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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's not about the cost of what you have to shoot down but what you have to defend.
Even high school students are dabbling in autonomous drones nowadays, and most research on autonomous vehicles is open and readily downloadable. Your jammer is not going to help too much if the drone knows what it's supposed to do without radio contact.
And you need to know there's a drone to jam a kilometer overhead in the first place.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Good luck with that. If I were designing one of those and my objective was to kill innocent people and/or disrupt a country's manufacturing/distribution infrastructure, all I need is a chip that will get it where it's going, run through a series of shape templates (a bus, train or transport truck or specific building, for example), then dive into it.
Easy, cheap, and no external control needed. Another plus: hardening such throw-away devices is usually easy and cheap. Example: Inertial navigation to target, flip on the video for a quick look-see, then hit whatever's closest. And you build lots and lots of 'em.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
A 500 buck drone, capable of carrying 250g of c4, with a range of 5 km and an endurance of 30 minutes, could bring a country to its knees.
Targets?
Satellite dish LNBs, High Tension cable insulators, refinery pipework, radar dishes on weaponry, etc etc etc.
use two, the first the blow an access into a window, and EVERY important computer is a target, bank computers, traffic control computers, air traffic control, industrial process, etc etc etc.
Use 5, meshed together, and the fifth could be flown inside a rabbit warren, SCRAM control sensors in a reactor plant, you name it.
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
We gotta keep finding new threats. Otherwise defense contractor stock would drop! We can't have that!
If you send just one small drone (which will cost more than USD500 if you include a payload that will actually cause significant damage) across an ocean to the USA, they may not figure out where its from. If you actually hit something of value with that tiny drone it's not going to do much really except maybe cause a few more oppressive/stupid laws to be passed.
If you send thousands or more you can do far more damage, but then the USA will more easily figure out where they are coming from and bomb your country to bits. If they feel like it (e.g. the drones aren't coming from Russia or China or their allies), they might even get permission from the UN first.
If you're a terrorist that has already got into the USA, such drones aren't really necessary if you want to cause a lot of damage, especially if you can already somehow get quantities of high explosives that a drone can use (if you can't, your drones aren't going to do much damage - just kill a few people). Might as well just put the bomb in a shopping mall, or cinema, or bus, or subway. Not too difficult to walk into such places and get out (you might even be able to disguise yourself or plant it on another person/vehicle).
What small cheap drones might be good for is trying to harass the USA out of your country. e.g. they are already in your country and possibly have already bombed it. In these scenarios it's not so simple to just walk in to a US military site, plant the bomb and leave to do it again another day. So that's where a drone might be useful.
Then the US Military will need to defend itself against such drones.
Let's say you engage in a behaviour like eating sugary things (like gobbling up a huge amount of the world's resources and supporting evil regimes) that attracts bees and Wasps (terrorists, drones, etc.). Sure, you can spend PILES of money on insecticides (patriot missiles, TSA, etc.), or, you could simply stop engaging in the behaviour that attracts bees and wasps.
Duh. But people like you are greedy, lazy, and stupid, and can't live without their SUVs, McMansions, and daily intake of beef, sugar, and Salads in February, and so rather than change your behaviour, you would rather ramp up the insecticide production. Tards. Keep it up, and expect people to bomb the crap out of you. It's really very simple, almost Newtonian in structure.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
That is why the Soviets took over the world! Or at least control most of its finances, shove laws friendly to their business interests down the throat of pretty much every nation out there and have forward military bases in over 60% countries on the planet and spend more on offensive weaponry than the rest of the world combined ... oh wait!
The hysterical bullshit US war-mongers spew would be comical if it weren't so blood soaked.
Right after I finish watching the Ahmed Chelabi videos about the great big stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq all set to go off at 5 minutes notice.
On the contrary, I have pretty good idea, although the verbal feces here are all yours.
Oh so the Soviets invented the doctrine of "Disaster Capitalism". Clever Commie .... err... Capitalist bastards.
Hence the Great Tank Battle of Saigon where thousands of T-72 tanks of the Red Army squared off against the M48s of the US Armored Divisions with the sky above full of Soviet airmen dogfighting with US Air Force, with tactical nukes going off in the background ... uhm ... what?
Number of US Soldiers killed in the Vietnam War: 58,159. Number of Vietnamese killed: 1.3 million. Soviet citizens dead: 16 (that's six and ten since you are having obvious difficulties with numbers) ... who was invading whom, again?
Words of a religious fanatic. Capitalism is also a "poison" ideology that has been used to do countless acts of unspeakable evil.
So while I sometimes enjoy taunting raving lunatics such as you, I am not in the mood today. Go play by yourself in that delusional universe you've created for yourself.