Shooting down cheap drones not cost effective for US Navy

[SteyrAUG]

I agree that designing future platforms to accommodate the low tech risk is appropriate. But, this smells like some Biden DOD official lamenting the expenditure of money when it is well known that our current ordnance capabilities have been depleted. Pissing and moaning that a US warship is spending too much money protecting itself and accomplishing the task at hand is bullshit.

And if that is the case it's BS. I also agree with everyone who says "US military needs to protect itself FIRST and figure out budgets later."

We just need to keep in mind "winning wars by other means" which happens because we underestimate those who hate us and their capacity to go low tech and do a hell of a lot of damage.

It's like when Russia violates our air space or Chinese sends over a spy balloon, it doesn't cost them a lot to do it but we spend a lot of money looking at it.

[SteyrAUG]

The most effective response would be for the USN to vaporize the drone launch sites as soon as they are detected.

Oh to dream.

[Wildcat]

The solution is anti-drone drone swarms.

The gold-plated defense-contractor dream weapon systems designed to add every capability for every dime to sink the Kirov and hold back Backfire bombers is going to get its ass handed to it by 3D printed drones for pennies on the dollar.

Where are all this pieces-of-crap 'targets' that where cLittoral boats? Let those take the hits.

A popular feature of the newer anti-ship missiles is that they are able to perform target discrimination en-route and autonomously select higher value targets without additional/external guidance. If your phone can perform facial recognition, it can't be that hard to build a rocket to pick out cruisers or carriers and skip the container shipping.

Can't allow the defenses to relax though.
A lot of these Houthi missiles look like they are lucky to hit the ocean but if a couple of highly sophisticated ASCMs from China/Russia are included in a barrage, it could be a bad day for the target ship.

[chuckman]

How would they defend themselves if there were 1000 drones?

So the bean counters want to control front line decisions and put at risk US personnel? History is circular.

It's a legit question and issue: do you really need a $N dollar missile to take out a $Y dollar drone, and how cost effective is it when they have 1,000 drones to your 50 missiles? There can be, should be better and more cost-effective ways, Of course, like others, I advocate taking out launch sites. Don't need to shoot drones out of the skies if there are no launch sites for drones.

It isn't hard to spend an enemy over the cliff.

Saddam was doing that, he'd threaten the US and we'd start ramping up a US response and then he'd stop being a threat. But the effort still cost the US military millions of dollars. That was the point.

In this instance, low cost drones can quickly raise the cost of defensive operations into multi million dollar amounts. I don't think this is a case of bean counters not wanting to protect lives but the realization that we need a more cost effective solution to the problem. Not everything needs a super sophisticated high tech solution, especially low tech threats.

Those 2 million dollar missiles were designed to deal with things like enemy fighters and incoming missiles.

We did it with japan in WW2, we did it with the Soviets during the Cold War. but it does come ata very real cost (no pun intended).

[chuckman]

A lot of these Houthi missiles look like they are lucky to hit the ocean but if a couple of highly sophisticated ASCMs from China/Russia are included in a barrage, it could be a bad day for the target ship.

Well, when they run out of the tinker toys I am sure they will rule the skies with their F-5 fighters (it's Yemen's best aircraft). They can play Topgun all they want, but it'll be a very, very quick game for them in which they will not win.

[Slater]

I don't know what type of drones were involved, but it seems that you could launch many of these things from any stretch of open highway or desert, or from pretty much anywhere with a rocket booster.

[Diamondback]

I don't know what type of drones were involved, but it seems that you could launch many of these things from any stretch of open highway or desert, or from pretty much anywhere with a rocket booster.

Hell, in the Cold War the German trained and tested launching rocket-boosted F-104s from semitrailers as basically nuclear kamikazes... it's not hard to picture them sending some of their F-5s on a one-way trip.

Saudi REALLY needs to invade and fix Yemen's little red wagon once and for all, with offshore support from us. We built them those special better-than-even-ours Strike Eagles, it's time for them to put up and show their pilots are as up to the job as the planes.

[TAZ]

Hell, in the Cold War the German trained and tested launching rocket-boosted F-104s from semitrailers as basically nuclear kamikazes... it's not hard to picture them sending some of their F-5s on a one-way trip.

Saudi REALLY needs to invade and fix Yemen's little red wagon once and for all, with offshore support from us. We built them those special better-than-even-ours Strike Eagles, it's time for them to put up and show their pilots are as up to the job as the planes.

That would cost the Saudis money and resources. Why should they do that when you can get so wine else to burn money and resources for you at no cost to you??


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[FromMyColdDeadHand]

I don't know what type of drones were involved, but it seems that you could launch many of these things from any stretch of open highway or desert, or from pretty much anywhere with a rocket booster.

Exactly. Are there any pics or reports as to the size of these? I’m thinking some gas chainsaw type engine, under 10 foot wing length, and under 50lbs. Maybe 150mph as a top speed? Cruise at 70 or so.

[ChattanoogaPhil]

"The cost of using expensive naval missiles — which can run up to $2.1 million a shot — to destroy unsophisticated Houthi drones — estimated at a few thousand dollars each — is a growing concern, according to three other DOD officials. The officials, like others interviewed for this story, were granted anonymity to describe sensitive operations and internal deliberations."

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Interesting that when America fires a shot in defense all of a sudden the cost-conscious handwringing begins.

At the expense of the US taxpayer, Ukraine has been using billion-dollar Patriot systems with multimillion-dollar missiles to shoot down drones. We are told it's nothing more than a rounding error in the DoD budget, and any concern over costs is Putin puppetry.

Hamas has launched thousands of cheap short-range rockets costing a mere couple hundred dollars each. Bloomberg estimates the cost for Israel's Iron Dome is $50k for each missile launched. The US House recently passed an aid package for Israel including $4b to supplement Iron Dome. That alone would pay for 2,000 $2m missiles reportedly used by our Navy in defense.

There's limited real estate on a ship. Fewer different type weapons with more capability of defending against a wide array of airborne threats seems reasonable even if it's not on par with the enemy's cost of attack in certain circumstances. That said, if there's a more effective and practical means of naval vessels to defend themselves then great, and if it saves money at the same time even better.

In the case of Houthi launching drone attacks, it seems to me the most costly part of the equation is failure to eliminate those launching the attacks.