Anyway hear me out
western forces are using AI drones and repeater node drones flying at a distance, but remote drones are still vulnerable to jamming and AI is generally shit. ruskies have silkworm fiber tether drones that can't be jammed but are obviously range limited and need an operator on the ground. Pure remote drones can be flown in from true long distance or even air/naval launched, but the reports sure make it sound like EW is just wrecking them right now
what if we simply had drones with a fiber tethered antenna that can be deployed when it gets close, trail behind it and held aloft by a small balloon, only needing to suspend a few ounces depending on how long you want the tether
maybe it wouldn't defeat 20km range palantin mega jammer equipment but it would thwart the close range countermeasures pretty trivially. And I imagine even just suspending an antenna to a few hundred meters up would give a signal that could either cut through wide area jamming or be picked up by a repeater drone 1000x more easily. If a 20km silkworm is 4.4 lbs with a spool, an antenna that doesn't even need a spool at all (can just lift away) and only needs a tiny fraction of distance, could be ounces, and the balloon could be inches in size
This post was edited by Goomshill on Mar 7 2025 07:35am