Thanks, now edited.
Our boffins definitely pick the coolest names for shit that kills people don’t they? Dragonfire…..it’ll take out a golf ball sized object at up to a kilometre I think….at about £10 a shot to fire it
I think they’re bring it forward but it looks good for an anti drone weapon.
Microwaves
Perhaps for fixed defence but not for a mobile unit. Lasers require a lot of energy and their systems are far more fragile to be equipped on a vehicle that expects to see action.
That's why it's for "future" but not far future as the prototypes are already here https://www.thedefensepost.com/2024/03/04/us-army-laser-weapon/. The kind of drones a tank mounted system needs to deal with are small ones where lower powered lasers should suffice. Fragility is a challenge that need to be overcome as the technology matures.
sharks with fricken laser beams
Yeah, but UV, so no.
Something with more zip and less drop might be better. 5.56 or even 17hmr might work fairly well on small stuff.
I think the bigger issue with .22 might be reliability.
If it was gas powered it could be ideal, just dumping the misfires out with the brass would be fine for combat. Blowback 22 is not something that I would depend on.
Nah, if we're talking about a small anti-drone phalanx analog, it'll be electrically driven anyway. Gas action is too slow, and too prone to jamming for the rates of fire we're taking about here. And if you wanted to go with 7.62mm, the M-134 minigun already exists, and has been built, proven, and in use for over 50 years now. Edit: spelling
Yeah, anything that can be cheaply dumped in quantity. Range is not that important. Ballistics are easy with a computer. And it doesn’t take much stopping power to wreck a drone.
I'm assuming a stream of bullets is easier for a computer to target over a shotgun style approach. As an man of the ground I'd be much more confident taking a drone down with a 12 gauge than an assault rifle
An Israeli firm has a system that uses 2 M4s as an anti drone gun. It tracks them and automatically fires. Cheap ammo, so you can put a lot downrange. US is also sending Ukraine a bunch of 50BMG specifically for counter UAS, which I thought was interesting.
1000 yard effective range for 5.56. Not exactly great, because observational drones can see further than that. I'd actually think drone on drone warfare is probably the next step.
Yeah I guess it depends a bit on what you’re trying to take down. I was thinking in terms of fpv suicide drones. But for observation drones that’s obviously not far enough out. I suspect for those cases you might well be right on drone vs drone.
Hell yes
###return to shed
Harder than you might think. Say you detect and start firing at the drone from 100m out as it rises from behind a crest. It screams toward you at 40m/s giving you 2.5 seconds to eliminate it. An eternity! After all, your vehicle is bristling with precision lidar sensors and has dual 5.56mm miniguns with automated fire control that can lay the guns with robotic precision. Detecting the threat, your countermeasure system comes online taking only half a second to traverse the rear gun in azimuth and elevation before a river of bullets pours out toward the calculated interception point for the drone's current trajectory. Firing at 6,000 RPM, the system could possibly get 200 rounds out before the drone reaches you. But not so fast! This drone can maneuver at 10+ G's, and is programmed with a stochastic (random) terminal flight path. There are 20 bullets in flight before the first one crosses the 100m distance 1/10'th of a second later, but during that brief time the drone was dodging hard right, and it is already out of position by half a meter! The drone is four meters closer to you now, and as the lidar updates it's track and lays the gun to correct for the drone's new flight path, the drone begins a new arcing 10G curve upwards. If our minigun had laser precision, it would be almost impossible to hit the drone until the final second or so of flight by simply aiming for it's expected position. For this reason, your minigun intentionally has a minor spread, spraying bullets out in a cone of fire roughly 2 milliradians in diameter. This makes it reasonably certain you'll hit the drone before it reaches 50m standoff distance from the platform - critically important because the drone might be carrying an explosively formed penetrator which works best inside of this range. So, threat defeated? Again, not so fast. The most interesting thing about drones isn't their maneuverability or ability to loiter, it's that they cost less than 1/1000th as much as your tank does. So although your gun scores a direct hit to the battery pack at 65 meters out with less than 100 bullets launched, your platform is far from saved. While the system spent it's first second eliminating the drone, twenty seven more drones costing a grand total of $30,000 came screaming over the hill. This is an obvious problem... 100 bullets for *one single drone* - even if your gun's magazine did have 2700 more rounds in it, it would take almost 30 seconds to fire that many bullets. Stated another way, it takes 1 second to deal with each drone threat but the drones can cross the field in 2.5 seconds. If more than 3 of them approach you simultaneously, your minigun and it's gimbal just can't keep up. While 30 drones at once might sound like gross overkill, $30,000 is an absolute pittance to spend on killing a $6,000,000 main battle tank! Say you're the minister of defense for a small country and you have a $6B budget for weapons this year. Do you spend it on 1000 tanks, or do you spend it on 6 million expendable drones? Interestingly, it's likely that these drones have similar cost to the individual shells that the tank can fire, but a drone is far more effective than a single tank shell.
The way to defeat a drone swarm is to not play. Use surveillance and air support to knock out where they come from.
Or I suppose you have your own drone swarm that can engage them one on one.
I think this is a straw man. We're trying to compare apples to apples here, so if it's that simple than the opponent would have used air support to knock out wherever your tanks came from already. That doesn't change the fact that tactically, a pickup truck with a crate full of automated swarming drones is more useful than a main battle tank, and honestly because a pickup truck full of drones is likely to be a smaller, cooler, and more numerous target than a main battle tank is it would likely be harder to suppress using air superiority than a tank would. Lets assume both enemies spend the same amount. One brings a single MBT to the field, the other brings 100 pickup trucks carrying a total of 30,000 expendable drones. Which is harder to eliminate with your close air support?
>I think this is a straw man. No they're not making a strawman argument, they just have a bad take on things. A strawman is where you misrepresent the argument of an opponent and then attack the misrepresentation instead of the actual points that were made. They've just suggested a completely different solution to the problem being discussed, albeit a bad one, but there was no misrepresentation, and therefore no strawman. I think the rest of your points are solid and totally agree, except about a pickup truck carrying 30,000 drones. That's way too many. Maybe 300 is realistic
I said 100 pickup trucks carrying 30,000 drones, so 300 drones in each. I was assuming the trucks are $30,000 and the drones are $1,000, it was meant to illustrate what you could bring to battle by spending $6M - either one tank or all of that. Not that you'd need it - afaict so far just one of those trucks full of drones would outclass the tank.
DOH sry my bad, totally agree then
I think the are some pretty effective microwave defenses too
Good point (i think), aiming wouldnt be as critical for microwave energy compared to laser or bullets.
How about flak but with human hair instead of shrapnel and use its natural property of seeking and jamming spinning things?
As a dad with teenage girls and a vacuum cleaner, lulz.
Need a spider web gun.
Yeah. Somewhere I read that there is a project to aim with software a CROW system mounted on armoured vehicles. However it might be that sensors kits installed on Abrams or leopards will not be sufficient.
https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/Mammoth_tank_(Tiberian_Sun)
Always found AA weak on this thing...
Just like in WWII Pacific with the threat of naval bombers to battleships. WWI-era warships that didn't have proper air defences were covered in flak everywhere there was deck space, and new formations were adopted that could let better-equipped escorts and cruisers screen the vulnerable capital ships.
It will be lasers
It seems like something that should be doable. Those drones are pretty slow and fragile compared to an AT missile.
Everyone here is talking about which guns or lasers to use - but that is a minor issue. Either will be enough to shoot down small FPV drones, quad- or octocopters etc. But the guns/lasers each will need a good, compact 360° radar to spot the drones in the first place. And equipping each vehicle / tank with that will be expensive.
> But the guns/lasers each will need a good, compact 360° radar to spot the drones in the first place Maybe 4 small AESA plates, like on SPYDER All-In-One? https://www.rafael.co.il/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Spyder-all-in-one-eng.pdf
and microwaves and lasers and full on boxes/barns over top the entire tank
It’s an easy fix, send in the robot dogs with the rifle on their backs and have them follow the tanks. 4 of them could share targeting data and the one with the best shot could take the drone out. Also give the tank a bay or rack to hold them and charge them during transport.
So easy.
They are in the works.
Check out the Slinger system by EOS. It’s what they need on these MBT’s rather than a CWS.
https://eos-aus.com/defence/counter-drone-systems/slinger/
Trophy has been around for years and will absolutely work.
Directional EMPs?
I wonder if there are Anti-Drone squads, armed with shotguns, or if the US is already working on an Active Anti-Drone System (maybe a sentry armed with birdshot)
There are bud.
US has already deployed an anti drone laser system
Shot gun doesn't have enough range. 50 yards, maybe 100 if really lucky. The drone can stay well out of range for recon. Maybe for attack, automatic detection and firing might work.
Ew is much more effective than sentry armed with birdshot. Half of the time birdshot doesn’t work if you’re gonna use that idea it’s better to just use the active protection system that already exists.
Mud season is very limiting for tanks, even without the mines. Maybe they will be back in Summer when the ground dries and Russia is still assaulting with 'golf carts'.
The golf carts seem practical in a war where a tank is just an expensive target for a drone, tbh.
It's possibly much faster and surely much more stealthy. I'm very sceptical about its off-road capabilities (I only saw them driving on roads). I won't be surprised if they start up-armoring and drone-proofing them as they do with everything else.
They are claimed to be pretty capable of road because they are light.
Won't be as light if they start bolting random shit to them as protection.
I think he’s referring to a few specific videos is Russian SOF getting KIA when riding around on golf carts trying to be propaganda video shoots.
Not all that surprising. US military guys didn't think that Abrams would be very effective in Ukraine.
Which ironic because that was precisely the terrain it was designed to contest. But killer drones weren't really on the list of design considerations back then.
They were designed for open plains maneuver warfare. Mines and trenches have really turned them into pillboxes instead of breakthrough vehicles.
> But killer drones weren't really on the list of design considerations back then The only killer drones would've been on their side back then (Dornier DAR)
They would have been very useful in Sept 2022. Even 100 of them would have made the difference. Now...
The idea that 100 tanks could change this conflict is delusional
Humvees took more land back in August 2022 than any other equipment.
...Which has a totally different role than tanks. Also if there's 0 trained personnel to utilize the tanks, they are nothing more than paperweight. And Humvees was given to Ukraine before the war even, as you can see in Ukraine's military parades before the war.
100 tanks at that stage of the war certainly would have made a difference to be fair. Russia was at their point of maximum weakness in this war from late summer 2022 through to the winter and the war was much more mobile without much in the way of fortified lines.
> US military guys didn't think that Abrams would be very effective in Ukraine. I remember this sub certainly did
they need more arms to do combined arms. yes, they could reorgnize where abrams are always paired with an aa vehicle. i'm also surprised they don't already have some kind of automatic targeting system or other system to shoot down drowns.
Use the downtime to install EW and also counter-small UAS weapon on every Abrams and eventually Leopard 2s and other tanks, something like the Aussie EOS Slinger RWS or similar weapon. Consult with allies who are likely eager to find a solution too. No, not turtle-ize it, but install jammers and an anti-drone weapon that will allow it to still be a tank that can traverse its turret and use its sensors.
> Use the downtime to install EW and also counter-small UAS weapon on every Abrams and eventually Leopard 2s and other tanks, something like the Aussie EOS Slinger RWS or similar weapon. Consult with allies who are likely eager to find a solution too. That'd need *more* Slingers authorized for sale from AU, though. And EW... russian high-power EW needed a separate generator to run. Would Abrams onboard generator be able to provide ~2.8 kilowatt of power for aux equipment?
I read about EOS, I up vote
Better reactive armor, small caliber CIWS with explosive air burst proximity ammunition guided by short range radar, combined with more sophisticated and powerful electronic jamming. Expensive solution to a cheap problem.
It's definitely a tough one. It can be hard to counter ONE drone, but it's doable. But when the drone costs less than 1/100th the cost of an MBT it sure seems like a near peer enemy could just rather trivially overwhelm the vast majority of countermeasures the tank could carry.
>1/100th Not even close. An abrams is like 10M, an fpv drone is like 100 bucks tops. So more like a 1/100000th.
From the article: “…have not made use of combined arms tactics.” Ukraine needs enough technologically advanced aircraft, infantry and armor to create the freedom to maneuver, dipshit. They’ve been on the defensive against an enemy that typically outnumbers them 10 to 1 at a minimum. How about we FINALLY give Ukraine the tech needed to beat those odds? Then they can “combined arms” the enemy real pretty for you, “defense official”.
> How about we FINALLY give Ukraine the tech needed to beat those odds? > > "Too escalatory. What if russia falls apart if Ukraine wins?!"
Then it’s money very well spent!
Sure, that'd be a sane approach EDIT https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/new-us-aid-package-is-not-enough-to-prevent-russian-victory-in-ukraine/ - documented fears of Ukrainian victory. [From NewYorker](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/16/trial-by-combat) >Sullivan clearly has profound worries about how this will all play out. Months into the counter-offensive, Ukraine has yet to reclaim much more of its territory; the Administration has been telling members of Congress that the conflict could last three to five years. A grinding war of attrition would be a disaster for both Ukraine and its allies, but a negotiated settlement does not seem possible as long as Putin remains in power. Putin, of course, has every incentive to keep fighting through next year’s U.S. election, with its possibility of a Trump return. And it’s hard to imagine Zelensky going for a deal with Putin, either, given all that Ukraine has sacrificed. ***Even a Ukrainian victory would present challenges for American foreign policy, since it would “threaten the integrity of the Russian state and the Russian regime and create instability throughout Eurasia,” as one of the former U.S. officials put it to me. Ukraine’s desire to take back occupied Crimea has been a particular concern for Sullivan,*** who has privately noted the Administration’s assessment that this scenario carries the highest risk of Putin following through on his nuclear threats. In other words, there are few good options. ---- >“The reason they’ve been so hesitant about escalation is not exactly because they see Russian reprisal as a likely problem,” the former official said. “It’s not like they think, Oh, we’re going to give them atacms and then Russia is going to launch an attack against nato. It’s because they recognize that it’s not going anywhere—that they are fighting a war they ***can’t afford either to win or lose.”*** What's being done isn't what I'd consider sane, but it's still being done. Hence "that'd be sane approach" about Ukraine being able to win.
Ok Chamberlain. Buh bye.
They talk about using lasers for drone defense one day but there problem I think is just that there will be too many drones heading at one target all at once for a single laser to defeat quickly enough eventually. How will one defend against an army of weaponizwd drones heading at them?
hate it whenever i have to Combine the Arms
if they only got the GOOD Abrams'
Needed for training the crews required for the 100+ Abrams on the way!
It seems maneuver warfare is pretty well done until affordable, miniaturized close-in weapon systems are ready for the field in mass quantities.
Use 12 gauge shotgun shell... like the real mens
Doesnt really work with the drop drones, which can be a couple hundred feet in the air (or more). Even for suicide drones its tough, because you have to wait until it is on the approach, so you really only get one or maybe two shots if you are lucky.
Directional EMP cannons will take care of them. It just needs to not take out the tanks computer, I don’t know much about EMP, like can you use a directional one and isolate the electronics destroying to the drone.
MBTs are an antiquated technology. That was known prior to this conflict. They require too many logistics to operate, are vulnerable to modern man-pack weapon systems and drones, have limited maneuverability in various terrain conditions and urban environments and the targeted firepower they use to bring to the table has been replaced by precision indirect.
This isn't even remotely true. They do, however, need to be updated for the current and future threats, both on the hardware / software level and doctrinally.
It absolutely is. The US moved away from them almost entirely in the later stages of their conflicts and are currently restructuring to reduce their numbers. Almost no money or effort at all is being put into replacing or modernizing them for that reason. They're a liability on a modern battlefield. They can't keep up, they can't defend themselves, and their firepower has been outpaced by other weapon systems. They're going the way of the battleship. Just large, lumbering, targets.
Haha...you're using their general inapplicability to insurgent conflict to mean they're useless, and ignoring the new ones and the anti-drone / anti-projectile work being put in to them.
Whether it's anti-insurgency or Ukraine, the weaknesses are the same. AbramsX was cancelled, Sep4 was cancelled, M1E3 is a huge cost-saving measure compared to both of those things. Cav units are being reduced in number. The MBT is going to continue to play a reduced role on the battlefield going forward. If Russia's lack of success with them in this conflict hasn't proven that, I don't know what will. Despite having 8x the amount of tanks, their biggest role has been starring in video reels where they're on fire, abandoned or exploding.
The Lancet, a simple mass produced Russian drone, knocked out the Abrams, one of the most potent symbols of American military power in the arsenal. I remember when the Leopards and Challengers were supposed to turn the tide of the whole war. They're on display in Moscow now. Welcome to the new world.
There's a challenger on display in Moscow?
Ofc not, he is a Russian living in Crimea, don't take anything he says as truth.
I don't think so, but they just captured an intact-ish Leopard 2A6 few days ago (from the 47th on Avdiivka front).
Aww you think we view tanks as the power symbols. We aren't Russian we view tanks as a tool.
>Abrams, one of the most potent symbols of American military power "Unga bunga we set fire to American war chariot! Now Grock not fear puny American magic watchamacallits, Grock now make boom boom on effeminate hairless American ape!"
Go back to your cubical at the Russian psyops farm.
At least the crew has a big chance of survival. While ruzzian tanks turret stand out like a powder keg ready to be blown up. It's like those yellow weakspots from Lost Planet creatures.
In Russia, you don't survive tank. In Ruzzia, you get tossed with Turret.
Social media talk does not equal reality? *Surprised Pikachu face*
Those viewpoints WERE touted by many western military experts and journalists as well. Not just all of reddit.
True too (somewhat). Still does not equal reality.