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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

#291

Post by sudosysgen »

Aerroon wrote: post #232
blackoil wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't shotguns be automated. Building a personal "anti-aircraft/drone" gun should be feasible.

They are. They're usually called CRAM or CIWS on ships (Close in weapons system).[0] They are used as the last line of defense on modern warships against missiles and other threats. Here you can see one of them in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsVUISS8oHs [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-in_weapon_system

They are also ineffective against more than a handful of threats.

They work okay against mortars and dumb munitions, though.

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

#292

Post by sudosysgen »

kumarvvr wrote: post #183
sudosysgen wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is. I came to this realization on the way back from a robotics competition, I was editing pictures I took with my new camera. I was reading articles about improvements we could make to SLAM, and editing pictures I took on the trip. When I realized that I had so much dynamic range that was able to completely remove haze and flaring from incredibly bright objects very close with a very middling lens, and comb…

You cannot have active measures against an intelligent swarm of drones. If drones are wired to explode in case of landing or power failure, active measures cannot be taken when the drones are over crowded areas or near high profile targets. The alternative would be to destroy them from far away areas. And that is really really hard. I guess we have to come up with special guns and ammunition that can create a wall of…

Good point.

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

#293

Post by Zigurd »

The pattern to discern from articles like this is that they highlight the threat and not the difficulty of actually realizing the threat.

When you put two layers of improvisation into a weapon the odds of it working are very low. Building an effective homemade grenade is difficult. Delivering it with a noisy machine that limits the size of the grenade multiplies the odds of making a spectacular but ineffective attempt that will only get you noticed.

But it does increase the odds that some consultant will get hired by DHS to write an unreadable report about this supposed threat.

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

#294

Post by JackFr »

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.

So how will a drone attack me in my house? Mind you my house is not a hard target but is air conditioned, so I keep the doors and windows shut. How will a drone attack me in my car? I don’t have a great car, but I’m pretty sure it can outrun an off the shelf quadcopter. So assuming I’m safe in my home and in my car, I guess other opportunities exist to kill me, but you need to have an operator ready with a drone in proximity. It just doesn’t make sense.

Admittedly, drones with IEDs can be used as a terror device, to kill someone in a group of people, but as a targeted means of killing I can’t imagine it being better than a mortar or RPG.

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

#295

Post by JackFr »

dogma1138 wrote: post #283
peteretep wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You can’t order a mortar on alibaba, and it requires much more training to use it effectively than flying a drone. Mortars are also large and heavy and require a crew to serve as well as spotters to direct fire which means you need to have people closer to your target and working communications. All of this complicates the logistics considerably which makes them less effective and more dangerous to their operators. E…

> You can’t order a mortar on alibaba

Well you can’t order C4 on Alibaba either. But if you can get C4 you can likely get a mortar.

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

#296

Post by sudosysgen »

dvdkhlng wrote: post #238
ashtonkem wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot one: shotguns. The most reliable means to take out a drone might be some good old fashioned birdshot.

And what about good old water cannons? I can't imagine how the drone's rotor would be able to generate predictable lift when hit by a lot of water.

Water cannons have a very limited range. Not good for saturation attacks.

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

#297

Post by sudosysgen »

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!,…

How do you do attribution? What if you never find who killed the public figure?

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

#298

Post by sudosysgen »

esturk wrote: post #213
Animats wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Progress marches on. Autonomous visual navigation have been available for some time. Face recognition can be done with smartphone hardware. Inertial guidance for drones is available but still a bit pricey.[1] This is going to be a major problem for the golf industry. It's the ideal target environment - high-value targets, no place to take cover. [1] https://www.uavnavigation.com/products/ahrs-imu/polar-300

Nah, golf industry will be fine. If a technology is so advantageous, then it will eventually become the counter to itself. Imagine several drone swarming around you like a body guard and you would have several orbital layers for short/medium/long range protection. Imagine a drone being so sophisticated that it can calculate the sniper shot gunning for you and can even deflect the bullet or take the direct hit for you…

That can just never work. Several drones swarming around you do will do bugger all against enough shrapnel, or against a shaped charge, or just a sufficiently heavy drone going fast enough. Or the drone could carry a chemical agent and kill you.

The economics of defence are such that kamikaze anti-drone drones won't work. Either they'll miss the vast majority of the time, or they will be hideously more expensive than the drone they're defending against.

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

#299

Post by golergka »

JackFr wrote: post #294
ashtonkem wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So how will a drone attack me in my house? Mind you my house is not a hard target but is air conditioned, so I keep the doors and windows shut. How will a drone attack me in my car? I don’t have a great car, but I’m pretty sure it can outrun an off the shelf quadcopter. So assuming I’m safe in my home and in my car, I guess other opportunities exist to kill me, but you need to have an operator ready with a drone in p…

> I’m pretty sure it can outrun an off the shelf quadcopter.

You need to know you're running from something to run from it. Do you have set of mirrors or cameras to conveniently monitor what's happening above your car?

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

#300

Post by opless »

DuskStar wrote: post #11
Moeg wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know C4 isn't for civilians either..

Tannerite is, though. (And where it isn't, blasting charges for mining are. And where those aren't, fertilizer probably still is. Explosives are hard, yet also far easier than you'd think)

You'll find that regular fertilizer has explosion retardant additives. Which made me think (and was confirmed later) that the Beirut explosion was 'weapons grade' ammonium nitrate, rather than the stuff sold to civilians.

For instance; https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/cen-v073n022.p006

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