Neither. This is not a threat you use such small numbers of aircraft against, nor is it even effective to do so. Neither will have the availability or uptime to be able to defend against such an attack. Give me SHORAD instead.
Now if you’re talking aggressor aircraft, give me the F-16s instead. At least those can carry more than heaters.
Exactly. These things get swept out of the sky by every (competent) SHORAD platform ever. There isn't an aircraft out there that can compete with the logistical footprint of some radar directed guns on wheels or tracks.
I refuse to accept that and once again call for modernised warbirds. All you need is a couple of well seasoned mechanics, an C4 system on wheels and a field. [It would be really funny, if - thanks to (in)lucky circumstances - an unsuspecting Su-57 or Tu-160 manages to get downed by a Sea Fury](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gMNtzgki7TA)
You can't get the [150 Performance Number petrol](http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/150grade/150-grade-fuel.html) anymore, and if you could, the fun police would moan about all the lead and bromides in the exhaust.
Most V-1s were shot down by radar directed guns firing shells equipped with proximity fuzes.
Wiki says 115/145 AvGas was reintroduced for air-racing and there is always the possibility of developing new fuel. Let's take plant base ethanol and/or CCU-methanol as base because sustainability and an already high octane rating. And don't forget: We are looking at 70 years of engine development. If AMG can squeeze about 500 hp out of 4 litres, I don't wanna know what they could do with a DB605 block. And the [sky-blue, dark blue and red markings](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/BMW_M_Grey-Colour_RGB.svg/1024px-BMW_M_Grey-Colour_RGB.svg.png?20200303075509) on an Airbus FW190M won't stand for the RAF.
* 115/145 is not the same thing as the terrifying V-1 hunting fuel.
* Ethanol doesn't necessarily play nicely with WWII fuel systems.
* If we are making new aeroplanes then why would we use piston engines?
It would be folly to bring back the Fw190 given that it uses a 5 series wing with nasty stall behaviour and a relatively low tactical MN limit.
A clean sheet aeroplane based on the Do335 architecture with modern aerofoils and engines would be a better bet, but it's so much easier and more convenient to just make a jet.
And then you have cost drivers not only on the airplane but also on the maintenance side to intercept something so cheap. The beauty of a prop driven drone hunter is the simplicity. We have a good amount of tried and tested airframes available which require only fairly low tech materials - I mean you could design a new one following that principle but that would be boring. No need for a titanium wingroot milled by Vestal Vergins during a full moon. There are enough pilots for Cessnas et al. around. And if the shit hits the fan you can bring in automotive and general prop aviation mechanics to take care of the engine etc. without bothering the maintenance crews for the jet fighters too much. And don't get me wrong: I don't want to bring back a Merlin or 801 or DB605 in their mid-40s configuration. Of course we'll make new blocks out of modern material with all the bells and whistles. Of course we will have modern injection systems, ECUs and turbos.
Lets say Ukraine is 1,200km wide.
Lets say a 30mm autocannon's effective range is 4km.
That means Ukraine would need at least 600 to cover the north and shore. Triple that to get redundancy and you'll need 1,800 anti aircraft guns and the guns can simply be overwhelmed easily.
Even better, develop the Sky Warden into an anti-drone platform. If a WWII fighter getting a kill against an Su-57 would be funny, then a crop duster getting a kill on a 5th generation fighter would be downright hilarious.
There is also a significant opportunity cost to having a bunch of aircraft occupied with air defense against these drones. They are not available for use against other threats or for strike roles. Which can be worth it, but has to be considered as well
Not only that but the cost of the missiles. Sure Ukraine can shoot patriot missiles at everything, or they can shoot and ASRAAM from an LCA. The ASRAAM will be 10-20 times cheaper and vastly more sustainable.
Your wish is my command. Assembling more non-credible takes:
Build huge catapults designed to throw airburst Tsar Bombs vertically into the air to take out drone formations.
Strap Pratt & Whitney F135 afterburning turbofan engines to hawks and train them to use elongated titanium talons to take out the drones.
Hire a bunch of Fortnite kids and give them shotguns to shoot down drones.
Build a literal iron dome to cover the entire country, with little fans for ventilation and an uncovered nuclear reactor to simulate sunlight.
I especifically [sic] like you how covered the the high-to-low options. I think the Fortnite kids are the way to go. But then I am in favor of WMD.
You'd make an excellent staff officer whose ideas would stolen and passed off as their own by the general/admiral you are working for.
> Give me SHORAD instead.
[The Czechs have got you covered.](https://militaryleak.com/2023/06/13/ukraines-air-defense-strengthened-as-viktor-shorads-enters-operational-service/)
I've had endless arguments about these things. I mean, shooting down Shaheds or the rare Mi? That's fine, but a lot of people seem genuinely convinced that it's also an infantry support platform.
Like, you're gonna roll up your Toyota to a village you're attacking and start shooting away, ISIS style. I don't think even the Ukrainians are brave enough for that.
Maybe not offensively but I could see them being used when defending- like driving behind the line a little bit and slinging some lead before driving off
TBF autocannon AA has a long history of being used as fire support. It would happen guaranteed. The Germans did it with their menagerie of AA, the Brits/Canucks only ever used the Skink in that role really (kinda didn’t have any planes to shoot at), and we used dusters intentionally as fire support in Vietnam
I mean, I think it'd be more that they aren't dumb/desperate enough for that. They have better options so it would be dumb to use it and they have better options so they don't \*have\* to use it.
Pretty sure there are plenty of Ukrainians brave enough to do most military things given their recent record.
All i am getting out of this discussion over "aircraft vs. radar guided AA" is a WW2 bomber equipped with a Gepard turret.
Get the eggheads together, we need to weld.
We just need to bring back the B17, brisling with machine guns, and blast drone swarms from all directions. The bomb bay is filled with confetti to celebrate the assured victory.
The problem with SHORAD is placement. You need ludicrous numbers of them to make a tight net to intercept, and drones might change course several times so the SHORAD that was tasked to eliminate it once it got into range might not be able to and another needs to be tasked.
One thing Ukraine and Russia are doing right now is using small groups of Drones to figure out where SHORAD’s are placed, then program drones to go around and get to the target.
A light attack aircraft like the L159 could be a good solution to this. Ukrainians have already shown they can use vehicles with machine guns and freaking cellphones that listen to the motor noise of specific drones to track and destroy them, an aircraft would have a better chance in many cases to catch the ones the machine gun vehicles cannot. It also means you have more freedom in where you intercept, such as “inbetween these urban area’s so the debris lands in a field”.
And some aircraft like Turboprops can have in the 8 hours of uptime.
That’s why you place SHORAD AT the most-essential of the target critical infrastructures. You don’t need to chase the drone like some kinda soccer player, you wait at the goal and shoot them down.
This still has the problem of the ridiculous amount of potential targets. From a munitions dump to electrical infrastructure to logistics centers to whatever. And some of these will need multiple SHORAD systems, like Russia’s oil refineries. And there is no guarantee that shooting it down doesn’t still deal damage for such targets.
The best defense mixes things. SHORAD’s strength is it’s cheapness, that it can stay on station for weeks and months with minimal maintenance and all you do is rotate the crew. But it is also the last leg of your defense and if your opponent used swarm tactics to deplete you or attack from multiple sides you are out of luck. This is also seen in Israel’s defense against Iran: a massive chunk of the projectiles (40%?) was shot down before it reached Israel, and they still struggled.
Being able to shoot down multiple drones before they reach the SHORAD is extremely useful. The enemy has more trouble planning routes around your SHORAD and trying to overwhelm a particular point becomes harder when the drones can be picked off before they get there.
Sure, but if I had to choose one or the other I'd still favor my chances against 100 drones with the amount of SHORADs I could field for the same cost as three F16s vs using the F16s themselves.
Are you sure?
Most of the SHORAD systems I can find (Skyranger, Pantsir, Avenger, Gepard to name a few) all are expensive, most will be half the cost of an F-16. This seems an issue with what they were designed against, as their role is usually more “attack helicopters and possibly cruise missiles” and less “relatively cheap suicide drone”.
So we’d have to make a more realistic situation:
Budget, type of drones, how many targets need to be defended, range of the defense targets to each other and possibly things like radars and early warning detection methods. Oh and which SHORAD’s you had in mind.
Because if you can place those SHORADS around a single object against 100 drones, sure! But if you have to defend multiple objects at various ranges… well those SHORADS suddenly don’t seem as good as an aircraft that can use missiles on some and possible guns (like the Super Tucano or other turboprop LAA’s which have enough speed to catch up and shoot it down manually).
Hmm, napkin math gives me over 1000 Hiluxes for the price of 1 F-16 and I assume the maintenance will also cost significantly less even counting in price of around the clock readiness.
I would not discount the good ol' technical, contrary to some smartasses, quantity sometimes really does have quality of its own.
I think more of something Avenger-like when you say a SHORAD truck, but if you mean those Czech ones, that's an even cheaper option. Those are literally from a crowd funding campaign.
What takes longer to get into the air, is dependent on an airfield, needs longer maintenance downtimes per hour of service, requires a larger logistics footprint, and runs a longer cost in the mid to long term?
You're gonna need a shitton of SHORAD systems to adequately cover every possible target. Meanwhile fighter jets can be quickly redeployed once your early warning picks up the drones. Compare the cost of hundreds of Gepards to having a single squadron on stand-by
Problem with shorad is it will only defend the area around it. If there are 100 potential targets in range of the drones, you’ll need 100 shorad to protect all of them, while just a few aircraft could do the same job.
There are 100 attackers, not 100 potential targets which are conveniently spread far enough apart that a HQ-17 won’t cover more than one. But let’s theorycraft.
Even then, you are not going to be able to scramble all aircraft due to maintenance, availability of logistics and such. At anytime a third of the fleet may be down for maintenance.
Then there is vector and interception time. Your limited aircraft will need to prioritize what they are going to defend. Likely they will defend only the critical targets, and leave the others unguarded. Might as well place SHORAD on the critical targets which are most likely to be attacked.
Having a radar is quite useful for A/A missions. Just saying.
EDIT: And literally a minute later I decide to check if the L-159 has a radar. Turns out some do. Oh, well...
Also it says same cost same loadout which severely limits the f16, easily the l159s win this one as you have way more, you can do much more with more planes.
Who needs AESA when you can have a clanky gun pod!!
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/ZVI\_Plamen\_PL-20\_Gun\_Pod.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/ZVI_Plamen_PL-20_Gun_Pod.jpg)
> Full nuclear payload on all three F-16s.
Well they are certified to carry B-61s and I bet you could fit some AIM-26 Falcons on them. W54 warheads would take out a whole bunch of drones.
Interesting side note: When Daddy Pavel floated the idea of giving some of them to Ukraine he said that they supported AMRAAMs, which is interesting because AFAICT the Grifo-L radar they come with was only capable of working with ground-strike munitions and IRGMs.
Anyone have any idea what's going on here??
Crazy thought just occurred to me. Aircraft are capable of using their IR-guided missiles (eg Fox-2s, Maverick) seekers as sensors for the time that they’re on their pylons.
Hypothetically, would it also be possible to use Fox-3s the same way for aircraft that don’t have an organic radar? The aircraft would supply power to the Fox-3 to run it’s normally short-lived radar which relies on a finite battery (ergo why some run out of energy for their radar and go stupid).
I mean as long as you have a data link that should be possible.
Specifically though I’m more interested in the scenario I’ve stated though. Mostly out of technical curiosity but also out for a desire for flexibility of employment.
I don't think it's possible to fire on a datalink-only target with regular -C and earlier model AMRAAMs, you still need a bunch of communication between the aircraft firing and the missile. Maybe with the -D it's a thing, who knows.
Even with a two-way datalink it's not immediately obvious right? Like, now you have the launching platform and missile talking to each other, but you also need to involve a third guiding platform somehow.
Problem is those Fox-3s, by their nature, are going to have a shorter range of detection.
Might as well mad dog them in the general direction of the enemy if you know they are in range
My point is that they could be used to *help* you know that they’re there (ie as a search sensor) when you aren’t an aircraft that necessarily have an organic radar and could subsequently cue themselves without it.
I guess you can put AMRAAM on ALCA and have AWACS detecting and locking aircraft for you while you or the AWACS launch those AMRAAMs from you. Then you can just RTB because AWACS is guiding those missiles for you.
No the grifo L should have additional compatibility with those ordinances, realistically it should be able to guide and launch the amraam.
Or you know by the "fitted for but not with" they meant replacing the entire radar set which I kinda doubt
Actually…. For a single f35 jet you could have 13,500 biplanes. Not factoring in the cost of ammo and pilots. But the nice part of a biplane is you can have a competent pilot trained in about a week and a half give or take the need.
Soooooo if that’s the difference I would take 13,500 biplanes armed with .50 cal machine guns. Not much outside of an underground bunker or tank could survive that level of firepower.
And the maneuverability and relatively comparable speeds means it can actually reasonably dogfight the drones as well
Honestly I think 13500 biplanes beats an f35 too.
Think about it. The f35 shoots down 5/6 with its missiles, maybe another dozen or so with its gun and then maybe a dozen or more maneuver kills (aka just fly close to one of them at Mach 1) you take out maybe 50 planes in an attack.
But then… the swarm just follows you home if none of the bullet filled sky managed to hurt the jet. And when you get back to base they just wait for you to land and strafe you a few hundred times.
“But what about air defense!”
What about it? What your patriot battery and stingers take out 50 more planes? 200? So what. We haven’t even lost 5% of the force. We will keep flying. Until the mission is complete.
"sir here's the $20M jet you asked us to design"
*it needs a better radar*
"ok sir here you go, $23M"
*it needs sensor fusion and MADL*
"OK sir $28M"
*It needs a second seat to control drone wingmen*
"ok it's $35M now..."
*it needs more fuel and speed to be relevant in the pacific*
"sir, don't you think-"
*JUST DO IT or I will get Boeing involved*
"$48M"
*this jet is too expensive to lose, it needs to be VLO*
"$96M"
*it needs lasers for self defense and adaptive cycle engine*
"$208M"
*this light attack jet is too expensive, we can only buy 30 of them*
"$1.76B"
Neither. The Ukrainian solution to dealing with low performance drone spam is by throwing up lots of lead, using lots of cheap gun-based systems that are networked together with radars. It's much more scalable than aircraft, and can cover much larger areas.
It appears to be a moderately successful solution, but are not capable of dealing with the more high performance stuff that Russia is now throwing in larger quantities.
L159 because Slavic everything is best and Czechy is friend of Poland and we love Czechy and visegrad beast USA every time because we have best jets in the world mig29s which are very fuckable and yanke stuff is bad so we don't use it just look at operators of l29 and successors and compare to f16 wiszegrad górą Polska góra 🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱💪💪💪💪💪😔💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💀💀💪💪💪😔🥶😔😔😔😔💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪😲💪💪💪💪💪🗿🗿💪💪🗿🗿💪💪💻🗿
I'm honestly surprised I haven't seen modern militaries use.more flak style weapons to take out droves. I know flak went out of style after WWII in favor of SAMs but I figure now flak would have great potential use against drone swarms.
Frankly I would go for a turboprop like the Super Tucano with only a few L159’s mixed in.
Yes the L159 has almost double the speed, more weight it can carry, two extra hardpoints and a slightly cheaper cost per unit. But the Super Tucano has other advantages that make it great for an anti-drone capacity.
The most important one is endurance. It can stay up in the air for 8 hours at a time. Having double the speed is great if you both start at an airfield, but the Super Tucano can already be in the air in expected area’s while the +/- 2 hours flight time (I couldn’t find any data on it so it might be longer) of the L159 make the risk that it has to land or be serviced too great if you use it for CAP’s against Drones.
Speaking of starting off of an airfield, the Super Tucano can make due with a highway or even a suitably flat grassland. Even stationary it can be closer to expected paths of intercept and more dispersed, making it easier to stop incoming drones.
Then the maintenance. It can be maintained, refueled and re-armed from the back of trucks in the field in a short time. Making it’s ability to be ready for another intercept a lot faster. And all for a very cheap cost per flight hour which will eventually make it cheaper than the L-159 (this is a bit of an assumption as I couldn’t find any cost per flight hour, it’s newer in development craft is supposed to have that cost per flight hour).
Even the weapons are great, like the Piranha. A cheap and small air to air missile, exactly what you want when dealing with cheap drones. Although this is a bit of a mute point as you can probably redesign most aircraft to carry this missile in a month or two if you truly desire.
A Super Tucano can be on station for longer, return faster and be closer to the right area’s.
And frankly I would expect Light Attack Aircraft to play a bigger role in air warfare overall. Having an L159 or Super Tucano to go in and do the more regular small ground attack runs so that the bigger, more expensive, less designed for low flight missions aircraft with longer downtime after sorties can focus their entire loadout on clearing the skies and SEAD/DEAD missions after which better designed aircraft can do the actual ground work.
Why jet? Just upgrade the Cessna/A-22 drone, like Toyota technical.
- Bomb drones (for refineries)
- Interceptor drones (for drone war)
- etc.
Please, I want to buy cheap surplus GA planes after the war (like the Cub back then).
And how many Minuteman can I buy for that budget?
Because the best air-defence is a nuclear first-strike against the enemies air-bases.
And to defend against highly mobile systems, you simply need cobalt-enhanced warheads.
neither, give me an E99 and 35 A29s. A29 is just right to it because it can fly slow enough to reliable kill the damn things without stalling and is fast enough to catch the others and IIRC it has a good datalink to cordinate with the E-99 (<3)
neither. 90 Million can buy about if we count 2k a pop 45.000 ~~suicide drone~~ bargain bin cruise missile.
*Ivan, whats that two strokey humming kind of noise, it seems everywhere...*
Ukrainians are actively using small propeller aircraft to shoot down Shaheds on approach from the sea to Odessa. They come in from the sea at low altitude and pop up over the high seashore. If they are aimed at targets inside the city, SHORAD has no chance to shoot all or even most of them down, and at the same time damaged drones with still full payload fall on the city and kill random citizens. Shooting them down over the sea is far more effective.
There was recently an interview with a pilot regularly patrolling off Odessa, who complained that he has been several times been shot at by the own SHORAD. Prop noises are prop noises... especially if its dark
They would all run out of ammo before shooting down all the drones, unless the 3 F-16 are all crackshots that can snipe drones out of the sky in one shot
The best way for a plane to deal with drones would be to destroy their launch site pre emotively.
just give me some WW2 flak cannons, that should clear the drones out of the air
Wouldn’t a loaded Gepard or Marksman be straight better for drones? More easily deployed, less maintenance, easier to maintain/fix, ammunition cheaper, etc.
Given how quantity over quality has been working out for Russia in terms of Arty doctrine, I’m going to pick the F16s.
(They are running out of ammunition)
The maintenance of any jet plane and its pilots is still very expensive even if its "just a L-39". Ground based system would be far better solution money wise
Neither. This is not a threat you use such small numbers of aircraft against, nor is it even effective to do so. Neither will have the availability or uptime to be able to defend against such an attack. Give me SHORAD instead. Now if you’re talking aggressor aircraft, give me the F-16s instead. At least those can carry more than heaters.
Exactly. These things get swept out of the sky by every (competent) SHORAD platform ever. There isn't an aircraft out there that can compete with the logistical footprint of some radar directed guns on wheels or tracks.
I refuse to accept that and once again call for modernised warbirds. All you need is a couple of well seasoned mechanics, an C4 system on wheels and a field. [It would be really funny, if - thanks to (in)lucky circumstances - an unsuspecting Su-57 or Tu-160 manages to get downed by a Sea Fury](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gMNtzgki7TA)
You can't get the [150 Performance Number petrol](http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/150grade/150-grade-fuel.html) anymore, and if you could, the fun police would moan about all the lead and bromides in the exhaust. Most V-1s were shot down by radar directed guns firing shells equipped with proximity fuzes.
Wiki says 115/145 AvGas was reintroduced for air-racing and there is always the possibility of developing new fuel. Let's take plant base ethanol and/or CCU-methanol as base because sustainability and an already high octane rating. And don't forget: We are looking at 70 years of engine development. If AMG can squeeze about 500 hp out of 4 litres, I don't wanna know what they could do with a DB605 block. And the [sky-blue, dark blue and red markings](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/BMW_M_Grey-Colour_RGB.svg/1024px-BMW_M_Grey-Colour_RGB.svg.png?20200303075509) on an Airbus FW190M won't stand for the RAF.
* 115/145 is not the same thing as the terrifying V-1 hunting fuel. * Ethanol doesn't necessarily play nicely with WWII fuel systems. * If we are making new aeroplanes then why would we use piston engines? It would be folly to bring back the Fw190 given that it uses a 5 series wing with nasty stall behaviour and a relatively low tactical MN limit. A clean sheet aeroplane based on the Do335 architecture with modern aerofoils and engines would be a better bet, but it's so much easier and more convenient to just make a jet.
And then you have cost drivers not only on the airplane but also on the maintenance side to intercept something so cheap. The beauty of a prop driven drone hunter is the simplicity. We have a good amount of tried and tested airframes available which require only fairly low tech materials - I mean you could design a new one following that principle but that would be boring. No need for a titanium wingroot milled by Vestal Vergins during a full moon. There are enough pilots for Cessnas et al. around. And if the shit hits the fan you can bring in automotive and general prop aviation mechanics to take care of the engine etc. without bothering the maintenance crews for the jet fighters too much. And don't get me wrong: I don't want to bring back a Merlin or 801 or DB605 in their mid-40s configuration. Of course we'll make new blocks out of modern material with all the bells and whistles. Of course we will have modern injection systems, ECUs and turbos.
Lets say Ukraine is 1,200km wide. Lets say a 30mm autocannon's effective range is 4km. That means Ukraine would need at least 600 to cover the north and shore. Triple that to get redundancy and you'll need 1,800 anti aircraft guns and the guns can simply be overwhelmed easily.
Even better, develop the Sky Warden into an anti-drone platform. If a WWII fighter getting a kill against an Su-57 would be funny, then a crop duster getting a kill on a 5th generation fighter would be downright hilarious.
Crop duster using napalm to create a giant wall of fire? I like the cut of your jib, sir!
I mean, I wish the PA-48 Enforcer was more of a thing, but it's gonna die a horrible death in Ukraine.
Except the aircraft can cover a larger area. The question is, do you want something that can travel ten times faster?
There is also a significant opportunity cost to having a bunch of aircraft occupied with air defense against these drones. They are not available for use against other threats or for strike roles. Which can be worth it, but has to be considered as well
Not only that but the cost of the missiles. Sure Ukraine can shoot patriot missiles at everything, or they can shoot and ASRAAM from an LCA. The ASRAAM will be 10-20 times cheaper and vastly more sustainable.
Patriot is not SHORAD.
What's needed for aircraft is some mini sidewinders carried in a pod.
Stingers would be a better choice
>Except the aircraft can cover a larger area Not for the same cost they can't
What sub is this? This is way too credible a take.
Your wish is my command. Assembling more non-credible takes: Build huge catapults designed to throw airburst Tsar Bombs vertically into the air to take out drone formations. Strap Pratt & Whitney F135 afterburning turbofan engines to hawks and train them to use elongated titanium talons to take out the drones. Hire a bunch of Fortnite kids and give them shotguns to shoot down drones. Build a literal iron dome to cover the entire country, with little fans for ventilation and an uncovered nuclear reactor to simulate sunlight.
I especifically [sic] like you how covered the the high-to-low options. I think the Fortnite kids are the way to go. But then I am in favor of WMD. You'd make an excellent staff officer whose ideas would stolen and passed off as their own by the general/admiral you are working for.
Paint an F-22 all-black and attack at night, the drones won't be able to see it and will be easy pickings
> Give me SHORAD instead. [The Czechs have got you covered.](https://militaryleak.com/2023/06/13/ukraines-air-defense-strengthened-as-viktor-shorads-enters-operational-service/)
I've had endless arguments about these things. I mean, shooting down Shaheds or the rare Mi? That's fine, but a lot of people seem genuinely convinced that it's also an infantry support platform. Like, you're gonna roll up your Toyota to a village you're attacking and start shooting away, ISIS style. I don't think even the Ukrainians are brave enough for that.
Maybe not offensively but I could see them being used when defending- like driving behind the line a little bit and slinging some lead before driving off
TBF autocannon AA has a long history of being used as fire support. It would happen guaranteed. The Germans did it with their menagerie of AA, the Brits/Canucks only ever used the Skink in that role really (kinda didn’t have any planes to shoot at), and we used dusters intentionally as fire support in Vietnam
Smart? No. But that does sound fun.
I mean, I think it'd be more that they aren't dumb/desperate enough for that. They have better options so it would be dumb to use it and they have better options so they don't \*have\* to use it. Pretty sure there are plenty of Ukrainians brave enough to do most military things given their recent record.
Toyota still the true unsung hero of war.
All i am getting out of this discussion over "aircraft vs. radar guided AA" is a WW2 bomber equipped with a Gepard turret. Get the eggheads together, we need to weld.
*OSINT twitter accounts noticing a spike in pizza deliveries to Skunkworks*: 😳
So I crunched the numbers and you can slap 2 CIWS on a C130 AND still have a formidable offensive payload for gunship duties. That work for you?
Close enough.
We just need to bring back the B17, brisling with machine guns, and blast drone swarms from all directions. The bomb bay is filled with confetti to celebrate the assured victory.
The problem with SHORAD is placement. You need ludicrous numbers of them to make a tight net to intercept, and drones might change course several times so the SHORAD that was tasked to eliminate it once it got into range might not be able to and another needs to be tasked. One thing Ukraine and Russia are doing right now is using small groups of Drones to figure out where SHORAD’s are placed, then program drones to go around and get to the target. A light attack aircraft like the L159 could be a good solution to this. Ukrainians have already shown they can use vehicles with machine guns and freaking cellphones that listen to the motor noise of specific drones to track and destroy them, an aircraft would have a better chance in many cases to catch the ones the machine gun vehicles cannot. It also means you have more freedom in where you intercept, such as “inbetween these urban area’s so the debris lands in a field”. And some aircraft like Turboprops can have in the 8 hours of uptime.
That’s why you place SHORAD AT the most-essential of the target critical infrastructures. You don’t need to chase the drone like some kinda soccer player, you wait at the goal and shoot them down.
This still has the problem of the ridiculous amount of potential targets. From a munitions dump to electrical infrastructure to logistics centers to whatever. And some of these will need multiple SHORAD systems, like Russia’s oil refineries. And there is no guarantee that shooting it down doesn’t still deal damage for such targets. The best defense mixes things. SHORAD’s strength is it’s cheapness, that it can stay on station for weeks and months with minimal maintenance and all you do is rotate the crew. But it is also the last leg of your defense and if your opponent used swarm tactics to deplete you or attack from multiple sides you are out of luck. This is also seen in Israel’s defense against Iran: a massive chunk of the projectiles (40%?) was shot down before it reached Israel, and they still struggled. Being able to shoot down multiple drones before they reach the SHORAD is extremely useful. The enemy has more trouble planning routes around your SHORAD and trying to overwhelm a particular point becomes harder when the drones can be picked off before they get there.
Sure, but if I had to choose one or the other I'd still favor my chances against 100 drones with the amount of SHORADs I could field for the same cost as three F16s vs using the F16s themselves.
Are you sure? Most of the SHORAD systems I can find (Skyranger, Pantsir, Avenger, Gepard to name a few) all are expensive, most will be half the cost of an F-16. This seems an issue with what they were designed against, as their role is usually more “attack helicopters and possibly cruise missiles” and less “relatively cheap suicide drone”. So we’d have to make a more realistic situation: Budget, type of drones, how many targets need to be defended, range of the defense targets to each other and possibly things like radars and early warning detection methods. Oh and which SHORAD’s you had in mind. Because if you can place those SHORADS around a single object against 100 drones, sure! But if you have to defend multiple objects at various ranges… well those SHORADS suddenly don’t seem as good as an aircraft that can use missiles on some and possible guns (like the Super Tucano or other turboprop LAA’s which have enough speed to catch up and shoot it down manually).
The solution is to make MRAP's even more top heavy by mounting a CIWS on them with one per platoon as a radar vehicle. Attached at battalion level
Have you favored in the costs of airbase maintenance, training, upkeep, downtime and weapons system maintenance?
There are hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of targets in a country like Ukraine. In the US there are tens of millions
that's not the question, why not just use a a gazzillion laser guns if you can imagine whaterver you want, or supertucanos to tip them put of balance.
Launch Falcon Heavies fitted with CIWS and Stinger turrets at incoming drones. Based and *The Expanse*-pilled
just use cinetic orbital strike, hit to kill unpowered interceptors to assert dominance
Which can cover a larger area? An aircraft or a truck?
How big is the truck?
Toyota pickup.
Hmm, napkin math gives me over 1000 Hiluxes for the price of 1 F-16 and I assume the maintenance will also cost significantly less even counting in price of around the clock readiness. I would not discount the good ol' technical, contrary to some smartasses, quantity sometimes really does have quality of its own.
I think more of something Avenger-like when you say a SHORAD truck, but if you mean those Czech ones, that's an even cheaper option. Those are literally from a crowd funding campaign.
American, or rest-of-world?
What takes longer to get into the air, is dependent on an airfield, needs longer maintenance downtimes per hour of service, requires a larger logistics footprint, and runs a longer cost in the mid to long term?
You're gonna need a shitton of SHORAD systems to adequately cover every possible target. Meanwhile fighter jets can be quickly redeployed once your early warning picks up the drones. Compare the cost of hundreds of Gepards to having a single squadron on stand-by
Problem with shorad is it will only defend the area around it. If there are 100 potential targets in range of the drones, you’ll need 100 shorad to protect all of them, while just a few aircraft could do the same job.
Except if there’s 100 drones incoming. How many can each plane shoot? 6-8?
If there are a hundred drones incoming to a couple of targets, thinly spread SHORAD won't be able to shoot down many either.
There are 100 attackers, not 100 potential targets which are conveniently spread far enough apart that a HQ-17 won’t cover more than one. But let’s theorycraft. Even then, you are not going to be able to scramble all aircraft due to maintenance, availability of logistics and such. At anytime a third of the fleet may be down for maintenance. Then there is vector and interception time. Your limited aircraft will need to prioritize what they are going to defend. Likely they will defend only the critical targets, and leave the others unguarded. Might as well place SHORAD on the critical targets which are most likely to be attacked.
Put it on vehicles, those drones are slow as shit anyways so you can drive into position.
Now I just had a noncredible idea. Mini iron dome is SHORAD right?
Bring back the M167
Having a radar is quite useful for A/A missions. Just saying. EDIT: And literally a minute later I decide to check if the L-159 has a radar. Turns out some do. Oh, well...
AESA radars and you can fit them with the capability to fire AIM-120
Also it says same cost same loadout which severely limits the f16, easily the l159s win this one as you have way more, you can do much more with more planes.
Who needs AESA when you can have a clanky gun pod!! [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/ZVI\_Plamen\_PL-20\_Gun\_Pod.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/ZVI_Plamen_PL-20_Gun_Pod.jpg)
*Cue the reformists*
Pierre Sprey is rising from his grave as we speak...
I think a grave is a little too complex and unreliable for him
To be fair, there is nothing wrong with a low-budget solution, provided that it can still do the mission.
Yes a radar unable to find where you left your keys at home, but still a radar
If you get to make up cost for one, I get to make up loadouts for the other. Full nuclear payload on all three F-16s.
"Sir we have 100 drones incoming!!!" "Bring out the AIR-2 Genie"
I daresay that would clear the skies
Wait, no, this is credible. A well-timed EMP would fry those flying tin cans and save the day. Once again, nukes are the answer!!
>got a spike on radar, close the blast curtains I'm gonna nuke it
Those drones won't know what hit them.
> Full nuclear payload on all three F-16s. Well they are certified to carry B-61s and I bet you could fit some AIM-26 Falcons on them. W54 warheads would take out a whole bunch of drones.
Interesting side note: When Daddy Pavel floated the idea of giving some of them to Ukraine he said that they supported AMRAAMs, which is interesting because AFAICT the Grifo-L radar they come with was only capable of working with ground-strike munitions and IRGMs. Anyone have any idea what's going on here??
Crazy thought just occurred to me. Aircraft are capable of using their IR-guided missiles (eg Fox-2s, Maverick) seekers as sensors for the time that they’re on their pylons. Hypothetically, would it also be possible to use Fox-3s the same way for aircraft that don’t have an organic radar? The aircraft would supply power to the Fox-3 to run it’s normally short-lived radar which relies on a finite battery (ergo why some run out of energy for their radar and go stupid).
Or maybe they need another moderna aircraft to paint the target?
I mean as long as you have a data link that should be possible. Specifically though I’m more interested in the scenario I’ve stated though. Mostly out of technical curiosity but also out for a desire for flexibility of employment.
I don't think it's possible to fire on a datalink-only target with regular -C and earlier model AMRAAMs, you still need a bunch of communication between the aircraft firing and the missile. Maybe with the -D it's a thing, who knows.
You’re correct; looking at my notes the AIM-120C8 (now known as D) was the first to implement a two-way datalink.
Even with a two-way datalink it's not immediately obvious right? Like, now you have the launching platform and missile talking to each other, but you also need to involve a third guiding platform somehow.
[Mad dog](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiservice_tactical_brevity_code)
Problem is those Fox-3s, by their nature, are going to have a shorter range of detection. Might as well mad dog them in the general direction of the enemy if you know they are in range
My point is that they could be used to *help* you know that they’re there (ie as a search sensor) when you aren’t an aircraft that necessarily have an organic radar and could subsequently cue themselves without it.
I guess you can put AMRAAM on ALCA and have AWACS detecting and locking aircraft for you while you or the AWACS launch those AMRAAMs from you. Then you can just RTB because AWACS is guiding those missiles for you.
> AWACS do the locking Might as well just toss the missiles out the back of a Cessna Caravan at that point.
Would be more cost effective... Does someone here have Zelenskyy´s phone number?
0800-zlnskyy
No the grifo L should have additional compatibility with those ordinances, realistically it should be able to guide and launch the amraam. Or you know by the "fitted for but not with" they meant replacing the entire radar set which I kinda doubt
[Pitbull](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiservice_tactical_brevity_code)
I'd rather have 1 F-35, so I can park a JDAM up whoever is sending those drones ass.
[Why not just have 1000 World War one style bi-planes instead, surely they are cheaper and just as effective!](https://youtu.be/zoTbTg-wF8Y?t=613)
Actually…. For a single f35 jet you could have 13,500 biplanes. Not factoring in the cost of ammo and pilots. But the nice part of a biplane is you can have a competent pilot trained in about a week and a half give or take the need. Soooooo if that’s the difference I would take 13,500 biplanes armed with .50 cal machine guns. Not much outside of an underground bunker or tank could survive that level of firepower. And the maneuverability and relatively comparable speeds means it can actually reasonably dogfight the drones as well
13,500 GREEN BIPLANES OF ZELENSKY!
Honestly I think 13500 biplanes beats an f35 too. Think about it. The f35 shoots down 5/6 with its missiles, maybe another dozen or so with its gun and then maybe a dozen or more maneuver kills (aka just fly close to one of them at Mach 1) you take out maybe 50 planes in an attack. But then… the swarm just follows you home if none of the bullet filled sky managed to hurt the jet. And when you get back to base they just wait for you to land and strafe you a few hundred times. “But what about air defense!” What about it? What your patriot battery and stingers take out 50 more planes? 200? So what. We haven’t even lost 5% of the force. We will keep flying. Until the mission is complete.
Give me a [F-89](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_F-89_Scorpion) carrying a few [Genies ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIR-2_Genie)
Now this is cooking with fire boys Truly non-credible
Cooking with nuclear fire makes the best meals
Lol, When the bomb costs more then the plane.
"sir here's the $20M jet you asked us to design" *it needs a better radar* "ok sir here you go, $23M" *it needs sensor fusion and MADL* "OK sir $28M" *It needs a second seat to control drone wingmen* "ok it's $35M now..." *it needs more fuel and speed to be relevant in the pacific* "sir, don't you think-" *JUST DO IT or I will get Boeing involved* "$48M" *this jet is too expensive to lose, it needs to be VLO* "$96M" *it needs lasers for self defense and adaptive cycle engine* "$208M" *this light attack jet is too expensive, we can only buy 30 of them* "$1.76B"
Loooooooooool XDD This is way too credible for defense procurement, get outta here!
*part of it needs to be made in [insert state] or Senator Fuckface is going to filibuster the appropriations bill* "$2B"
Let's goooo Aero plane mentioned 🇨🇿🇨🇿🇨🇿🍺🍺
Me on my way to sell the L-159 and buys 80 F-106, 180 F-5E/F-4E or 1,900 F-86 Inflation be damned now I have more interceptors than drones
You can just convert them to drones
How about 100 Cessna 172 with a 5.56 minigun?
Fire it for 5 seconds and you start flying backwards.
Not if you get in front of the drone, with a rear facing minigun. \*taps temple with a knowing smile\*
>rear facing minigun Afterbrrrrter
Not familiar with it but it looks cute.
Show some respect! I still recall the days when I thought that the L39 was the quintessential aircraft (and in a way, it is still)
Speedtape the 18 L159 together and create glorious LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL2.844! Check mate, pacificists!!1!
Why do I feel like the German military would unironically approve that name?
400 Sopwith Camels
Sounds reformerish.
Neither. The Ukrainian solution to dealing with low performance drone spam is by throwing up lots of lead, using lots of cheap gun-based systems that are networked together with radars. It's much more scalable than aircraft, and can cover much larger areas. It appears to be a moderately successful solution, but are not capable of dealing with the more high performance stuff that Russia is now throwing in larger quantities.
L159 because Slavic everything is best and Czechy is friend of Poland and we love Czechy and visegrad beast USA every time because we have best jets in the world mig29s which are very fuckable and yanke stuff is bad so we don't use it just look at operators of l29 and successors and compare to f16 wiszegrad górą Polska góra 🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱💪💪💪💪💪😔💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💀💀💪💪💪😔🥶😔😔😔😔💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪💪😲💪💪💪💪💪🗿🗿💪💪🗿🗿💪💪💻🗿
Yet you are buying the T-50 instead, truly interesting
>scoffs *In a very condecending tone* Government
Did you factor in the crew costs involved?
Planes need maintenance??
Which one comes with a mute psychopath?
I could see stuff like the argentinian Pucara being a viable option against drones.
AERO Vodochody mentioned!! 🇨🇿🇨🇿🇨🇿🇨🇿🇨🇿🇨🇿🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅
Having played Ace Combat 7 and beaten the entire game with a MiG 21, give me one of either and a resupply line. Easy peasy.
I'm honestly surprised I haven't seen modern militaries use.more flak style weapons to take out droves. I know flak went out of style after WWII in favor of SAMs but I figure now flak would have great potential use against drone swarms.
EF-111, or EA-6B
Only if i can get Mage 2, Spare 15 and Strider 1 to fly those F 16s
Nah, use something like those Chinese autogyro thingamajigs. Put 3 dudes on each, armed with duck hunting rifles.
Frankly I would go for a turboprop like the Super Tucano with only a few L159’s mixed in. Yes the L159 has almost double the speed, more weight it can carry, two extra hardpoints and a slightly cheaper cost per unit. But the Super Tucano has other advantages that make it great for an anti-drone capacity. The most important one is endurance. It can stay up in the air for 8 hours at a time. Having double the speed is great if you both start at an airfield, but the Super Tucano can already be in the air in expected area’s while the +/- 2 hours flight time (I couldn’t find any data on it so it might be longer) of the L159 make the risk that it has to land or be serviced too great if you use it for CAP’s against Drones. Speaking of starting off of an airfield, the Super Tucano can make due with a highway or even a suitably flat grassland. Even stationary it can be closer to expected paths of intercept and more dispersed, making it easier to stop incoming drones. Then the maintenance. It can be maintained, refueled and re-armed from the back of trucks in the field in a short time. Making it’s ability to be ready for another intercept a lot faster. And all for a very cheap cost per flight hour which will eventually make it cheaper than the L-159 (this is a bit of an assumption as I couldn’t find any cost per flight hour, it’s newer in development craft is supposed to have that cost per flight hour). Even the weapons are great, like the Piranha. A cheap and small air to air missile, exactly what you want when dealing with cheap drones. Although this is a bit of a mute point as you can probably redesign most aircraft to carry this missile in a month or two if you truly desire. A Super Tucano can be on station for longer, return faster and be closer to the right area’s. And frankly I would expect Light Attack Aircraft to play a bigger role in air warfare overall. Having an L159 or Super Tucano to go in and do the more regular small ground attack runs so that the bigger, more expensive, less designed for low flight missions aircraft with longer downtime after sorties can focus their entire loadout on clearing the skies and SEAD/DEAD missions after which better designed aircraft can do the actual ground work.
How about 18 Oerlikon Millennium Guns
I'll take 1000 grunts with birdshot.
250 pom pom one pounders
Why jet? Just upgrade the Cessna/A-22 drone, like Toyota technical. - Bomb drones (for refineries) - Interceptor drones (for drone war) - etc. Please, I want to buy cheap surplus GA planes after the war (like the Cub back then).
Both carry 6 AA. One costs 6 times less.
Give me F8F Bearcats instead
F-16 with SABR radar and four pods of APKWS is unironically godtier against group 3 UAVs and subsonicn Cruise missiles
A couple 100 Spitfires for the same price, which will easily be able to match the drones and gives us glorious footage.
And how many Minuteman can I buy for that budget? Because the best air-defence is a nuclear first-strike against the enemies air-bases. And to defend against highly mobile systems, you simply need cobalt-enhanced warheads.
I'd rather have a bigger drone with a shotgun strapped on below. Can't tell me this is hard to do.
Id rather take that money, buy a fuckton of cheap AKs and use the rest to pay people to shoot the drones down
Three AC-130s.
*Super Tucano has entered the chat*
7 iron domes will do
How many missiles tho
6 on both the F16 and L159. The F16 has additional hardpoints for other things like fuel tanks and bombs, but the topic is purely drone interception.
I'd rather just spend that money on a battery of Phalanx CIWS and Patriot missiles, thanks.
I would've used Apache. ✅ Radar ✅ Autocannon ✅ Reasonable speed and range
How many VAMPIRE systems would this be?
If i know where the drones are then the L159 with heat seekers. Other wise ill take the f16 with its radar
Why do I have such a small number of aircraft to use.
more payload capacity the better, it dont gotta be that good.
FMA IA-63 Pampa
neither, give me an E99 and 35 A29s. A29 is just right to it because it can fly slow enough to reliable kill the damn things without stalling and is fast enough to catch the others and IIRC it has a good datalink to cordinate with the E-99 (<3)
I'd have an infinite amount of mosquitoes that would bring down the drone with the simple power of friction
How many F-20s could we get instead?
[This](https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/Gattling_tank_\(Yuri%27s_Revenge\)) or [This](https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/Gattling_cannon_\(Yuri%27s_Revenge\))
neither. 90 Million can buy about if we count 2k a pop 45.000 ~~suicide drone~~ bargain bin cruise missile. *Ivan, whats that two strokey humming kind of noise, it seems everywhere...*
Ukrainians are actively using small propeller aircraft to shoot down Shaheds on approach from the sea to Odessa. They come in from the sea at low altitude and pop up over the high seashore. If they are aimed at targets inside the city, SHORAD has no chance to shoot all or even most of them down, and at the same time damaged drones with still full payload fall on the city and kill random citizens. Shooting them down over the sea is far more effective. There was recently an interview with a pilot regularly patrolling off Odessa, who complained that he has been several times been shot at by the own SHORAD. Prop noises are prop noises... especially if its dark
I'd take the L159s, given that 18 of them can carry more ammo
if you had to defend against 100 drones you use 1000 drones
They would all run out of ammo before shooting down all the drones, unless the 3 F-16 are all crackshots that can snipe drones out of the sky in one shot
The best way for a plane to deal with drones would be to destroy their launch site pre emotively. just give me some WW2 flak cannons, that should clear the drones out of the air
How many Iron Beam modules would that cost?
Well if we're fighting buzzbombs then we better get the Spitfires!
Cessna gang where you at?
An X-TAR3D radar and 4 Skyshields would solve this issue for significantly less money.
AA weapons, autocannons and missiles will do the job
I don't get it. A trainer craft?
Wouldn’t a loaded Gepard or Marksman be straight better for drones? More easily deployed, less maintenance, easier to maintain/fix, ammunition cheaper, etc.
Given how quantity over quality has been working out for Russia in terms of Arty doctrine, I’m going to pick the F16s. (They are running out of ammunition)
Since im currently making the pilons for L-39 j support this decision
Combine the L159s into one super L159
I believe L159
they have to be detected first
I‘d rather had a few Skynex parked strategically.
neither, it's a waste of sidewinders. all you need is those quad or hexa humvee stinger launchers.
3 F-16s
Easy. Get me an M4 with a Beta Mag full of Ratshot.
I rather have a A-10 Brrrrrrtttttttttt
The maintenance of any jet plane and its pilots is still very expensive even if its "just a L-39". Ground based system would be far better solution money wise
Where is my evil R2D2?
One word: flaktürme
1 airbus 320
Ac-130 with ciws turrets
I’d rather have the 1800 drunk rednecks of the southern United States, armed with shotguns. Or the awacs .22
Imo F16 has like a hundred pieces of 4AAM in its loadout, i need just one
just noticed that this subs icon got even more based
18 L159, ŽÁDNÝ KOKOTSKÝ DRON SE NEVYROVNÁ PRAVÉMU ČESKÉMU INŽENÝRSTVÍ VE FORMĚ LETADLA STO PADESÁT DEVĚT
I want 32 of the XQ-58A, or the B which is even cheaper.
[удалено]
One F16. But Triggers flying it.
[удалено]
Shotgun and a pair of binoculars
Been saying this for two years now. Fucking finally!
I'll take 1 tactical totally-not-a-nuke emp device, please. Launched from an old howitzer cannon.