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Drug cartel assassinates its enemies with bomb-toting drones

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Re: Drug cartel assassinates its enemies with bomb-toting drones

#271

Post by chongli »

ashtonkem wrote: post #208
chongli wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nerve agents can kill you even with a gas mask. They absorb right through your skin.

That's still much easier to defend against than high explosives, and probably much harder to procure. If narco-terrorists can get blocks of C4 and cheap drones, why bother with the extra steps and international attention that a nerve agent would get you?

Nerve agents could be attached to much smaller delivery platforms. If you could build a drone the size of a mosquito you could use it to deliver a tiny, fatal dose of nerve agent to your target. No chemical explosive could match that level of miniaturization.

It may be sci fi at this point but it seems entirely possible to me. After all, mosquitoes exist and their behaviour is quite sophisticated. They’re able to locate mammals by detecting our breath, bite us to steal some blood, then fly away their eggs.

Re: Drug cartel assassinates its enemies with bomb-toting drones

#272

Post by meheleventyone »

kumarvvr wrote: post #137

The next worst case scenario is autonomous drones, that do not require radio or gps inputs. Navigation can be done with crude inertial navigation systems and advancing AI can identify and fly to targets with increasing accuracy. Causing general chaos or exploding in crowds will not require AI though. The only counter measure against those will then be an EMP system, Blinding lights to disable cameras, etc. The next e…

Netting seems like the cheap, reasonable option.

Re: Drug cartel assassinates its enemies with bomb-toting drones

#273

Post by lifeformed »

JackFr wrote: post #123

As I read the article, there was not actually a single confirmed death by explosive armed drone. I suspect that ultimately it’s likely impractical To kill people by drone as compared, on a cost basis, to other more pedestrian means of killing people. Drones may be cheap, but drones that can lift more than 2 kilos aren’t. The logistics of getting a drone near enough to the intended target to kill them are going to be…

It's tried and true: there's lots of drone footage out there of ISIS drones dropping bombs on vehicles and people. Here's a quick example of an attack on a vehicle: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/world/video-reportedl...

Re: Drug cartel assassinates its enemies with bomb-toting drones

#274

Post by peteretep »

ashtonkem wrote: post #209
JackFr wrote: post #123

As I read the article, there was not actually a single confirmed death by explosive armed drone. I suspect that ultimately it’s likely impractical To kill people by drone as compared, on a cost basis, to other more pedestrian means of killing people. Drones may be cheap, but drones that can lift more than 2 kilos aren’t. The logistics of getting a drone near enough to the intended target to kill them are going to be…

High value targets will justify expenditure of more resources. For most targets a few men with AK-47s might do the trick, but for the well protected target this would be a pretty decent strategy. It certainly would strike fear into the hearts of men otherwise protected against more pedestrian threats, which is probably part of the point.

Seems like more hassle than a mortar for about the same effect?

Re: Drug cartel assassinates its enemies with bomb-toting drones

#275

Post by m0zg »

JackFr wrote: post #123

As I read the article, there was not actually a single confirmed death by explosive armed drone. I suspect that ultimately it’s likely impractical To kill people by drone as compared, on a cost basis, to other more pedestrian means of killing people. Drones may be cheap, but drones that can lift more than 2 kilos aren’t. The logistics of getting a drone near enough to the intended target to kill them are going to be…

Drone isn't necessarily a quadcopter. It can be an RC plane, too, and those can be cheap in larger sizes, although they are more difficult to fly accurately. I'm actually surprised this isn't more prevalent - any teenager could do it, if they had access to explosives, which teenagers in war zones (current or past) typically do. And so do adults, of course.

Truly we are blessed with unequal distribution of technical skill between the terrorists and the rest of us. If a real, world class engineer took up terrorism, they'd never be found and could do _a lot_ of damage.

Re: Drug cartel assassinates its enemies with bomb-toting drones

#276

Post by CraigJPerry »

stiray wrote: post #246
imtringued wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, the only explanation I can think of is that it is easy to see a quadrocopter fly and do its thing but it is actually hard to actually notice its real life impracticality unless you own one of them. I don't know what specific model is shown in the picture but if it is a DJI Mavic Air 2 then it only weighs 570 gram and can only fly for 34 minutes. When you compare a quadrocopter with a real life bomber then p…

I understood it as they dont intend to get the drone back. I did some searching, letter bombs were using 50g of RDX [1] and were able to kill a person so driving (and exploding) a drone with 171g of RDX into someone is more than enough. If you take its 18km of reach (while I doubt the controls are able to go that far although with a 4g sim card this could be doable) you get a poor mans cruising "missile" for $1k. And…

A phone network is no use - latency means it’s useless for visual realtime control of a drone and you could just store a gps waypoint route on the flight controller and save the 4g modem weight if you meant as a mission control mechanism.

Achieving the precision of someone holding a letter would be remarkably challenging. Source: racing drone pilot for 5+ years.

Re: Drug cartel assassinates its enemies with bomb-toting drones

#277

Post by fuoqi »

drran wrote: post #247
imtringued wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, the only explanation I can think of is that it is easy to see a quadrocopter fly and do its thing but it is actually hard to actually notice its real life impracticality unless you own one of them. I don't know what specific model is shown in the picture but if it is a DJI Mavic Air 2 then it only weighs 570 gram and can only fly for 34 minutes. When you compare a quadrocopter with a real life bomber then p…

Russians use drones at regular basis to throw[1] old ВОГ-17[0] grenades for automatic grenade launchers at Ukrainian soldier at Donbas. [0]: https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%9E%D0%93-17 [1] https://www.slovoidilo.ua/2020/06/11/novyna/bezpeka/bojovyky...

You mean mostly Ukranian citizens against Ukrainian army which was unconstitutionally deployed against them? (note that I do not deny Russian involvement, but foreign involvement in civil wars is a really common matter)

Ukrainian army uses similar simple drones to throw grenades at rebels as well [0][1]. And interestingly enough Chinese develop similar drones [2], so I think they will be more and more common in future conflicts.

[0]: https://tvzvezda.ru/news/vstrane_i_mire/content/202052159-Rc... [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_Y810e2RXk [2]: https://www.defenseworld.net/news/24569/Weirdly_Shaped_Chine...

Re: Drug cartel assassinates its enemies with bomb-toting drones

#278

Post by martin_a »

pjc50 wrote: post #263
pvaldes wrote: post #241

I assume that an attempt on assasination on a really relevant figure, president and so, could end with the entire cartel city nuked in retaliation. There is always a bigger fish, so there is a limit to what you can do with this. My bet would be that this is a PR stunt and what they are really trying is to discourage people from catching drones that transport thousands of dollars in drugs to steal the cargo. Beware!,…

Slightly baffled by this comment; Mexico is not a nuclear-armed state and is not going to start responding to its cartel problems with genocide? Or are you suggesting that the US would engage in a first strike genocide in response to a single quadcopter bomb?

"Nuked" probably only refers to somebody sending a bigger bomb on the way back and not so much on nuclear warfare.

Re: Drug cartel assassinates its enemies with bomb-toting drones

#279

Post by pvaldes »

pjc50 wrote: post #263
pvaldes wrote: post #241

I assume that an attempt on assasination on a really relevant figure, president and so, could end with the entire cartel city nuked in retaliation. There is always a bigger fish, so there is a limit to what you can do with this. My bet would be that this is a PR stunt and what they are really trying is to discourage people from catching drones that transport thousands of dollars in drugs to steal the cargo. Beware!,…

Slightly baffled by this comment; Mexico is not a nuclear-armed state and is not going to start responding to its cartel problems with genocide? Or are you suggesting that the US would engage in a first strike genocide in response to a single quadcopter bomb?

Is just an metaphor that there is always something with a bigger drone. Change nuking by bombing and city by hacienda if you prefer.

Of course the concept of drone-bomb, once released, is like pandora's box. A double edged sword that could harm both parts.

The natural answer from the enemy cartel after being bombed would be to intercept as many enemy drug-delivery drones as possible with a, lets name it, "falcon-fly drone", attach a package bomb and a postcard with a magneto and let it to continue their route.

And if you are the police you could attach a beacon instead to convert it into a "Judas drone" and release it. Even better if you can catch again the drone in route or release the beacon automatically after a few minutes, the narcos wouldn't suspect that now you have a velocity and a vector. That would help you to trace a possible point of origin and maybe delivery over the same straight line.

Re: Drug cartel assassinates its enemies with bomb-toting drones

#280

Post by dandelany »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #276
stiray wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understood it as they dont intend to get the drone back. I did some searching, letter bombs were using 50g of RDX [1] and were able to kill a person so driving (and exploding) a drone with 171g of RDX into someone is more than enough. If you take its 18km of reach (while I doubt the controls are able to go that far although with a 4g sim card this could be doable) you get a poor mans cruising "missile" for $1k. And…

A phone network is no use - latency means it’s useless for visual realtime control of a drone and you could just store a gps waypoint route on the flight controller and save the 4g modem weight if you meant as a mission control mechanism. Achieving the precision of someone holding a letter would be remarkably challenging. Source: racing drone pilot for 5+ years.

Forget visual - DIY (semi-)autonomous drones are doable today and could be pretty scary too. 4G may not be good enough for a human pilot flying FPV but it’s likely more than enough for a drone with GPS running Ardupilot to hone in on a target tagged with a planted transmitter or bugged phone.
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