It is. Has been for years. But it isn’t ‘real life’. Why not?
Essentially there’s only two parts to it: acquiring the target (complete with anticipating movement) and : shooting it down.
Now target acquisition is no problem. An infantryman with a smartphone could acquire targets on screen and zoom in on the thing to locate very precisely where it is in the field of view.
Master/slave technology is ubiquitous, well tried, robust, cheap. It allows of the smartphone communicating with a nearby device that orients itself exactly as the infantryman’s ‘pistol’ does and which has its own ‘pistol’ through which it ‘looks’.
Its own ‘slave’ smartphone if you like. And it sees what the infantryman sees. And when the infantryman presses ‘go’ it accepts what it sees on screen: typically a black blob on a white or blue background of sky, as the target.
And from then it computes target distance, target speed, target track all by itself.
That’s target acquisition.
Now it needs to be shot down.
At infantry problem drone level small arms fire can and does bring these things down.
The device simply needs to operate something as light and cheap and simple as a 7.62 cal rifle.
A sniper with scope can bring down 1 metre targets at 1 km. Shooting to 1 minute of arc. A device can easily match that accuracy and predict movement and track and allow for height and wind..
Two or three spaced shots would be enough I’d guess. Spaced I’m saying to allow for barrel flexing after each shot. My guesswork.
Point is: cheap, lightweight accurate, the closer the drone the more accurate. Reliable.
An arcade game.
Every infantry platoon could have ‘the device’ mounted like a small mortar somewhere local. The infantrymen would amuse themselves playing ‘shoot the drone’, vying for a turn with the ‘pistol’.
There is a Russian famed sniper or shooter at least who’s shot down an inordinate number of drones I believe. Small arms fire is all that is required.
If we have the technology to shoot down missiles at 200 km range and umpteen thousand feet high in the sky and moving at a thousand km/hr and unseen AND we have the technology to play arcade games and shoot down the invading hordes from planet X I’m bloody sure we can shoot down a few plastic drones moving at 100 k/h 1km away clearly visible to all.
But it is not happening.
Why not?