You ignore that AT4 is fired at the main armor, while drone dropped munitions hit the top armor that is just a few centimeters. The impact point makes all the difference.
Sure, but Javelins (considered a very reliable weapon), is top-down AND 8kg of tandem charge of 900mm+ penetration.
I think NLAW is ~500mm of penetration and top-down. Its not too hard to make a top-down weapon these days, but it does add weight to the device.
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EDIT: I'm pretty sure that you can't just "drop" a mortar or AT4 warhead reliably either. You'd want to make it into the shape of... well... a bomb. So that the "shape" of the shape-charge points in the correct direction.
> EDIT: I'm pretty sure that you can't just "drop" a mortar or AT4 warhead reliably either. You'd want to make it into the shape of... well... a bomb. So that the "shape" of the shape-charge points in the correct direction.
> "220 mm penetration of RHA" which is plenty for top armor
I seriously doubt that. Almost all modern tanks have reactive-armor on top.
There's a reason why NLAW has 500+mm penetration AND top-down. NLAW is single-charge (no-tandem), to punch-through reactive armor requires a lot more penetration.
Let alone lol Javelin with top-down, 900mm+ penetration, and tandem charge.
I don't think 200mm or even 400mm is considered reliable today.
> Almost all modern tanks have reactive-armor on top.
Well it's good for Ukraine then that Russia doesn't really have a lot of modern tanks.
> Let alone lol Javelin with top-down, 900mm+ penetration, and tandem charge.
A Javelin can engage tanks directly if they're obscured from above of if the distance to target is insufficient for flying on a top-down trajectory, and for those situations it needs the 900mm+ penetration (otherwise the direct attack mode would be unusable and would not be provided as a feature). So you can't make the inference that because Javelin has 900mm+ penetration, top-down attacks require 900mm+ penetration.
> you should tell that to the RU tanks getting their lids popped:
And you should tell that to USA's and Britain's military, which have chosen 400mm penetration (AT4), 500mm top-down penetration (NLAW), and 900mm top-down + tandem penetration (Javelin).
200mm, even top-down, is significantly less than other anti-tank weapons. I presume that the militaries who made these modern weapons know what they're doing.
Mortar rounds are already the correct shape with fins to stabilize the flight path. Various irregular and insurgent forces have already weaponized the larger consumer drones with a rack that can release a single mortar round straight down. If the drone is hovering and there isn't much wind then the mortar round will fall straight down and detonate on impact. In some cases they may also have made minor modifications to the fuse mechanism in order to ensure reliable detonation when used in that mode. These weapons are very effective against lightly armored targets which lack effective air defenses or electronic countermeasures.
> If the drone is hovering and there isn't much wind then the mortar round will fall straight down and detonate on impact.
Dive bombing. These drones should be dive bombing. WW2 strategy to increase precision and placement of the bomb.
Only lesser-trained pilots glide-bombed or otherwise avoided dive-bombing in WW2.
I don't think the let-go at height maneuver is historically considered very good. By dive bombing, you set forward-momentum on the bomb and more accurately place it, compared to dropping it from a hover. The bomb also reaches its target faster, and the pilot has the ability to line-up the shot (especially useful if the enemy is a moving target).
I'm very much unimpressed by the "let go at height" videos, its just not good piloting IMO. But if these drones were dive-bombing instead, maybe I'd have a bit more respect. I'm not necessarily saying that the pilots have to dive-bomb, but maybe an AI could control that kind of pass.
Aircaft with fixed wings have pretty stable fast forward motion. Diving makes use of that, and the initial speed and vector of the ordnance is the speed/vector of the aircraft. After deployment, high g is needed to avoid hitting the ground.
A multi-rotor drone (what the videos seem to be shot from) cannot fly fast, and cannot pull the high gees after drop. Dive bombing won't help much. Likely even a controlled flight into the target (kamikaze) would end up slower (final velocity) than just dropping, making the drone a much easier target for small arms fire than just the bomb alone.
Fixed wing drones - different story. Getting them back to the ground in a reusable way requires effort, simply flying into the target seems to make more sense. The big reusable ones usually carry self-guided amunitions.
A combination of remote controlled, fast, high payload, high-g capable, and reusable would likely not be cost-effective (losses to be expected in any case).
> A multi-rotor drone (what the videos seem to be shot from) cannot fly fast, and cannot pull the high gees after drop. Dive bombing won't help much. Likely even a controlled flight into the target (kamikaze) would end up slower (final velocity) than just dropping, making the drone a much easier target for small arms fire than just the bomb alone.
Every one of these drone-drop videos is several seconds between letting go of the bomb, and the bomb colliding with the target.
If they actually want these drones to reliably hit a moving target, or even a vehicle in combat, they'll need to do something.
That's a lot of hang-time and delay in these "drone drop" videos. Once the bomb is let go, there's going to be another 20+ to 30+ minutes before the drone operator is able to fly another drone into the field, and that's if the drone operator has a 2nd drone with him. Maybe it will be hours, or maybe the next chance to drop a bomb never comes ever again.
You really want to maximize the chance of striking the target with these operations. A huge number of WW1 and WW2 operations were summarized as "Flew for 4 hours, missed my bomb, flew home". You want to minimize that kind of thing.
Especially if these drones are considered somewhat expendable.
Dive bombing is a silly idea for rotorcraft. It just doesn't work aerodynamically.
Sophisticated militaries will strike moving targets with precision guided munitions. Generally either laser guidance with a designator mounted on the drone, or some kind of pattern recognition built into the bomb itself (could be optical, IR, or millimeter wave radar). For example, something like the GBU-44/B.
Poor militaries and insurgents will make do with whatever they can get. Either wait for the target to stop moving, or just lead it a little and hope.
