Comment by cwillu
8 hours ago
“Drone” covers many orders of magnitude in capability, but a CIWS can handle functionally unlimited numbers of the low-end, and the high-end don't clearly win the cost-per-kill war.
Drones are game changing on land because they allow smart munitions to be usefully spread across an entire country, far outpacing a defender's ability to deploy air defenses. But a carrier battle group doesn't have this problem: the defenses are necessarily already positioned on and around the thing being defended.
Where the cost balance starts becoming relevant is when destroyers are trying to defend other vessels: something that could be easily shot down by a CIWS at the target might require an SM-1 if the Standard is coming from 100km away from the target vessel.
I don’t think it’s clear at all that a CIWS system beats a large swarm of jet turbine drones. I think Ukrainian sea baby style attacks are also going to be very tricky if scaled up beyond the levels we have seen in this war.
FPV drones, imo, have created a system of dynamic mines, effectively. Both sides are able to project defenses forward without boots on the ground. I suspect this will revolutionize naval warfare shortly on a similar kind of story. If it ever becomes relevant again.
““Drone” covers many orders of magnitude in capability”