Originally Posted by
Momoe
Bayraktar operates at low-medium level at a cruise speed of 70 knots, even if you're not flying in contested airspace which would be suicidal at slow speeds with modern AA/SAM's, this would be a challenging target.
Another UAV might work but then you've got to integrate with the big picture to take out multiple threats, using something like the Peregrine or smaller, anything larger is a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
You've hit on the key issue, these UAVs are really cheap, they can be deployed in large numbers.
Current air defense systems use sophisticated and consequently expensive missiles to shoot down even more expensive aircraft. They are at best wasted on cheap drones, even if there are enough of them.
Imho, the combination of cheap sensors, pretty decent image recognition software and reasonably capable autonomously operating air, land and sea vehicles is transformative for warfare.
The Turks proved that just recently in Nagorno Karabakh, the USAF had it demonstrated to them in DARPA exercises and the US Navy was shown it in a war game twenty years ago, well before the USS Cole.
We don't call the military 'slow learners', we call them 'obstinate learners'. I think it will take an experience such as the Dutch had in Taiwan back in the early 1600s, when they were totally defeated by the Chinese, before they become receptive to the modern day realities.