On: Colombian Black Hawk downed by drone is a glimpse of what's to come

[wredcoll]

Drones are, by and large, the same thing as missiles.

Those haven't made manned tanks obsolete yet.

There's going to be value in having a human "on site" to make decisions about engaging targets for quite a while from now.

[burnt-resistor → wredcoll]

Drones are fundamentally better than subsonic-Mach 4 missiles because they're 100-1000x cheaper, several times smaller, have a much smaller RCS, and have loiter ability. They're slower and pack tiny warheads relatively, but they're key to taking out mobile forces and other drones.

For fixed targets, that's something artillery and Shahed-like cruise "missiles" can deal with.

[digitalPhonix → burnt-resistor]

> subsonic-Mach 4

How is it subsonic and mach 4?

[aspenmayer → digitalPhonix]

I interpreted it as a range of missiles, with subsonic on the low speed end, and Mach 4 on the high speed end.

[mediumsmart → wredcoll]

I thought making a manned tank obsolete is the use case for a drone with the highest value possibly in deciding to trade it with an Abrams.