Asymmetric Warfare

Home-made drones now threaten conventional armed forces

“A 3D-printed airframe and open-source software. It cost $2,000. A whole squadron of such craft could thus be assembled for less than the cost of a single shoulder-fired missile, let alone a modern combat aircraft. America’s F-22 fighter, for example, costs over $300m. A B-2 bomber is even more expensive.”

Even a lone drone can do plenty of damage.
…in one case setting off explosions which blew up a staggering 70,000 tonnes of munitions.

describes the navy as “scrambling to improve defences against the rapidly evolving capabilities of remote-controlled devices”. Existing defences are not geared up to cope with small drones, which are difficult to spot, identify and track, and which may be too numerous to stop.
Drones are, however, becoming increasingly autonomous.
This means there is no operator link to jam.

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