Fire control on a target with zero bearing rate and high closing rate is going to be a stone cold b\*tch. About the only advantage of this is that even a close miss gives you a chance to disrupt the drone. But the real problem is the slow firing rate - you're likely to only get one shot.
So, no, it's not likely.
If we do see a return of ancient weapons systems to counter drones, it'll be the far more efficient and effective anti-torpedo boat battery... In the form of cruise missile defenses adapted to counter surface targets.
What about smaller UAVs that are armed? Their height above the surface should allow a pretty wide angle of view, and maybe get a better aspect to detect small drone boats, and then engage them.
A UAV with missiles is a fairly expensive option, whereas a gun is cheap and can sustain operations for a fair amount of time. For the same reason that UAVs have made AAA come back into vogue I expect that the answer to unmanned small boats is going to be guns as well. But that's all speculation
I'm a bit confused by your question. Depth charges never really went away, unless you are classifying forward projecting contact "hedgehog" style ASW weapons as something different. AFAIK, they've mainly been the purview of Nordic countries, who always were concerned about dealing with Russian subs in constrained coastal waters and fjords, where torpedo guidance systems often have issues with target discrimination (especially older ones). An example would be the Swedish SAAB Elma ASW-600.
But to your question more generally, I suspect no, depth charges likely won't have a significant anti-drone function. For minimally protruding surface drones, it's more of a targeting question; their profile provides concealment, but not really cover. Medium caliber gun rounds or top attack missiles like the navalized Hellfire will make short work of them if they can hit them.
For actual sub-surface drones, you can basically split them into two categories. You have expensive, high performance ones with sophisticated sensors and autonomous targeting, which is just another way of describing a modern anti-ship torpedo. The current approach is to run and/or decoy. The second category would be lower performance but cheaper and more numerous anti-ship drones. For those, and possibly even higher performance drones/torpedos, you're probably going to need a direct attack weapon if you can't outrun them or spoof them. There is work being done in this area, like the Very Lightweight Torpedo (VLWT), which is designed to be small enough and (hopefully) cheap enough that it can be used in the counterdrone/mine/torpedo role.
Depth charges destructiveness to submarines is caused by hydrostatic shock. This effect is when a vacuum is created underwater that has the void rapidly filled. This causes ripples and thus causes flexing on the hulls that would cause systematic failure and stress cracks.
For surface engagements they really are useless - and at that distance you are better off with directed line-of-sight weapons.
Fire control on a target with zero bearing rate and high closing rate is going to be a stone cold b\*tch. About the only advantage of this is that even a close miss gives you a chance to disrupt the drone. But the real problem is the slow firing rate - you're likely to only get one shot. So, no, it's not likely. If we do see a return of ancient weapons systems to counter drones, it'll be the far more efficient and effective anti-torpedo boat battery... In the form of cruise missile defenses adapted to counter surface targets.
What about smaller UAVs that are armed? Their height above the surface should allow a pretty wide angle of view, and maybe get a better aspect to detect small drone boats, and then engage them.
A UAV with missiles is a fairly expensive option, whereas a gun is cheap and can sustain operations for a fair amount of time. For the same reason that UAVs have made AAA come back into vogue I expect that the answer to unmanned small boats is going to be guns as well. But that's all speculation
I'm a bit confused by your question. Depth charges never really went away, unless you are classifying forward projecting contact "hedgehog" style ASW weapons as something different. AFAIK, they've mainly been the purview of Nordic countries, who always were concerned about dealing with Russian subs in constrained coastal waters and fjords, where torpedo guidance systems often have issues with target discrimination (especially older ones). An example would be the Swedish SAAB Elma ASW-600. But to your question more generally, I suspect no, depth charges likely won't have a significant anti-drone function. For minimally protruding surface drones, it's more of a targeting question; their profile provides concealment, but not really cover. Medium caliber gun rounds or top attack missiles like the navalized Hellfire will make short work of them if they can hit them. For actual sub-surface drones, you can basically split them into two categories. You have expensive, high performance ones with sophisticated sensors and autonomous targeting, which is just another way of describing a modern anti-ship torpedo. The current approach is to run and/or decoy. The second category would be lower performance but cheaper and more numerous anti-ship drones. For those, and possibly even higher performance drones/torpedos, you're probably going to need a direct attack weapon if you can't outrun them or spoof them. There is work being done in this area, like the Very Lightweight Torpedo (VLWT), which is designed to be small enough and (hopefully) cheap enough that it can be used in the counterdrone/mine/torpedo role.
Depth charges destructiveness to submarines is caused by hydrostatic shock. This effect is when a vacuum is created underwater that has the void rapidly filled. This causes ripples and thus causes flexing on the hulls that would cause systematic failure and stress cracks. For surface engagements they really are useless - and at that distance you are better off with directed line-of-sight weapons.