what is stopping US warships from being overwhelmed by drone/missile attacks?

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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

48 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

depth of magazine is a major known weakness of ships. significant investment in lasers, high power microwave and railguns were meant to provide a solution. unfortunately, none of those have really worked out. lasers on ships is sorta working for counter drone, but it’s not hard to defend against, e.g. mirrored surface.

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