Shooting down a $1,000 drone with a $5,000 missile is not a winning strategy

Thursday, July 11th, 2024

In November 1973, David Hambling explains (in Swarm Troopers), the USAF shot down a hapless drone with a carbon-dioxide gas dynamic laser:

Mobile laser weapons are currently in the range of tens of kilowatts. Unlike earlier lasers powered by chemical reactions, they are electric, so can keep firing for as long as they have power, giving them an effectively unlimited magazine. They are not powerful enough to burn through armor but are capable of destroying missiles or small drones.

The great thing about lasers versus small drones is that the cost-per-shot is so low. Shooting down a $1,000 drone with a $5,000 missile is not a winning strategy. A $1 burst of precisely-guided laser energy makes much more sense. Also, the laser does not have a limited ammunition supply, but can keep firing as long as the generator has fuel. In principle, it can keep firing for as long as the drones keep coming, though lasers still tend to overheat after a while.

[…]

Even if it does not destroy the drone outright or cause it to crash, the laser will burn out optics and damage sensitive control surfaces or other components.

[…]

Although the laser may have a range of a mile or more, as soon as it is spotted or starts firing, the drone swarm is likely to drop low and hug the ground for cover, limiting the laser’s effective range to a few hundred yards at best.

[…]

If it starts at a few hundred meters, it will be less than ten seconds before the drones are at point-blank range.

[…]

High-energy lasers operate on a single wavelength, so anything that reflects or absorbs that particular wavelength may reduce its effectiveness. The laser defense may be defeated by something as simple a mirrored nosecone, although this is not nearly as easy as it sounds. The reflective surface has to be tailored to the type of laser it is facing.

[…]

Laser protection does not need to be absolute. Protection that means that each drone takes several seconds rather than one second to destroy will guarantee success for the swarm.

Posted in Technology, War, Weapons | 4 Comments »

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AMJ says:

July 11, 2024 at 9:49 am

It is a winning strategy if (1) you’re protecting a target worth more than $5K, and (2) you’re richer than the enemy shooting at you. But yes, expediting the fielding of HPM and lasers to counter cheap drones absolutely is something DoD should and in fact is doing right now.
Jim says:

July 11, 2024 at 8:10 pm

In my mind’s eye, I see high-cost Predator-like drones circling like eternal aluminum birds high above, armed with directed energy weapons powered by very small nuclear reactors, as swarms of low-cost quadcopter-like drones duke it out with each other near the surface of the Earth.
Ezra says:

July 12, 2024 at 5:18 am

More like shooting down a $20K drone with a $1 million dollar missile.
Lucklucky says:

July 13, 2024 at 11:21 pm

“It is a winning strategy if (1) you’re protecting a target worth more than $5K,”

First a country wealth is much bigger than the year GDP output.

Second your missile is not only curtailed by cost, but also by production capabilities including workforce and device complexity. How much time takes to build a missile? How many can get out of factories by month?

In short you might be out of missiles before you are out of money.

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Shooting down a $1,000 drone with a $5,000 missile is not a winning strategy

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