[marcus_holmes]

iirc the "slaughterbot" concept is about tiny kamikaze drones. Enough explosive to crack open a skull in a drone about the size of a coin, and not much more expensive than that coin. Release hundreds of thousands of them for less than the cost of a single missile, and each of them will independently target and execute a single human.

I don't think any kind of conventional gun is going to do anything against this.

[stickfigure]

That's still very much science fiction though. What kind of battery power density would you need to make it viable?

Also: Soldiers already wear armor designed to stop bullets. Not sure this is an obvious gamechanger.

[klyrs]

Bullets are a truly silly approach. Grapeshot is already banned in war, and seems like it could be significantly more effective (but still they'll only tear a cone out of a cloud). As far as I can tell, the best defense is an EMP pulse to fry their electronics. If they aren't fully autonomous, jamming the radio might work.