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Mysterious drones have been spotted at airports across Europe

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Mysterious drones have been spotted at airports across Europe

#81

Post by infecto »

slightwinder wrote: post #78
infecto wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jammers work pretty well. I would expect most large airports would have a defense response. They would have the tools setup to one instantly identify and track said drones come within the space and two have the tools like the portable jammers to “shoot” it down. These tools are not that expensive and exist from multiple vendors. I would have expected this to be table stakes at running large busy airports.

> Jammers work pretty well. On publics airports? Where planes have to land all the time? Can they be pinpointed exactly on one specific target without disturbing the others? And this is assuming there even is a remote-control to jam.

Yup. At least in the prior case this year the airports all shutdown. I see no reason you should not be able to quickly react to a scenario like this? Most European airports have some sort of federal response in or near the airport anyway. Not that big leap to think you should be able to jump on it.

Re: Mysterious drones have been spotted at airports across Europe

#83

Post by FinnKuhn »

infecto wrote: post #80
FinnKuhn wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How quickly can you deploy a portable jammer? The drone might have disappeared until you have done so already. So you definitelly need automated systems for detection and targetting, which will probably take time until they are widely available.

They make hand helds that can be used without human LOS with something like 3km range. You don’t definitely need automated systems but obviously that would be probably more bullet proof.

A 3km range seems pretty low looking at the size of e.g. Frankfurt Airport.

The bigger issue I assume is probably that even if you react very quickly the drone might be already gone already anyway.

Re: Mysterious drones have been spotted at airports across Europe

#84

Post by AnimalMuppet »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #31

I dunno if calling them "mysterious" is really helpful in this case. Just shoot them down if they get close, that should be the response in a wartime scenario too. Plus, given it's in civilian areas, they can use the expensive laser defense systems to do that.

The problem with this is, if you shoot and miss, the bullet goes somewhere. Airports are near cities, and there tend to be people "down range".

Re: Mysterious drones have been spotted at airports across Europe

#85

Post by AnimalMuppet »

sigwinch wrote: post #49
littlestymaar wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not convinced by your conclusion. I mean of course drones would be a massive problem for western forces as they have never faced that kind of threat at scale. But at the same time the Russian army has suffered dramatic attrition in Ukraine, especially in anti-air capabilities which used to be USSR's specialty and which western analyst feared it would allow the Russians to perform wide anti access on the Baltic's…

On the topic of what Putin wants , I’m increasingly swayed that domestic politics limit the choices he’s given. I wonder how the same siloviki but a different leader would perform. On the topic of a wide drone attack coinciding with land invasion, I think (rightly or wrongly) the drone attack will be attributed to Russia early. Even though the life of a Russian soldier is approximately the same as a drone, it’d be ve…

Could you expand a bit on what you mean by your first paragraph?

Re: Mysterious drones have been spotted at airports across Europe

#86

Post by infecto »

FinnKuhn wrote: post #83
infecto wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They make hand helds that can be used without human LOS with something like 3km range. You don’t definitely need automated systems but obviously that would be probably more bullet proof.

A 3km range seems pretty low looking at the size of e.g. Frankfurt Airport. The bigger issue I assume is probably that even if you react very quickly the drone might be already gone already anyway.

It is but I would hope these entities are trying at least something and those jammers are cheap.

In Paris they developed an electronic barrier wall for drones. Yes maybe these are autonomous enough that when the link is cut they continue on their mission but I think something is better than nothing.

These tools are widely available.

Re: Mysterious drones have been spotted at airports across Europe

#87

Post by sigwinch »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #85
sigwinch wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the topic of what Putin wants , I’m increasingly swayed that domestic politics limit the choices he’s given. I wonder how the same siloviki but a different leader would perform. On the topic of a wide drone attack coinciding with land invasion, I think (rightly or wrongly) the drone attack will be attributed to Russia early. Even though the life of a Russian soldier is approximately the same as a drone, it’d be ve…

Could you expand a bit on what you mean by your first paragraph?

History shows periods of opaque infighting within a closed circle of security barons. The west did not know Khrushchev was positioned for power until that ring met with Eisenhower for arms talks, and Khrushchev was the one standing next to Eisenhower at the buffet.

I think the West now expects a complex and probably mortal fight for succession, with the Patruchevs being favored right now.

I’ve heard people talking about factions: one ensuring Putin’s physical security; another ensuring a continuity of their power so that oligarchs and siloviki are indivisibly secure.

Re: Mysterious drones have been spotted at airports across Europe

#88

Post by creer »

infecto wrote: post #81
slightwinder wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Jammers work pretty well. On publics airports? Where planes have to land all the time? Can they be pinpointed exactly on one specific target without disturbing the others? And this is assuming there even is a remote-control to jam.

Yup. At least in the prior case this year the airports all shutdown. I see no reason you should not be able to quickly react to a scenario like this? Most European airports have some sort of federal response in or near the airport anyway. Not that big leap to think you should be able to jump on it.

Civilian airports can "shut down" by telling all traffic to (glibly) find other things to do. The traffic is still around. How resistant is all this traffic to jamming? and what kind of jamming? You can probably experiment with that around an isolated military airport. Perhaps. "Perhaps" because you still have civilian traffic in line of sight. I don't know that it's an easy decision to screw around with jamming around a crowded civilian airport.

What you can certainly double down on is tracking and close to the ground monitoring. And it would be surprising if this did not give results (over hundreds of sightings) as to who is launching them and recovering some hardware. Drones fall off pretty easily and it might be hard to repeatedly recover drones without getting caught if there is a surge of police around.

Re: Mysterious drones have been spotted at airports across Europe

#89

Post by pdabbadabba »

gambiting wrote: post #79
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also curious, why would Russia continue to send thousands to their deaths while holding back supplies and stuff? Unless it's intentional to appear weaker than they are. But I don't see how that would work, unless the US is intentionally witholding intel from their allies - the US, since the invention of spaceflight, has had spy sattelites trained at Russia and they would see large accumulations and transports of…

Ok I spent the last hour looking for this interview and I honestly can't find it - the closest I can get to the source is this article saying that Russia is building a strategic reserve of tanks: https://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/wiadomosci/7%2C114881%2C3206584... But it's not the one I read which was literally a general saying "they are building tanks and not sending them to the front - why if not to fight with NATO even…

Thanks. This is useful (in English translation):

> Russian factories are working at full speed, producing new tanks and repairing those that have been dusty for years," writes "Le Figaro". The French daily refers to its sources and data from independent study groups. On the other hand, experts also point to the fact that this year the losses of the Russians have decreased - this year it was only 200 tanks. According to the newspaper, this may be due to the fact that the participation of these vehicles in the fighting at the front has been reduced. This, in turn, is the result of greater use of drones.

This actually strikes me as fairly plausible: it suggests that Russia has decided that tanks are not ideally suited for the current drone war in Ukraine. So they're continuing to ramp up production, but aren't (at this point) sending them to the front.

This doesn't necessarily mean that they have a long-term plan to invade NATO, however. I can think of many other scenarios where it would be in Russia's strategic interest to have a large modernized tank force in reserve.

Re: Mysterious drones have been spotted at airports across Europe

#90

Post by red-iron-pine »

infecto wrote: post #51
skc wrote: post #42

The fact that these drones are only appearing in NATO aligned countries makes it seem pretty obvious to me that it's one of two possibilities. 1) Russian sabre-rattling 2) NATO countries running "secret" drills in public in anticipation of 1) The UFO community is of course running with a third option that doesn't warrant any seriousness.

I would not rule out China out either. Let’s not forget some of their recent state backed exploits as well as the “weather” balloon that flew over America.

why is China flying drones over Italy? is Italy a big backer of Taiwanese independence?

it is almost certainly Russia, or NATO running drills.

also don't underestimate idiots and assholes in the same way that incoming flights to airports still have to deal with people shining laser pointers at them on an irregular but not uncommon basis

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