rollin' on dubs
Speaking of blasting cheap drones with expensive hardware...
The Army Will Finally Be Able To Blast Drones With Lasers Soon.
We don't need no stinking jammers that won't last long term, or packing Stinger missiles to deal with airborne threats the size of a briefcase, soon we can just roll a truck along with us and zap those fuckers with Frickin' Laser Beams.
I wonder if it works on rockets, mortars and other things too. Or if it could soon be scaled to do that. C-RAM replacement?
EDIT:
Incidentally, this made the Command & Conquer: Generals parallels pop up again. If ISIS is the GLA, that means we're rolling out the Zero Hour expansion stuff and now packing Anti-Air laser trucks.
edited 18th Mar '17 8:26:38 AM by MajorTom
Tom: Yes because we weren't already shooting down relatively low velocity drones with lasers before. Such a huge leap ahead in anti-drone warfare. Still requires a large truck to mount.
However the jammers come in man portable and vehicle mounted versions needing nothing bigger than an HUMVEE to mount and operate and are broadly effective. They are also significantly safer, easier, and cheaper to operate than even the laser. They are also field tested.
As for the missiles the stinger is at most an interim solution as the steadily growing number of cheap guided miniaturized missiles can do the same job just as effectively and do so in conditions that a laser would struggle with such as a too much humidity in the air. That isn't counting the slowly steady march of increasingly smaller guided gun fired projectiles including the recent drive to develop guided rounds for auto-cannon caliber weapons.
Who watches the watchmen?
rollin' on dubs
'80s flashback: Boeing soups up old Avenger for short-range air defense gap
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – Boeing has modernized its 1980s-era Avenger air defense system to answer the Army’s call to fill its Short-range Air Defense gap within the maneuver force.
The Avenger first came off the production line at Boeing in 1987 and is known for defending the National Capitol Region.
Boeing is looking to address all of those threats by outfitting Avenger like a multi-mission launcher. The company brought its concept to the Association of the U.S. Army’s Global Force Symposium with AIM 9X Sidewinder missiles on one side and Hellfire Longbow missiles on the other and affixed to the top is a directed energy laser system.
And I got to meet adn E-7 who was working with the Dept. of the Army just as the War On Terror kicked off. The Avenger is two 4-shot Stinger launchers mounted on the back of a HMMWV. With the center console, the Avenger looks like the ED-209's retard cousin.
The ADA branch was so fixed on SHORAD that an Avenger fitted with anything other than Stingers was shot down. Then Rumsfeld and co. made the focus on other things and the Avenger was withdrawn. Several Avenger battalions were turned into PATRIOT or AMD ones (3-4 ADA, 1-62 ADA, 1-44 ADA). And AMD battalion is mostly PATRIOT with one AVENGER battery. E battery 2-43 stood down back in 2014.
This might make AVENGER relevant again. If the Mulit-mission Launcher or Land based PHALANX doesn't beat them to it.
I tried to walk like an Egyptian and now I need to see a Cairo practor....
rollin' on dubs
Stingers are good for choppers or drones (cost effective) Sidewinders are good for cruise missiles and fast movers (fighters, attackers, bombers).
Stingers are also cheaper for nations like South Korea, that would need to mount avengers on trucks and fixed platforms. If you have to get a lot of them, need a missile to arm them.
edited 18th Mar '17 7:34:31 PM by TairaMai
I tried to walk like an Egyptian and now I need to see a Cairo practor....The Stinger is quite a bit different from the Sidewinder. While they are both IR missiles that is pretty much where the similarity ends. The Sidewinder is a larger missile for starters and it uses a more sophisticated and complex IR array. It has a more powerful rocket motor which gives it both more range and speed and it is packing a notably more powerful warhead. It is also made to work better with the latest Gen missile systems. Really the AIM-9X has come a lot further than the Stinger has.
edited 19th Mar '17 11:48:10 AM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?That on top of being one of the few missiles that can do the Roboteching flawlessly.
Inter arma enim silent leges
rollin' on dubs
Stingers can see in UV and IR, but again, it's a slower missile than the Sidewinder and cheaper since nations like South Korea have a lot of them from The '80s.
I tried to walk like an Egyptian and now I need to see a Cairo practor....The Stinger is to the Sidewinder what an M1911 is to an M16. Hardly harmless, but far less capable, and not really intended to be anything other than something to use when you don't have something better.
Nobody is going to seriously threaten another nation's air dominance by handing out Stingers, but they are going to do a lot to give individual pilots second thoughts about strolling in with their dicks out.
Well, the soviets and now the Turks, learned the hard way that flying helicopters on areas with widespread use of MANPADS is going to end well.
Stingers may have a lot of issues dealing with fighters and bombers, but low flying attacker planes and helicopters? Deadly as hell.
Inter arma enim silent legesDARPA has tapped Dynetics and General Atomics for Phase II of the Gremlin UAS program. The program is aiming to create air launchable and recoverable UAS craft
The aircraft are basically acting as reusable scout platforms.
edited 22nd Mar '17 12:10:09 PM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?

...I wonder if there are any pictures out there of how much quadcopter was left identifiable after the hit.
I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot