I would like to see the economics of that compared to disposable, single-mission drones. Those wouldn’t have to return to the “mother ship”, so would be able to penetrate deeper into enemy territory, or carry more weapons, or be cheaper to produce.
Also, with single-use drones, the C-130 could return immediately to fetch another load of drones.
⇒ I think this would only make sense for relatively expensive drones (but then, the US Air Force likely has a different idea about what is “low cost”. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-9_Sidewinder costs over $200k apiece)
This is a little tongue-in-cheek but also kind of serious. But isn't a single use drone also known as a missile? More seriously, the operational domain between reusable drone and missile must be very small no? Like maybe something that can fly into a building before blowing up.
“Missile” is an extremely broad concept (Wikipedia calls it “a guided airborne ranged weapon capable of self-propelled flight usually by a jet engine or rocket motor”), but I think most people think of a missile as something without wings (but quite possibly fins) where the target is known at launch time, life expectancy is calculated in, at most, hours, and that doesn’t cooperate with other missiles.
I wouldn’t see a dozen airplane- or (especially) helicopter-like drones that get launched with, say, the goal of preventing a piece of road to be used by the enemy, and that distribute themselves over the to be protected area and, Hang around for weeks as missiles.
Because they aren’t weapons, I also wouldn’t think of reconnaissance drones as missiles, even if they are rockets that follow a pre-planned trajectory and then crash. That’s getting close to an edge case, though.
Maybe. If I look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomahawk_(missile), I can’t tell whether those things that point out from the main body produce lift (which, I guess, is the difference between a fin and a wing)
I added “quite possibly, fins” because I thought of that missile, but could hav been more explicit, and yes, those may be wings.
Eventually the space between drones, missiles and mines will get populated on any coordinate in between. Pure forms will continue to exist, but maybe we can hope that mine use will drop, getting substituted by alternatives ("perching missiles" or whatever they would be called) that don't outlive their conflicts quite as much.
Yup. One place where this binary gets problematic is what's called "loitering munitions" - basically a cruise missile that stays up in the air for a while looking for targets, and when its sensors pick something up it hits like any missile.
Very similar devices developed from drones tend to instead get called "suicide drones".
One possible way to distinguish the two might be the level of communication with a controller or launch platform, but even then the line isn't quite clear - what about a CLOS guided missile?
My understanding is that a missile is usually about hitting the target soon. A suicide UAV can do surveillance, maybe launch secondary munitions, and hover around quite a while before delivering its main payload. You might even be able to recover the UAV for a second mission if you decide to not use the suicide charge.
Also, with single-use drones, the C-130 could return immediately to fetch another load of drones.
⇒ I think this would only make sense for relatively expensive drones (but then, the US Air Force likely has a different idea about what is “low cost”. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-9_Sidewinder costs over $200k apiece)