I think that anti-drone APS will bring back the golden era of the tank
drones are wrecking havoc on tanks right now. but i believe that an APS system capable of shooting down drones will seriously change things.
how would an APS against drones work?
- there are multiple ways it could be implemented. many of these could be applied to one tank, forming a multi-layered defense.
- EW systems are already making regular wireless drones obsolete, forcing the usage of more expensive fiber optic drones
- drones could be detected in many different ways, one proposed way to detect them is by listening for the buzzing sound frequencies of drone rotors with microphones.
- a drone could be shot down either by a RCWS, or alternatively by the regular APS charges as a plan B. interestingly a system like this has been developed by the British in the 80's (TAMS APS). it was deemed inefective because ATGM's became too fast. drones aren't. also an interesting proposition would be to use lasers to fry the drones, or at the very least blind them (remember that drones use cameras for manual or automatic targeting) a laser system with 360 degree coverage (imagine the lidars that waymos use but much stronger) could be very effective against drone swarms.
- making drones faster to bypass this is basically just making an ATGM. an ATGM that can stop in the air, or land. but cannot make very fast manouvers at high speeds anyways without costing insane money. this would be targeted by regular APS.
- the cost of making an anti-drone APS would not be particularly high, it's just an RCWS with some cameras or microphone and a computer. the cost is in the development of it, but multiple countries already started funding programs like this. also remember. a system like that could also protect the infantry surrounding the tank, effectively turning it into a protective shield.
- while making a drone swarm capable of destroying a tank with such systems is possible, at this point you just ask yourself, why not send another tank to APFSDS the opponent, as the cost of a drone swarm capable of destroying such vehicles will grow exponentially.