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Gernot Hassenpflug

writes:

rb wrote:

Highly unlikely that it went undetected for 25 mins.
More likely it's Iranian sabre rattling again.

Regardless of the accuracy of this particular account, it is true that
UAVs pose a new problem for navies and armies, especially in the
smaller versions. Defensive systems are generally designed to detect
and destroy much bigger and more obvious targets, and even if they
manage to spot a small UAV, what would be used to shoot it down?

This is the subject of much debate at the moment. Ordinary homing
missiles may not be able to lock-on to a stealthy little UAV (and even
if they could, there's not much logic in using a very expensive missile
to shoot down a very cheap plane). A radar-directed gun system like
Phalanx might also not lock-on to such a target. The best bet at the
moment IMO would be a 35mm gun firing the Oerlikon AHEAD 'shrapnel'
type airburst ammo, using electro-optical guidance.

At the end of the day, a smaller and more mobile target will win the
inevitable arms race: as yet un- or under-developed weapons for such a
small vehicle will be able to compromise (either individually or in
numbers) a much larger surface warship, leading to the realization
that warship-based gun development is just postponing the
inevitable. A rational multi-layered solution would require one's own
similarly-sized (and priced) vehicles capable of taking out the other
sides', methods to reduce the capability to launch (=airfield or
controller suppression) and to control. There is no chance of
preventing countries from producing or deploying such weapons, since
that is normal sovereign behaviour.
--
Gernot Hassenpflug ) Tel: +81 774 38-3866
JSPS Fellow (Rm.403, RISH, Kyoto Uni.) Fax: +81 774 31-8463
http://www.rish.kyoto-u.ac.jp/radar-...members/gernot Mob: +81 90 39493924