Why is <current year> the era of the lawnmower drone?To be clear, this isn't a bait or rhetorical question. I was reading today that the US apparently used massed lawnmower drones as a component of the assault on Venezuela, and it's rattling around in my head that of course the whole concept is not very advanced or sophisticated, they could easily have been mass produced by anybody decades agoSo why is the 2020s their moment? What's changed to make them so desirable on every battlefield, right now?
>could easily have been mass produced by anybody decades agoAnd that's where you're wrong. Electronics miniaturization isn't sexy, but getting a decent nav package into something that small while still having room for a worthwhile warhead is what made it properly feasible. That probably pushes it closer into the 2010s, and that was generally a very low-octane environment. Nobody was using enough precision strike to make a big R&D program worth the effort as opposed to just buying more Tomahawks. Iran started pushing things because they wanted to get into the precision strike game, but needed to (and were willing to) go to the absolute bottom of the bargain bin in terms of capability to do it. Once Russia re-introduced large-scale operations to the public consciousness, they found out pretty fast that keeping missile production up with those demands is really fucking hard, and they went to Iran and asked for their bottom-shelf solution to "I don't have enough missiles". And seeing the sheer fucking rate at which Russia and Ukraine have been using these drones, and comparing that to how much it would could to yeet that many Tomahawks around, everyone else is starting to agree that we could use some really cheap munitions.
>>64732751>how much it would could*cost
>>64732731The idea is for a cheap, easily massed munition tbat can attrite enemy AD. They are the new hotness because there are lots of concerns about inventory levels for more advanced missiles. However their effectiveness is limited by their speed and simplicity. Think of it as another club in the golf bag.
>>64732731Flooding the airspace with garbage for anti-air missles to explode and cost your enemy hundreds of thousands of dollars isn’t new… that’s literally what everyone does to Israel Send bunch of cheap shit at the iron dome and war of attrition them out
>>64732731>I was reading today that the US apparently
>>64732731Anon, the US invented drone warfare decades ago, and now invented spammable lawnmower drones. LUCAS costs $35,000 per unit retail, and that's for proper fire and forget drones with swarming and autonomous targeting capability. Russia's Geran drones come in FPV and preset GPS flavors, and they cost $50,000 apiece just to make.
>>64732813What the fuck did I say to provoke this?There's nothing miraculous or groundbreaking about the Shaheds, if anything it underlines my point about their simplicity since fucking Iranians can make them
>>64732827>What the fuck did I say to provoke this?You could have said anything.Zigger suspicion trigger has a variable sensitivity depending on the reader's ideological commitment and IQ.The amount vatnik/chink/jeet bait threads in the last 24 hours can also be a factor.Anyway, yeah : if you don't care that much about the success of your strike, cheap drones are the way to go.Tomahawks are for when you really really want the target gone, only the target and in the correct time window with no second chance.Drones are for when you can still try again and failure wouldn't affect the operation's outcome that much.
>>64732751>but getting a decent nav package into something that small while still having room for a worthwhile warhead is what made it properly feasibleSmartphones and related SoCs basically. A good chunk of the tech in there is also useful for the brain in drones.GPS, inertial sensors, miniaturized cameras, data link, energy efficiency, good batteries, ...And of course the compute part if you want them to do things autonomously.The mass-production for civilian use made them COTS instead of bespoke, small-production products.
>>64732731What is a ADM-160 MALD? Do you turdies/ziggers ever come up with anything but your endless masturbatory Geran/Shahed masturbation or what?
hi-low approach because it turns out a heap of shit actually needs to be hit and you don't have enough missiles to hit it all, and many targets you want hit aren't worth a missile either. something with the range of a cruise missile, an adequate warhead (100-200 pounds), good accuracy and being far cheaper than a missile, is a decent idea.
>>64732751>And that's where you're wrongHe's not wrong. The electronics in question are that of a basic smartphone. iPhones became a think almost 20 years ago.
>>64732731>I was reading today that the US apparently used massed lawnmower drones as a component of the assault on VenezuelaSource?
>>64733955you can hear propeller driven munitions prior to some strikes, so they would have incorporated them into it, and it would have been a good operational test.i recall they've been testing long-range attack drones off the flight deck of an independence, which isn't a bad idea, especially when you could stow a decent amount of them. your not-corvette is now a bombardment ship.
>>64732731Yes while we have the low powered CPUs made for cellphones that 100% can be the brains of cheap drones the main issue is navigation.>JuSt UsE gPs!GPS is easily jammed. Inertial navigation will be required. But it takes up a lot of space and needs highly precise machining and costs a fuck ton. which defeats the whole point of a cheap lawnmower drone. >Why is it not possible today? There are some cheaper Inertial navigation systems on the market that still suck badly and can only hit a city-sized target.
>>64733955https://www.twz.com/air/u-s-kamikaze-drones-look-to-have-been-used-in-strikes-on-venezuela
