I guess I would agree, depending on what we are talking about in terms of "small" drones. I was thinking along the lines of the sort of mid-level tactical guys, like the old Predator and the Turkish TB2 that continue to surprise everyone that apparently missed the last 20 years.  If you're talking smaller short range deals, then yeah it wouldn't make sense to fire off a Starstreak even if you had a prox (or command detonation?) option.  On the other hand a infrared guided Stinger or similar isn't exactly optimal here either.  For really small close items I suspect having a full choke 12 gauge with a mix of BB and lighter bird shot in the squad would be the simplest option. 

The 40mm launched options will be, I suspect, really expensive, bulky, and not really have the thrust and performance to be able to threaten anything that isn't flying extremely low and slow.  I bet we'll buy them though, because using an anti-drone mini missile that costs 100x the targets it is designed for is definitely our style.  I would bet even the javelin would be 1) overkill for actual small cheap drones, but not have nearly enough delta-v to go after anything moving all that much (in the air that is).  You might be able to design a common launcher but the performance and warhead needed for an anti air missile are pretty different from the needs of something made for hunting armor. 

PS: is it not weird that after watching the US n' Friends grief SE and central Asia with drones, for twenty years straight, so little prep has been devoted to dealing with them?  And not just the USA, but Armenia, now Russia for crying out lout.  I could be wrong, but I feel like there are tons of options for countering most drones, in most use cases.  I actually see them as kind of a dead end, other than few niche uses.  But having no plan at all to deal with them is not good, to say the least. 

If you're thinking Predator and TB2, the question becomes, are they even flying in MANPADS range?  

I suspect you'll need something like a 35 - 57mm AC or a proper SAM to hit them. 

We'd have to try it to know (I'm down if you're buying!), but I think the Starstreak in particular could threaten aircraft into the 20,000ft altitude range, IF they were not moving that fast and not capable of pulling major Gs.  It tops out at over Mach 4, it has a lot of push for a manpad.  And "most" drones and helicopters aren't moving very fast or capable of pulling more than a couple gs.  ON the other hand our new Reaper drones for instance can hang out at up to 50,000 feet, so yeah, a ManPad of any kind isn't going to be able to get up that high.

To be clear I'm not saying there's any one-size fits-all perfect solution to all things drone related, but ultimately they have some pretty severe limitations..... there's a lot of low hanging fruit there just rotting on the ground. 

PS: as an aside, I just looked up how much a Reaper costs..... apparently with the accessories and equipment needed to run and maintain it, it comes to over $100 MILLION dollars a unit.  So you could get 2 Saab Grippens or 5-10 Super Tucanos for the price of one Reaper.  FFS. 

Supposedly the Russians had some pretty good anti-UAS systems they were using in Syria. Why they aren't working/being used in Ukraine, I can't say.

Can you fly a Grippen or Super Tucano remotely from half a world away? And they don't have the endurance a Reaper has.

We actually have the answer already for the really small tactical drones, it's just a matter of getting it fielded...

Ladies and gentlemen I give you.

https://techlinkcenter.org/news/heres-the-armys-now-patented-emp-rifle-attachment-for-taking-out-small-drones/

Bang 

I can't tell if that "emp" attachment is a joke or not.  If it worked at all I predict the target would have to be so close it would be easier to shoot it with the rifle, and would mostly function to wreak havoc on all your own gadgets, gizmos, and wifi this and that.  I even wonder if you would generate enough static electricity to possibly cook off your cartridge primers.....anyway.  And if I was wrong, adding some basic shielding and insulation to your droney drones would hardly be difficult or costly. 

Also the fact that the guy works for the Army and the patent is not classified gives you an idea on how viable the DoD thought the concept was.  Just sayin.

And re the Super Tucano etc., yes they have human pilots on board.  I guess where others see a benefit to being remotely piloted from vast distance, I see multiple glaring flaws of concept.

Anyway..... buy Starstreaks.  If you want a ManPad to do ManPad things, they're the shiz. 

I read through the Twitter thread and am not totally convinced.  Could these be old Starbursts out of storage instead?

The very neat thing about that patent Is that what it's doing is very highly directional. Which is why comparatively ridiculously tiny total quantities of energy can do what it does.

More than anything else though the interesting part is that if you could make something like that reusable you'd have something pretty useful for the shitty little drones that are getting lots of Russians and Ukrainians killed currently.

As far as "just shield it a little more"... That would actually be a pretty tall order for multiple reasons, any one of which, and there's several factors/reasons not just one, would do something that's heavily inconvenient for the opposing force wanting to use this type of drones against you.

All of the potential ways to nullify something like this make those drones more expensive and much less off the shelf, and that's kinda all you really need to pare down the threat to a more manageable level at least for awhile.

To a certain degree we're playing for time right now.

Solutions don't have to be perfect, they just have to be good enough.

JesseH1234 said:

I can't tell if that "emp" attachment is a joke or not.

EMP for anti drone purposes is not a joke. It has been proposed a long time ago and to my knowledge several different systems have been fielded allready.
The basic idea is to "shoot" a drone down without actually launching projectiles that might endager innocents. Its more of a civillian thing.

Drones also are the perfect target. They are lightweight and usually not made fith a metal structure and hull. So they are unshielded. Drones also rely on a data link by radio. They have a working antenne and receiver wenn in the air. These are highly vulurable to EMP. If the receiver gets damaged the drone will crash.
Its really more of a very intense jamming than what is commonly though of as EMP.