I’ve read about many instances of Houthi drone attacks and missiles being successfully intercepted by US warships. I have no doubt that these ships are capable of completely neutralizing these types of attacks in a vacuum… but given the cost disparity between the drones/missiles and the defense equipment used to stop them… what’s stopping the opposition from spamming so many at once that the ships can’t keep up?
Instead of repeated, futile attacks, what would happen if the opposition stock piled all of their resources and launched them at once, in waves, one right after the other?
Surely there must be some finite limit to the amount of defensive ammunition (not sure of the right term here) the ships are able to carry at sea.
Is it just a matter of the ships being so well equipped that any force capable of exhausting their supplies is simply impractical- even if the drones are pennies on the dollar in terms of comparative cost?
In: Engineering
Take this with a huge grain of salt because I know very little, but I think low cost drones have really changed war. I think they make a lot of expensive equipment vulnerable just as you posit. But it’s hard to imagine anyone besides maybe China totally overwhelming the U.S. with drones. And at that point there is still the threat of mutually assured nuclear destruction, so I can’t see it happening unless one side or the other is stupid enough to risk a nuclear war.
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