quadcopter type drones have their limitations, and the more ubiquitous they become the more R&D will be put into defeating them. At the end of the day though any war will require something to take and hold ground which is something air power of any kind simply can’t do on its own, so mobile heavy weapons make a lot of sense deployed alongside infantry for that purpose, whether that’s in the form of a drone, or a light or a heavy traditionally-piloted vehicle.
in twenty years warfare will be flying drones, drone tanks, drone arty, drone AA, and trenches full of conscripts being shot at by the robots.
I don’t think drone heavy vehicles make that much sense. They are very heavy machinery that requires a team of people that are capable of maintaining it, particularly after damage, and handling any kind of difficult terrain requires infantry support. There’s a certain degree of improved situational awareness and judgement that comes from actually being in the vehicle rather than operating something on a monitor too.
Why make drone tanks anyway? The point of a tank is to be heavily armored for the occupants on board. If you don’t have occupants to protect then you don’t need the heavy armour, you can improve every other characteristic of the vehicle.
Cheaper, disposable, fast moving vehicles with some heavy armament make more sense as a drone platform. Armoured enough to deal with small arms fire and disposable enough to accept losses to anti-armour. Just make sure the factories can shit out a lot of them.
Cheaper, disposable, fast moving vehicles with some heavy armament make more sense as a drone platform.
Rocket tag with drone tank hunters fits into my vision, but my point is just that any and all military operations will inevitably revolve around people with guns and instead of getting fully automated robot on robot warfare we’re going to turn war into an automated shooting gallery where poor people are the targets.
