Can drone swarms, which are feared for their offensive potential, be adapted for missile defense?
Drone swarms are a growing threat to fixed assets and ground units in the field:
An additional method to fight invading swarms is to employ defending drones. Using defending drones can be helpful as they do not have to be synchronized to still be somewhat effective. Defending drones can destroy some of the invading swarm and they offer the invading swarm more targets which can disrupt the swarm’s mission and blunt its attack. Defending drones can be at risk of receiving friendly fire from other defending drones, but if they are inexpensive, the risk is not as impactful. Still, while potentially effective, using defending drones requires operators to be on standby and is unlikely to defeat an entire swarm without the support of other swarm defense systems.
My entry into the subject in Army magazine suggested combat air patrol drone swarms to lift the burden of shooting down attacking drones from forward small combat units. Platoons and companies don't fight the jets flying high in the blue skies. Why burden them with the job of fighting drones in what I called the "brown skies" low over the battlefield?
I'm only slightly disappointed that the article cited a much more recent article about the combat air patrol drone swarm concept. And that 2021 article didn't even cite my 2018 article. Although the 2021 article was submitted a month before mine was published. Great minds think alike, I guess. Many people get similar ideas because of the logic of the situation. And some subset of them will publish an article on that. Oh well. I know I miss a lot of good sources outside of my usual reach. And I freely admit that my article was heavy on concept and low on practical issues of implementation. It's at least nice to know that I wasn't feeble-minded to suggest it!
But I digress.
We dream of--but have not engineered--area defensive shields, like electronic warfare barriers, to protect targets in a wide area from incoming missiles, rockets, and even shells rather than destroying them one at a time with expensive ground-based missiles or rapid-fire guns that need reloads. Lasers appear to solve the reload problem. But weather and counter-measures degrade their lethality.
But beyond battlefield utility, could drone swarms with disposable interceptor drones function in a ballistic or cruise missile, rocket, and shell defense role if networked and guided by radar systems that provide precise vectors? Would it be easier to maneuver a plate into the path of a bullet than hitting a bullet with a bullet (or beam)?
With a warning from radars, drones defending a fixed asset, or eventually a ground unit in the field, drone swarms would be released that rise up to have the best-positioned drone in the swarm guided into the path of the incoming threat. Perhaps the air defense drone spreads out arms to let the incoming round impact the drone defender and be disabled, destroyed, or detonated. Perhaps the air defense drone fires a Claymore mine-like weapon into the path of the weapon (assuming it can be designed to avoid too much collateral damage on the ground from falling projectiles. Or maybe it would be HEAT-type salvo.
There are probably articles and defense programs out there already beyond the concept stage, eh? Or maybe I'm feeble minded to suggest this. It could go either way, I admit.
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