The Turkish drone that changed the nature of warfare • Hacker News Board

Re: The Turkish drone that changed the nature of warfare

#61

Post by outworlder » Mon, May 09, 2022, 6:57 PM UTC

stefan_ wrote: post #56

throw93232 wrote: post #25

This drones are almost useless against modern army with good anti air defense. Here is Indian article with some technical details. https://www.defenceview.in/why-did-the-turkish-tb2-uav-sudde...

That's funny because there is countless footage of TB2 blowing up the very systems that are meant to defeat them so easily. What's the obsession in India with Ukrainian ops? Is it just a government desperately needing to justify it's wholly Russian-built army?

Maybe a little deeper than that?

https://thediplomat.com/2022/03/indias-response-to-the-ukrai...

Re: The Turkish drone that changed the nature of warfare

#62

Post by outworlder » Mon, May 09, 2022, 6:59 PM UTC

01100011 wrote: post #48

atlasunshrugged wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they probably don't, if only because government contracting is an absolutely massive pain and having been on both sides (early at a YC co and have worked in local and federal gov) I know that the gov side considers it an issue that they don't have a close enough relationship to tech startups. This was the whole rationale for launching DIU.mil, Afwerx, sofwerx, NavalX, etc. and championing OTAs which helped sh…

If you think supporting the government means working directly working with the government then, again, you don't know the game. Look at the B-2 bomber. Parts were procured via front companies to conceal the project. Do you think that's the only time where that has occurred? There are many layers to that onion and it is obfuscated for a variety of reasons. The least of which is that I don't think many rock star engine…

> Look at the B-2 bomber. Parts were procured via front companies to conceal the project. Do you think that's the only time where that has occurred?

Are you saying they got off the shelf parts? Otherwise, they would be working with the government, even if the purpose of the components wasn't known.

Re: The Turkish drone that changed the nature of warfare

#63

Post by stult » Mon, May 09, 2022, 7:00 PM UTC

openasocket wrote: post #22

robonerd wrote: post #2

> Several news sources have reported that a single TB2 drone can be purchased for a million dollars, but Bayraktar, while not giving a precise figure, told me that it costs more. In any event, single-unit figures are misleading; TB2s are sold as a “platform,” along with portable command stations and communications equipment. In 2019, Ukraine bought a fleet of at least six TB2s for a reported sixty-nine million dollar…

You should take a look at the switchblade. The switchblade 300 model has the equivalent of a 40mm grenade as a warhead, 2.7kg weight, endurance of 10 minutes and a range of around 10km all puts it well in that lower end range. Couldn't find any pricing data, but I imagine more COTS approaches could come out pretty cheap. I'm actually surprised we've got man-portable loitering munitions like the switchblade in use bef…

> I'd have to imagine it's more cost effective (in terms of kilograms of high explosive on target per dollar) to make some GPS-guided or laser-guided mortars

The problem is scale. No one in the private sector makes or needs mortar rounds, so the DoD doesn't benefit from buying COTS components for them. Whereas you can pretty much just strap a grenade to a quadcopter with a few minor tweaks and you're in business. Which is more or less exactly what the Ukrainians have been doing with their surplus Soviet anti-tank grenades.

Re: The Turkish drone that changed the nature of warfare

#64

Post by nradov » Mon, May 09, 2022, 7:03 PM UTC

more_corn wrote: post #40

xxpor wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't work there (except possibly in some minor roles) if you're not a US Person as defined by ITAR for a reason.

ITAR applies because rockets are indistinguishable from ICBMs

While there is some overlap, it's quite easy to distinguish between civilian launch vehicles and military ICBMs. All major civilian rockets use liquid fueled core stages. But all ICBMs are solid fuel.

Re: The Turkish drone that changed the nature of warfare

#65

Post by outworlder » Mon, May 09, 2022, 7:03 PM UTC

wrnr wrote: post #37

Why are these things as effective as they are in the ukrain-russian war? Don't these things show up on radar and therefor vulnerable to conventional anti air defence. Before the start of the war experts where warning that russia could lock down the air space of the whole of europe. These single propeller planes can not be as fast as jet engines and need to be almost on top of their target to drop bombs on them? What…

> What is preventing Russia from building these things in the thousands and I don't know patrol the skies of eastern ukrain with it?

You need to build them, you need to train operators, you need to deploy said operators. They are not autonomous.

A better question is, if Russia's electronic warfare capabilities are so amazing, how are the drones even able to operate?

We'll probably find out that the capabilities were either overstated, or not deployed nearly enough to matter. Pretty sure some AA battery money went to Yacht upkeep.

Re: The Turkish drone that changed the nature of warfare

#66

Post by ch4s3 » Mon, May 09, 2022, 7:03 PM UTC

robonerd wrote: post #47

ch4s3 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems superficially reasonable, but it looks like the TB2 Bayraktar was used to bomb the fuel depot in Bryansk less than two weeks ago and that's 150km into Russia. They seemed to have used the TB2 the other day on Snake Island. As of a week ago there had been 6 internationally confirmed incidents where a Tb2 was shot down. They were known to have had at least 20 when the war started and have received more sense…

> So one can only assume that either Russia's air defense isn't as good as everyone thought, they aren't using it effectively, or the drone is harder to shoot down as operated than people thought. All of the above I bet.

That's what seems to be the case, but I don't know enough to really make sense of it.

Re: The Turkish drone that changed the nature of warfare

#67

Post by beebeepka » Mon, May 09, 2022, 7:09 PM UTC

georgeg23 wrote: post #7

There were protests at SpaceX when it was revealed the Turksat 5B satellite would command and control these TB2 drones, extending their range from operator line-of-sight to near global. Elon decided to go ahead with the launch. At some point we need to start calling SpaceX a defense company.

That point was almost 20 years ago

Re: The Turkish drone that changed the nature of warfare

#68

Post by [deleted] » Mon, May 09, 2022, 7:14 PM UTC

georgeg23 wrote: post #7

There were protests at SpaceX when it was revealed the Turksat 5B satellite would command and control these TB2 drones, extending their range from operator line-of-sight to near global. Elon decided to go ahead with the launch. At some point we need to start calling SpaceX a defense company.

[deleted]

Re: The Turkish drone that changed the nature of warfare

#69

Post by ilamont » Mon, May 09, 2022, 7:20 PM UTC

throw93232 wrote: post #25

This drones are almost useless against modern army with good anti air defense. Here is Indian article with some technical details. https://www.defenceview.in/why-did-the-turkish-tb2-uav-sudde...

A Patriot missile - usually priced at about $3m (£2.5m) - was used to shoot down a small quadcopter drone, according to a US general. The strike was made by a US ally, Gen David Perkins told a military symposium. "That quadcopter that cost 200 bucks from Amazon.com did not stand a chance against a Patriot," he said.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39277940 (2017)

Re: The Turkish drone that changed the nature of warfare

#70

Post by Steltek » Mon, May 09, 2022, 7:21 PM UTC

robonerd wrote: post #2

> Several news sources have reported that a single TB2 drone can be purchased for a million dollars, but Bayraktar, while not giving a precise figure, told me that it costs more. In any event, single-unit figures are misleading; TB2s are sold as a “platform,” along with portable command stations and communications equipment. In 2019, Ukraine bought a fleet of at least six TB2s for a reported sixty-nine million dollar…

Wouldn't a COTS drone be relatively easy to jam or have early warning by detecting its control/video links?

I get why Russia is having trouble adapting (logistics, sanctions, brain drain, paper tiger military) but outside of the Russia-Ukraine war, how effective would a COTS drone really be in a different state-vs-state direct conflict?