[ExI] robo-rescue

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> 
Sent: Saturday, 13 June, 2026 1:13 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Cc: John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com>; spike at rainier66.com
Subject: Re: [ExI] robo-rescue

 

John, thinking about it, I am not entirely sure that something like a battleship might make sense in the drone era. Battleships were resistant to ton-class shells hitting them. A ship with foot-thick armor would not be damaged by a light-weight drone if it hit the armor. You would still need something like a double hull with the space filled with styrofoam to resist torpedoes. Such a ship could maybe get away without point defense, such as is used on modern ships, because it would just ignore drone hits. Not certain how useful such a ship would be, but there is no way a small drone is going to do serious damage by hitting a foot of armor.

 

Keith




Best wishes,

Keith

 

 

Sure Keith, but there would be no need for all that mass and size, when the idea is to launch drones at enemy surface ships.  I have noticed that in the video released of the recent naval battles, the intercepting item is not moving all that fast.  Clearly it isn’t a projectile or even a rocket.  It is likely a propeller-driven drone.  Those don’t cost much, but they are raising hell.  

 

Apparently the Iranians don’t have an effective anti-drone system analogous to our Phalanx radar-guided gatling gun:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5DU-uoLwj4

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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