[bell-cot]

"Shot down" with what? Surface-to-air missiles? Duck hunters with shotguns? Attack helicopters with miniguns?

Whatever you spray into the sky (to knock a drone out of it) will also fall back to earth, plausibly generating civilian casualties on the ground. (And if you use lasers - high power laser beams have plenty of safety issues, too.)

[potato3732842]

If Ukraine is any indication you shoot them down with other drones.

[gowld]

No one in Ukraine is in the habit of shooting down commercial airliners and helicopters, though.

[wood_spirit]

No they used Buk missiles instead.

[bananapub]

where they = the Russian military or Russian-military aligned terrorist groups.

[bell-cot]

Ukraine's capabilities in that domain are plausibly far more advanced that America's.

Also - costs, casualties, & collateral damage may be far more acceptable in an active war zone, and against drones which are busy killing people & destroying valuables whenever they are not shot down.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Ukraine's capabilities mostly consist of ramming a cheap drone into an expensive one.

This is one of those times when the US has a Maginot Military - massively overpowered against traditional threats, inexperienced when dealing with something like this.

This is not a trivial problem. A cheap drone with a relatively small explosive payload flown into an air intake can take down a military aircraft and cause serious problems for an airliner or private jet.

An airfield is the ideal place to do that, because aircraft are most vulnerable during takeoff and landing.

A few people and a hundred drones launched from a few km away can significantly delay incoming and outgoing flights.

Equip the drones with weapons - or larger explosives - and it's potentially Pearl Harbour.

[ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7]

Source? AFIK, the US trains soldiers in drone countermeasures, small and large.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb5qMvie9sU

[potato3732842]

That's kind of reductive. I know some people who have, uh, relevant experience. The cheap drones are pretty comprehensively engineered and they're complex in the same way that a ballpoint pen is not as trivial to manufacture as it looks.

But yeah, Maginot Military sounds about right.

[ponector]

But they engage only big drones. Like reconnaissance Orlan or Zala, maybe lancet. No one is shooting down fpv quadcopters, not yet.

[coretx]

Shotguns are being used for that purpose. Single buckshot from the top of a AR barrel are in vogue too. Someone should use a cheap arduino and a mike for aiming and shooting at fpv quadcopters. I really don't understand why that's not here yet. They can literally convert a toy from github.

[antonvs]

> Duck hunters with shotguns?

Duck Dynasty season 12 is going to be a doozy