To present a fairly terrifying vision of the future of warfare, Russian academics and aerospace engineers came together. Flock-93 envisions more than a hundred drones, each armed with an explosive charge, swarming targets including vehicle convoys. Even though it is just a concept, it is could be very hard to defend against drone swarms of such magnitude.
The concept involves simultaneously launching more than a hundred drones, proposed by the Zhukovsky Air Force Academy. The drones are each armed with a 5.5-pound warhead. The drones will have flying wings that will be capable of taking off and landing vertically. The VTOL drone doesn’t need a runway for taking off according to a release. However, technology to control huge drone swarms is still in development. Thus, Flock-93 is just a nascent concept right now.
Kamikaze drone swarms could be hard to defend
In this case, only a defense that shoots down ninety percent of the drones, a very good number, still lets ten drones through is the only option. Thus, kinetic defenses involving missiles, anti-UAV drones, cannons, shotguns, and machine guns will never be perfect.
The best defense against drone swarms might simply be preventing them from receiving commands from human controllers. Jamming their signals will affect all the drones within the range of the jammer with a 100 percent success rate. Again, as a countermeasure, drones could be made autonomous, so they don’t need to receive radio signals at all.
Russia is catching up with the West in terms of drone technology. They already have an underwater nuclear torpedo in the works. Therefore, organizing a deadly kamikaze drone swarm is not much further away in the future.
