In message , Fred J. McCall
writes
wrote:
:That's because ships haven't had to deal with UAVs before.

Air targets are air targets. Helicopters are neither trained nor
equipped to do air intercepts.

Perhaps not in the USN, but there *are* other navies...

:As someone
:else on this board has suggested, a helo with a machine gun may
:actually be the best way of dealing with small, slow UAVs

"Someone on this board" will inevitably suggest all sorts of stupid
things.

Hint #1: It's not a 'board'. Its called a newsgroup.

Hint #2: Helos are too slow to deal with even a slow UAV. The
leading edge of the rotor goes transonic at relatively slow forward
speeds.

Smaller UAVs, light civilian aircraft et cetera fly rather slower than
some helicopters - the Lynx has a higher cruise speed than many light
aircraft's "pass this red line and the wings fall off" Vne - and can
leave most of the smaller UAVs standing (top speed ~170kt compared to
ScanEagle's 60kt, for example). Or, more appropriately, intercept, hold
formation, and allow the employment of an M3M .50" machine gun from the
most appropriate range and angle.

After all, when conducting trials to work out what useful things a UAV
could do for your forces at sea, it makes sense to also check out what
unhelpful things an adversary might try to do with his own UAVs and how
they might be detected and if necessary dissuaded...

--
Paul J. Adam