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rb wrote:

Highly unlikely that it went undetected for 25 mins.
More likely it's Iranian sabre rattling again.

Regardless of the accuracy of this particular account, it is true that
UAVs pose a new problem for navies and armies, especially in the
smaller versions.

Smaller versions typically have no or little combat capability. Great
survellaince platforms etc but not big enough for any serious work. Make it
big enough to do offensive stuff and it's just as detectable as any other
aircraft.

Defensive systems are generally designed to detect
and destroy much bigger and more obvious targets, and even if they
manage to spot a small UAV, what would be used to shoot it down?

The current crop of UAVs are still heavily dependant on comms and few have
any serious autonomous combat capability. Hence, jamming is the most likely
defense. Jam the comms the UAV goes into autonomous mode. Now you hava a
relatively dumb target to attack.

This is the subject of much debate at the moment. Ordinary homing
missiles may not be able to lock-on to a stealthy little UAV (and even
if they could, there's not much logic in using a very expensive missile
to shoot down a very cheap plane).

The smaller UAVs have limited offensive weapons, if any. Those UAVs that do
are much larger, not overly cheaper than a manned fighter/bomber, and just
as easy to detect (particularly if you can detect all the comms traffic).

A radar-directed gun system like
Phalanx might also not lock-on to such a target.

The idea is to take them out long before your last line of defense.

The best bet at the
moment IMO would be a 35mm gun firing the Oerlikon AHEAD 'shrapnel'
type airburst ammo, using electro-optical guidance.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition
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