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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."
War is Peace
Attack is Defence
Slavery is Freedom
I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that I can disable a $500 drone with little less than a portable radio, my laptop and a couple of bucks worth of radioshack equipment. Thing about the drones is that they TOO have weaknesses. And a safe, unbreakable, unhackable, wireless, remote control interface costs a LOT more than $500. And an EM emitter, or even just a remote jamming device, or in case of a wireguided or automated drone a laser to interfere with or destroy the optics seems like pretty easy to come by and cheap solutions.
And for those really high tech drones that can survive these kinds of odds. I'm sure we can spend a cheap stinger on. Why anyone would WANT to make the leap all the way to a patriot missile, made for smashing down objects the size of a spaceshuttle is beyond me.
--- To err is human... Am I more human than most ?
I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class thug for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.
Read about the history of air warfare during WWI, with the rise of airplanes. The situation is analogous to drones. Ultimately, drones will have defenses and counter-attacks. It's not been a big deal yet because we're fighting people who don't have access to the technology, but that will change.
Do you have ESP?
Seriously. If we can shoot down mosquitos with optically guided lasers for $50, surely we can shoot down drones?
Why would you think it would actually be easier for a drone to get through?
Because you can afford to swarm them. Do you know how much a Tu-95 bomber costs? Divide by $500, and you've got the number of toy flying bombs you might have to contend with instead. If you're spending tens of thousands to shoot each one down you're losing the war even if you're not taking any direct damage from the drones themselves.
Supporter of the +1 Over Dramatic mod option. In memory of apk.
I can think of a zillion things to hit just flying by line of sight.
You could target oil tankers, hell even oil refineries.
What's the propaganda value of head-shotting the statue of liberty?
Good start. Interesting how the major network ‘news' seems to get it's funding from the military/big pharma complex. For an interesting look at the tangled webs we weave, google Adam Curtis. Check out all his work - it's not just the US, as such. It Felt Like a Kiss is latest - a must see, does focus on the US. Much of his work is available via the Internet Archive. Watch carefully- more than once... He makes you want to know more and so much more there is to know.
Care to name all of these conflicts we supposedly started?
Care to name all the times since 1945 that a foreign government has fired shots on American soil? Maybe to explain what the governments of Korea, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Panama, Grenada, Argentina, Chile, Philippines, Cuba, Indonesia and the Dominican Republic hoped to gain by their acts of aggression against the US?
The US has a history of responding to tough talk by petty dictators with marines and bombs.
I smell a Mythbusters style investigation coming up to prove or disprove the theory.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
Consider a small freighter, 200 km off New York. It launches a few hundred small unmanned planes, guided by a small computer autopilot. Each plane carries four thermite stick bombs, similar to the ones used in WWII. When the planes reach the vicinity of New York they climb to a few hundred meters altitude and start dropping the thermite devices. What was cutting edge tech 70 years ago is garage tech today.
Now the world has gone to bed, Darkness won't engulf my head, I can see by infra-red, How I hate the night.
Regarding your point of interest: there's about 30,000 people killed via firearm every year for the last decade and the decade prior. A little more than half are suicides (about 17,000) and the rest are a mix of homicides and accidental deaths (of which IIRC there are about 1200 a year). It's remarkably consistent, actually.
So anyway there's about 12,000-14,000 non-accidental firearms related deaths each year. Versus A little more than 3000 Americans killed by terrorists on our own soil, for the whole history of our country--kind of pales in comparison; your point stands. It's kind of silly to get worked up about terrorists, when people are so unlikely to die because of terrorists. But that's their goal, isn't it? Make a real big ugly scene, get everyone worked up.
As a firearm rights advocate, I concede that too many people are killed via firearm. It is a problem. But even if you could magically take all the guns away from *everyone*, it's not going to do a lot to the numbers. People will still kill because that's the culture.
Of course, when one cites statistics, it sounds TERRIBLE, like end of the world stuff. Until you see that about the same number of people (about 13,000) die from falls, another 13,000 die from poisoning, and 40,000 from automobiles. Yeah, far fewer people are killed with guns purposefully than are killed by cars, accidentally... All despite Americans having more guns in their closets than cars in their driveways.
Great, let's just have everyone shooting everyone
Sure... After all, *everyone* knows the 1800's American western frontier was called the Wild Wild West, because there were shootouts every noon, right after the morning brawl at the saloon, and right before the evening run-in with the in-juns... Right? Well, Wrong. There was probably never a time where men went armed as much as they did then, but Heinlein's observation, An armed society is a polite society held true. In reality, when the white men weren't being evil to the natives, it was generally the Not so Wild, West.
Heck, the most famous old west shootout, the gunfight at the O.K. Corral only tallied three deaths, and besides even that sort of event was exceptionally rare. Despite this, every time there is a debate about someone's choice to go armed, some pundit chimes in, "it's going to be the wild west all over again"... Yeah, if only we could go back to a time where the wildest thing around was Buffalo Bill's Wild West--basically a caricature of itself.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
And dont forget:
Ministry of Truth : Misinformation
Ministry of Peace : Management of perpetual War
Ministry of Love : Enforce loyalty thru fear and torture
Ministry of Plenty : Maintains poverty and scarcity
I'm glad someone posted this before me. :)
They were called "Fu-Go Weapons". 9,000 were launched. 1,000 were believed to have made it to the US. 300 were observed or found. Only one found hanging in a tree caused 6 people to die.
Those were pretty well planned, and actually had the ability to stay in the air for days. That's something a little RC airplane isn't going to do. As your fuel requirements increase, your lift requirements increase. Those increase the drag, and therefore the need for more thrust. It's a vicious cycle. Lets not forget the pesky problem of having something onboard more than just the fuel, engine, and flight control. That's where the Japanese plan was beautiful, although a failure. Not to say that I agree with what they were attempting to do. Lots of very bad things happened during the war.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.