Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Turkish drone that changed the nature of warfare

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 120 posts

Re: The Turkish drone that changed the nature of warfare

#81

Post by foxyv »

Steltek wrote: post #70
robonerd wrote: post #2

> Several news sources have reported that a single TB2 drone can be purchased for a million dollars, but Bayraktar, while not giving a precise figure, told me that it costs more. In any event, single-unit figures are misleading; TB2s are sold as a “platform,” along with portable command stations and communications equipment. In 2019, Ukraine bought a fleet of at least six TB2s for a reported sixty-nine million dollar…

Wouldn't a COTS drone be relatively easy to jam or have early warning by detecting its control/video links? I get why Russia is having trouble adapting (logistics, sanctions, brain drain, paper tiger military) but outside of the Russia-Ukraine war, how effective would a COTS drone really be in a different state-vs-state direct conflict?

You can bet that countermeasures are already in place or are being developed now. Jamming of commercial drones is doable. However, it is ridiculously hard to jam software controlled radio equipment. Especially military grade hardware. SpaceX demonstrated this recently when they got past Russia's top of the line hardware. The energy requirements balloon to ridiculous levels when you are talking about broad spectrum jammers doing area denial. In addition, such jammers make excellent targets since you know exactly where they are. If drones could be targeted it makes jamming a lot easier, but still difficult.

One thing we can expect is home on signal anti-aircraft batteries and anti-loitering munitions that seek other loitering munitions. I wouldn't be surprised if this is one of the last big wars where such COTS drone tactics are successful.

Re: The Turkish drone that changed the nature of warfare

#82

Post by foxyv »

openasocket wrote: post #22
robonerd wrote: post #2

> Several news sources have reported that a single TB2 drone can be purchased for a million dollars, but Bayraktar, while not giving a precise figure, told me that it costs more. In any event, single-unit figures are misleading; TB2s are sold as a “platform,” along with portable command stations and communications equipment. In 2019, Ukraine bought a fleet of at least six TB2s for a reported sixty-nine million dollar…

You should take a look at the switchblade. The switchblade 300 model has the equivalent of a 40mm grenade as a warhead, 2.7kg weight, endurance of 10 minutes and a range of around 10km all puts it well in that lower end range. Couldn't find any pricing data, but I imagine more COTS approaches could come out pretty cheap. I'm actually surprised we've got man-portable loitering munitions like the switchblade in use bef…

The XM395 120mm GPS mortar guidance kit is about $10k per round and was introduced a short time before the switchblade. Switchblades are about $7k and are fairly low yield relatively speaking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM395_Precision_Guided_Mortar_...

Re: The Turkish drone that changed the nature of warfare

#83

Post by foxyv »

thelittleone wrote: post #49
glogla wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think these are pretty complementary. Switchblade 300 is a 10km range Javelin (same warhead in fact) with integrated surveillance capability that can go beyond range of sight. It is not there to replace mortars, artillery and MRLS, which are area weapons.

The switchblade 300 has the same warhead as a javelin? Got a source for that?

It's the 600 with the tank buster.

Re: The Turkish drone that changed the nature of warfare

#84

Post by Seanambers »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #78
ilamont wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Patriot missile - usually priced at about $3m (£2.5m) - was used to shoot down a small quadcopter drone, according to a US general. The strike was made by a US ally, Gen David Perkins told a military symposium. "That quadcopter that cost 200 bucks from Amazon.com did not stand a chance against a Patriot," he said. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39277940 (2017)

Assuming 10,000 patriot missiles have been manufactured[1], it would cost only $2 million in quadcopters[2] to deplete the entire missile supply? What a bargain! 1. apologies for lacking a better source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIM-104_Patriot 2. i.e. 2/3rds the cost of a single missile

There are systems in the west that can counter drones much more economically. Heres Rheinmetals Oerlikon Skynex for instance ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DXpPmpmcak Long range missiles, Short range missiles, Lasers and electronic warfare modules in combination for static defence. I would assume that the U.S also has similar concepts.

Re: The Turkish drone that changed the nature of warfare

#85

Post by justsomehnguy »

robonerd wrote: post #60
wrnr wrote: post #37

Why are these things as effective as they are in the ukrain-russian war? Don't these things show up on radar and therefor vulnerable to conventional anti air defence. Before the start of the war experts where warning that russia could lock down the air space of the whole of europe. These single propeller planes can not be as fast as jet engines and need to be almost on top of their target to drop bombs on them? What…

> Don't these things show up on radar I'm sure they do, but they're quite small and mostly made out of composites that are fairly transparent to radar. Their radar cross section must be very small compared to a gen 4 jet fighter. > What is preventing Russia from building these things in the thousands and I don't know patrol the skies of eastern ukrain with it? Money, corruption, inertia, brain drain...

> Their radar cross section must be very small compared to a gen 4 jet fighter.

Still not less than the most of missiles (engine, ordnance).

The real problem is what it is not some video game, you don't have a "satellite view" with enemy units outlined with a red rectangles. Eg S300 was designed in 70s, it's UI/UX is eye-watering.

Re: The Turkish drone that changed the nature of warfare

#86

Post by duskwuff »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #78
ilamont wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Patriot missile - usually priced at about $3m (£2.5m) - was used to shoot down a small quadcopter drone, according to a US general. The strike was made by a US ally, Gen David Perkins told a military symposium. "That quadcopter that cost 200 bucks from Amazon.com did not stand a chance against a Patriot," he said. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39277940 (2017)

Assuming 10,000 patriot missiles have been manufactured[1], it would cost only $2 million in quadcopters[2] to deplete the entire missile supply? What a bargain! 1. apologies for lacking a better source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIM-104_Patriot 2. i.e. 2/3rds the cost of a single missile

Not to mention the possibility of operating swarms of drones to overwhelm air defenses. If an attacker can launch one drone for $200, it isn't much harder for them to launch fifty for $10,000 -- and it's a lot harder (and more expensive) to defend against.

Re: The Turkish drone that changed the nature of warfare

#87

Post by gpderetta »

greedo wrote: post #31
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except you can't survey an area with a an artillery warhead. Sure, you can use your spotters to scout ahead, but why put them in danger of an ambush and have them get killed by a sniper or hidden machinegun, when you can survey that area from a safe distance, and take out the sniper/machine gun if you see one? This is not meant to replace artillery battalions and scouts, but to complement them.

Cheaper to use a drone for spotting instead of a FIST unit. That's what's working for the UA. Kamikaze drones have a role for the smaller units, but at the battalion level, it's better to use a surveillance drone to coordinate fires from mortars, MLRS and artillery. The rounds fired from these systems typically have longer range than a drone, a higher rate of fire, and larger warheads.

In fact it seems to me that overall drones as artillery spotters have been much more impactful than direct fire drones in this war.

Re: The Turkish drone that changed the nature of warfare

#88

Post by gpderetta »

glogla wrote: post #46
greedo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheaper to use a drone for spotting instead of a FIST unit. That's what's working for the UA. Kamikaze drones have a role for the smaller units, but at the battalion level, it's better to use a surveillance drone to coordinate fires from mortars, MLRS and artillery. The rounds fired from these systems typically have longer range than a drone, a higher rate of fire, and larger warheads.

I think these are pretty complementary. Switchblade 300 is a 10km range Javelin (same warhead in fact) with integrated surveillance capability that can go beyond range of sight. It is not there to replace mortars, artillery and MRLS, which are area weapons.

Artillery has been used by Ukraine, and by a lesser extent by Russia, extremely effectively as a precision weapon against all kind of targets, including MBTs.

Re: The Turkish drone that changed the nature of warfare

#89

Post by gpderetta »

ch4s3 wrote: post #43
throw93232 wrote: post #25

This drones are almost useless against modern army with good anti air defense. Here is Indian article with some technical details. https://www.defenceview.in/why-did-the-turkish-tb2-uav-sudde...

This seems superficially reasonable, but it looks like the TB2 Bayraktar was used to bomb the fuel depot in Bryansk less than two weeks ago and that's 150km into Russia. They seemed to have used the TB2 the other day on Snake Island. As of a week ago there had been 6 internationally confirmed incidents where a Tb2 was shot down. They were known to have had at least 20 when the war started and have received more sense…

The problem with using AA against drones is that saturating an area with very cheap drones is a great way to depleting the AA resources, as the Armenians unfortunately found out.

Re: The Turkish drone that changed the nature of warfare

#90

Post by gpderetta »

stult wrote: post #72
ch4s3 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems superficially reasonable, but it looks like the TB2 Bayraktar was used to bomb the fuel depot in Bryansk less than two weeks ago and that's 150km into Russia. They seemed to have used the TB2 the other day on Snake Island. As of a week ago there had been 6 internationally confirmed incidents where a Tb2 was shot down. They were known to have had at least 20 when the war started and have received more sense…

It's a very solvable problem though. At least for countries other than Russia, which might not be technically nimble enough to adapt mid-conflict and under a strong sanctions regime. S-300s/S-400s/Buks and the somewhat rarer western equivalents like the Patriot system just aren't designed to target something flying that slow with that small of a radar cross section. That doesn't mean the drones aren't reasonably easy…

The problem is that I think it is very hard for a modern fighter jet to engage a slow and low drone with a cannon. Probably it is easier with missles, but not very cost effective.

Probably anti-drone drones or some sort of CIWS is going more effective.

Post reply on HN