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

French company ramps up production to meet demand for its military drone radar

politico.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 100 posts

Re: French company ramps up production to meet demand for its military drone radar

#51

Post by lm28469 »

bell-cot wrote: post #2

> Since the war in Ukraine started, the French government has urged companies to produce more weapons, faster and cheaper. > However, the reality is complicated. > "It's an ongoing process. Up until now, we were producing around 10 radars a year, now the target is over 20 a year,” Descourvieres said. If there was an actual war on, and a nation was taking both combat and operational losses - then 10 or 20 per year har…

Pouring cement will always be easier/cheaper than maintaining an ever increasingly expensive army...

Imagine the amount of wasted resources and man hours it would have required to keep France world war ready since 1945

If there is an actual threat the response will be nuclear, that's the whole point of having nuclear submarines deployed 24/7. For regular military operations we have quite good intel services and projection forces

Re: French company ramps up production to meet demand for its military drone radar

#52

Post by AlexanderTheGr8 »

cm2187 wrote: post #47
AlexanderTheGr8 wrote: post #42

I read the article but couldn't find any mention of how a radar detects drones? A drone is much smaller than an aircraft, can be confused with birds and can have 0 communication with a command & control station due to AI. So how can anything detect it? Plus, even if you detect it, it's coming towards you at a speed of 100+ kmph with the intent to crash into you and detonate the payload. Any missile you use is way too…

These videos are horrible. On one side I feel for that kid who probably didn't chose to be there and grappling with imminent death. On the other hand if my country was invaded I would probably watch those videos with popcorn. It's a weird war, mixing social media with a ww1 trench war, military hardware with a share button, you get to watch live the horror of the trenches from under your duvet. The other thing is tho…

>On the other hand if my country was invaded I would probably watch those videos with popcorn

We don't even know which country the soldier belonged to. And realistically, if your country was invaded, you are unlikely to be in a position to relax and eat popcorn but I get your sentiment.

I agree how weird this war is. The first war being live streamed. That increases the horror since watching videos of something happening is much worse than just reading about it. And most people don't read but will intently watch a drone following a soldier and exploding.

> Every time Ukraine is glad they shot a $50k drone with a $1m patriot missile I wonder where this war can possibly go.

More drones and more missiles. Until someone figures out cheaper ways of stopping drones. My gut feeling is that in 1-2 years, we will have proper industrial ways of stopping drones en masse. And then drones will become just a part of the commander's arsenal like any other weapon.

Re: French company ramps up production to meet demand for its military drone radar

#53

Post by Adverblessly »

AlexanderTheGr8 wrote: post #42

I read the article but couldn't find any mention of how a radar detects drones? A drone is much smaller than an aircraft, can be confused with birds and can have 0 communication with a command & control station due to AI. So how can anything detect it? Plus, even if you detect it, it's coming towards you at a speed of 100+ kmph with the intent to crash into you and detonate the payload. Any missile you use is way too…

> Any missile you use is way too expensive relative to the price of the drone.

My understanding is that you use a laser, though I don't see why even regular AA guns wouldn't work, especially if it is trying to crash on you, meaning it needs to get very close.

> Plus, even if you detect it, it's coming towards you at a speed of 100+ kmph with the intent to crash into you and detonate the payload.

That will at least help you distinguish it from a bird :) Plus, I suspect that in any military conflict, you'll be more than happy to eat the cost of frying a few birds if it means you stopped the enemy's drones.

Re: French company ramps up production to meet demand for its military drone radar

#54

Post by amenhotep »

cm2187 wrote: post #47
AlexanderTheGr8 wrote: post #42

I read the article but couldn't find any mention of how a radar detects drones? A drone is much smaller than an aircraft, can be confused with birds and can have 0 communication with a command & control station due to AI. So how can anything detect it? Plus, even if you detect it, it's coming towards you at a speed of 100+ kmph with the intent to crash into you and detonate the payload. Any missile you use is way too…

These videos are horrible. On one side I feel for that kid who probably didn't chose to be there and grappling with imminent death. On the other hand if my country was invaded I would probably watch those videos with popcorn. It's a weird war, mixing social media with a ww1 trench war, military hardware with a share button, you get to watch live the horror of the trenches from under your duvet. The other thing is tho…

Patriots aren't the answer to Shaheds, but that's the wrong way to look at it. You don't compare the price of an APS charge with the price of an RPG. You don't spec your soldiers' ballistic plates by aiming to bring their cost down below the cost of the bullet you hope it'll stop. The plate is replaceable, the soldier's heart isn't, you sacrifice the thing you're happy to lose to save the thing you want to keep.

They're not happy they shot down $50k of drone, they're happy they shot down 50 kg of explosives that was going to strike a power station, it's not a hard trade to make.

Re: French company ramps up production to meet demand for its military drone radar

#55

Post by lm28469 »

stefan_ wrote: post #5
bell-cot wrote: post #2

> Since the war in Ukraine started, the French government has urged companies to produce more weapons, faster and cheaper. > However, the reality is complicated. > "It's an ongoing process. Up until now, we were producing around 10 radars a year, now the target is over 20 a year,” Descourvieres said. If there was an actual war on, and a nation was taking both combat and operational losses - then 10 or 20 per year har…

It's getting hard to believe anything in this world anymore. A million shells fired by the Germans in Verdun in a mere 8 hours and now the entirety of Europe can't make that number in a year.

I'll take 10 000 modern shells over 1m of whatever the fuck they were using back in ww1. The accuracy was "it's going to fall somewhere between us and were the canon is pointed" and up to 50% didn't detonate.

We're talking about:

https://nfknowledge.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/2573.jpg

vs

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bofors/Nexter_Bonus

Re: French company ramps up production to meet demand for its military drone radar

#56

Post by lm28469 »

bluGill wrote: post #10
ttoinou wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those aren't the same shells though

They would work and be better than the nothing we have. Well some minor adustment for 155mm shells.

Well actually against modern armor they wouldn't work much better than nothing

Re: French company ramps up production to meet demand for its military drone radar

#57

Post by lm28469 »

simmerup wrote: post #14
stefan_ wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's getting hard to believe anything in this world anymore. A million shells fired by the Germans in Verdun in a mere 8 hours and now the entirety of Europe can't make that number in a year.

Just wait until we see what China can produce for a war

I'm very curious actually, especially after seeing how the 2nd largest army in the world is performing in Ukraine

Re: French company ramps up production to meet demand for its military drone radar

#58

Post by lm28469 »

AlexanderTheGr8 wrote: post #49
lm28469 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making a lot of wrong assumptions, drones can be any size, nobody's talking about missiles to shoot them down, not all drones are kamikaze, &c. If they're already being produced they do work for their intended purpose, Thales doesn't fuck around

I understand I am making assumptions bec of lack of information in the article. Re shooting them down, if you can't shoot them down, whats the point of detecting them? And a drone being kamikaze only matters IF you can shoot them down. Because then it's a race between the drone rushing to kamikaze vs you shooting it down. I will admit that I am just speculating here because I have a strange interest in militarized dr…

You don't handle a dji dropping mortar rounds the same way you handle a fpv drone with a rpg warhead strapped under it nor the same way you handle a fleet of bayraktar pounding you from 5km above. I'm just saying you're mix and matching things which shouldn't be mixed and matched, the premise is wrong, no one is going to shoot down a $50 dji with a missile and no one will try to shoot a bayraktar with a shotgun. Just like you don't shoot a tank with a rifle or a moving plane with an unguided rocket launcher, you need the right tool for the right job

You can scramble them, shoot them with bullets, catch the drone/projectile with nets, shoot them with missiles, &c.

Again it's one of the main military company in France and it is partially owned by the state, I can assure you the fact that these things are being made is proof that they fulfil their role

Re: French company ramps up production to meet demand for its military drone radar

#59

Post by opt-skept »

AlexanderTheGr8 wrote: post #42

I read the article but couldn't find any mention of how a radar detects drones? A drone is much smaller than an aircraft, can be confused with birds and can have 0 communication with a command & control station due to AI. So how can anything detect it? Plus, even if you detect it, it's coming towards you at a speed of 100+ kmph with the intent to crash into you and detonate the payload. Any missile you use is way too…

This has a range of 400+km (100kmph = 4 hours to respond).

It's purpose to maintain an accurate picture of the sky, tracking many objects at the same time at different altitudes. The radar itself is just part of the picture - its data is integrated with command and control, where decisions are made about the picture coming in, and the data is blended with other sources to get a more accurate picture (not sure if bird or drone? check the video feed data, or a number of other sources).

The unit itself looks at the behavior of the object (speed, acceleration, routes, elevation, radar profile) to determine the likely class of the object (birds don't fly like drones nor do they have the same radar profile).

As far as mitigating threats, command and control again makes those decisions. It depends on the context of the fight and the resources available. In the hypothetical situation you think a kamikaze drone is headed your direction, the radars are mobile - one option is to simply move. You may know (or have a good guess) as to the specific threat - how it is controlled. You might take out drone communications with EW. You might misguide a precision munition by spoofing GLOSNAS/GPS so that it drifts and misses its target. If it is flying at a low elevation, you might be able to take it out with heavy machine gun fire. You might decide to let it strike, due to cost-benefit ratio.

It really gets down to specifics: What's the air asset? What the threat? What's the mission? What's the battle context? What are the resources?

Regarding a drone having zero command & control due to AI - most of the "AI" in drones is simple straight line flying for a couple hundred meters (so called "terminal flight guidance"). This is because enemy electronic warfare cover may jam communications channels for the drone as it approaches closer to a target. As cool as it sounds to have fully autonomous drones making complex decisions, piloting around obstacles in all weather conditions in 3D space, tracking moving targets, etc - this isn't the threat from drones right now.

Re: French company ramps up production to meet demand for its military drone radar

#60

Post by PeterisP »

amenhotep wrote: post #54
cm2187 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These videos are horrible. On one side I feel for that kid who probably didn't chose to be there and grappling with imminent death. On the other hand if my country was invaded I would probably watch those videos with popcorn. It's a weird war, mixing social media with a ww1 trench war, military hardware with a share button, you get to watch live the horror of the trenches from under your duvet. The other thing is tho…

Patriots aren't the answer to Shaheds, but that's the wrong way to look at it. You don't compare the price of an APS charge with the price of an RPG. You don't spec your soldiers' ballistic plates by aiming to bring their cost down below the cost of the bullet you hope it'll stop. The plate is replaceable, the soldier's heart isn't, you sacrifice the thing you're happy to lose to save the thing you want to keep. They…

A key difference from your examples is that the enemy doesn't have the capability to simply (and risk-free) send an arbitrary number of bullets at your soldiers' hearts or RPG rounds at your vehicles; the major "cost of delivery" is not the bullet/RPG but the trooper (and his risk) bringing the gun to get a chance to make a targeted shot with the bullet/RPG.

If bullets could leave the factory and magically fly straight at your soldiers, expensive single-use ballistic plates would not be a practical solution - you'd simply run out of them as you can't possibly produce as many of them as the enemy can make bullets.

Post reply on HN