Opinion ‘Wake-up call’: Ukraine drone strike exposes dangers to US aircraft

[Natural Order]

Drones are indeed the future of warfare. Shit going to get crazy…

 

[shinkyoku]

Someone explained (in connection to why the russian bombers where not in underground hangars) that the reason not to put them in hangars is a cold war agreement. "we dont hide our nuke-carrying bombers and neither do you. That way we see that noone breaks limit agreements." After the cold war ended, the practice just was not questioned.

 

[Blayt7hh]

But they're sitting ducks on the ground

And how about all the other targets that don't fly... like aircraft carriers and other war ships. Or any of the other unprotected critical locations within the US. Infrastructure... power generation, water treatment, ect...

They only need to sneak them into the US or get right off the coast. Like Ukraine did to Russia

Submarines are the last refuge.

Think about it... sneak a submarine right up close... even up a major river and unleash a million drones. Pre-programmed to fly to a target without an operator. Take out a nuclear power plant and send it into meltdown

Submarine disappears

Well aircraft carriers are perfectly safe from these kinds of drones at sea because they will never be able to reach them. They don’t have that kind of range. It’s also a lot harder than most people realize to find an aircraft carrier in the middle of the ocean.

The decelerations about the end of traditional aircraft is definitely premature.

 

[Scerpi]

Well aircraft carriers are perfectly safe from these kinds of drones at sea because they will never be able to reach them. They don’t have that kind of range. It’s also a lot harder than most people realize to find an aircraft carrier in the middle of the ocean.

The decelerations about the end of traditional aircraft is definitely premature.

Could understand that.

I've also heard discussion about how hypersonic missiles might be an issue for aircraft carriers.

All interesting stuff for sure. But I'm sure top minds at our Military Industrial Complex are already way ahead of us on this.

How much of a threat are Chinese hypersonic missiles to US Navy ships and sailors?

China’s hypersonic missiles increase the risk that U.S. Navy aircraft carriers could be sunk in a future war.

taskandpurpose.com

Hypersonic missiles fly at least five times the speed of sound and can change course in flight, posing a challenge to defense systems on U.S. Navy ships.

 

[Hog-train]

This new tactic will be deadly if China wants to employ it in a Taiwan invasion. China ships a lot of goods to Taiwan.

Someone explained (in connection to why the russian bombers where not in underground hangars) that the reason not to put them in hangars is a cold war agreement. "we dont hide our nuke-carrying bombers and neither do you. That way we see that noone breaks limit agreements." After the cold war ended, the practice just was not questioned.

Yea that's made up bullshit that I heard too. It's BS.

The reason is purely practical. Do you know how large those bombers are? They're ginormous. The cost of housing these gigantic bombers in a concrete and steel structure would be prohibitively expensive. Imagine doing that for every plane in your air force. The costs would be completely untenable.

That's also the reason many US warplanes are also kept out in the open.

 

[Blayt7hh]

Could understand that.

I've also heard discussion about how hypersonic missiles might be an issue for aircraft carriers.

All interesting stuff for sure. But I'm sure top minds at our Military Industrial Complex are already way ahead of us on this.

How much of a threat are Chinese hypersonic missiles to US Navy ships and sailors?

China’s hypersonic missiles increase the risk that U.S. Navy aircraft carriers could be sunk in a future war.

taskandpurpose.com

Hypersonic missiles fly at least five times the speed of sound and can change course in flight, posing a challenge to defense systems on U.S. Navy ships.

They are a problem for sure. They just are not the death knell that people have been proclaiming. They face new challenges but they’re still the most powerful asset out there. If the age of aircraft carriers were truly over then China wouldn’t be racing to catch up with us and trying to build their own fleets of them.

If we’re with China does break out, I suspect we will lose some. They will still also wreak havoc on the Chinese forces trying to invade Taiwan

 

[Blayt7hh]

This new tactic will be deadly if China wants to employ it in a Taiwan invasion. China ships a lot of goods to Taiwan.



Yea that's made up bullshit that I heard too. It's BS.

The reason is purely practical. Do you know how large those bombers are? They're ginormous. The cost of housing these gigantic bombers in a concrete and steel structure would be prohibitively expensive. Imagine doing that for every plane in your air force. The costs would be completely untenable.

That's also the reason many US warplanes are also kept out in the open.

Well it is expensive but not expensive compared to the cost of losing those planes like that. At a minimum we should be camouflaging our planes on ground. The reason we probably don’t right now is that it’s a pain in the ass to put it up and tear it down and it slows down operations. Got it. But clearly we can’t just leave them in the open anymore

 

[Hog-train]

Well it is expensive but not expensive compared to the cost of losing those planes like that. At a minimum we should be camouflaging our planes on ground. The reason we probably don’t right now is that it’s a pain in the ass to put it up and tear it down and it slows down operations. Got it. But clearly we can’t just leave them in the open anymore

No we need to put anti-drone measure where they're stored and periodically move the planes so they can't pinpoint location.

 

[Fluffernutter]

Is this why Ukraine kept it secret from both the Biden and Trump administrations?

Surely, an enemy can get drones hidden in a train car, shipping container, or 18-wheeler into the US.

 

[Neph]

There's reports that China is building millions of them...

Imagine a $2,000 drone destroying a $2 billion aircraft

Seriously... Modern Warfare nailed it 20 years ago

"UAV in the air"

That shit is crazy

 

[deviake]

I saw last week where China shared satellite images of some of our bombers on an airstrip on some atoll in the pacific. That was before the drone strikes. Even then I was kind of scratching my head like “really, we didn’t put them in a hangar? Or failing that cover them in camp nets or something at least so it wasn’t obvious and easily identifiable what they were?”

I’m not saying that makes them invulnerable or anything, not holy shit it’s the most minimum thing you should be doing. We really are not adapting to the advent of mass drone production.

I listened to a couple people on the YouTube's talking about us losing two jets and the Houthis smoking our expensive drones, and one of them said that our military is good, but it's good for the 1990s. Warfare has clearly changed significantly

 

[Neph]

Drones + AI. It will happen.

 

[Blayt7hh]

I listened to a couple people on the YouTube's talking about us losing two jets and the Houthis smoking our expensive drones, and one of them said that our military is good, but it's good for the 1990s. Warfare has clearly changed significantly

That’s an amateur take though. We are not at war with the houthis we are trading pot shots with them. If we went to war and decided to invade Yemen we would obviously steam roll them and aircraft carrier support would play a big role in that

 

[deviake]

That’s an amateur take though. We are not at war with the houthis we are trading pot shots with them. If we went to war and decided to invade Yemen we would obviously steam roll them and aircraft carrier support would play a big role in that

Yes but Yemen is, if I recall correctly, literally the poorest country on the earth and we've been bombing the shit out of them, as has Saudi Arabia for years. That relatively few people hiding out without 1/trillionth of our resources are a threat is the point and as Ukraine has shown, drones that anyone reading this can afford can take out millions of dollars of equipment and soldiers.

 

[Stoic1]

I worry less about drones hitting bombers - that is only a third of our nuclear triad.

I'd worry about a decentralized swarm attack of major city infrastructure. Hitting powerplant substations or interstate transmission lines, water treatment facilities, overpasses, government official homes, commercial airports, etc.

Heck - suicide drones into a few heavy trucks in their windshields on the interstate. Hit a refinery on the coast. A strategic reserve fuel farm. Hit a large tanker as it goes under a bridge. Hit 10 or 12 cell towers around DC. Pipeline in Alaska. Drop some anthrax powder on a few primary schools at recess. Or at an outdoor arena.

They could probably do all of that with small cells of tech savvy geeks. 20 guys in DC, NYC, LA, Houston, etc. Could absolutely paralyze the US.

Fuck they could set up waves to go out every 12 hrs. Or cluster on one city. The next day cluster another city and so on. Switch it up on the third day and hit multiple targets across the US.

 

[Blayt7hh]

Yes but Yemen is, if I recall correctly, literally the poorest country on the earth and we've been bombing the shit out of them, as has Saudi Arabia for years. That relatively few people hiding out without 1/trillionth of our resources are a threat is the point and as Ukraine has shown, drones that anyone reading this can afford can take out millions of dollars of equipment and soldiers.

That’s because you can’t win a war with just bombs unless you go nuclear. You still need troops on the ground to take and hold land

 

[GreatSaintGuillotine]

Yeah this is deeply concerning...however this develops is going to be very bad for the world at large

 

[Cid]

Well aircraft carriers are perfectly safe from these kinds of drones at sea because they will never be able to reach them. They don’t have that kind of range. It’s also a lot harder than most people realize to find an aircraft carrier in the middle of the ocean.

The decelerations about the end of traditional aircraft is definitely premature.

Traditional aircraft are more important than ever.

Best drone "solution" is to bomb the place building the drones.

Everything else is an insanely distant second.

 

[Blayt7hh]

No we need to put anti-drone measure where they're stored and periodically move the planes so they can't pinpoint location.

Ok but camouflaging them makes them harder to locate too and it’s the quickest and most basic protection you can offer them.

People are misunderstanding this drone thing to an extent. The small drones we are seeing in swarms that are being massed produced aren’t traveling hundreds of miles to hit airbases. The drones that can are going to be larger and more expensive. Those kinds of drones we do have anti air measures against as they’re basically aircraft or missles if they’re able to make that journey. If the smaller drones hit them then we’ve been infiltrated or we placed the planes right in the front lines

 

[Cid]

Well it is expensive but not expensive compared to the cost of losing those planes like that. At a minimum we should be camouflaging our planes on ground. The reason we probably don’t right now is that it’s a pain in the ass to put it up and tear it down and it slows down operations. Got it. But clearly we can’t just leave them in the open anymore

You can. You're America. You're not at war.... and you're America.

You're the least effected country by this development logically.

Oh no a coordinated attack managed to hit 3 of our airbases. In one of the 17 countries we have airbases in.

I just guessed 17 btw don't go pulling me up on that.