World is not for internal US News:
"A recent field exercise at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, California"
The US military doing things inside the US is not world news.
.... why tho. You can just launch them from the ground for free when taking off with helicopters costs a fuckton of money?
Are they trying to reinvent drone warfare when Ukraine sort of has it figured out already?
Why use aircraft carriers? Planes can just take of from the ground for free
If Ukraine had "figured out" drone warfare the war would be over. They've made TON of breakthroughs and deserve all the credit they're getting for essentially transforming the modern battlefield, but there will always be new tactics to discover.
Well, Ukraine does launch interceptor drones from An-28 airplanes. Small cargo planes that fly at reasonable altitude.
This does two things:
- almost doubles interceptor range
- increases control distance
But this practise occurs far in the rear, out of range for Russian fighters and air defense, which would shoot down an An-28 without trying twice.
China did it somewhat differently: they're building dedicated jet-powered drone carrier UAVs. Sized like a small cargo plane, but no crew.
Personally, I think the Chinese approach is the most sensible.
Right. It's cheap, which enhances a drone's biggest strength dramatically (being cheap to produce). It's fit for the environment it is in (contested airspace) and it is easily and readily deployed.
Putting drones on helicopters is just... it is so expensive to put a helicopter in the air when you can just send up a platform or anything like it, even from the ground, for a fraction of the cost of one helicopter taking off. And losing a platform or a bunch of drones is infinitely cheaper than losing a helicopter.
This is not me saying helicopters have no place in a modern battlefield. They do. But slapping a drone on it and calling it a day is lazy and dumb.
What do you mean "send up a platform"? That's what they're doing. The helicopter is the platform.
A helicopter is extremely expensive to maintain and fuel, requires an extensive logistics network and has significant downtimes for maintenance, and it's a pretty big target
When you could feasibly build something at the fraction of any of those costs and use that. Like an actual platform.
Again, helicopters have their place in the modern battlefield but you're strapping toys to a Rolls Royce. I know the US has infinite Military budget because they starve the population of everything it needs to live but the numbers don't add up lol
And already land-launched drones can strike thousands of miles into Russia, why do you feel the need to strap these things to some of the most expensive gear you have when they're already performing just fine without them? What's the actual point?
Because you already have that expensive gear.
I still don't understand what you mean by "platform". Because without a helicopter-type vehicle, I'm imagining a piece of plywood on a pole, and I'm sure that's not what you mean.
Aircraft carriers significantly extend the range of planes. I fail to see how a helicopter would do this, other than 'it can fly closer to the frontlines' I guess. But like I said, if Ukraine can fly drones and cheap missiles thousands of miles into Russia, what the hell is a helicopter launch going to add to that except insane costs lol.