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Defending Against Drones
theodp writes "The US has not had to truly think about its air defense since the Cold War. But as America embraces the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, Newsweek says it's time to consider how our greatest new weapon may come back to bite us. Smaller UAVs' cool, battery-powered engines make them difficult to hit with conventional heat-seeking missiles. And while Patriot missiles can take out UAVs, at $3 million apiece such protection carries a steep price tag, especially if we have to deal with $500 DIY drones."
It would seem to me if every citizen knew how to properly shoot a rifle, odds are pretty good one of those things could be knocked out of the sky with a barrett. It would cost all of us a heck of a lot less money too.
In fact... this is exactly the sort of thing the 2nd amendment was written for. "The people" defending themselves from attack.
Not like they used to. Air burst rounds will likely be the next iteration in the infantry arms race: Essentially a grenade that files in a flat trajectory and can detonate where ever you tell it to, such as "that line of sandbags, plus 1m" and then you aim above the sandbags.
They certainly will come in handy against your average "terrorist" armed with an AK-47, but once these types of guns are available to both sides of a conflict it will get real ugly. I certainly hope they remain a technology demonstrator only by some gentlemans agreement. But the next iteration of ground warfare is already in progress...
It's always easier to destroy than to build. This is what makes terrorism so effective. It takes millions of dollars to defend against weapons costing only a few thousand dollars. A 20 thousand dollar missile can take out a 200 million dollar airplane. A boat loaded with explosives can sink a ship costing several hundred million dollars. It's expensive being on the defensive.
By the time you pay someone to build it, then test to make sure it actually works, package and ship it, I suspect it will cost a bit more. Now add *real* remote control that can work from 100s or 1000s of km away. That's a few more bucks. Now add a payload of explosives that makes it a credible threat (I'm sorry, 1/2kg of explosive in a model airplane isn't what one would call a death dealing engine of war that would justify shooting it down with a $3M Patriot). Oh, now it's bigger, so you need a bigger engine, and a larger fuel tank or battery, etc.
Pretty soon you're up to some serious money. I doubt you could build a credible threat that is manufacturable and usable in a battlefield environment for less than $100k a copy.
Actually smells like the SDI that precipitated the fall of the USSR.. only in reverse.
As long as we give billions of dollars to the military/security interests, to protect us against marginal or very distant threats, they, and the terrorists, win.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
Yea, a lot of people go a bit nutty in their old age. You may want to check out what else Butler said:
In November 1934, Butler told the committee that a group of businessmen, backed by a private army of 500,000 ex-soldiers and others, intended to establish a fascist dictatorship. Butler had been asked to lead it, he said, by Gerald P. MacGuire, a bond salesman with Grayson M-P Murphy & Co. The New York Times reported that Butler had told friends that General Hugh S. Johnson, a former official with the National Recovery Administration, was to be installed as dictator. Butler said MacGuire had told him the attempted coup was backed by three million dollars, and that the 500,000 men were probably to be assembled in Washington, D.C. the following year. All the parties alleged to be involved, including Johnson, said there was no truth in the story, calling it a joke and a fantasy.[43]
Care to name all of these conflicts we supposedly started? Please cite your sources to how we started them too. I think if you take the time to research this subject you're going to get a wicked eye opening.
Ok, since we are going to have a go of it...
1st: Iraq. We invaded Iraq ostensibly to depose a Dictator, but instead only ended up wreaking havoc on the most politically and socially stable country in the middle east. Anyone who believes Bush seniors decision to invade Iraq following the Kuwait fiasco, needs only come and see me about a bridge I have for sale. The reasons for the Gulf Ware were largely fabricated at the time by the Kuwaiti Royal family who by no co-incidence happen to be family friends of the Bush family. Whether knowingly or not, George Bush senior involved us in a war which gave the impression to the rest of the world to be an almost completely unwarranted US invasion of an OPEC nation, for what appeared to be monetary reasons.
2nd: Iraq again, Round two, had even less valid reasons, and smelled worse than the first.
3rd: Afghanistan. Once again, we invade another country, This time for supporting terrorists, but if you had asked any of the senior Russian military personnel about catching terrorists in Afghanistan, they would have told you to save your effort. Even without US interference, Afghanistan was difficult for the USSR to handle, but then the US provided them with weapons to kill Soviets (and one another) with, but was no where to be found when the killing was over, and it was time to rebuild. We shouldn't have to wonder why the Taliban (who we actually supported at one time) think we're slime.
4th: Bay of pigs. You can look that one up on your own time.
5th: The Spanish American war. The US on the path to empire takes on those who are in the way.
There is plenty more, that was just what I came across in a 10 minute trek through Wikipedia.
-=Geoskd
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
In fact a private drone (from a university) has already done that years ago, across the Atlantic. It certainly cost a lot more than $500, but components have gone down in price quite a lot.
My crappy EasyStar ($60 of glorified styrofoam) can fly for almost an hour with a brushless motor on a 11V, 1200mA.h battery that costs around $30. It wouldn't be too hard in the near future to build a drone covered with lightweight solar cells, and enough batteries to stay airborne during the night. The EasyStar can already easily accommodate 200g of payload, for a total weight of one kg or two.
With an Arduino it's already super easy to build a drone with GPS guiding. But even if GPS is jammed it's not much harder to implement inertial positioning, and beyond that cell phone relay trilateration to lock in on a target. Each of those features can be had in a 1g integrated package.
Those are still vulnerable to military jamming, but at a significant cost to the target. There are other ways around this: sun tracking has not been done AFAIK but it shouldn't be too hard to do. We have *slightly* better clocks than mariners of the old time and that's what they used. At night, star tracking is also a possibility. Then some DIY drone people are experimenting with magnetic sensors, which is what migratory birds use.
In conclusion, drones are gonna be a problem, and I suspect states are going to try to ban them, to obviously no effect since all it takes are cell phone components (lithium batteries, microcontrollers, GPS receivers), some styrofoam and a few cheap power electronics components (brushless motors, controllers, and servos). Oh and duct tape. They better ban duct tape quick.
http://www.mikrokopter.de/
For 1250 (a bit more expensive than 500, ok) you can get the hexacopter, which:
- has 20 to 40 minutes endurance
- is fully automatic
- can fly to GPS coordinates without outside commands
- can carry over 1 kg payload.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
My bad
You're bad, you bet. Unless you have evidence beyond the Congressional committee investigation, Butlers claim was proved both credible beyond doubt. From the GP references:
When the committee's final report was released, the Times said the committee "purported to report that a two-month investigation had convinced it that General Butler's story of a Fascist march on Washington was alarmingly true" and "It also alleged that definite proof had been found that the much publicized Fascist march on Washington, which was to have been led by Major. Gen. Smedley D. Butler, retired, according to testimony at a hearing, was actually contemplated".[9]
If you read more about the Business Plot, you'd find out that the Congressional Committee that investigated it thought that the allegations were credible. However, for some strange reason the investigation soon stopped after names like duPont and JP Morgan started coming up. The standard historical interpretation of the Business Plot these days is that there was something there, and some of those industrialists wanted to do what Butler accused them of organizing, but that they hadn't gotten anywhere near the point where they could actually pull it off.
For instance, journalist John Spivak was able to get access to the committee's report in 1967, and this is what he found:
"MacGuire denied [Butler's] allegations under oath, but your committee was able to verify all the pertinent statements made to General Butler, with the exception of the direct statement suggesting the creation of the organization. This, however, was corroborated in the correspondence of MacGuire with his principle, Robert Sterling Clark, of New York City, while MacGuire was abroad studying the various form of veterans' organizations of Fascist character."
I am officially gone from
The Japanese already used balloons during WWII to attack American soil. They didn't do any damage, but they did fly from Japan to the US and dropped some explosive payload to terrorize civilians.
"Iraq had used chemical weapons against the Kurds"
1) Kurds are not American citizens.
2) Kurds are Iraq citizens which means it was an internal affair.
3) By the time Iraq used chemical weapons against Kurds, Donald Rumsfeld was quite friendly with Hussein.
4) Of course Iraq had chemical weapons at some time: it was USA the one that helped to develop them.
5) Of course they didn't pose any direct threat to USA.