Sticks replaced fists, spears replaced sticks, swords replaced spears, and guns replaced swords.
Modern drones have the potential to replace guns as the primary weapon employed in wars, but these weapons suffer from many issues. The most obvious of these issues is the time these things can remain airborne. Modern wars feature battles that remain continuous for weeks to months on end, but most military drones only can remain airborne for a few minutes. Stacking this issue on top of the vulnerability these weapons have to winds, storms, and explosives, and these weapons can quickly become entirely useless for long-term use.
Another major problem is range and size. Modern gun drones don’t have a lot of range if they’re not built big. However, that requirement of these weapons just leaves them increasingly exposed to getting shot down. It’s not just firepower either that makes these weapons vulnerable. Any positive changes in the flight duration, maximum altitude, speed, and the capabilities of any individual drone will see a subsequent increase in a drone’s size.
With enough investment, these weapons should be able to overcome most of these problems and be the thing that replaces the gun. However, these weapons currently are only useful for niche purposes in wars than a true successor to humanity’s primary weapon of choice.
15 posts and 1 image reply omitted.>>5282>anon drops insightful post<OP drops one liner with completely wrong informationWhy are all your threads like this? Artillery is still the king of the battlefield, only about 5% of the casualties are caused by small arms and another 5% by vehicles. Drones in comparison are a fart in the wind and FPV videos are only easy to find because of sadism.
Infantry and vehicles dont kill alot but they deny areas to the enemy and that in the longterm, think years, drones cant do any of that. Which means drones are a subset of marksmanship and are already falling into that niche. The fact that drone operators are tortured to death like snipers shows another line of parallels.