How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Battlefront.com]

5 minutes ago, chrisl said:

I bet there are at least 3 movie scenes that use that concept for a good guy to get the bad guy to wipe out his own side.  Without searching, I'd bet at least one from Marvel and at least one involving Jackie Chan, probably shot in Hong Kong and dubbed.

Funny, I had several scenes from The Incredibles in mind when I wrote that

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

4 minutes ago, Probus said:

Yeah.  I wonder if this is how our ancestors felt after the machine gun of WWI or the atomic bomb/Air Power/Armored Power of WWII.  What the heck comes next?  It's the wild, wild west again and defense engineers are gonna have to start thinking outside the box again.  Surely there is a simple defense against this new threat.

This is really it right here.  Yes, there could very well be a defense if the defense industry, the military, and the politicians recognized that nothing in inventory and nothing in the pipeline is likely going to do anything more than nibble at the problem.  That means stop spending gobs of money on trying to adapt existing defenses to combat something they inherently aren't going to address. 

The problem with that is the mentality needed to "start from scratch" is not readily visible from where I sit.  Instead I see arguments, like those from ArmouredTopHat, that we should double down on expensive, dead end tech and pray (and I do mean religious based thinking here) that a miracle happens (again, I am not using a metaphor).

I've said it for the last 2 years or so... to me it seems we're going to have to go through a humiliating and absolutely abysmally expensive defeat before the triumvirate (industry, military, government) gets onto the right track.  I don't think Ukraine is going to be good enough, even though it damned will should be.

Steve

[ArmouredTopHat]

22 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I asked you specifically about the physics of the outgoing rounds.  You did not address that at all.

A drone zig zagging is not going to be able to dodge bullets like Neo for very long, it might complicate a kill time, but that is probably where airbursts come in for heavier systems against a swarm. Again, layers of defence spring to mind. Evasion becomes harder the closer you get to target as well. 

A light system using a shotgun type weapon would have less trouble given the spread for the real close in defence that might be fitted to something vehicular...or even around one via portable units. 
 

18 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

This is a huge problem for me.  You are confident in systems that don't exist, even on paper, and yet are skeptical of ones that already exist being adapted for military use.  That's a huge red flag for me.

The weight of evidence shows that there should be NO doubt about swarms. None.  Zero.   At least that should be the premise to adopt when planning out billions of Dollars in spending. 

At worst, swarms are way ahead of the defenses against them.  Even if it takes a couple of years to make swarms practical, it is going to take way longer than that to get a defense system in place that can even handle single drones.  Going forward with a defense system that ASSUMES swarms won't ever be a tangible threat is just about the worst idea I can think of.

I am not assuming anything here. I am just pointing out we are largely talking about theoretical and we dont know what the practical result of AI swarm vs AI defence might look like because there is nothing close on that front to existing yet, in military terms anyway. This really is a wild west of possibilities. I am not denying that AI swarms are going to be a future consideration, but I do find it odd that you focus so much on the applications of AI for offense without thinking about the defence. Swarms cut both ways. 

I ask again, what is stopping an AI system from using defensive interceptor drones to nullify an incoming attack, with PD acting as a last resort and cleanup?

I am also pointing out that we are currently seeing increasingly smaller point defence systems that are capable of shooting down drones right now. These systems do in fact exist, right now. The technology is practical, its going to evolve just as much as drone munitions will. 

 

Edited July 6 by ArmouredTopHat

[ArmouredTopHat]

33 minutes ago, chrisl said:

Not just artillery delivered chaff - why aren't you mixing drones in?  It's a way to get more range out of drones with small batteries.

This is actually a very interesting (and terrifying) idea, we have already seen UGL delivered drones be a practical system. I suppose BONUS rounds are sort of related to the concept as well.

Does anyone know if anyone has developed any drone borne munitions fired from artillery?

[ArmouredTopHat]

42 minutes ago, chrisl said:

But the sensor problem isn't easy, and we're just at the start of what you can do with small autonomous things.  @The_Capt's smart land mines, if you will, but moving in 3D at anything from zero to 50 m/s.  Instead of laying a bunch of land mines, you ornament a bunch of trees with a similar number of drones that just sit quietly until their victim is surrounded and within 100 m.  That's when you slap the big red "EMP" button if you have one.

A terrifying counter point indeed. I suppose at that point you need autonomous hunters units stalking the battlefield looking for said munitions, or at least  to be able to spot them so an AI system can launch dedicated counter drones to destroy them.

Its going to be a very complicated and terrifying battlefield for sure. I would hazard to suggest that if units become that autonomous then direct human presence on the battlefield is probably a thing of the past by that point. 

The point I am trying to make here is that things are going to be very hard to accuracy predict in terms of what actually works practically in the field. There might be constraints on attack or defence not yet considered. 

Edited July 6 by ArmouredTopHat

[chrisl]

4 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

This is actually a very interesting (and terrifying) idea, we have already seen UGL delivered drones be a practical system. I suppose BONUS rounds are sort of related to the concept as well.

Does anyone know if anyone has developed any drone borne munitions fired from artillery?

Aerovironment has done recon drones that launch from regular mortars.

Drone-40 puts a drone in a standard 40 mm grenade launcher package (not artillery, but accelerated with a bang)

[chrisl]

1 minute ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

A terrifying counter point indeed. I suppose at that point you need autonomous hunters units stalking the battlefield looking for said munitions, or at least  to be able to spot them so an AI system can launch dedicated counter drones to destroy them.

Its going to be a very complicated and terrifying battlefield for sure.

The point I am trying to make here is that things are going to be very hard to accuracy predict in terms of what actually works practically in the field. There might be constraints on attack or defence not yet considered. 

I can accurately predict that there will be stuff that's small enough and deadly enough and hard enough to counter that I want to be nowhere within km of it and will send a robot instead, while I eat doritos and mountain dew in my mom's basement.

[Probus]

5 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

This is actually a very interesting (and terrifying) idea, we have already seen UGL delivered drones be a practical system. I suppose BONUS rounds are sort of related to the concept as well.

Does anyone know if anyone has developed any drone borne munitions fired from artillery?

No, but years ago I visited a production line of a weapon system that was fired out of a 155mm arty barrel.  Designed specifically to take the shock of firing.  It had microcontrollers in it. So the technology exists for that kind of weapon deployment for, at least, decades now.  Just have to design a drone to fit.

[ArmouredTopHat]

Just now, chrisl said:

Aerovironment has done recon drones that launch from regular mortars.

Drone-40 puts a drone in a standard 40 mm grenade launcher package (not artillery, but accelerated with a bang)

Makes me wonder if the same principle is possible with a missile launched system, though I assume the cost of either artillery or missile launched drones is probably not worth it when you can just fly them in currently. 

Certainly an application for loitering munitions potentially, IE firing said munition at a point where you have spotted an asset for it to find and kill. Would perhaps be a faster kill chain than having to wait for your Lancet to be over target from a traditional launch. 

[chrisl]

17 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

A drone zig zagging is not going to be able to dodge bullets like Neo for very long, it might complicate a kill time, but that is probably where airbursts come in for heavier systems against a swarm. Again, layers of defence spring to mind. Evasion becomes harder the closer you get to target as well. 

A light system using a shotgun type weapon would have less trouble given the spread for the real close in defence that might be fitted to something vehicular...or even around one via portable units. 
 

I am not assuming anything here. I am just pointing out we are largely talking about theoretical and we dont know what the practical result of AI swarm vs AI defence might look like because there is nothing close on that front to existing yet, in military terms anyway. This really is a wild west of possibilities. I am not denying that AI swarms are going to be a future consideration, but I do find it odd that you focus so much on the applications of AI for offense without thinking about the defence. Swarms cut both ways. 

I ask again, what is stopping an AI system from using defensive interceptor drones to nullify an incoming attack, with PD acting as a last resort and cleanup?

I am also pointing out that we are currently seeing increasingly smaller point defence systems that are capable of shooting down drones right now. These systems do in fact exist, right now. The technology is practical, its going to evolve just as much as drone munitions will. 

 

Those swarms will be more effective on defense than offense because it will be much easier to lay a defensive drone field than to maintain a bubble around the attack that's resistant to massive amounts of cheap autonomous stuff.

About the best drone defense I can come up with is flying my own enormous drone army dangling bird block.  A ginormous mobile cope cage, but to stop propellers rather than shaped charges.

[chrisl]

3 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

Makes me wonder if the same principle is possible with a missile launched system, though I assume the cost of either artillery or missile launched drones is probably not worth it when you can just fly them in currently. 

Certainly an application for loitering munitions potentially, IE firing said munition at a point where you have spotted an asset for it to find and kill. Would perhaps be a faster kill chain than having to wait for your Lancet to be over target from a traditional launch. 

Way easier with missile launched systems.  We call that "tuesday" around here.

Think about just about every rocket that's ever left the earth.  Every guided missile since what, the 1960s? Little kids can launch cameras in homemade rockets.  It's not even old technology, it's just a regular day.

[ArmouredTopHat]

4 minutes ago, chrisl said:

Those swarms will be more effective on defense than offense because it will be much easier to lay a defensive drone field than to maintain a bubble around the attack that's resistant to massive amounts of cheap autonomous stuff.

About the best drone defense I can come up with is flying my own enormous drone army dangling bird block.  A ginormous mobile cope cage, but to stop propellers rather than shaped charges.

I find this a pretty spot on notion. I wonder if the final result will be drones near 'cancelling' each other out if its a peer to peer conflict. Which is why I find things like vehicles fitted with appropriate last resort defences are likely to be viable for the foreseeable future. 

It seems obvious that drones will be the primary counter to drones, that  does not mean things like PD should be discarded, especially if they can be made cheap and effective enough to be mounted on most vehicles to intercept the odd drone munition that makes it through.

 

1 minute ago, chrisl said:

Way easier with missile launched systems.  We call that "tuesday" around here.

Think about just about every rocket that's ever left the earth.  Every guided missile since what, the 1960s? Little kids can launch cameras in homemade rockets.  It's not even old technology, it's just a regular day.

Oh the technology is certainly not a barrier, I suppose its currently down to cost and need / overlap with current systems. A cruise missile is pretty what has been described in effect. 

[chrisl]

1 minute ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

I find this a pretty spot on notion. I wonder if the final result will be drones near 'cancelling' each other out if its a peer to peer conflict. Which is why I find things like vehicles fitted with appropriate last resort defences are likely to be viable for the foreseeable future. 

It seems obvious that drones will be the primary counter to drones, that  does not mean things like PD should be discarded, especially if they can be made cheap and effective enough to be mounted on most vehicles to intercept the odd drone munition that makes it through.

 

Oh the technology is certainly not a barrier, I suppose its currently down to cost and need / overlap with current systems. A cruise missile is pretty what has been described in effect. 

PD is for that last desperate bit of defense if you have a multilayered thing that will statistically remove a huge fraction of the attackers before they get to you.  It's an officer's pistol.  

Artillery/rocket/airborne delivery of drones is a way to get lots of smaller drones farther faster than they could get on their own due to battery energy density limits.

[Probus]

2 minutes ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

It seems obvious that drones will be the primary counter to drones, that  does not mean things like PD should be discarded, especially if they can be made cheap and effective enough to be mounted on most vehicles to intercept the odd drone munition that makes it through.

Maybe, maybe not.  An offensive drone is flown by a man using his brain as sensors even if said drone is pulling 12G defensive maneuvers using some kind of automated erratic movement program.

The defensive drone swarm has to have enough sensor power, processing power and maneuvering ability to kill those incoming drones.  So maybe not.  But who the heck knows.

[chrisl]

Just now, Probus said:

Maybe, maybe not.  An offensive drone is flown by a man using his brain as sensors even if said drone is pulling 12G defensive maneuvers using some kind of automated erratic movement program.

The defensive drone swarm has to have enough sensor power, processing power and maneuvering ability to kill those incoming drones.  So maybe not.  But who the heck knows.

Big rolls of bird block.  It stops birds.  It stops cats.  I've even seen it hang up a 200 lb bear for a bit.

[ArmouredTopHat]

11 minutes ago, chrisl said:

PD is for that last desperate bit of defense if you have a multilayered thing that will statistically remove a huge fraction of the attackers before they get to you.  It's an officer's pistol.  

This is pretty much my take on it. I think some were thinking that I thought it was the silver bullet able to handle the problem on its own. That doesn't mean it should not be pursued as a possibility. 

10 minutes ago, Probus said:

Maybe, maybe not.  An offensive drone is flown by a man using his brain as sensors even if said drone is pulling 12G defensive maneuvers using some kind of automated erratic movement program.

The defensive drone swarm has to have enough sensor power, processing power and maneuvering ability to kill those incoming drones.  So maybe not.  But who the heck knows.

Which leads to exactly this. A drone swarm might be countered by a defensive swarm, it might not. Which means that the target the drones are going for need a last resort defence of their own, be it a vehicle or a command post or a factory. The most practical method to that effect that we so far know about is some sort of gun system (For a mobile platform anyway) You want to complicate a kill chain as much as possible if you are the target. No defence is perfect, just as no offensive system is perfect. Its about making sure the odds are in your favour as much as possible. 

My issue with some takes about how its a waste of time to design counters for vehicles boils down to the fact that the drones are going to be hitting something valuable, that does not stop if tanks / vehicles are removed from the field. Removing vehicles from the equation just means more infantry get hit, or your own drone systems, or the factories and homes of your people. Vehicles stand to gain the most from such last resort defences and are best suited to carrying them. (Unless you want private Gerald to haul around a hard kill drone system)

Having an effective defence also means that your own offensive drone operations are more likely to cause critical failures in the enemy before they do the same to you. 

 

Edited July 6 by ArmouredTopHat

[dan/california]

1 hour ago, ArmouredTopHat said:

This is pretty much my take on it. I think some were thinking that I thought it was the silver bullet able to handle the problem on its own. That doesn't mean it should not be pursued as a possibility. 

Which leads to exactly this. A drone swarm might be countered by a defensive swarm, it might not. Which means that the target the drones are going for need a last resort defence of their own, be it a vehicle or a command post or a factory. The most practical method to that effect that we so far know about is some sort of gun system (For a mobile platform anyway) You want to complicate a kill chain as much as possible if you are the target. No defence is perfect, just as no offensive system is perfect. Its about making sure the odds are in your favour as much as possible. 

My issue with some takes about how its a waste of time to design counters for vehicles boils down to the fact that the drones are going to be hitting something valuable, that does not stop if tanks / vehicles are removed from the field. Removing vehicles from the equation just means more infantry get hit, or your own drone systems, or the factories and homes of your people. Vehicles stand to gain the most from such last resort defences and are best suited to carrying them. (Unless you want private Gerald to haul around a hard kill drone system)

Having an effective defence also means that your own offensive drone operations are more likely to cause critical failures in the enemy before they do the same to you. 

 

All of this is true, but before we spend tens of billions to equip the ground force with a sytems that claims it can do this the testing needs to be savage. The worst possible place is to spend a bunch of money on drone defenses that don't work, and then develop doctrine that assumes that they do work, and then lose the next war in a day.

Edited July 6 by dan/california

[dan/california]

 

Quote

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-moscows-shadows/id1510124746?i=1000661305253

Today's Gallioti, he says the British election is unlikely to make much difference. His far more interesting point is that there are only two conditions where Ukraine can truly quit fighting, at least this side of more or less total defeat. Either it smashes Russia out of every inch of Ukraine, and breaks the Russian military in the process, or it gets admitted to NATO with full article five at the peace conference. There really is  no third choice for a good outcome. To clarify he say that NATO membership would allow Ukraine to agree to a settlement where it gives up territory. Nothing else really will. So if we want this war to stop anytime soon...

Edited July 6 by dan/california

[sburke]

4 hours ago, dan/california said:

This is a truly great article. these are the money quotes.

The article has lot to say about AI, too, but it is really about the dystopian hellscape of corporate tech culture. The poor guy has gone around the bend, over the edge of the cliff, and is now hanging on to his sanity by two fingernails.

LOL yeah been there.  Got so sick of people who refused to understand why we did anything we did if it didn't match their scripted manual.  Then along would come the latest buzz word in scrum/agile/mindfulness and the folks leading it would have no experience but had jumped on the bandwagon first.  If you asked them too many questions they just said you were being negative and anti-agile.  Then they'd come up with bogus measurement figures to show how great they were improving things.. as engineers kept quitting.

[ArmouredTopHat]

That tank shortage that was going to hit hard next year might be coming a bit earlier than expected. 

Its really quite crazy how such poor and lazy storage of heavy equipment has bitten the Russians so badly in the ***. Half of these problems could have been solved with a simple shed or tarp covering. 

Edited July 6 by ArmouredTopHat

[poesel]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

And what if the drone is coming in 2m "off the deck".  What are you going to paint besides the drone?

Since you assume the attackers to be networked, I do the same for the defenders. So the defenders know where their own are. Easier for the vehicles than for the squishies of course. But when I doubt, shoot it. The explosives on the drone will do more damage.

For any numbers of defenders, there is always an 'inside' and an 'outside'. Unless the drone can pop up 'inside', you shoot outwards. There are of course any number of circumstances where this is not true or at least debatable. But in most cases it will.

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

The other thing we've already discussed is the impracticality of lasers.  They require way too much power generation to do the job they are being conceived of doing.

You know I'm critical about lasers. I just used them wrt the video, because I doubt this PhD would be allowed to use more than a laser pointer in his experiment.

Laser are simply too expensive to use them on a 'PD-for_everyone' solution.

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

I also have the same doubts as chrisl that solving the sensor/tracking problems is practical in the near term.

Why? Drones emit a very distinctive sound. They are hot. They may emit radio signals. And last but not least, they are fast moving objects in front of a mostly static background.

Sound will be reduced in the future, as well as the IR signal. Fully autonomous drones will not emit radio, but swarms will need to communicate somehow and that may be detectable. But they will never be invisible.
AI (I say AI and mean ML...) advances in image recognition and pattern detection are simply insane. If you can see it, the AI has seen it 10x and with good optics even better. Optical detection of stuff has been a hard problem in the past and has recently shifted to easy. That will find its way into military sensors.

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

And yet you are adding to the argument that there's nothing practical to defend against them.  Sooooo...

That is your interpretation of what I wrote, and I think you are wrong.

 

Some ballpark calculations about drone evasion:
Assuming a muzzle velocity of 1000 m/s for the PD, that is 1 s time of flight at 1000 m range. Let's assume the drone can pull 6 g perpendicular to the PD (I haven't found any data about angular velocity of racing drones, so this is just half of the 12 g we had). For 1 s that is 3 m of movement. That sounds survivable for the drone.
At 500 m that is 0,5 s TOF for the bullet and only 0,75 m for the drone.
Half that again to 250 m and 0,25 s and the drone moves just 0,19 m. And that puts it already inside a buckshot circle.

Although the zigzagging of drones looks insane to humans, it is not that fast wrt to bullet speeds.

 

[ArmouredTopHat]

10 minutes ago, poesel said:

Since you assume the attackers to be networked, I do the same for the defenders. So the defenders know where their own are. Easier for the vehicles than for the squishies of course. But when I doubt, shoot it. The explosives on the drone will do more damage.

For any numbers of defenders, there is always an 'inside' and an 'outside'. Unless the drone can pop up 'inside', you shoot outwards. There are of course any number of circumstances where this is not true or at least debatable. But in most cases it will.

You know I'm critical about lasers. I just used them wrt the video, because I doubt this PhD would be allowed to use more than a laser pointer in his experiment.

Laser are simply too expensive to use them on a 'PD-for_everyone' solution.

Why? Drones emit a very distinctive sound. They are hot. They may emit radio signals. And last but not least, they are fast moving objects in front of a mostly static background.

Sound will be reduced in the future, as well as the IR signal. Fully autonomous drones will not emit radio, but swarms will need to communicate somehow and that may be detectable. But they will never be invisible.
AI (I say AI and mean ML...) advances in image recognition and pattern detection are simply insane. If you can see it, the AI has seen it 10x and with good optics even better. Optical detection of stuff has been a hard problem in the past and has recently shifted to easy. That will find its way into military sensors.

That is your interpretation of what I wrote, and I think you are wrong.

 

Some ballpark calculations about drone evasion:
Assuming a muzzle velocity of 1000 m/s for the PD, that is 1 s time of flight at 1000 m range. Let's assume the drone can pull 6 g perpendicular to the PD (I haven't found any data about angular velocity of racing drones, so this is just half of the 12 g we had). For 1 s that is 3 m of movement. That sounds survivable for the drone.
At 500 m that is 0,5 s TOF for the bullet and only 0,75 m for the drone.
Half that again to 250 m and 0,25 s and the drone moves just 0,19 m. And that puts it already inside a buckshot circle.

Although the zigzagging of drones looks insane to humans, it is not that fast wrt to bullet speeds.

 

Amazing post!

[Probus]

  Why is Russia pouring this massive amount of resources and men into Ukraine?  It seems like its this death spiral that Russia, Ukraine and the West are willing to engage in until the last.  And at this rate its gonna be decades before the war ends and I don't think there is a country on the planet that can sustain these kinds of losses for such a relatively small gain.  Russia even has to go to the tiny backward nation of North Korea to get supplies.  What am I missing here? 

  Do they think the West is just gonna eventually crack and not support Ukraine?  I guess earlier this year it looked like it may happen but I doubt that situation will happen again.?.

  I think that Russia is gonna continue to attack Ukraine until the next US election.  Trump may be, in their minds, their last hope, but Trump isn't gonna give in to Russia. The stakes are just too high.  Maybe I'm thinking of it from a Western mind set and just don't understand the near Eastern thought process.

  You guys have gone over and over this topic in this thread, but I am still astounded by Putin's willingness to throw his country down the tubes.

Edited July 6 by Probus

[danfrodo]

2 minutes ago, Probus said:

Trump may be, in their minds, their last hope, but Trump isn't gonna give in to Russia.

Probus, with all due respect I have to ask:  Why do people believe this?  He HATES zelensky because zelensky wouldn't give in to Trump's blackmail, which led to Trump's first impeachment (he broke a bunch of laws and only the corrupt GOP senators saved him).  We KNOW he had loans from russian oligarchs when no american banks would loan money to the shyster anymore (his idiot son bragged about this, on video).   We think Putin might have dirt on him, unknown.  We KNOW he loves dictators and hates our allies -- how many tweets did he make praising Putin, praising NK dictator?  How many times did he verbally praise Putin?  

We also know that Putin has been very interested in getting Trump elected, along w GOP 'tankies'.   Why does Putin put so much faith in Trump?  And why do so many americans want to vote for someone who loves our enemies and hates our friends?

This is just wishful thinking.  The evidence indicates he will drop UKR.  Maybe he'll not do that, but based on everything so far there is no evidence that he will do the right thing.  

[dan/california]

44 minutes ago, poesel said:

Since you assume the attackers to be networked, I do the same for the defenders. So the defenders know where their own are. Easier for the vehicles than for the squishies of course. But when I doubt, shoot it. The explosives on the drone will do more damage.

For any numbers of defenders, there is always an 'inside' and an 'outside'. Unless the drone can pop up 'inside', you shoot outwards. There are of course any number of circumstances where this is not true or at least debatable. But in most cases it will.

You know I'm critical about lasers. I just used them wrt the video, because I doubt this PhD would be allowed to use more than a laser pointer in his experiment.

Laser are simply too expensive to use them on a 'PD-for_everyone' solution.

Why? Drones emit a very distinctive sound. They are hot. They may emit radio signals. And last but not least, they are fast moving objects in front of a mostly static background.

Sound will be reduced in the future, as well as the IR signal. Fully autonomous drones will not emit radio, but swarms will need to communicate somehow and that may be detectable. But they will never be invisible.
AI (I say AI and mean ML...) advances in image recognition and pattern detection are simply insane. If you can see it, the AI has seen it 10x and with good optics even better. Optical detection of stuff has been a hard problem in the past and has recently shifted to easy. That will find its way into military sensors.

That is your interpretation of what I wrote, and I think you are wrong.

 

Some ballpark calculations about drone evasion:
Assuming a muzzle velocity of 1000 m/s for the PD, that is 1 s time of flight at 1000 m range. Let's assume the drone can pull 6 g perpendicular to the PD (I haven't found any data about angular velocity of racing drones, so this is just half of the 12 g we had). For 1 s that is 3 m of movement. That sounds survivable for the drone.
At 500 m that is 0,5 s TOF for the bullet and only 0,75 m for the drone.
Half that again to 250 m and 0,25 s and the drone moves just 0,19 m. And that puts it already inside a buckshot circle.

Although the zigzagging of drones looks insane to humans, it is not that fast wrt to bullet speeds.

 

I am a broken record on this, but tell Magyar he is rich if proves you wrong. That is the test I will believe in. Drones right now are not doing anything fancy to make it easy for the next drone to get thru, but there is SO much they could be doing. Send them out in sets of four. One drone has chaff an is set to blow at 500 meters. One drone has flares, and it set to blow at three hundred. and the the third one starts pumping radar jamming until its battery melts at whatever range some testing say makes sense. This increases the cost of doing business, but if you figure five thousand dollars for a set of four, it is still te best bargain in military history. And if you are attacking say a whole mech platoon the vehicles have to sort out the targeting so they don't obliterate some, while they ignore others. Now all of this may be solvable. But it will be a lot cheaper to do than it will be to defend against. Wrapping a grenade in aluminum foil is just not that hard. Glorified fireworks aren't either.