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Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

wsj.com

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Re: Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

#101

Post by cameronbrown »

matheweis wrote: post #96
joey_bob wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With this attitude, anything is a week long project. 1. You're making extremely optimistic assumptions about the results of your system. The translation between your simulation and reality may not be so smooth. Also jets are fast. 2. Lasers jam your system. 3. It's a difficult problem to crash a malfunctioning plane in a certain area when you are behind the sticks, let alone by doing it with a collision.

In the context of asymmetric warfare this might not be a significant issue. The offensive side need only be successful a fraction of the time, but the defensive side must be successful nearly all of the time.

Being successful is not binary. The offensive side needs to be significantly more successful in order to gain an upper hand. Otherwise it's defenders advantage every time.

Re: Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

#102

Post by anigbrowl »

aazaa wrote: post #9

An unusual (and worrying) part about this incident is how drones are being used, not with an explicit military goal in mind, but rather for the purpose of economic strangulation. Like terrorist operatives, drones are relatively cheap and expendible. But unlike terrorism, which seeks to grind away at the enemy's resolve, this kind of attack attempts to deprive an enemy of the money needed to fund its operations. Like…

That is absolutely a military goal, and a far worthier one than terrorist attacks against civilians. One might note that Saudi Arabia has been economically strangling people in Yemen by basically shutting down the ports and restricting the distribution of food and medicine and knowingly inflicting a horrific famine (PBS Newshour has had especially detailed coverage of this conflict and this is one of the few contexts where TV news can do a superior job to print analysis).

While it's unwise to apply moral analysis to military conflicts because of the potential for both self-deception and ideological excess, this incident strikes me as richly deserved.

Re: Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

#103

Post by wbl »

beaner wrote: post #39
wbl wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've just described air power. Except now it's actually possible to destroy industrial facilities instead of maybe hitting a city.

What prevented that from being possible before?

World War II bombing was extremely inaccurate for a number of reasons including heavy losses during daytime bombing unless you went high. Post 1950's SAM really made things fun. It's not until the stealth bomber makes SEAD work and the cruise missile that you can pinpoint things.

Re: Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

#104

Post by sharpneli »

vhold wrote: post #91
badfutureahead wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today it's basically a week-long project to train a neural network to fly towards a jet engine in a 3D simulation. Then you just need to hook that to the drone control software. No amount of jamming helps you here, this is radio control off, GPS off, entirely visual "guided missile" approach. And this approach scales, with 20 drones, 2 drones assigned to each engine, you can engage 5 taking off planes in a row off a…

I imagine the countermeasure will be cameras with computer vision controlling microwave lasers.

This is bit on a tangent but it’s bit amusing.

The term for that is maser. That term came before laser which was derived from it.

And now we have come the full circle and are calling masers microwave lasers instead of lasers ”maser but for visible light”

Re: Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

#105

Post by anigbrowl »

weberc2 wrote: post #67
jillesvangurp wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is classic war fare and not terrorism. The Saudi's have made a mess of the conflict in Yemen, which is more or less part of a bigger proxy war that also involves the US and Iran. On paper it's rebels vs what passes for a government there locally. But in practice it's Iran sponsored weaponry vs. Us & EU sponsored weaponry. If you look at a map, the reasons are obvious. The Saudi's are connected to international w…

Why can’t the Saudis likewise shut off Iran’s oil any time they want?

They can, but the Iranians are more willing to tolerate pain than the Saudis and so they will ultimately win in the region. Somewhere TE Lawrence is crying.

Re: Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

#106

Post by anigbrowl »

idoubtit wrote: post #23
tdhz77 wrote: post #2

The use of drones in this way by rebels makes me rethink the media image of a rebel. They are educated, lawyers, doctors, engineers.

The so-called "rebels" represent a large part of the Yemen population, and they ruled over their country for many month, so of course some of them are educated and have access to technical ressources. From memory, here's what happened in Yemen: 1. The Arab revolt of 2011 led to the fall of the long time dictator, Saleh. 2. In 2012, a conference in Ryad, organized by the powerful neighbor Saudi Arabia, appointed a new…

A succinct and fair summary.

Re: Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

#107

Post by anigbrowl »

droithomme wrote: post #62
partialrecall wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be noted, engineers being well represented in these sort of rebel/revolutionary/terrorist organizations isn't a new phenomenon. Here is an article from a decade ago: https://slate.com/technology/2009/12/why-do-so-many-terroris... The notion of terrorists as uneducated goat farmers is more a manifestation of western biases than it is an accurate representation of the truth.

You see Yemeni citizens defending their country against Saudi war crimes and the murder of innocent civilians as terrorism, huh? No wonder you had to make a new account just to post that opinion! What's your regular account here?

Your skeptical reaction was understandable (there's been a lot of crappy new accounts on HN in the last year or two) but seems misplaced in this case. Get in touch with me if you have time.

Re: Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

#108

Post by riazrizvi »

John Bolton is fired and oil drops 2% as hopes for war and restricted oil supply fade for the worlds exporters. A week later we get drone strikes against Saudi Arabia by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. It’s like Jeff Goldblum once said, ‘Nature finds a way’.

Re: Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

#109

Post by anigbrowl »

joey_bob wrote: post #95
badfutureahead wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today it's basically a week-long project to train a neural network to fly towards a jet engine in a 3D simulation. Then you just need to hook that to the drone control software. No amount of jamming helps you here, this is radio control off, GPS off, entirely visual "guided missile" approach. And this approach scales, with 20 drones, 2 drones assigned to each engine, you can engage 5 taking off planes in a row off a…

With this attitude, anything is a week long project. 1. You're making extremely optimistic assumptions about the results of your system. The translation between your simulation and reality may not be so smooth. Also jets are fast. 2. Lasers jam your system. 3. It's a difficult problem to crash a malfunctioning plane in a certain area when you are behind the sticks, let alone by doing it with a collision.

If you have money you can just launch 50 of them and hope 2 or 3 find their target. The marginal cost is relatively low.

Re: Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes

#110

Post by mistermann »

cameronbrown wrote: post #101
matheweis wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the context of asymmetric warfare this might not be a significant issue. The offensive side need only be successful a fraction of the time, but the defensive side must be successful nearly all of the time.

Being successful is not binary. The offensive side needs to be significantly more successful in order to gain an upper hand. Otherwise it's defenders advantage every time.

And yet, the odd successful terrorist attack makes word headlines.
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