My understanding is that if a military is not protecting tanks with a screening force of infantry to counter ambushers equipped with anti-tank missiles (since, unlike video games, tanks/armored vehicles and infantry are intended to work together hand-in-hand to support each other) and if that military has not established air superiority or provided proper air defenses against drones (e.g. [this video] ), then yes, their tanks are going to be ineffective and vulnerable. But, as the proverbial doctor said, " If it hurts when you do that, well, then don't do that. " [EDIT] It also doesn't help if the opponent has several big friends with immense reconnaissance capabilities that are telling them exactly where the tanks are at all times, allowing them to pick the best spots for ambush to make them much, much more effective than they normally would be.
Then the drone swarm meets this and one or the other survives: [this video] (As an aside, it always fascinates me that arms manufacturers not only create ads and brochures but that they're often done rather well.) A lot of the breathless enthusiasm for drones seems premature. SAMs didn't make aircraft obsolete, air to ground missiles from aircraft and helicopters didn't make tanks and other vehicles obsolete, and there's doesn't seem to be any reason to believe that adjustments won't be made by the various militaries to provide protection against drones.
Shows a truck-mounted system countering drone swarms.
Then then drones meet [this video] or [link] for which each round is even cheaper than the cheap drone it's aimed at and, snap, crackle, pop, no more drones.
Yes. There are a couple point defense systems originally designed to counter rocket and cruise missile attacks that can readily attack drones as well. Example: [this video] This specific system uses a magnetic coil to measure the muzzle velocity of the shell as it's leaving the barrel, and sets a timing delay for the shell to burst. So that combined with the radar means this thing can put flack in very precise places.
Point defense system that can engage drones with programmed-burst shells.
-brrt- Drone swarm, what drone swarm? [this video] And this is simply the first iteration of such systems. Drones are slow (slower than WW2 aircraft), short ranged, and not particularly stealthy. Improving any of those aspects raises the price significantly, defeating the point of cheap drones. They are a threat but not as magical as some seem to imagine.
Have you seen modern anti-drone defence? [this video] Basically a cannon that fires sort of smart bullets that contain shape charge that aims at the drone as it gets close to it and detonantes. Also targets are smartly assigned so you can shoot down small swarm of drones with a short burst from the cannon.
Cannon with smart shells that shoot down drone swarms.
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.
Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed
7 Hacker News comments
From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.
Read more