Swarming Aerial Drones

TomcatViP said:
During the November experiment at Fort Campbell, Raytheon’s system allowed a single operator to successfully control a swarm of 130 physical drones and 30 simulated drones while Northrop demonstrated a user controlling a swarm of 174 platforms.

“Combined air and ground behaviors, such as intel recon and area patrol, are some of the swarm tactics employed. We also were able to sustain swarm operations for up to 3.5 hours,” Erin Cherry, senior technical program manager of emerging capabilities development at Northrop, said in a statement.

She added that Northrop’s swarm was able to detect about 600 “artifacts” — intelligence, environmental information and mission scenario elements created by DARPA for the event — in roughly 20 minutes.
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https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/2...-single-user-drone-swarm-at-darpa-experiment/
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View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W34NPbGkLGI
Preview of what will happen:

---- Aside:
I really wonder about the Iranian option for supporting foreign wars: drones and cruise missiles are man power independent combat power. Historically the red line in war escalation is organized and trained personnel put to the fight.

The current Ukrainian conflict sees 13k ATGM supplied in a week. One can imagine a slight shift in timeframe and perhaps 100k switchblade/warmate/kargu supplied in the next conflict (or maybe some sizeable number this conflict, if any one is pursuing it). What about a big stockpile of Quds cruise missiles and Sammad drones? With autonomous target recognition software developed and a big enough stockpile it'd make a huge mess out of any force, and the latter option are built out of open market civilian dual use parts.

So what will the red line be, and how does how plausible deniability of the supply chain change things? The technology is in some sense the simplest part, the political norms revolving this will be interesting.

There is also the question of which faction will be attempting the 'feed drones to allies' strategy. It really doesn't cost that much, cut a cruiser and you can, say, have enough 10km+ range loitering munitions to allocated one every infantryman for a force the size of Russia army. At what point does this reach 'act of war' response?
 
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publiusr said:
Swarms to get in the paths of cruise missiles?
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They’d need pretty damn good lateral and vertical thrust, and that mass would require a hefty lift system. Even if they went for a launched submunition, it would still be big.
 
starviking said:
publiusr said:
Swarms to get in the paths of cruise missiles?
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They’d need pretty damn good lateral and vertical thrust, and that mass would require a hefty lift system. Even if they went for a launched submunition, it would still be big.
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If you have a grid wall of lots of little ones...the ones in the path may rise with tangling lines...missiles re-route in a killbox?
 
shin_getter said:
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...-ship-that-acts-as-mothership-for-more-drones
https://warontherocks.com/2022/05/the-dubious-prospects-for-cargo-delivery-drones-in-ukraine/Man, cargo delivery really should get some investment put into it.
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It would be very weight-limited unless you end up basically making a helicopter though. There's a UK quadcopter that can carry 68kg I think.

https://gagadget.com/en/124365-the-... Malloy T150 is a,battery life is 36 minutes.
The drones are manufactured by Malloy Aeronautics. The Malloy T150 is a cargo unmanned aerial vehicle capable of transporting equipment and ammunition weighing up to 68 kg (150 pounds, as reflected in the UAV name) to the front and front lines. The range of the quadcopter is 70 km, the cruising speed is 48 km / h, and the battery life is 36 minutes.
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Troops at the end of the logistic chain won't have the luxury to charge back the batteries of those.
36 min idealized flight time (no way point and flat terrain, I guess) looks then awfully short.
 
TomcatViP said:
Troops at the end of the logistic chain won't have the luxury to charge back the batteries of those.
36 min idealized flight time (no way point and flat terrain, I guess) looks awfully short.
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Reading the quote I hastily copy and pasted the numbers don't seem right anyway. 36 minutes at 48kph is clearly not 70km. Unless 70km is range of the control station or something??
 
https://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2022/06/tube-launched-uas/
Overview of tube launched drones, perfect for swarming.
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Personally I think the right sizes for UAVs is still unclear, with the truly critical vehicle parameters poorly defined. Really need to sort out my thoughts on creating a model to obtain required ranges, performance and equipment one day.
 
If you had enough drones fly in a pattern-could they create wind shear to deflect missiles-butterfly effect style?
 
Oh yeah, what's wrong sending a thousand of heat sensible Li batteries in the middle of a ranging fire hanging there to plastic made parts?...

And by the way, what the heck means architectural engineering?! It's just like saying something and the opposite in two words.
 
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Imagine you were a foreign power and wanted to get information you couldn't get by satellite because they hide stuff when they know you're going to be looking. Just setup shop in town, just off base, and have at it:

 
With all the footage of Drones observing multiple ground to air kills, there is discussing the idea of drones as an air defense sensor.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1574080899540557828
View: https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1574080899540557828#m


Multiple tracks on low attitude jets and helicopter kills in this conflict proves the sensors performance/density is enough in some of the situations, the remaining issue is communications and targeting grade localization, aka a software problem.

We may even see a Drone directed NASAM engagement in this conflict if it lasts long enough. Now that'd be a awful problem for penetrative helicopter ops.

Perhaps small drone air war will happen quite soon as well, though probably not quite catching this conflict.
 
Forest Green said:
Thought it best to repost this here from another thread.

sferrin said:
Manuducati said:
Disclaimer: the following is pure lucubration.

In theory, by using a couple Boeing Enclosed Weapons Pods (or similar), one Raptor could be armed with 14 AMRAAM (six internally plus four per pod). Now replace each AIM-120 by two CUDA type missiles in tandem, and you have your 28 missiles (and the side bays still available for lunch packets). Could be useful against drone swarms.
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Not when each member of the swarm is only 1/10th to 1/100th the cost of a CUDA.
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You need guided bullets for drones, or ground based AAA. Planes trying to use unguided cannons on drones is hazardous, especially on ones packed with explosive.

Another way might be to use other drones to do it.

High End
https://www.marss.com/products/interceptor/
Low End.
https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/20/interceptor-drone/
I have also heard that Eagles/Falcon dislike drones, they usually only kill when one is near their nest though, but it may be possible to train them.
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Good luck trying to hit swarms with a frackin' gun.
 
jsport said:
GTX said:
https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/10/24/1062039/us-navy-swarms-of-thousands-of-small-drones/
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Large contractor boon doggle.
individuals could not be affordably able to survive electronic and kinetic countermesures.
so may would pollute the battefield including civilian urban areas after they missed as to be a cluster bomb/law of war disaster.
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The USN isn't looking to use them exclusively as warheads, and more over if they are used over water presumably they just sink when they expire. The goal is to make anti aircraft defenses no longer cost effective and leverage the swarm as a sensor field and also as an offensive tool - some drones would be scouts, some would be warheads. EW UAVs would help ingress or mask other friendly attacking units.

But what the article doesn't mention is that one of the roles for these swarms is almost certainly defensive - operating as decoys or a screen for a taskforce. This usage doesn't require any long range or effectors, just ECM. The goal here would be a swarm that either could block or else mimic the radar or IR signature of a ship when viewed remotely. Basically smart chaff. These might be incredibly small, on the size of the Perdix type. Or alternatively perhaps the NOMAD model. More likely a mix. Perhaps some very small UAVs act as small reflectors that can mimic specific hull and superstructure shapes on a SAR or ISAR scan (no different than making a glowing dragon shape - one might even incorporate LEDs to create a visual effect). Larger UAVs might operate as EW sources to fake things like nav radars, sat uplinks, or Link16. All of it would fly in formation to make one seamless virtual ship target.
 

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