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To protect against weaponized drones, we must understand their key strengths

spectrum.ieee.org

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Re: To protect against weaponized drones, we must understand their key strengths

#181

Post by imtringued »

hungryforcodes wrote: post #175
tw04 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of those systems are designed to target dozens of incoming targets. It’s entirely reasonable and plausible for drone swarms to number in the thousands of targets. That ciws will likely exhaust its magazine before it can take out all the drones unless I’m missing something.

Lasers. You just have to put "laser defense drones" into Google to get a whole slew of completed or in development solutions. Also EMPS, counter defensive swarms of drones. The list goes on...

Here is the system I am aware of:

https://youtu.be/1DXpPmpmcak?t=365 (watch this entire video for air defense against saturation attacks)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV3jfR-FUFc

Re: To protect against weaponized drones, we must understand their key strengths

#182

Post by kragen »

jvanderbot wrote: post #176
kragen wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key strength of drones is that they kill who you want to kill, or destroy the materiel you want to destroy, without any collateral damage at all. Coupled with adequate intelligence, which they also help obtain, drones make nuclear weapons obsolete; they are a dramatically more effective means of coercion. There are a lot of fantasies in this thread about how they're easy to defend against, and that would be true…

This is a tech power fantasy. Its not at all representative of the state of the art and disregards a lot of difficulties. Massed drones absolutely can wreck terrible destruction, death by a thousand cuts to any facility or base or airfield. But the kind of amassed yet precise strike against a hundred targeted individuals, with smart targeting and somehow knowledge of their career status?! Come on. I wouldn't even fin…

smart targeting is clearly crucial, yes. but the objective of warfare is not to wreak (or wreck, heh) terrible destruction; it is to break the enemy's will to resist. by themselves, drones don't tell you who to target or where they are; they just gather surveillance data and deliver munitions, very precisely and in a way that is very difficult to stop. in combination with things like facebook data and cellphone subscriber data, that's an extremely powerful capability

keep in mind that what is happening today is not what will happen tomorrow or what can happen in five years

you are rejecting the possibility because of its unfamiliarity, much as the navy rejected the possibility of a surprise attack on pearl harbor

Re: To protect against weaponized drones, we must understand their key strengths

#183

Post by imtringued »

milesward wrote: post #122
NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current point defense systems are already capable of placing a 20mm round with a muzzle velocity of 1000m/s onto a falling mortar shell in the last three seconds of its flight time. How hard do you think drones are by comparison?

ballistic trajectory versus active evasive behavior.

Or just fly near the ground so that air defense will kill the target of the drone...

Re: To protect against weaponized drones, we must understand their key strengths

#184

Post by imtringued »

davidgould wrote: post #174
NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a426717.pdf A target with a 300mm frontal diameter, capable of evading at 10g , is expected to require 6 rounds to achieve a P_hit of 0.5 at 200m range, based on the parameters of your typical Phalanx CIWS. Said Phalanx weapon system might fire a burst of 1s duration in such an engagement, which is 75 rounds. For a missile engagement, that's a problematic number, but for a dr…

Phalanx usually has about 1500 rounds ready, so 20 drones at 75 rounds each will run it out. Phalanx is large, heavy, and costly, and can't be readily be used in built up areas at low angles. A few dozen m/s is probably a good estimate for quadcopter style drones, but low hundreds m/s should be easy for fixed wing drones, so at 200 meter engagement range (that paper makes it pretty clear that maneuvering targets are…

>So maybe drone swarms will work even against current CIWS.

Sure, but current drone swarms wouldn't.

Re: To protect against weaponized drones, we must understand their key strengths

#185

Post by imtringued »

filmfact wrote: post #124
milesward wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ballistic trajectory versus active evasive behavior.

Exactly - mortars predictable trajectory against a background free of ground clutter make them easy to predict the future location of. A drone optimally randomly dodging at treetop height is a much more difficult target.

Why the hell would you dodge at tree top height? That makes absolutely no sense. Just fly a few centimeters off the ground without dodging and no air defense is going to hit you in a civilian area.

Re: To protect against weaponized drones, we must understand their key strengths

#186

Post by imtringued »

trhway wrote: post #121
FridayoLeary wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they even proved themselves in the recent Gaza campaign.

I don't think there were any real military drones. While an RC model/quad with a grenade does qualify as a weapon, the purposely built military drones have orders of magnitude better communication over longer range, incl. remote high precision targeting, loitering times, and carry a high precision stand-off missiles (that is an important point because the defense has to shoot the small fast incoming missile while the…

The iron dome defends against saturation attacks. You see the average HN poster come up with swarm buzzwords and then talk about how defense against saturation attacks is impossible meanwhile the iron dome intercepts 90%+ of hamas rockets even though they are sending thousands of them.

Re: To protect against weaponized drones, we must understand their key strengths

#187

Post by imtringued »

magicsmoke wrote: post #110
wearywanderer wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The line between drone and missile is fuzzy at best. Most of the distinguishing characteristics often cited in these conversations are wrong. For instance, missiles are usually powered by rockets, but many missiles are powered by jet engines instead. Drones are usually meant to be reusable, but the first drones ever made were specifically expendable (which is why they are named after drone bees, which fly once before…

It feels like most of the recent fascination with drones is due to overlap with civilian off-the-shelf technology and the fantasy of being able to buy something that could potentially go toe to toe with advanced militaries. When in fact, militaries have always had "aerial munitions with varying degrees of intelligence and maneuverability and propulsion methods selected based on speed/maneuverability/range tradeoffs."…

>It feels like most of the recent fascination with drones is due to overlap with civilian off-the-shelf technology and the fantasy of being able to buy something that could potentially go toe to toe with advanced militaries.

Yes, it's because it's a harmless toy that can turn dystopian. That's why people's imagination is running wild. It's like that Furby horror game (tattletail). It's the "your nightmares are becoming real" kind of stuff.

Re: To protect against weaponized drones, we must understand their key strengths

#188

Post by imtringued »

justaguy88 wrote: post #12
magicsmoke wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A drone with the same range as a missile would be indistinguishable from a missile. A drone without the same range as a missile would likely have its carrier detected and destroyed before it can get in range to release it's drones. Drones are great for irregular forces that can hide among civilian populations or in dense terrain to have short ranged air strike capabilities cheaply, but they are not substitute for lon…

The drone swarm can have a carrier vehicle, like a (perhaps autonomous) big plane or sub to get it within range

Or just a UGV following infantry.

https://youtu.be/hXNJhB41L-M

https://youtu.be/H_O85m6VXn8

Re: To protect against weaponized drones, we must understand their key strengths

#189

Post by imtringued »

aerostable_slug wrote: post #49
jude- wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jamming wouldn't break line-of-sight or optical communication. Imagine drones that can simply see one another, and communicate by changing color (e.g. with LEDs).

Lasers are already used for inter-satellite communications, so there's no need to just use gross color shifting (though perhaps the BOM impact would be less). Related side story: my resume had something about PKI in it so I kept getting calls from Boeing recruiters trying to fit me into a job doing said satellite laser comms (presumably using PKI). I kept telling them I knew nothing optics-related aside from basic Ne…

Why would you use lasers if you can use Li-Fi?

Re: To protect against weaponized drones, we must understand their key strengths

#190

Post by throwawayfeaxcz »

sliken wrote: post #60
hungryforcodes wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only once. Everyone has paid attention, and the next drone attacks will be suitably defended against. The fact is the "killer bot" scenario is just a one time thing. After it happens, all cities or armies or whatever, will have very solid defences installed against swarming or even just loitering bots. Flying drones are incredibly fragile and exposed. They are slow and easy to kill.

Slow and easy to kill? Seen a drone race? At what range and with what weapon would they be easy to kill? How long would the kill take? At what range could the drone be killed at? Sure often drones fly in straight lines or hover. But in an adversarial environment they could easily move pseudo randomly and be quite difficult to kill.

They are slow and easy to kill compared to fighter jets, the grand parent is not talking about hobbyist drones but UCAVS.
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