How Hard Is It To Shoot Down A Small Drone?

Now that looks like fun! Does that one guy have a dual MG42 setup? That will burn through some serious ammo. And I thought flying was an expensive hobby!
 
Looks like too many guns and too much time on their hands. A Raven would be much harder to shootdown when it's 500 ft overhead and you can barely hear it. A Predator would be even higher and virtually impossible to shootdwon with small arms.

I hated them in Iraq & Astan. restricted airspace everywhere with them flying around. Oh, how I wanted to point my M-9 out the window and take one out. :D
 
Machine guns pfffft, the kid with a soldering iron and a RC transmitter is the one who will bring down the drones.
 
Have to learn to lead the target rather than aim at it.
 
They should have used these:

0+1+a+aaaaaaaaaadlon.jpg
 
Easy, turn around, point the gun at the controller and tell him to crash it or else! :lol:
 
Yeah I got to do that exercise once with an M16. I couldn't even come close though, it was out of range. It was actually a target for a track mount Vulcan (M163) and a Bradley.

The 163 didn't hit it either. The Bradley did get a hit with it's M242 7.62 machine gun.
 
I would venture to say , low altitude double o buck. High? I would suggest a bofors like used in WW2. But.....you'll need a big yard to store the shells, a gun crew and understanding neighbors.
 
The army and marines used to shoot at foam planes that looked like Russian ground attack planes. I was offered many moons ago a job going out to the California desert to fly them.
 
Sac Arrow said:
Yeah I got to do that exercise once with an M16. I couldn't even come close though, it was out of range. It was actually a target for a track mount Vulcan (M163) and a Bradley.

The 163 didn't hit it either. The Bradley did get a hit with it's M242 7.62 machine gun.
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Haven't heard the Vulcan mentioned in a long time. My experience with them was less than complimentary. It would move a lot of metal in a short amount of time, but much of it just sprayed out at random. The seeking radar was one of the most powerful ever made for a ground mobile unit. But it couldn't track for shyte. The Vulcan was good for clearing ground clutter, but as for hitting and stopping anything in the air, pretty useless.

For the drone, it's like any other surface to air target. Get a lock with a missile and let it fly. I would think that the radio link to the device would be the weak link, so I would try to come up with some jamming around the carrier freq used to command it. One doesn't need to actually take over the command/control freq to succeed, just jam it so that the drone will fall back on it's failsafe internal mode, whatever that is.
 
docmirror said:
Haven't heard the Vulcan mentioned in a long time. My experience with them was less than complimentary. It would move a lot of metal in a short amount of time, but much of it just sprayed out at random. The seeking radar was one of the most powerful ever made for a ground mobile unit. But it couldn't track for shyte. The Vulcan was good for clearing ground clutter, but as for hitting and stopping anything in the air, pretty useless.

For the drone, it's like any other surface to air target. Get a lock with a missile and let it fly. I would think that the radio link to the device would be the weak link, so I would try to come up with some jamming around the carrier freq used to command it. One doesn't need to actually take over the command/control freq to succeed, just jam it so that the drone will fall back on it's failsafe internal mode, whatever that is.
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Pretty much my observation. It could probably hit a slow moving helicopter but it couldn't touch the maneuverable foam RC drones they were using as targets. There was a ship mounted version (Phalanx) with some pretty sophisticated tracking radar. Don't know if it's still in use.
 
Sac Arrow said:
Pretty much my observation. It could probably hit a slow moving helicopter but it couldn't touch the maneuverable foam RC drones they were using as targets. There was a ship mounted version (Phalanx) with some pretty sophisticated tracking radar. Don't know if it's still in use.
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Yes, I believe the tracking system for the Phalanx was much, much improved over the trailer-mounted Vulcan. The trailer the Vulcan was mounted on has those feet that extend down and bury in the ground, but the whole thing shook so much it never could shoot straight. I think they also mounted the gun on a tracked vehicle, which was slightly better. Being mounted on the reinforced deck of a ship should work wonders for keeping it fairly still while firing.
 
docmirror said:
Yes, I believe the tracking system for the Phalanx was much, much improved over the trailer-mounted Vulcan. The trailer the Vulcan was mounted on has those feet that extend down and bury in the ground, but the whole thing shook so much it never could shoot straight. I think they also mounted the gun on a tracked vehicle, which was slightly better. Being mounted on the reinforced deck of a ship should work wonders for keeping it fairly still while firing.
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Yeah the M163 was a Vulcan mounted in a turret on a modified M113 chassis. I think the trailer mounted guns were phased out a long time ago, at least I've never seen one operational.

These things were mounted in aircraft too.
 
Velocity173 said:
I hated them in Iraq & Astan. restricted airspace everywhere with them flying around. Oh, how I wanted to point my M-9 out the window and take one out. :D
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Yeah they are absolutely everywhere in AFG. "High priority" violating ROZ's and not talking to anyone. Makes for fun adventures.

Then again, I guess I set off some Emirates Air TCAS the other night, so maybe I am that a hole. Never got closer than 10 miles, and he was 10k feet above me, and somehow I gave him an RA while I was climbing super slowly.
 
35 AoA said:
Yeah they are absolutely everywhere in AFG. "High priority" violating ROZ's and not talking to anyone. Makes for fun adventures.

Then again, I guess I set off some Emirates Air TCAS the other night, so maybe I am that a hole. Never got closer than 10 miles, and he was 10k feet above me, and somehow I gave him an RA while I was climbing super slowly.
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Problem is, half the time you can't get ahold of them because they're on the wrong fill or LOS issues. Usually we just said screw it and just trucked on through. Gotta call one day after I landed because I went right thru a ROZ with a UAV up. "Yep, I called, no answer, had multiple codes on board so I wasn't going around. End of story."
 
Why not use some sort of full auto shotgun? Get a gunsmith to modify an M2 (that's the famous .50, right?) to fire 12ga shot.

Disclaimer: I have never fired live ammo from a gun and don't know if this is even possible.
 
rpayne88 said:
Why not use some sort of full auto shotgun? Get a gunsmith to modify an M2 (that's the famous .50, right?) to fire 12ga shot.

Disclaimer: I have never fired live ammo from a gun and don't know if this is even possible.
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With a mere human holding it, the first shot would be on target. The next shot would be close, the following shots would be all over the place.
 
rpayne88 said:
Why not use some sort of full auto shotgun? Get a gunsmith to modify an M2 (that's the famous .50, right?) to fire 12ga shot.

Disclaimer: I have never fired live ammo from a gun and don't know if this is even possible.
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What?

Seriously?
 
rpayne88 said:
Why not use some sort of full auto shotgun? Get a gunsmith to modify an M2 (that's the famous .50, right?) to fire 12ga shot.

Disclaimer: I have never fired live ammo from a gun and don't know if this is even possible.
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The barrel and carrier assembly of a 50 cal is way too heavy to be operated by a 12 gauge shotgun shell recoil. You could probably install a lighter return spring but a significantly lighter one wouldn't be able to to return the bolt and carrier fully. In any case the resulting cyclic rate of fire would probably be slower than a conventional semi auto shotgun.

Also, even if you managed to machine out the entry and exit ports to accommodate the wider shell, the indexing mechanism couldn't accommodate a wider link spacing.
 
ja_user said:
What?

Seriously?
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Parents. And judging by the fact that I still live with them and they are paying my tuition and flight training, it looks like I'll have to deal with it for a while.

That being said, I did have the opportunity to use a simulator (courtesy Army national guard) to fire an M4. And when I say simulator, I mean real ARs with an IR laser strapped to the barrel, an air jet to simulate recoil, and fully modeled ballistics. Its the same thing they use for training soldiers.
 
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