[nominatronic]

The word you're looking for is "missiles".

The idea of dogfighting drones makes very little sense. If you build a lot of expendable tiny planes with a high thrust to weight ratio and high-G maneuvering, there's no point having those then try to shoot some secondary projectiles at the target. It's far simplier to just fly them into it or detonate them close enough to cause fatal damage.

[kbenson]

The concept here is the equivalent cost of machinery to a single F-35 going against an F-35. How many missiles does an F-35 carry? Drones carry missiles as well.

The older planes were just to drive a point home. How does an F-35 defend against 20-40 times as many adversaries attacking? If the F-35 is attacking, it might be faster and be able to go around an intercepting force, but that's a big if, and it's more dangerous because it may put it closer to other defensive armaments that the original path was routed to avoid.

[ulkhf]

You seem to have an unrealistic idea of how much a "drone" would cost. If you mean some lightweight slow Cessna 172 class vehicle, those are around $300K. But kind of useless in a conflict against the US.

A propeller driven MQ-9 Reaper cost over $16M in 2006.

If you mean an F-16 class vehicle capable of catching an F-35 (supersonic) and carrying half a dozen missiles, then you're in the F-16 cost range. Not having a pilot might only save a few hundred pounds.

But why use a drone to carry missiles. The US can launch missiles from Navy ships or B-52s under the control of the F-35 super AWACs.

As someone else said, the idea is not to defend against an attack by 20 drones, the idea is to blow up the drone base.

[kbenson]

> You seem to have an unrealistic idea of how much a "drone" would cost.

It depends on the role. Probably a few million at least, you're right, but when comparing to ~90 million dollar planes, comparatively cheap. The Air Force actually already has plans for this, and the F-35 makes a bit more sense in light of that, as it can help control a swarm of drones and they can take advantage of it's enhanced sensor suite.[1][2]

> If you mean an F-16 class vehicle capable of catching an F-35 (supersonic) and carrying half a dozen missiles, then you're in the F-16 cost range. Not having a pilot might only save a few hundred pounds.

Not having a pilot would save a few hundred pounds of flesh. Having a vehicle that isn't designed around a cockpit allows for a different fuselage, with a smaller cross section, which is more aerodynamic and uses less material.

That said, the drone I referenced above cruises at close to the same speed as the F-35 from the info I've seen, and at one of the articles notes that the stated cost is $2-$3 million each.[1] It's not currently specced for any air-to-air armaments, but I imagine if they see a benefit, they'll alter it as needed.

1: https://www.businessinsider.com/air-force-tests-xq-58a-valky...

2: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmarkman/2019/03/27/killer-dr...