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Drones Raining from the Sky in Zhengzhou

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Re: Drones Raining from the Sky in Zhengzhou

#121
post #104
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> shells fired by the Phalanx cost around $30 each That's pretty crazy to think of ... I guess the only justification for that is that the assets that are protected by such a system are worth more than that. > You could imagine firing fewer rounds per salvo If I learned anything from games, it's that you want AoE damage for swarming enemies ;-)

it costs $27,000 to fire this weapon... for 12 seconds.

Still less expensive than NAT gateway though /s

Re: Drones Raining from the Sky in Zhengzhou

#122
post #88
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you? What if the drones are carrying grenades? I mean, I can see how it’s less than ideal, but I don’t think it’s safe to assume you’d do more harm than good.

If you can say for certain beforehand that the drones are carrying grenades, then _maybe_. But if they are "just" carrying a sharpened stick to try and skewer whichever politician is holding the rally with, then killing a large amount of the audience will be really unpopular Also, not killing them but allowing the politician to be killed will be really unpopular too. Lasers on the other hand don't run out of ammo, ca…

Lasers still can cause potentially blinding unwanted reflections. Still likely a better option than supersonic shrapnel from standard proximity fuzed rounds though as collateral damage goes.

Re: Drones Raining from the Sky in Zhengzhou

#123
post #76
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually proximity fuzed rounds should work the best, each taking outv many swarm memvers. Its not like these things could be armored rather than as light as possible.

Proximity fused rounds do have the significant downside that using them near built up areas will cause significant collateral damage. For example, if a drone swarm attacks an election rally somewhere in the US then you can't really detonate airburst shells above the crowd to take out the drones, since you would do more harm than good with that.

Hmm, a slightly Rube Goldberg type idea - what about firing proximity fuzed "airbag rounds" ? A Kevlar bag + car airbag style gas generator. If fuzed and timed just right it could potentially punch the drone from the sky, either breaking it or casing enough flight path distortion it migh not recover.

Or maybe release a bunch nylon filaments that will entangle any propellers and make the thing fall down ?

Re: Drones Raining from the Sky in Zhengzhou

#125
Yeah, as if everything come out of China is wanting to kill you. From robotic space arms to toy drones. It's kind weird to have that kind of thoughts here, really.

That been said, the actual reason for cities to use these drones is surprisingly simple: China banned firework show few years ago for environmental reasons, so cities use drones as alternative to celebrate October 1 which is China's national day and the longest holidays (the Golden Holidays).

See? Just that simple.

Also, using drones is a smarter choice: Not only it's eco-friendlier, but also cheap, fixable and safer compare to fireworks. You can even put ads in the sky to cover part of the cost after the show is over, it just make more sense.

In this very case, I think the drones are doing fail-safe landing maneuvers, probably due to lost of control signal. Reportedly the drone company has already called the police on the suspicion of sabotage.

Re: Drones Raining from the Sky in Zhengzhou

#126
post #125

Yeah, as if everything come out of China is wanting to kill you. From robotic space arms to toy drones. It's kind weird to have that kind of thoughts here, really. That been said, the actual reason for cities to use these drones is surprisingly simple: China banned firework show few years ago for environmental reasons, so cities use drones as alternative to celebrate October 1 which is China's national day and the lo…

Reportedly, a company representative has denied the sabotage claims as baseless: https://3g.163.com/news/article/GLB7UNBI0001899O.html

Re: Drones Raining from the Sky in Zhengzhou

#127
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can say for certain beforehand that the drones are carrying grenades, then _maybe_. But if they are "just" carrying a sharpened stick to try and skewer whichever politician is holding the rally with, then killing a large amount of the audience will be really unpopular Also, not killing them but allowing the politician to be killed will be really unpopular too. Lasers on the other hand don't run out of ammo, ca…

Lasers still can cause potentially blinding unwanted reflections. Still likely a better option than supersonic shrapnel from standard proximity fuzed rounds though as collateral damage goes.

Yes lasers are not perfect either, for example the chances are often fairly high that a shot-down drone will fall onto something (or someone). Like I mentioned before, if drone swarm attacks are a part of the threat model then you might want to reconsider if you want to let civilians near the event at all.

Re: Drones Raining from the Sky in Zhengzhou

#128
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> these drones were initially designed as an airborne sentry or surveillance tool. So probably developed in part by people who had no idea they were building weapons.

Not really. The Turkish drone projects were created basically because Turkish engineers looked at all the drone stuff happening in the west and went "look at all these idiot westerners using all these amazing weapons as toys". Everyone who joined those companies knew from the start what field they were in. And while the original Kargus didn't have explosives, that doesn't mean they weren't weapons. In the military se…

Yup, and I've watched YT videos on that drone before...all the comments are filled with Turks who are proud of their country's killing machines. That said, there are people who are proud of MQ-1s etc as well.

Re: Drones Raining from the Sky in Zhengzhou

#129
post #56

```In the novel The Diamond Age, author Neal Stephenson posits a future in which the world is divided into competing nation-tribes, or phyles. The most powerful of these phyles have extensive nanotechnology capabilities, and use nanotech in various ways to gain an edge over their competitors and neighbors. Most notably, they create various sorts of airborne nanotech robots -- known as mites -- to infiltrate one anoth…

Kill Decision by Daniel Suarez also covers killer drones, albeit it makes for lighter reading (and some eyeroll inducing archetypes) than Neal's work.

Re: Drones Raining from the Sky in Zhengzhou

#130
post #126
post #125

Yeah, as if everything come out of China is wanting to kill you. From robotic space arms to toy drones. It's kind weird to have that kind of thoughts here, really. That been said, the actual reason for cities to use these drones is surprisingly simple: China banned firework show few years ago for environmental reasons, so cities use drones as alternative to celebrate October 1 which is China's national day and the lo…

Reportedly, a company representative has denied the sabotage claims as baseless: https://3g.163.com/news/article/GLB7UNBI0001899O.html

Huh. Thanks for the update. My information was still in the "媒体报道显示,有高新区万达广场工作人员称,已报警处理,疑似同行恶意竞争干扰所致" time frame.
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