“Guided bullets” exist; see DARPA’s EXACTO program.
Assuming the “sniper drone” uses something like .50 BMG, you won’t be able to fit enough of a payload into the bullet to act as a smoke grenade. You can’t fit a “sensor blinding round” into it.
Being able to fly up 1000m and dodge incoming fire would add a lot of cost to a drone. You would be entering into the territory of larger UAVs. The same goes for missile launching drones.
Adding the required range would also be expensive. Current small consumer drones have a range of about 8 miles (DJI Mavic) so taking significant ground with these would be difficult.
You would need a considerable amount of relay drones if you want them to stay relatively low to the ground and avoid detection. The horizon—and in some cases, trees and hills—will block the communications lasers. This is the main reason we don’t see point-to-point links used more often.
In general you are talking about adding a great deal of capability to these drones, but this will balloon the cost. Adding capabilities also increases weight, which further increases cost and logistics footprint. The growth in cost to size is exponential.
The force composition presented seems to be geared towards anti-armor at the expense of all else. There isn’t an answer for infantry in buildings here.
You cannot “ignore” aircraft! Bombs may not be able to target moving drones, but they can target your command and control infrastructure, your logistics, and your industry.
You will need stationary infrastructure because you will need to maintain and repair those drones.
You can’t occupy territory with drones. Infantry will still have a place enforcing the occupation, gathering HUMINT, and performing labor duties.
You would be able to counter these drones with flak guns. Anti-air cannons firing explosive shells can destroy drones, and the drones may not be agile enough to dodge them. Fuzed explosive shells can be very cheap, so this would bring the economic calculation back in favor of conventional forces.
The US military seems to believe it will need to conduct a lot of tunnel warfare in the near future. There are miles of tunnel networks beneath many major cities in the forms of sewers, drains, subways, and nuclear bunkers. You can’t use drones here.
Guided bullets—yes good, unsure whether they can be made cheap yet but if they can of course such a system would use them
Chaff etc—yes probably correct, however it seems this is not needed for missiles to destroy current guns.
Fly to 1000m—Yes it would, however for sniper drone we are comparing the cost to a actual soldier. I have in mind something like https://newatlas.com/drones/huntress-turbojet-drone/ for heavier drones. Other sniper drones could be electric with a very short flight time, carried by the huntress or logistics drone
Relay drones—the idea is most of them fly over territory that has been secured—think a drone with flapping wings like a bird circling at 1000m—if you shoot it down with a big gun you give away your position. Also such drones will be doing constant surveillance of territory.
Anti-armor only—yes however infantry holed up in a building can’t stop the invasion, it can route around them.
Flak guns—yes guns can take down drones economically, however it becomes missiles vs flak gun.
Aircraft—yes I overstated a bit—for the initial invasion conducted with stockpiled materiel, they can’t easily stop it. However taking out the aircraft is very important for the drone army. The drones can take out the airbases—so it could be a race between the fast aircraft trying to bomb the logistics before the drones reached the airfields. Most countries are ~1000 kilometers or less in length, which is in range of a cheap Cessna type logistics drone before they even do mesh network fuel drops to extend the range. Such low slow cheap aircraft would be protected by MANPAD carrying drones, or just equipped with them. fighter jets would be forced to shoot expensive missiles to destroy them, rather than get in close with the cannon etc. Even if the fighters can do 1,5000-2000 kilometers conventional forces could still enter at the edge of their range and help with logistics as the aircraft could not fly many sorties.
For a specific idea, consider a country on one side of a conflict or potential conflict. E.g. Armenia vs, Azerbaijan, Iran vs Saudi Arabia, or Russia vs Europe (through say Latvia) the side planning a drone army invasion stops active conflict for 1-3 years and quietly builds up a stockpile of the drones. They build enough of the cheap long distance logistics drones (and believable decoys) so they have more of them than the enemy has fighter jet missiles.
They then launch a somewhat surprise invasion—its easier to hide a deployment of drones than soldiers. They try to cut a long narrow path as quickly as possible to take out the key defenses. They route round defenses where possible and destroy the air power of the enemy first by destroying the airports and air bases. The missile drones fan out about 10K or so from the logistics drones destroying armor that attack them. Sniper and cheap recon drones continually launch from logistics drones or are carried by missile drones.
After the fast fighter jets are gone, the army then spreads out and attacks any armor that is not dug in. Well protected areas are isolated so they can’t be resupplied.
If the attacking side is prepared to commit war crimes the attacked side would surrender by now as the drone army can attack most towns/cities.
Finally even a weak country has conventional forces. These can then enter mostly unopposed, infantry in buildings are helpless against basic artillery, and tunnels etc cannot protect the civilian population.
So my point is that in a apparently even conflict (judged by conventional strength) one side could suddenly get a large advantage—Iran could take Saudi Arabia, and reach Riyadh quickly. Also Russia could suddenly threaten Europe in a way it can’t do with its existing forces.
“Guided bullets” exist; see DARPA’s EXACTO program.
Assuming the “sniper drone” uses something like .50 BMG, you won’t be able to fit enough of a payload into the bullet to act as a smoke grenade. You can’t fit a “sensor blinding round” into it.
Being able to fly up 1000m and dodge incoming fire would add a lot of cost to a drone. You would be entering into the territory of larger UAVs. The same goes for missile launching drones.
Adding the required range would also be expensive. Current small consumer drones have a range of about 8 miles (DJI Mavic) so taking significant ground with these would be difficult.
You would need a considerable amount of relay drones if you want them to stay relatively low to the ground and avoid detection. The horizon—and in some cases, trees and hills—will block the communications lasers. This is the main reason we don’t see point-to-point links used more often.
In general you are talking about adding a great deal of capability to these drones, but this will balloon the cost. Adding capabilities also increases weight, which further increases cost and logistics footprint. The growth in cost to size is exponential.
The force composition presented seems to be geared towards anti-armor at the expense of all else. There isn’t an answer for infantry in buildings here.
You cannot “ignore” aircraft! Bombs may not be able to target moving drones, but they can target your command and control infrastructure, your logistics, and your industry.
You will need stationary infrastructure because you will need to maintain and repair those drones.
You can’t occupy territory with drones. Infantry will still have a place enforcing the occupation, gathering HUMINT, and performing labor duties.
You would be able to counter these drones with flak guns. Anti-air cannons firing explosive shells can destroy drones, and the drones may not be agile enough to dodge them. Fuzed explosive shells can be very cheap, so this would bring the economic calculation back in favor of conventional forces.
The US military seems to believe it will need to conduct a lot of tunnel warfare in the near future. There are miles of tunnel networks beneath many major cities in the forms of sewers, drains, subways, and nuclear bunkers. You can’t use drones here.
Firstly some context:
Missile vs gun
Radio comms and protection against jamming
For your points
Guided bullets—yes good, unsure whether they can be made cheap yet but if they can of course such a system would use them
Chaff etc—yes probably correct, however it seems this is not needed for missiles to destroy current guns.
Fly to 1000m—Yes it would, however for sniper drone we are comparing the cost to a actual soldier. I have in mind something like https://newatlas.com/drones/huntress-turbojet-drone/ for heavier drones. Other sniper drones could be electric with a very short flight time, carried by the huntress or logistics drone
Relay drones—the idea is most of them fly over territory that has been secured—think a drone with flapping wings like a bird circling at 1000m—if you shoot it down with a big gun you give away your position. Also such drones will be doing constant surveillance of territory.
Anti-armor only—yes however infantry holed up in a building can’t stop the invasion, it can route around them.
Flak guns—yes guns can take down drones economically, however it becomes missiles vs flak gun.
Aircraft—yes I overstated a bit—for the initial invasion conducted with stockpiled materiel, they can’t easily stop it. However taking out the aircraft is very important for the drone army. The drones can take out the airbases—so it could be a race between the fast aircraft trying to bomb the logistics before the drones reached the airfields. Most countries are ~1000 kilometers or less in length, which is in range of a cheap Cessna type logistics drone before they even do mesh network fuel drops to extend the range. Such low slow cheap aircraft would be protected by MANPAD carrying drones, or just equipped with them. fighter jets would be forced to shoot expensive missiles to destroy them, rather than get in close with the cannon etc. Even if the fighters can do 1,5000-2000 kilometers conventional forces could still enter at the edge of their range and help with logistics as the aircraft could not fly many sorties.
For a specific idea, consider a country on one side of a conflict or potential conflict. E.g. Armenia vs, Azerbaijan, Iran vs Saudi Arabia, or Russia vs Europe (through say Latvia) the side planning a drone army invasion stops active conflict for 1-3 years and quietly builds up a stockpile of the drones. They build enough of the cheap long distance logistics drones (and believable decoys) so they have more of them than the enemy has fighter jet missiles.
They then launch a somewhat surprise invasion—its easier to hide a deployment of drones than soldiers. They try to cut a long narrow path as quickly as possible to take out the key defenses. They route round defenses where possible and destroy the air power of the enemy first by destroying the airports and air bases. The missile drones fan out about 10K or so from the logistics drones destroying armor that attack them. Sniper and cheap recon drones continually launch from logistics drones or are carried by missile drones.
After the fast fighter jets are gone, the army then spreads out and attacks any armor that is not dug in. Well protected areas are isolated so they can’t be resupplied.
If the attacking side is prepared to commit war crimes the attacked side would surrender by now as the drone army can attack most towns/cities.
Finally even a weak country has conventional forces. These can then enter mostly unopposed, infantry in buildings are helpless against basic artillery, and tunnels etc cannot protect the civilian population.
So my point is that in a apparently even conflict (judged by conventional strength) one side could suddenly get a large advantage—Iran could take Saudi Arabia, and reach Riyadh quickly. Also Russia could suddenly threaten Europe in a way it can’t do with its existing forces.