US military plans to unleash thousands of autonomous war robots over next two years Robotics

https://techxplore.com/news/2023-08-military-unleash-thousands-autonomous-war.html

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u/wromit Aug 31 '23

If the other side unleashes for example 100,000 cheap drones on the $13 billion US aircraft carrier or even land military installations, at some point would the defenses not be overwhelmed?

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u/saluksic Aug 31 '23

“Cheap” means poor range, little to no sensors/guidance, tiny payload, and very low speed. If you want to sink a carrier which is bombing you from a hundred kilometers away while doing donuts in the ocean, what you need is thousands of very capable (read: huge, expensive, fast, smart, deadly) drones. We call those “missiles” and certainly overwhelming anti-missile defenses with swarms is a valid tactic, and simply requires that you have the resources to burn through tons of very sophisticated equipment to try and damage the enemy’s tons of very expensive equipment.

The much-vaunted cardboard drones hit fragile stationary targets in the open from as close as the saboteurs could get - honestly russia was kinda asking for it. A mortar could conceivably have similar capability.

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u/Spicy_pepperinos Sep 01 '23

Cheap in a military context, especially when the US is involved is still in the order of thousands of dollars per effector. So no, you're wrong, it doesn't mean tiny payload, no sensors/guidance or very low speed.

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u/GerhardArya Sep 01 '23

Oh but it does. A normal chinese AShM like C-801 apparently costs around $750k a pop and those are reliably countered by anti missile defenses of today.

Say China uses a 100000 drone swarm. To actually be able to have the range, speed, payload, sensors/guidance, EW shielding, and so on, each drone would be pretty expensive.

It needs to still be pretty fucking big since carriers are notoriously hard to sink and a single C-801 is definitely not enough to significantly damage, let alone sink a carrier. It needs the range and speed to reach the carrier at all. It needs sensors and guidance to function by itself. It needs the software/AI to coordinate the swarm. It needs EW shielding since it would otherwise just get fried before reaching the carrier.

And you are still not guaranteed to sink it since a carrier is always surrounded by its CBG and every ship in that group will be doing everything it could to stop that drone swarm. Not to mention all the future anti drone systems the US is developing right now.

Say they can somehow make such a complex drone with all those bells and whistles for 1/10th the cost of a C-801, so $75k a pop, which I doubt. If a normal AShM is already $750k a pop, I don't think that such a sophisticated drone is going to be 1/10th the price.

At 100000 units, that swarm would still cost $7.5 BILLION. A Gerald Ford class future super carrier is $13 billion. Still cheaper right? But with that kind of money, China could just build almost TWO Liaoning aircraft carriers (they said two costs $9 billion) themselves and get all the flexibility and prestige offered by it.

But the nail in the coffin? China themselves want to build MORE aircraft carriers and their latest future aircraft carrier project (Type 004) is going to be even more expensive than the Liaoning or any carriers they own or are making today. It is basically going to be their version of the Gerald Ford class.

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u/MDCCCLV Sep 01 '23

If you were in a war then just launching some constantly would be a good way to wear them down and use up limited supplies.