The UAV, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle is hear to stay and they are rapidly replacing the glory days of the fighter pilot and soon, there will be no humans in military aircraft flying the planes. Here is a quick overview of UAVs and all the new types. Hopefully these few links can catch you up on the subject to understand the future of these units.
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviation/arti...52052-2,00.html
http://www.uavforum.com/library/photo.htm
http://www.vectorsite.net/twuave.html
As you can see quite quickly there are many types of UAVs and each works on a little bit different principle of flight. Also be aware that each aircraft is a compromise, speed for stability, payload for size and power, this has always been a fact of aerospace design. Now realize that these relatively easy to build units have different functions. UAV are generally reusable but are cost effective enough that return is not as important obviously as a pilot in an F-18, Apache, A-10 etc. Even the predator costs are substantial and you do not want to lose one. Now we know Saddam had plans for drones with cylindrical tanks for bio-toxins mounted on a aerial platform with a 14-16 foot wingspan, twin boom tail and RC devise to power it along off it's little launch pad. This is a Chemical-Biological Weapon of mass killing prototype in progress, which was a UAV project. Now then a vehicle UAV or in this case non-retrievable or it was not meant to be re-used can be made in a crude form nearly by anyone in their garage.
So how do you shoot a UAV down. Well such a large vehicle can be tracked and terminated even if the tank were plastic and the wings of wood and even little amounts of heat provides a SAM handheld or patriot a big enough foot print to intercept. But what happens when the enemy uses UAVs against us? The modern world such as the N. Koreans, Chinese, Iran all has technology that exceeds UAVs. So are we to have fighter jocks sitting in simulator type settings play aerial Mech Warrior? Perhaps, dog fighting each other. We have done tests where a whole platoon fired at a UAV with machine guns and hand held arms and no bullets connected with the UAV at all, meaning it is hard to shoot down, hard to see and thus somewhat invisible to naked eye and footprint small enough that anything you sent after it would need rocket propellant in excess of the weight of the target and probably twice to three times the size.
Then we need newer versions of the stinger, but that means such technology will end up in the hands of Chinese who will pass it on and the arms traders will have a field day and everyone will buy weapons which can shoot down drones, UAVs and unfortunately could be used against private jets, cars, light planes and airlines, not to mention lightweight and high impact explosives to down a military jet and pilot or helicopter full of people, Humanitarian Aid or other flying machine. Until which time it is safe to keep technology in house it might behoove people to remember that the North in the Civil war produced a muzzle spinning bullet that had better accuracy and greater range until the South got them and figured it out and produced the same, simply more blood was spilled and casualties mounted.
Same is the escalation of warfare and even though only 1% off all the people who have ever lived have died in a war that may not mean we wish to kill off the entire race by war and keep bettering the devices of war to kill more people. However we must protect ourselves from those who differ with obvious logic thus making that argument irrelevant in nature. Sorry folks that won't happen any time soon.
So then a swarm of UAVs what are they worth. 20 stinger missiles, after all the data of troop movement could get said troops killed. Now then our goal in war is to find said enemy and eliminate threat. But if they launch UAVs we are in information damage control mode, and need to get rid of the leak of information through infrared, radar, camera, heat sensors, etc, whatever the UAV is equipped with. Shooting each one down would be difficult, shooting one down is hard enough. If they send many like we are talking about doing then the problem is difficult.
http://www.aerovironment.com/area-aircraft...serv/ptrdes.pdf
Now then one option not discussed anywhere I can find it is an old idea of Tesla's and ELF and it is called a ELF "SNAP" in the scientific community it refers to snapping the connection of electromagnetic energy which religious followers might call the soul. It would instantly kill all cells in the body and all the electromagnetic energy would leave instantly. By focusing a bean or building a barrier of ELF anything flying through it would snap and all the electrical energy running any devise including the controls on the UAV would snap and the unit would harmlessly fall as soon as the fuel ran out or crash if it did not have stabilization innate tendencies through some sort of dihedral airfoils rendering it into a glider. Now then if someone were to do this to us we would need a way to reactivate more juice, from a lead barrier which would sense no electricity and open up and restore energy, but the entire system would be blown like a fuse burned up.
However a system encased in a liquid frozen lead base would be melted by the snap and then start operating using the liquid as the generation of new power and fly on, at least you could retrieve it. And then you would know of an electro-magnetic force field barrier and avoid it with other expensive hard ware or life form such as a person. So the UAV problem is forth coming as the technology is so readily available.
The smaller the components get and more ways they can conduct themselves and the more ways they can attain decisive military intelligence the more important it will be to terminate the enemies UAV intelligence gathering. Also of concern is the enemy feeding migratory birds food laced with RNA pathogens which do not their species making them carriers of that disease, pathogen, virus which harms our species. Such a force field kills cells and birds on contact and their would be no more spreading to populations of friendlies, or our own troops, or people.
In recap the technology has advanced enough to find a weapon against it which and where none exist, we must find a way to shoot down UAVs from our enemy. We can shoot down Drones of size, but these little things are hard to hit, the very reason we are using them besides the low cost. But the low cost makes them readily available to our enemy so then plan B must be ready now that plan A exists for all countries wishing to serve their political or radical views or will upon the freedoms and human rights owed the human race.
Scrambling frequencies is another method and taking control of their UAVs is another way with a better stronger signal once close enough. Of course we do not want them because they may contain Viruses, so we want to take control of them crash them and then put on a body suit and see what they are made of thus finding frequencies used, capabilities of frequencies, which could be used and capabilities of payload, longevity of flight, speed, and other important information. Also where the UAV was sending information too and what type of information is an important consideration.
If a UAV works on heat signatures of people or detects CO2 coming from one's body like a mosquito finds you then, set out thousands of little heat boxes at the body temperature or little boxes emitting CO2 to the same amount as humans, which would show a thousand troops in an area which does not exist, misdirection leads to bad strategic moves, bad planning and good luck on our part, such the battle field changes a bit, but the basic strategy is the same and thus Von Clauswitz if alive today might ponder the same ideas if he were to know all the facts discussed.
These on-going discussions should provide the thought for research to completely figure out the possible threats and new technologies needed to keep people in the free world safe from the threat now created which is in the hands of the enemy.
"Lance Winslow" - If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs