Blimps as city defense against drones and cruise missiles

[biostud]

Obvoulsy this wouldn't work anywhare close to the battlezone where fast attack aircrafts and AA systems could take them down, but couldn't blimps work as a weapon platform for city defense (or other key elements).

They can stay up indefinately
They can be remoteley controlled
They are somewhat mobile
They can cover a large area
They can shoot over the tree line

 

[sdifox]

Yeah no they can be brought down easily.

 

[biostud]

Yeah no they can be brought down easily.

How?

If they are equipped with anti missile and anti drone systems as their sole purpose.

Also it would be pretty easy and cheap to make decoys.

 

[sdifox]

How?

If they are equipped with anti missile and anti drone systems as their sole purpose.

Also it would be pretty easy and cheap to make decoys.

Blimps are big and slow. You don't even need to get close to it to destroy it. For example flechette shells.

 

[biostud]

Blimps are big and slow. You don't even need to get close to it to destroy it. For example flechette shells.

Yes, that's why it wouldn't work anywhere close to a active frontline.

But imagine a normal city defense and then combined with a dozen of blimps with these mounted underneath: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-68795603

And also parachutes or similar to secure the payload if they are shot down or a crash.

 

[sdifox]

WWII called and said they would like their balloons back. Using direct energy weapon on drones has to be the dumbest idea I have seen in a long time. At most the weapon can shoot once before being taken out by drones.

Hell, you fly above the blimp and the laser can't shoot at you.

 

[biostud]

WWII called and said they would like their balloons back.

We need more steam punk in our wars.

 

[sdifox]

We need more steam punk in our wars.

We need less wars. It's a fucking waste of resources.

 

[Minerva]

They are used. JLENS or Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System. Had one in MD that was a like a dog and got off its tether and had to be shot down by back woods cops in PA half a day later. They called it Fled Zeppelin!

It is basically a spy balloon that from that point (near Edgewood MD IIRC) could "see" details a few hundred miles offshore or to nearly Cleveland OH.

 

[Charmonium]

It's not necessarily a bad idea. If you can make the skin out of something like Kevlar/ballistic nylon, that would make it much more difficult to shoot down.

You'd still want to impregnate the skin with some sort of self-repair mechanism.

I think it could make a perfect jamming plat form. Most modern, long-range ballistics are guided in some way. So have it jam whatever radio frequencies the enemy drones use and jam GPS signals.

They could also carry their own stock of highly compressed helium in the event that any non-repairable leaks develop. Also a heat source for the interior helium would give it more lift.

Finally, you could attach a quad or octo copter that could support the entire structure if necessary so that in a worst case, you could get it back to a base for repairs.

That's all I can think of at the moment.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Israel could use these to supplement the iron dome, put the anti missile systems right on the blimps and they just float along the entire border. Or put jewish space lasers on them.

 

[sdifox]

They are used. JLENS or Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System. Had one in MD that was a like a dog and got off its tether and had to be shot down by back woods cops in PA half a day later. They called it Fled Zeppelin!

It is basically a spy balloon that from that point (near Edgewood MD IIRC) could "see" details a few hundred miles offshore or to nearly Cleveland OH.

Was used, mostly for testing. Program terminated in 2017.

JLENS - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Los Angeles Times - Page unavailable in your region

graphics.latimes.com

 

[WelshBloke]

It's not necessarily a bad idea. If you can make the skin out of something like Kevlar/ballistic nylon, that would make it much more difficult to shoot down.

You'd still want to impregnate the skin with some sort of self-repair mechanism.

Better off making the balloon out of lots of small balloons or compartments in the big balloon then if it takes a few hits you just lose a bit of lift.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Actually helium filled mylar balloons could be an interesting idea for something that needs to stay up as long as possible. They don't expand like weather balloons and don't pop as easily. Some ham radio guys have done it, and track it all around the world via APRS. They can last for a very long time. In this case they had no propulsion though.