Live data from Hacker News

Iran unleashes Shahed drones aimed at targets across Middle East

theguardian.com

51–60 of 86 posts

Re: Iran unleashes Shahed drones aimed at targets across Middle East

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk why you’re getting downvoted, the U.S. is looking for a quick win if it can have it. One of the destructive streaks in the Iranian regime (and among its proxies) is their glorification of martyrdom over pragmatism. It’s cost them historically and it’s costing them now.

"the U.S. is looking for a quick win if it can have it." ?? What is a 'quick win' ?? Serious question. - Ayatollah dead, next Ayatollah? - 10 years of civil war? - Installation of US-backed Shah, with no real power base, which will lead to ongoing insurrection, which is what led to ... Islamic Revolution ... because we already tried that? - Faux acquiescence at the negotiating table ... while they dig their HQs furth…

> What is a 'quick win' ?

An Iranian Delcy Rodriguez. Someone who waives a white flag, accepts Trump's terms and then gets left alone for the most part.

Even if it's a bluff to buy time to rebuild, I'm not seeing the strategic rationale for refusing to negotiate. (I do see Iran's leaders being internally constrained to keep fighting. We saw a similar dynamic in Japan during WWII.)

Re: Iran unleashes Shahed drones aimed at targets across Middle East

#53
post #15
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel, United States, United Kingdom, China and Russia have HEL high-energy lasers that can shoot down fast drones. Several other countries are working on HEL development. The numbers of operational HEL systems are still very small but growing. I believe that Israel have the most of them in operation today developed primarily by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. 10kw to 50kw on trucks, 100kw ground based. Range: 7-10…

Cost per shot including the development and unit costs amortized over the service life of the weapons system? Or is that just the cost of the energy that got pumped into the laser?

Is the cost per shot even relevant if you don't include value of the saved property?

Re: Iran unleashes Shahed drones aimed at targets across Middle East

#54

It's fascinating to me that Iran was able to develop this nascent drone industry on their own, while under a very aggressive sanctions/embargo system. It reminds me a bit of Soviet Union and how they were able to come up with, essentially, parallel industry with different flavors. How were they able to do this? Presumably PRC and Russia were supporting this industry either directly or indirectly with material and sup…

Iran is a huge mountainous country, they have everything they need for industry right on their own land. In their case it's purely about competence whether they have a nuclear weapon or not. Whether they have rockets or not. Certainly ballistic rockets.

They also have 95 million people, which is certainly enough to do it. They have inherited/stolen somewhat functional infrastructure (ie. schools, universities, research labs, ...) from the Shah.

Additionally they absolutely do not care about the consequences for the Iranian people. By that I mean once a ballistic rocket's motor goes out, at the top of it's trajectory it is more or less unstoppable (it just falls down essentially). Which means fighting ballistic rockets can only happen above (at the very least close to) the launch site, which means in Iran, and that means above the heads of ordinary Iranians. And of course what works best is disabling them on the ground.

They're not competent enough to build things themselves ... yet. Neither Shaheds nor the ballistic rockets, and certainly not things like centrifuges. But China and Russia are helping them out with a bunch of components. So there you are. Again, China and Russia know perfectly well that this can only end in war against the Iranian people, and yet they still do this.

Btw: yes Hamas' and Hezbollah rockets are ballistic missiles too and suffer from this problem. But they're ... shall we say "tactically using" the problem, blaming the target for the inevitable deaths. The only way for Israel to defend itself against those rockets is to make them impact Gaza/Lebanon instead (if you hit them on the ascent you're essentially massively reducing the range of the rocket). But of course they're pretty small compared to what Iran is firing.

Now, of course Iran COULD build these rockets like the west does: so that when they're intercepted they don't kill. To have an active fuse system and you only activate the fuse near the target. Then, if anything happens you still have the rocket impact, but not the explosion, no or minimal shrapnel, etc. But no, they make their weapons like the Soviets did. These weapons are meant to kill in all cases. If they get intercepted, if they have an accident, if the maps aren't up to date, they just kill anyone they can where they fall and if they fail entirely they kill the launch crew. These weapons are designed for maximum killing, whether it's their target or someone else, and then they blame the resulting deaths on the target.

Of course in an honest/sane system such deaths would be blamed on the manufacturer of the weapons, but apparently we're not intelligent enough for that to happen.

It is worrying that Iran itself is now also using human shield tactics with their own people. That girls' school that was hit in Iran ... was an IRGC base until 3 years ago. The school is surrounded on 3 sides (about ~half) by the IRGC base, and the road into that school is the road into the base. The school is inside the outer wall of the base. In other words: this was specifically arranged by the Iranian government to try to get a foreign adversary to hit the school. Luckily they've also totally failed to show even a single corpse and the school was hit at a time the building should have been empty. So hopefully, this is just a lie.

But if true, this incident is 3 years of 100% intentional human rights violation by Iran's government, and one miscalculation on the US or Israeli side, or perhaps even a screwed up missile launch by the IRGC. And let's just not consider the possibility that they boobytrapped the school on purpose (it just happens to be an area where a minority lives ...)

Re: Iran unleashes Shahed drones aimed at targets across Middle East

#55
post #53
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cost per shot including the development and unit costs amortized over the service life of the weapons system? Or is that just the cost of the energy that got pumped into the laser?

Is the cost per shot even relevant if you don't include value of the saved property?

Yes. To compare to alternative defenses.

Re: Iran unleashes Shahed drones aimed at targets across Middle East

#56
post #6
post #2

Shooting down $40k drones with $4mil interceptors is a problem. Hoping at some point this wake up call is heard. One recent update is that Apache Attack helicopters are being refitted to hunt/kill these types of drones, but the newest Iranian models are flying 300+ mph which is faster than a single rotor helicopter can fly (the leading blade of a helicopter starts to break the sound barrier).

Israel, United States, United Kingdom, China and Russia have HEL high-energy lasers that can shoot down fast drones. Several other countries are working on HEL development. The numbers of operational HEL systems are still very small but growing. I believe that Israel have the most of them in operation today developed primarily by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. 10kw to 50kw on trucks, 100kw ground based. Range: 7-10…

I'm pretty sure Israel has them active. In June there were many wooshes (i.e. interceptor fire) I heard from my home. Now I'm not hearing any, but am hearing what sounds like short high pitched whines (sort of like coil whine). I've been wondering if that is the HEL powering up for each shot.

Re: Iran unleashes Shahed drones aimed at targets across Middle East

#57
post #53
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cost per shot including the development and unit costs amortized over the service life of the weapons system? Or is that just the cost of the energy that got pumped into the laser?

Is the cost per shot even relevant if you don't include value of the saved property?

yes and no. Imagine they have 100 40k drones. Imagine, if a drone hits it will destroy $10mil in property. So your $100k or even $500k interceptor looks cheap.

However, they have 100 of them (so spend 4mil). so you might have to spend (if say 100k each). 10mil to protect your 10mil in property (and more if the interceptors cost more).

If on the other hand you can get the cost down to pennies (minus R&D costs), this is no longer part of the calculus.

Re: Iran unleashes Shahed drones aimed at targets across Middle East

#58
post #6
post #2

Shooting down $40k drones with $4mil interceptors is a problem. Hoping at some point this wake up call is heard. One recent update is that Apache Attack helicopters are being refitted to hunt/kill these types of drones, but the newest Iranian models are flying 300+ mph which is faster than a single rotor helicopter can fly (the leading blade of a helicopter starts to break the sound barrier).

Israel, United States, United Kingdom, China and Russia have HEL high-energy lasers that can shoot down fast drones. Several other countries are working on HEL development. The numbers of operational HEL systems are still very small but growing. I believe that Israel have the most of them in operation today developed primarily by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. 10kw to 50kw on trucks, 100kw ground based. Range: 7-10…

What’s the cost of a single laser? Russia is launching hundreds of those per attack, over a large territory. With a range of 5-7km you’d need _a lot_ of lasers to effectively cover a reasonably large city.

Re: Iran unleashes Shahed drones aimed at targets across Middle East

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the U.S. is looking for a quick win if it can have it." ?? What is a 'quick win' ?? Serious question. - Ayatollah dead, next Ayatollah? - 10 years of civil war? - Installation of US-backed Shah, with no real power base, which will lead to ongoing insurrection, which is what led to ... Islamic Revolution ... because we already tried that? - Faux acquiescence at the negotiating table ... while they dig their HQs furth…

> What is a 'quick win' ? An Iranian Delcy Rodriguez. Someone who waives a white flag, accepts Trump's terms and then gets left alone for the most part. Even if it's a bluff to buy time to rebuild, I'm not seeing the strategic rationale for refusing to negotiate. (I do see Iran's leaders being internally constrained to keep fighting. We saw a similar dynamic in Japan during WWII.)

[deleted]

Re: Iran unleashes Shahed drones aimed at targets across Middle East

#60
post #58
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel, United States, United Kingdom, China and Russia have HEL high-energy lasers that can shoot down fast drones. Several other countries are working on HEL development. The numbers of operational HEL systems are still very small but growing. I believe that Israel have the most of them in operation today developed primarily by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. 10kw to 50kw on trucks, 100kw ground based. Range: 7-10…

What’s the cost of a single laser? Russia is launching hundreds of those per attack, over a large territory. With a range of 5-7km you’d need _a lot_ of lasers to effectively cover a reasonably large city.

What’s the cost of a single laser?

No idea. I would imagine one would have to call, negotiate, kvetch, negotiate, stall, and so on.

Post reply on HN