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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

#131

Post by yyyk »

badfutureahead wrote: post #127
jvanderbot wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"fly towards" doesn't scale too well with the huge speed difference. Your intercept cone is super narrow when jets travel 10x your quads speed. Then factor in altitude and this approach only works near airports, where defense is arguably easiest. where this works really, really well is with boats. Iran did this with 15m RHIBs. I work on these problems directly. Its scarey but mostly because we're not thinking about i…

With FlightRadar24 historical data you already know exactly where regular flights will be, so you just wait there. The only thing left is that the pilot will try to dodge you, but then you have automatic drone control versus human (with low visibility). I agree with you that this is a high touch attack, a kind of "drone 9/11", versus other low hanging fruits like dropping drones on peoples head.

Humans aren't as regular as to allow this. The Mombasa attack failed because the pilot chose a different path that time, and that was an 'easy' attack (takeoff where the plane is slow, using military-grade AA missiles far quicker than any drone).

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

#132

Post by anigbrowl »

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.

In Clausewitzian warfare this is true but not in asymmetric warfare. As a simplistic analogy, there's no need to score a knockout punch if you can trick your opponent into falling on their face.

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

#133

Post by tyingq »

yyyk wrote: post #128
tyingq wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a WaPo story: "U.N. investigators said the Houthis' new UAV-X drone, found in recent months during the Saudi-led coalition's war in Yemen, likely has a range of up to 1,500 kilometers (930 miles). That puts the far reaches of both Saudi Arabia and the UAE in range." https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/saudi-tv-ch...

Well, if one believes their 'taking of responsibility', of course you believe they have the flight range, which means you assigned 'their' drones a flight range, which is then picked up to 'explain' it. If you apply a more realistic standard (no actual evidence including footage, no way to guide it, no facilities in Yemen to even test it), it's obvious this is an operation by a state, and only Iran can fit the bill.

The UN investigator's range estimate is from May. https://www.apnews.com/18f9c169f398464ba53c19e3963d3fba

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

#134

Post by reaperducer »

fmajid wrote: post #93
reaperducer wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been trying to both diversify and privatize, but progress is very very slow. Probably fear of instability, IMO. "The petroleum sector accounts for roughly 87% of budget revenues, 42% of GDP, and 90% of export earnings." https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/... Anecdotally, I met far more Saudis when I lived in Seattle than I did when I lived in Houston. I wonder if that was part of the div…

The Saudis don't need to go to Houston to learn about petroleum. Their domestic universities are world-class on the subject, for obvious reasons.

I don't recall stating that they were going to Houston to learn about petroleum. There are plenty of other reasons most of the world's major energy companies have their North American headquarters in Houston.

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

#135

Post by dirtyid »

badfutureahead wrote: post #81
mrnobody_67 wrote: post #45

Playing out as Naval Ravikant predicted on the After-on podcast: https://after-on.com/episodes-31-60/044 Eventually cheap drones, anonymous assassination markets, etc. will make commercial flying a thing of the past. Written summary of podcast - https://podcastnotes.org/2019/03/20/after-on-naval-01/

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…

What's intriguing for me is that potentially unjammable machine vision drone missiles dramatically reduces the killchain. You don't need trained operators to loiter within radio range. And I think if anything it will heavily bias economics more towards attackers. It's already reducing relatively cheap hardware by removing training, operation costs and remote control hardware. Doesn't take much imagination to see how you can lock down a military airstrip with this tech or dramatically increase cost of defense. Albeit I am far from an expert in the topic.

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

#136

Post by yyyk »

droithomme wrote: post #57
chvid wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thought exactly. This is too expensive an attack. But for Iran it makes sense (or at least follows the pattern of their recent behavior) and they also have the capability.

Absolutely absurd claim. It's not expensive at all. Iran may or may not be providing technological assistance, but US amateur enthusiasts and mom and pop chinese resellers definitely are. No Iranian conspiracy here or needed. Drones are not magic genies unavailable to all but the elite. Drones, including these fixed wing models, are kid tech these days, including drones with 1000 mile ranges that can carry bombs that…

BS. Even if you magically had a 1000 mile drone (extremely unlikely even for US 'amateurs', much less wartorn Yemen), it can't do anything without guidance, which they can't provide. Everybody, but Everybody, knows Iran is responsible for this.

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

#137

Post by yyyk »

tyingq wrote: post #133
yyyk wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if one believes their 'taking of responsibility', of course you believe they have the flight range, which means you assigned 'their' drones a flight range, which is then picked up to 'explain' it. If you apply a more realistic standard (no actual evidence including footage, no way to guide it, no facilities in Yemen to even test it), it's obvious this is an operation by a state, and only Iran can fit the bill.

The UN investigator's range estimate is from May. https://www.apnews.com/18f9c169f398464ba53c19e3963d3fba

The UN 'investigator' never examined a model, but simply repeated news reports about the previous time the Houthis claimed an attack. That's exactly what I said:

* (A) believes the Houthi claims. * Ergo argues they have drone X. * People repeat they have drone X based on (A), despite the only actual source being the Houthis themselves.

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

#138

Post by baybal2 »

badfutureahead wrote: post #81
mrnobody_67 wrote: post #45

Playing out as Naval Ravikant predicted on the After-on podcast: https://after-on.com/episodes-31-60/044 Eventually cheap drones, anonymous assassination markets, etc. will make commercial flying a thing of the past. Written summary of podcast - https://podcastnotes.org/2019/03/20/after-on-naval-01/

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…

tercon — terrain contour matching does not need a camera. Earliest systems had a single radar sensor and an analogue feedback loop, and those were getting EEPs of 25 x 15m

And now we all have pocket sized supercomputers...

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

#139

Post by bgorman »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #56
beaner wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What prevented that from being possible before?

You needed airplanes, and antiaircraft weapons were so much cheaper. With drones the calculation is the other way around. It completely changes the face of war, offensive warfare is now possible again. Ernst Jünger said something similar when he witnessed the first tanks in World War 1.

You don't need an airplane, you simply need a cruise missiles.

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

#140

Post by dragonwriter »

yyyk wrote: post #128
tyingq wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a WaPo story: "U.N. investigators said the Houthis' new UAV-X drone, found in recent months during the Saudi-led coalition's war in Yemen, likely has a range of up to 1,500 kilometers (930 miles). That puts the far reaches of both Saudi Arabia and the UAE in range." https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/saudi-tv-ch...

Well, if one believes their 'taking of responsibility', of course you believe they have the flight range, which means you assigned 'their' drones a flight range, which is then picked up to 'explain' it. If you apply a more realistic standard (no actual evidence including footage, no way to guide it, no facilities in Yemen to even test it), it's obvious this is an operation by a state, and only Iran can fit the bill.

The Houthi rebels and Iran are intimately connected; if Iran has the capability, that lends support to the idea that the Houthis could have carried out the attack, since the Houthis are extensively equipped, trained, funded, and otherwise supported by Iran.
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