Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by nradov » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 9:30 PM UTC

wbl wrote: post #18

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…

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

We've had operational cruise missiles that could reliably destroy industrial facilities for over 30 years. There's nothing new here, the technology is just gradually becoming cheaper and more widely distributed.

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

#162

Post by paganel » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 9:45 PM UTC

aodin wrote: post #115

paganel wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It completely changes the face of war These changes are always really, really interesting. One of my favorite moments similar to this is the Battle of Nicopolis [1] between the Ottomans led by Bayezid I and a Crusader force which included many Western cavalry forces. The much more mobile and easy-moving Ottomans were no match for the Western (especially French) forces who were accustomed with using their heavy armo…

Over 660 years before the Battle of Nicopolis, the French under Charles Martel defeated the Umayyad Caliphate at the Battle of Tours[1] using phalanxes of heavy infantry against lightly armored Arabian calvary. The difference being that the French forces purposefully took a defensive position on top of several hills instead of initiating an attack up them. The battles are an interesting echo through history. Perhaps…

> Perhaps the lesson is simply "hold the high ground".

One could think so, but then about 150 years later the Hungarian chivalry (and pretty much the Hungarian kingdom itself) was annihilated by the same Ottomans at the battle of Mohacs, where there was no "high ground" involved. From the wiki page [1]:

> Hungary built up an expensive but obsolete army, structured similarly to that of King Francis I at the Battle of Pavia and mostly reliant on old fashioned heavily armoured knights on armoured horses (gendarme knights).

By that time the Ottomans had already started making heavy use of artillery (which is also one of the main reasons they had taken Constantinople back in 1453):

> The Ottoman army was a more modern force built around artillery and the elite, musket-armed Janissaries. The remainder consisted of feudal Timarli cavalry and conscripted levies from Rumelia and the Balkans

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Moh%C3%A1cs

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

#163

Post by loeg » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 9:47 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #70

HarryHirsch wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Seems like drones preference the attacker over the defender on a tactical scale (because they're cheap and numerous) but preference local warfare over global warfare on a strategic scale (because to get that cheapness you need to sacrifice range & performance). They favor insurgent groups over power projection. Supply lines for offensive warfare also get more challenging with drones, because you have this great weapo…

> Seems like drones preference … local warfare over global warfare on a strategic scale (because to get that cheapness you need to sacrifice range & performance)

It seems relatively straightforward to deliver drones via any kind of existing global scale transit available today (on the one end, C130s, or on the other end, ICBMs?). A predator drone (not the latest tech) weighs ~5000 lbs and the MIRV Mark 5 SLBMs can launch 8x ~800 lb "W88" warheads, for a combined payload weight of around 6400 lbs. (I'm not super familiar with any of this and might be missing something; just skimmed wikipedia to see if I could make the ICBM math work out.)

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

#164

Post by en-us » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 9:54 PM UTC

droithomme wrote: post #63

en-us wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this in discussions about 9/11 all the time, where someone will express incredulity that it would be possible for a bunch of "goat farmers" to execute such a plan. But if you actually look at those terrorists, many were educated and from well-to-do families.

Yemenis defending their country are terrorists?

None of the 9/11 terrorists were Yemeni, but if they had been then yes they're a terrorist. Hijacking a plane to kill 1000s of civilians is clearly terrorism.

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

#165

Post by microcolonel » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 9:58 PM UTC

WhoBeI wrote: post #151

SergeAx wrote: post #130

Commercially available drones are easily detectable ("a week project", as said before) and very fragile. I believe automatic anti-drone systems are now months from being deployed worldwide. It is not even necessary to be very powerful: something like airsoft gun gonna be enough.

I don't think it's that easy.. There's numbers.. Systems using missiles can be zerged with disposable decoy drones until they have no ammo or tricked if using thermal tracking. Gun based ones can have a hard time tracking/predicting if the drones randomize movement around their attack vector and/or randomize speed. The environment and the approach will matter as well. They come in low, tracing the terrain or snaking…

Though of course at that point you might as well just use artillery.

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

#166

Post by nitrogen » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 10:02 PM UTC

barnabee wrote: post #94

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…

So then the airport sends friendly drones to intercept the nasty drones. It's drones all the way down… Exactly as Neal Stephenson predicted in Diamond Age.

Let's not forget brute force electronic means (disrupt drones' control circuitry) and mechanical means (obstacles, nets, dust, corrosives, artificial wind). We have many options to defend against rogue drones if motivated to do so.

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

#167

Post by Magnets » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 10:49 PM UTC

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/

Drones will be a thing of the past. UK laws are already cracking down on recreational drones, once something major happens they will just completely ban them for unlicensed users.

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

#168

Post by dredmorbius » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 11:26 PM UTC

petschge wrote: post #124

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…

Note that an airplane with a single engine out, even during the initial accent, typically does not crash into a city. The Hudson river landing occurred because all engine power was lost, not because of OEI (one engine inoperative).

Contained single-engine failure / blade failure and explosive charge inside engine are two different cases.

Modern turbofan engines are designed to contain a total blade failure. I'm not aware that they're designed to mitigate a charge detonated within compressor or turbine stages.

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

#169

Post by carapace » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 11:34 PM UTC

api wrote: post #141

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/

No, it won't make commercial aviation a thing of the past. It will make any degree of privacy a thing of the past. This kind of thing will lead to an absolute panopticon police state, and one with popular support. Every single thing you do, read, or buy will be monitored, as will all travel. There will be cameras and sensors literally everywhere, even hidden in wilderness areas. Or maybe you will be required to be im…

In the limit: "smart dust" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartdust

I think, if we can ensure that the panopticon is self-reflexive, we may force ourselves into a kind of Golden Age (or Gilded Cage depending on one's attitude, eh?)

Mrs. Grundy as omniscient tyrant.

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

#170

Post by aodin » Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 11:46 PM UTC

paganel wrote: post #162

aodin wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over 660 years before the Battle of Nicopolis, the French under Charles Martel defeated the Umayyad Caliphate at the Battle of Tours[1] using phalanxes of heavy infantry against lightly armored Arabian calvary. The difference being that the French forces purposefully took a defensive position on top of several hills instead of initiating an attack up them. The battles are an interesting echo through history. Perhaps…

> Perhaps the lesson is simply "hold the high ground". One could think so, but then about 150 years later the Hungarian chivalry (and pretty much the Hungarian kingdom itself) was annihilated by the same Ottomans at the battle of Mohacs, where there was no "high ground" involved. From the wiki page [1]: > Hungary built up an expensive but obsolete army, structured similarly to that of King Francis I at the Battle of…

The failure of gendarme knights at Mohács is probably the most salient point to the original topic. The Hungarian forces were clearly obsolete. That fact had been profoundly demonstrated over a year earlier with the French failure at Pavia. So why did they still field the forces they did?

If my understanding is correct, the existence of gendarme knights was deeply entwined not only with the concept of nobility in Europe, but with the economic foundations of Feudalism. The structure of which was primarily focused on a how a unit of population could field a single knight into battle. In short, a different army would require more than just additional training or logistics, but an underlying societal shift. Just as Feudalism rose because Martel recognized the effectiveness of armored cavalry, it would take the adoption of gunpowder, which specifically made armored cavalry ineffective, before there was need for another restructuring: one that led to professional armies and eventually nation states.

It would be pure hubris to believe we're done with these sorts of societal shifts. Just as nuclear weapons made large-scale warfare between nation states pointless, we may find that drones, and other weapons that allow cheap, asymmetrical force projection, may make even smaller engagements an exercise in mutually assured destruction. And that could challenge the entire nature of the American military-industrial complex and its global facsimiles.