Offense has an advantage over defense in that defense needs to defend against more possible offensive strategies than offense needs to be capable of doing, and offense only needs one undefended plan in order to succeed.
I suspect that not-flying is a pretty big advantage, even relative to offense/defense. At the very least, moving underground (and doing hydroponics or something for food) makes drones just as offensively helpful as missles. Not flying additionally can have more energy and matter supplying whatever it is that it’s doing than flying, which allows for more exotic sensing and destructive capabilities.
Also, what’s offense and what’s defense? Anti-aircraft artillery (effective against drones? I think current air drones are optimized for use against low-tech enemies w/ few defenses) is a “defense” against ‘attack from the air’, but ‘heat-seeking AA missles’, ‘flack guns’, ‘radar-guided AA missiles’ and ‘machine gun turrets’ are all “offenses” against combat aircraft where the defenses are evasive maneuvers, altitude, armor, and chaff/flare decoys.
In WWI, defenses (machine guns and fortifications) were near-invincible, and killed attackers without time for them to retreat.
I think that current drones are pretty soft and might even be subject to hacking (seem to remember somethign about unencrypted video?) but that would change as soon as somebody starts making real countermeasures.
This distinction is just flying/not-flying.
Offense has an advantage over defense in that defense needs to defend against more possible offensive strategies than offense needs to be capable of doing, and offense only needs one undefended plan in order to succeed.
I suspect that not-flying is a pretty big advantage, even relative to offense/defense. At the very least, moving underground (and doing hydroponics or something for food) makes drones just as offensively helpful as missles. Not flying additionally can have more energy and matter supplying whatever it is that it’s doing than flying, which allows for more exotic sensing and destructive capabilities.
Also, what’s offense and what’s defense? Anti-aircraft artillery (effective against drones? I think current air drones are optimized for use against low-tech enemies w/ few defenses) is a “defense” against ‘attack from the air’, but ‘heat-seeking AA missles’, ‘flack guns’, ‘radar-guided AA missiles’ and ‘machine gun turrets’ are all “offenses” against combat aircraft where the defenses are evasive maneuvers, altitude, armor, and chaff/flare decoys.
In WWI, defenses (machine guns and fortifications) were near-invincible, and killed attackers without time for them to retreat.
I think that current drones are pretty soft and might even be subject to hacking (seem to remember somethign about unencrypted video?) but that would change as soon as somebody starts making real countermeasures.