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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."
Yeah, those USD500 drones aren't gonna fly across the pacific, atlantic or artic oceans anytime soon.
:).
Still cheap drones might be useful for attackers already in the USA. I wonder how many patriot (or similar) banks are deployed in the USA.
But if people are willing to die, it's going to be hard to stop them if they're not too stupid. The drone then is the human+payload+vehicle.
Maybe they should just spend a few millions getting those young angry guys laid... That should de-drone a few of them. A "bird" in each arm might be worth 72 houris in wherever-land.
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 don't understand: Drones are easy to take down. A couple of dragoons or zealots should do the trick nicely, or maybe a few marines instead. Heck, you can go at em with SCVs and have a fighting chance.
I am officially gone from
The idea of hundreds of citizens firing UP INTO THE AIR trying to hit a drone scares the hell out of me... what goes up must come down, and the law of conservation of energy combine to make me think that the damage to those of us on the ground would probably be greater then what the drone could do... particularly since the drone would likely be too far above the shooters for a bullet to have any hope of finding it...
Min
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
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.
It's not about the cost of what you have to shoot down but what you have to defend.
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?
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
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
Sigh, just another attempt to turn some simple engineering problem into politics.
I happen to have some experience in this area and I can say for certain that if there are no creeps on the floor, any wave of drones is easy to kill. I would start by erecting a line of towers with simple pellet guns, upgrading the weak points to snipers as necessary. Squirt towers will provide a layer of depth to your defence, but ideally you want a fully upgraded bash tower to take out ground creeps quickly enough that your guns can focus on the drones.
If you'll excuse me, I feel the need for just one more try...
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
Did you forget? September 11th was a declaration of war on us. We were forced to retaliate. There's a comprehensive 10 second video explanation here.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
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?
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
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.
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.