Dude, your first mistake is that you are assuming force tailoring just doesn't exist. Drone forces occupy the same role as mechanised infantry.
But anyway you are setting up the drone augemented force to fail, because you are making completely unreasonable assumptions, and also incorrectly presuming the operating methods of a drone force. For example, you have completely ignored drone capability in prevention by significantly superior on sight capability. Renraku blimps have a loiter time of weeks!
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Drones are dumb. They do not think. They cannot distinguish friend or foe without IFF verification. They do not understand the difference between a wedding party firing into the air and AA fire. Drones do not understand the difference between teens with ruck sacks going into a school and terrorists. They do not understand the difference between the local VIP undergoing defensive driving and terrorists.
This is wrong - they can distinguish between friend and foe without IFF verification, and can implement rules of engagement, otherwise it would be not possible to use them in security roles unless you where extraterritorial - which not everyone is. If you just open shooting to kill you have committed several crimes - using disproportionate force for starters.
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1. Has a reliable service time without breaking down
2. Does not create a large signature (heat, electronic) for enemy observers
3. Can go up 60 degree inclines, scale cliff faces, and is not bogged down in mud.
4. Can work in usual infantry weather (which is -40 deg. C to +60 deg. C), not to mention being salt-water proof and tested at 10 meters depth in water.
5. Does not involve soldiers to carry more stuff now since "logically" the drone is carrying the rest.
1) Well, as the drones are clearly used in security work - where the main criteria are long servicing intervals and low service costs to keep down overheads (which eat into profit), drones clearly can do that.
2) Every security unit in SR is equipped with radar that can pick up people and drones with equal capacity, so man sized drones are the same nature of profile as a man sized person. Heat sigs are equivelent too for spotting in SR, so they have that problem under control
3) I suspect the military issue version of the steel lynx would be tracked, and thus can probably climb 60 degree inclines- but more important drones can fly. This is super huge capability infantry guys just don't have.
4) Well, no limitations one drone endurance are stated except for the water one - infact as drones suffer no discomfort they would be better off in low or high tempreture situations. (Clearly lubricants and fluids in SR have benefited from another 80 years of material science, you can definately make improved greases with the manufacturing technology demonstrated in SR that we don;t have).
5) Soldiers certainly won't be carrying any less stuff!
Anyway for how I'd deal with the situation:
Your problem has 4 dimensions
A) Patrolling & Interdictions
B) Medical response
C) Bomb disposal
D) Capability to deal with unexpected events.
So lets address the problem by dimensions
patrollingI'd never get there - Surveillance UAV drones with chemical sniffers and pattern matching software carpeting the city would have already identified and traced the terrorists, as I would have banned the possession of explosives and firearms. If I had confirmed that any person was carrying munitions, they would have been interdicted by high endurance drone platforms with lethal force, preferably engaged with a sniper rifle from a drone platform. Given the 24/7 survillence coverage I can impose with no force exposure, it would be almost impossible for the terrorists to obtain these sort of weapons. Chem sniffers in SR4 have unbelivable levels of capability compared to modern platforms. As all civilians are required to produce an ID - and I'd be relying it all back to a rating 6 SIN scanner, you'd be hard pressed to evade the orwellian big brother eye.
That sort of measure is pretty cheap, highly effective and almost impossible to deal with as a terrorist. Police states have low crime for a reason, and it is relatively easy to impose that level of coverage. It also posses an easy answer to question 4.
I would also not bother running street patrols.
medical response Instead, I would respond to incidents using multiple rapid response forces. In a civilian situation, I would have emergency response teams on stand by with medical drones in the racks. For the same price as 1 doctor on duty, 1 nurse on duty and a paramedic on duty 24/7 withan ambulance, I can run more than 30medical drones with the capability to conduct full surgical interventions, and support them with multiple ambulances built on the doc wagon platform, including a defensive capability from the doc wagon platform. I'd fit a mix of gel bullets, tasers and tranq darts, and potentially allocate a security drone per ambulance equipped with relevant pacification devices. Tasering someone wounded is non-ideal, so i'd probably go a tranq gun so I can give them tranqulisers - which might be medically required anyway!
Given that a conventional force would need multiple ambulances to extra these guys in multiple trips, the drone force could extract all civilians These guys could easily evac the entire wounded civilian population, including everyone standing around and commence treatment before a non drone augmeneted force could possibly deal with them. As I would be evacuating to a hospital, I could benefit from economies of scale and leverage the small cadre of doctors for situations the drones are unable to handle (which is unlikely, as they make surgical tests with only a few less dice than a doctor, given that they can apply more manpower to the situation). Also remember drone medical evacs are a fact of life in 2070, so being ushered into an ambulance by a drone isn;t going to provoke an extreme response, unless they wouldn't want to go in under any circumstances. In which case I'd evac everyone else and dispatch on site guys to do it.
Bomb disposal and human responseNow, as I don't advocate an all drone response, I'd also dispatch a single infantry platoon (Which is only ten guys, 3 x 3 man squads + a commander + drones up the wazoo) to the site. In my previous discussions on the subject, I priced out drone mech inf battalions at roughly the same price as a conventional mech inf company by cutting squad sizes drastically (3 men, including a driver) and relying on heavy drone augmentation to produce significantly superior firepower (replacing all company and battalion attachments) as well as providing 24/7 UAV coverage. Now, these guys in an IFV or helicopter would be first responders - but as we have multiple 'eye in the sky' flying to the crash site, the unexploded car bomb would be found by drones with chem sniffers. The drones would identify all SINs in the area immediately and virtual human operators would contact, simultaneously, everyone in the expected blast area and provide them with the quickest route to safety. As 2/3s of the population is noted to use neural interfaces, I could reasonably assume that the majority of humans would start evacuating immediately, and that drone loud speakers and herd behaviour would get the majority of the rest.
While the first response team is on route, bomb disposal experts on call in a 'rolling call centre' enabling virtual telepresence globally, reducing my overhead costs, would assess the on site drones telemetry and conduct a risk assessment of the bomb. If it was deemed too dangerous, only virtual and drone contact would be permitted to minimise risk to my forces - but if it was deemed 'okay' the bomb disposal experts would stand by to jack into drones assigned for the task to the first responder unit. This would enable me to deliver relevant expertise directly to the hot zone without exposing any personnel. If the situation is dangerous I keep my humans at stand off, but if its OK I send them in to deal with any reluctant leavers or trouble makers.
InterdicitionWhile this is happening, I'd have my on site humans trying to get recalitrants and trouble makers under control. I'd be less fussed about securing the physical evidence that you might think. My big brother drones tracked everyone and everything that was in the area for the last month - and the car - so my data mining and assault forces are already going to be responding to arrest anyone who has been near the car recently, or sending a team to the set of location of the car straight away.
The trade off is I have less capability to respond to multiple simultaneous events - but I'm betting that my patrolling capability would make that sort of planning almost impossible.
Overall this response has
A) I'm not on site. Conventional humans lucky enough to be in the area will respond a bit faster. Unless they got killed in the blast of course.
B) I have physically less men to deal with issues. IF there was 30 car bombings across the city in one go, I'd be screwed, but that is almost impossible to deliver
C) I can get forced into a dilemma where I have to deal with trouble makers OR try and get a mother and her kids to leave - and I cannot just (for some reason) taser the trouble makers.
In return I get
A) A much faster and comprehensive medical solution to the wounded
B) Relevant bomb disposal expertise delivered to the site almost instantly, at no exposure to my personnel. Equipment takes time to get there, but the response can be planned prior to that
C) No exposure to my infantry assets patrolling
D) Much better patrol coverage and interceptions as a result
Overall the fact I provide a better response in 3 of the 4 dimensions and reduce my force exposure in terms of people (the most expensive bit!) in return for reduced capability to deal with some edge cases, its not a bad deal.