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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

#151

Post by bob33212 »

lazide wrote: post #69
sliken wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And even drone races are slow and predictable compared to what is possible with an applied military mind and decent tools. I suspect (or hope) we already have some decent options in the top secret space. Nothing we have now (publicly) is going to do a damn against a shipping container full of 2-5 lb drones each carrying 1 lb of C4 in a swarm with cheap off the shelf sensors going 100 mph nap of the earth in a distrib…

If you mass produce these things you are going to leave traces of your logistics supply chain. Even if you brought them into a staging are one at a time your frequent trips would lead back to where they were made or by whom.

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

#152

Post by nradov »

hash872 wrote: post #126
godtoldmetodoit wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed - in this awful scenario where the US is fighting China, their economy would absolutely crater as the US shoots any ship heading towards Chinese ports after the embargo was declared. China can't feed itself. China only produces a third of the oil it consumes. If your people begin to starve as soon as war starts and you all of a sudden have 1/3rd the oil you used to.... well, that's not exactly a recipe for suc…

They have a gigantic strategic oil reserve (it has its own Wiki page!), and I would assume the same for food as well. I'm sure that Pakistan and especially Russia would be happy to help with them as imports as well, maybe not as much as they use in a given year, but enough to help out. Most of the simulations for a naval war around Taiwan predict that it would be over in a few days, maybe weeks, but not long enough t…

The US Navy is big enough to impose a fairly effective blockade on China for an extended period. All they have to do is drop a few mines near Chinese ports and shipping labels. Marine insurers will then decline coverage for all merchant vessels in those waters, making it impossible for neutrals to operate. The Chinese could still accept the risk and run their own flagged ships through but overall trade would be greatly reduced.

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

#153

Post by jacquesm »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #120
sliken wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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?

Actually, quite hard. Mortar shells don't suddenly change direction.

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

#154

Post by _carbyau_ »

dtwest wrote: post #11
ProjectArcturis wrote: post #4

Drones are the new aircraft carriers. That is, pre-WWII, the dominant naval ship was the battleship. Heavily armored, with enormous guns, military planners expected that the battle for the Atlantic and Pacific would be carried out by these monsters slugging it out. Though there were hints that planes could be quite effective against ships, few admirals realized that the longer range of an aircraft carrier would make…

When battleships and tanks are the weapon, manufacturing capacity powers the war machine. Perhaps drones usher in a new dynamic in that regard too. Maybe it's not how many drones you produce but how well programmed they are, what sensor or communication technology they use, etc.

Fit-for-purpose quality(including design, construction, tech) vs efficiency of production(cost) has always been a factor for the battlefield since forever. Iron vs bronze vs wood.

In modern times, software already runs a lot of tanks/missiles/planes/ships/communications etc.

As I see it the single biggest new factor is that "drone enabling software" significantly reworks hardware design parameters and thus affects manufacturing capacity.

For example, in a plane, the drone technology allows removal of a lot of weight along with "human onboard" red tape safety factors while enlarging G force parameters. It has added other factors for control and operation. But on the whole it is deemed a quite significant win it seems.

Drone on drone warfare leads to thinking about "software exploits" but on the battlefield it is always about exploits. Historically see spitfires and their limited ability to dive being exploited by the opposition but then being hardware "patched".

edit: conciseness

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

#156

Post by racnid »

aerostable_slug wrote: post #48
ericd wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or perhaps a missile full of drones, similar to those bombs with lots of guided submunitions.

Tomahawk TLAM/D carries 166 submunitions in 24 canisters. There's no reason those submunitions need to be dumb — or stationary for that matter.

I can't seem to find any reference for what actual submunitions a Tomahawk carries but conventional cluster munitions can already be smart:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CBU-97_Sensor_Fuzed_Weapon

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

#157

Post by vmh1928 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #89
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.

The primary defense for the time being is 'hide.' US Marine tacticians, for example, are shifting priority from hardening an impromptu position (ie a foxhole) to concealing it.

Check out some of the Azerbaijani drone strike footage with IR on Youtube. They'll need to go deep and avoid any above ground movement and it better not look like a bunker. Unless effective drone defense (other drones?) is employed using cheap drones are a game changer.

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

#158

Post by conductr »

_carbyau_ wrote: post #147

This article doesn't seem to actually list key strengths. Drones are high on my list of "scared to see what they can do when it is unveiled". With little imagination you can put together: - standard consumer quadcopter - standard consumer camera face detection - standard consumer pistol and tie it all together with software. Even without smart projectile prediction for improved aiming. While the software bit is hard-…

I’ve unfortunately been waiting for the mass shooter types to discover this as well. Even something as simple as quad, light load of explosives/hand grenade, a simple hobby hardware release mechanism, all combined with public gathering/open air stadium. It’s pretty terrifying.

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

#159

Post by woeirua »

sklearncowboy wrote: post #106
ProjectArcturis wrote: post #4

Drones are the new aircraft carriers. That is, pre-WWII, the dominant naval ship was the battleship. Heavily armored, with enormous guns, military planners expected that the battle for the Atlantic and Pacific would be carried out by these monsters slugging it out. Though there were hints that planes could be quite effective against ships, few admirals realized that the longer range of an aircraft carrier would make…

China was already way past this by the late 90s. This is old thinking. Same battlefield with different technology. The war that changed everything was the 1st Gulf War. 20 years ago they could see how stupid it was to use weapons to blow things up that cost more than what you were blowing up. Our military has already been lapped. We only don't think so because we waste so much money on outdated expensive weapon syste…

Which explains why China has spent hundreds of billions of dollars trying to catch the US tech advantage? Please. This is comically false.

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

#160

Post by _carbyau_ »

conductr wrote: post #158
_carbyau_ wrote: post #147

This article doesn't seem to actually list key strengths. Drones are high on my list of "scared to see what they can do when it is unveiled". With little imagination you can put together: - standard consumer quadcopter - standard consumer camera face detection - standard consumer pistol and tie it all together with software. Even without smart projectile prediction for improved aiming. While the software bit is hard-…

I’ve unfortunately been waiting for the mass shooter types to discover this as well. Even something as simple as quad, light load of explosives/hand grenade, a simple hobby hardware release mechanism, all combined with public gathering/open air stadium. It’s pretty terrifying.

And I guess that is what makes the "quadcopter" drone so scary to most civilians rather than the military.

The application for "shooter event" amplification and without the easy to spot bad guy.

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