F-16s with human pilots and a2a missiles vs cheap drones? That’s one hell of an asymmetry and doesn’t seem robust enough to handle 100x the scale.

▲

uxhacker 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Ukraine is using old training aircraft with a guy with a shotgun in the back shooting the drones down.

Just think the small Cessnas and pipers littered around that could be used for a similar task.

https://youtu.be/GrzzYTXgnMQ?is=zChAgYfc5ZEi25gt

Edited out bad grammer

▲

doodlebugging 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Kinda reminds one of the evolution of the air war during WWI. Planes were used as observation platforms to gather intelligence about enemy fortifications and activities. They were more mobile than balloons and could gather more timely information. Both sides flew past each other just doing their jobs until someone thought they could drop a grenade or small bomb as they surveilled the other guy. Then aerial bombing started to become popular. Around the same time pilots armed themselves and would take pot-shots at enemy pilots, usually with sidearms. Before long machine guns were fitted to planes and synchronized with propellers and pilots were able to dogfight.

I think the next natural step in Russia's defense against Ukrainian drones countermeasures like this, shooting them down with shotguns, will be to arm the drones. Then it will be up to Ukraine to counter that threat and the cycle continues as always.

▲

brabel an hour ago | parent [-]

The advantage of using a drone is that it is cheap to produce, but it needs to be really simple to stay cheap. Arming it with a machine gun that can target an airplane trying to shoot it down would be very expensive.

	▲	cineticdaffodil an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Not really. They are already in service.https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=As_cifXH1Fs

▲

pantalaimon 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yea the Gepard seems like a much better fit for those cheap drones.

Unfortunately it's been long discontinued and it's successor Skyranger is still facing some technical difficulties as of recent reports.

▲

numpad0 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah, something is preventing them from just putting a small autocannon onto a turret and firing it from a Python script on a laptop. Russian drones and missiles seem to be just straight flying kinds, and while there are reports of Stinger type missiles seen installed on them, there haven't been reports of them growing anti-mortar radars. Most of them shouldn't need guided munitions at all to deal with.

	▲	smackeyacky 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Time to revive the Sopwith Camel

▲

cbg0 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's not meant to. That's why Ukraine receives the support it does, because they take the brunt of it.

▲

bell-cot 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah, obviously F-16's & humans scale very poorly for this. However:

- At one-a-day scale, political and risk considerations probably favor the expensive solution.

- Using F-16's reveals nothing about your current anti-drone defenses. (Yeah, it's also a real-world basic competence test for your air force - for better and for worse.)

- If your intel people want more data on the drones, an F-16 can haul a whole lotta intel-gathering equipment to the show.

- If you're dealing internally with some head-in-the-sand traditionalists dragging their heels on updating your doctrine/equipment/training to deal with drones, then "real world, right now" examples are probably useful.

(BTW - do the articles say "a2a missile" anywhere? F-16's typically mount a 20mm cannon, a cheap drone is not a hard target, and cannon rounds are dirt cheap by compare.)

▲

nradov 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Ukrainian F-16s have used cannons to shoot down some Russian drones. Cheaper than a missile, but a somewhat risky maneuver as it requires getting close at low altitude and possibly flying through the exploding debris.

https://www.zona-militar.com/en/2026/02/09/ukrainian-f-16am-...

	▲	2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		[deleted]
	▲	bell-cot 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Thanks. With the relative speeds, I'd guess the Falcons would use an attack profile similar to ground strafing - letting them pass well above the cloud of debris. Any thoughts? Also, Wikipedia gives a 3km effective firing range for the M61 - but it'd be no surprise if the F-16's standard targeting optics can't achieve that against small airborne targets.