Anything far enough away to not be targeted by a ground to air missile would also probably be too far away for a drone to make a round trip. A quick Google search says even SAMs from the 1950s can hit targets over 30km away.

Why do you need a round trip? Cruise a cruise missile is 100k-1.1m+, imagine the sort of drone you could build for that price

Because that was the point of the comment thread

> and unless we're talking one-use drones (so, guided missiles really) - there's a lot of maintenance. Somebody needs to transport the drones to the front, program the goals, recharge the batteries (which takes hours often), rearm them after the mission, download the gathered data, change the encryption keys, etc.

If we're talking single use drones you can launch them like rockets, or from an unmanned vehicle. There's also no real reason for them to be propeller drones. A modern Tomahawk missile can "loiter" in the air for 2 hours before being directed at its real target.

The concern is with multiple use drones, the biggest vulnerability will be your maintenance / base station so you'll want humans defending that. But also anything that puts them within a reasonable drone range puts them in artillery or SAM range.

Put your drones inside a missile and launch them at their target.

I saw a slide somewhere recently - there are already plans for this as an artillery shell or missile. I think it was combined with ordinary ordnance- drone is ejected before main weapon payload towards end of "flight". Drone helps pick highest value target then is used after for damage assessment. Presumably then it self destructs or/or kamikazees

Cruise missiles with submunition dispensers are not exactly a new concept. It's certainly possible in theory to stick some smart loitering munitions in a Tomahawk but that's going to be extremely expensive and not reusable.

I like this idea if it could be a cheap form of Smart Chaff.