A video plays of tanks firig at stationary targets
Warfare has changed very little since the dawn of humanity, massed formations of men engage each other in fields, cities, and every other concievable terrain you can imagine, but the turn of the century has presented a new challenge for Military Thinkers in the Astoreian Legions, and that challenge is Drones, non line of sight smart munitions, and orbital weapon systems. With the rise of availability in components required for drones as well as a cost reduction in the hardware, autonomous and semi-autonomous weapon systems are entering the worlds militaries, with no conflict yet to test the tactics and strategies surrounding such technology, its no wonder the greatest military thinkers are confused as how to best to utilise such systems.
Video plays of a drone ramming into a tank
But weapons designers are already planning counters and counters to those counters before a war has even kicked off with tanks at the Carls landing testing grounds being eliminated by autonomous drones carrying directed impact weapons. Such drones, if used correctly, are a terrifying thought for military planners due to the nature of how to counter such systems, traditionally, with piloted drones, signal jammers were capable enough to prevent them from entering into range of tanks, and precision air strikes to identified command centers were capable of ending the threat before it began, but with no self guiding and self targeting autonomous drones, the systems in place no longer works. With no signal to interfere with, they can't be jammed. And no front line command hub to remotely guide them, precision air strikes wont do a thing outside of expending valuable munitions against targets better suited for cheaper ammunition.
Video plays of a drone copter the size of a car firing ATGM's at remote controlled range tanks
Another danger to our armoured vehicles, autonomous Anti-tank platforms capable of higher speed, higher performance, and better stealth than our traditional attack helicopters. From Lithgow air arms comes the Londsdale, a targeting precision munitions helicopter drone capable of engaging tank columns from as far as 10km away without needing any human input, such a technology is harder to counter than the loitering kamikaze munitions you see as the only way to stop them is before they take off. As said before, such technologies are a pain for military theorists to deal with as the countermeasures haven't been developed yet, a deployment of such weapons by an Opposition Force could spell massive casualties and disasters for the armed forces as they struggle to figure out how to deal with such threats.
I for one, think we should embrace the future and get ourselves some of these toys.
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