Sea drones have proved very effective for Ukraine against Russia's navy — and now the Houthis are threatening US warships in the Red Sea.
  • Houthi rebels are threatening US warships and shipping using naval drones, a new report said.
  • The commander of a US Navy carrier strike group says these weapons are among the more frightening.
  • The use of cheap sea drones has been pioneered, to considerable success, by Ukraine.
  • The Snark Urge@lemmy.worldEnglish
    42·
    9 months ago

    This is just what modern warfare will increasingly look like. Swarms of coordinated drones. A drone hellscape, as some have called it.

    These new weapons are hoped to make war less horrible. A bigger, sharper rock. Just one more lane. So it goes.

    • Zaktor@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      6·
      9 months ago

      If we could jump to the period of drone-on-drone warfare, great, that would be less horrible, but we’ve been going through a lot of drone-on-human warfare and it’s pretty bad.

      • The Snark Urge@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        9 months ago

        My point was that drone on drone warfare would have little strategic value and serve no war aims, so we’ll never enjoy that scenario. Wars will always hurt us.

        • Zaktor@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          2·
          9 months ago

          Drone-on-drone warfare is nearly purely economic. The war is won by maintaining your drone protection and destroying enemy production centers until it’s clear you can just keep destroying their infrastructure until they submit.

          • The Snark Urge@lemmy.worldEnglish
            5·
            9 months ago

            A prevailing theory in WWII was that if you bomb a country enough, eventually its own citizens will rise up and demand an end to the war. The fire raids in Japan, the bombing of Dresden, and countless other horrors disproved this theory pretty well (nuclear strikes being a notable exception).

            Given the pain people will continue to suffer, it is doubtful that such purely economic drone warfare would be able to do anything but pour infinite money into defense contractors until they become the de facto owners of their respective countries.

            • Buddahriffic@lemmy.worldEnglish
              3·
              9 months ago

              Even the nuclear strikes aren’t clear if they made the difference or if it was the Soviet Union joining the war against Japan and Japan deciding the risk of Soviet occupation wasn’t worth it, which happened to be right after the second bomb was dropped.