Eventually, somebody is going to figure out how to build extremely cheap drones, for about the cost of a small car.
Even if they cost $1 million each, 150 can be made for the same price as a single F-22 Raptor. If $500,000 each, 300 aircraft. If with mass production, the price can be reduced to just $100,000, 1,500 cheap, expendable drones.
The Russians figured out how to avoid damage to their electronics from radiation or electronic countermeasures by using tubes instead of integrated circuits. Most of the mission would still be flown with a cheap, off the shelf computer, and the other stuff would sit idle unless the computer was knocked out.
Such an air armada would be incredibly hard to defeat and would severely damage their enemies capabilities.
1,500 drones, each equipped with a 500 pound iron bomb could cause an impressive amount of destruction, with “brute force” penetration of defenses, and the assumption of 100% losses. They could be fired from an inexpensive and expendable cargo ship, from simple wooden launch ramps, etc.
the next step is aerial combat. with the right programming, a drone can react instantaneously to any manned aircraft and launch air to air missles accordingly.
the days of manned fighter jets are numbered.
We already did - a cheap, expendable, armed drone is a cruise missile.