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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   2661 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 16, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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Makes you wonder why there are no EMP guns in every platoon and on every tank already, knocking drones out of the sky left and right. Anyway, there are optical wire-guided drones already that have a Faraday cage protecting their electronics.

We already had those, they were called TOW Missiles!

More seriously, I get the impression we are working on plenty of counter-UAS weapons. Military procurement is just slow.

A single TOW missile costs $100000, if I remember correctly. How much does a suicide drone cost? $1000? $5000?

A TOW needs to explode a tank. If you need to explode a temu special, you can probably cut some corners.

What do drones explode, then? Even the cheapest ones that simply drop ordnance basically perform a top attack like the best AT missile. FPV drones fly into the weakest point of the tank's armor.

For the optical, wire-guided kind, probably more than $5K, but much less than the TOW.

For the bargain versions deployed in Ukraine? Maybe even less.

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