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Yes, a drone is the same thing as a cruise missile, so a drone swarm is precisely a missile barrage. But I think you're missing two key points. First, you're underestimating the importance of things being cheaper. Consider that an iPhone is basically a Cray Y-MP with packet radio, just cheaper. But in the 01980s could you have looked at a Cray and KA9Q and predicted Uber, sexting, revenge porn, Instagram influencers, Russian trolls on Twitter working to influence US elections, and Bitcoin? In the same way, reducing the cost of a cruise missile from US$2M (Block V Tomahawks) to US$1000 will change the military situation not just in degree but in kind. Current CIWS are designed for gunboats and conventional cruise missiles appearing in groups of 1-16. Current carrier group defense in depth is designed for fighter-bombers that appear in groups of 16-128. They will not be useful against drone swarms that appear in groups of even 256, let alone 1024 or 8192. Second, you're thinking of brute-force payloads like hand grenades, and that leads you to drastically underestimate the importance of small drones penetrating. But hand grenades are the epitome of dumb weapons: they have a timer, no guidance, and just a fragmentation charge. A US$1000 drone that manages to make it to a carrier deck does not have to be as dumb as a hand grenade. Instead, think of it as being like a frogman who has successfully boarded an enemy ship on a suicide mission, but lost almost all his equipment in the process. How much damage could he do before he gets killed? What if, instead of one frogman, it's 1024 frogmen? What if they're almost invisible? Frogmen can short out wires, gather intelligence, plant bugs, pierce jet engines, set fires, cut throats, plant claymores, poison food, distract sentries, jam signals, booby-trap small arms, breach reactor containment, disable reactor coolant circuits, release potent poison gases deep below deck, falsify sensor readings, extinguish indoor lighting, frag sleeping sailors, and interchange fuels with solvents. And so can drones: if not today, 20 years from now. |