I wasn’t previously aware of Ukrainians flying drones directly into helicopter’s rotors, but that does make sense.
I obviously know very little about battlefield armaments so forgive the potentially stupid question - but have drones made combat helicopters obsolete?
general1726 · 1h ago
That's like asking if bullets made infantry obsolete. As long as there is a role for attack helicopter on the battlefield, then it is not obsolete, just more vulnerable during its missions.
Ms-J · 46m ago
Thankfully the era of large jets and helicopters is coming to an end. It will be nice to stop wasting so much on weak platforms.
A swarm of small drones is easily accessible by every regular Joe and can asymmetrically project more power.
kcb · 42m ago
Swarms of small drones aren't really a threat to large jets. Unless you're talking on the ground still. A drone capable enough to take on a jet is either something very similar to a missile or very expensive.
vardump · 2h ago
The era of tanks, military troop transport vehicles and attack helicopters might be coming to an end.
Unless, of course, reliable countermeasures can be developed.
But due to cost imbalance, drones being so cheap, it doesn't look good for the military vehicles.
wredcoll · 1h ago
Drones are, by and large, the same thing as missiles.
Those haven't made manned tanks obsolete yet.
There's going to be value in having a human "on site" to make decisions about engaging targets for quite a while from now.
burnt-resistor · 51m ago
Drones are fundamentally better than subsonic-Mach 4 missiles because they're 100-1000x cheaper, several times smaller, have a much smaller RCS, and have loiter ability. They're slower and pack tiny warheads relatively, but they're key to taking out mobile forces and other drones.
For fixed targets, that's something artillery and Shahed-like cruise "missiles" can deal with.
burnt-resistor · 1h ago
Lighter, faster, smaller, more numerous, and more mobile vehicles might make sense because the era of the slow moving castles near the front on land, sea, and air seems about dead.
Drones of all sorts out front with more numerous "ripsaw"-like vehicles with shoot-on-the-move mobile artillery (RCH 155) and air defense (AAA like Skyranger 30 and SAM like M-SHORAD) just behind.
I obviously know very little about battlefield armaments so forgive the potentially stupid question - but have drones made combat helicopters obsolete?
A swarm of small drones is easily accessible by every regular Joe and can asymmetrically project more power.
Unless, of course, reliable countermeasures can be developed.
But due to cost imbalance, drones being so cheap, it doesn't look good for the military vehicles.
Those haven't made manned tanks obsolete yet.
There's going to be value in having a human "on site" to make decisions about engaging targets for quite a while from now.
For fixed targets, that's something artillery and Shahed-like cruise "missiles" can deal with.
Drones of all sorts out front with more numerous "ripsaw"-like vehicles with shoot-on-the-move mobile artillery (RCH 155) and air defense (AAA like Skyranger 30 and SAM like M-SHORAD) just behind.