Re:F-35 Scores Impressive 15:1 Kill Ratio at Red Flag War Games
by fundameen on Friday February 10, 2017 @05:00PM
(#13619289)
If distance was acceptable you could use satellites. I think you need to escort your drone swarm into hostile territory using something like an F-35 so the whole package can penetrate as a unit.
You might even want the drones to fly behind using a wire-guided system so they can't be jammed.
Imagine the F-35 trailing a cable that spreads out to 1000 wires. It's basically just a way of giving one F-35 a thousand smart missiles that it could never fly itself.
The basic idea is used by MIRV ICBMS. You get the whole thing into enemy territory quickly and then launch more attacks than the defense can hope to counter.
1. Fly to the edge of enemy territory.
2. Launch your F-35 towards the enemy.
3. Launch 1000 drone missiles following the F-35 (maybe from a C-130)
4. Split off drone missiles in variable sized chunks according each target detected.
Just imagine an F-35 with a dozen F-22s vs an F-35 with 1,000 flying missiles behind it.
An AWACS, C-130 refueler, or a long-range bomber is probably a more credible C&C platform for the mission, setting aside the preference for proximity. Longer times airborne, more space for controls and controllers, meaning more missions can be managed simultaneously, more power (mitigating the electronic countermeasure threat by power in transmitters rather than proximity), and the potential capability of carrying many of these flying missiles within range of their target mission, reducing the range needs of the missiles themselves.
The refueler has the added bonus of literally being able to refuel them while loitering over a target area.
The downside, of course, are all the present downsides of drone weaponry (largely moral/ethical concerns). Cheaper to build, deploy, and use means a potential (I'd say probable) increase in their utilization (moral hazards here), without regard to potential casualties (rationalized locally as, "not our citizens/troops dying").
Ultimately, though, this is probably the endgame for weapon systems. It is financially the better option, it does reduce the risk to that side's citizens and soldiers (at least in the short term, long term political and economic fallout may be different), and practically anyone can already make a miniature airborne missile fleet now, though with poor range and precision at present.