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A US Ally Shot Down a $200 Drone With a $3 Million Patriot Missile (theverge.com)

Posted by msmash on from the economics-101 dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report on The Verge: Earlier this week, General David Perkins, the commander of the US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) spoke at the Association of the US Army's Global Force symposium, where he discussed the threats that the US military would begin to face in the coming years. One notable example is how a US ally recently shot down a $200 consumer drone with a $3.4 million worth Patriot Missile. Perkins' talk during the symposium focused on the complexity of a military organization in the field, and how the interconnected nature of air, ground, and sea forces can lead to a fragmented response to a threat between the commanders who are in charge of specific areas. [...] "The gut instinct was," he explains, "that's an air defense problem, because they're in the air." "In fact," he went on to say, "we have a very close ally of ours that was dealing with an adversary using small quadcopter UASs, and they shot it down with a Patriot missile." The problem, he said, wasn't effectiveness: the tiny drone didn't stand a chance -- the issue is economics.

4 of 318 comments (clear)

  1. Potential Damages? by Scoth · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I guess a potentially more interesting question is whether that drone could have done $3.4 million of damage via surveillance or something. Seems unlikely in this case, but if we're talking some kind of super top secret installation then it might be worth that kind of force to make sure it's really, really blown up.

    Still worth investigating sufficient response that's more economical.

    1. Re:Potential Damages? by OzPeter · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I guess a potentially more interesting question is whether that drone could have done $3.4 million of damage

      Note that this is purely a thought exercise and I would never ever think about doing this in real life (FBI take note of this disclaimer!)

      1. Buy some large sized consumer drone off craigslist for cash. (bonus points for showing up in a stolen car and having a disguise)
      2. Modify them to drop small canisters of red paint.
      3. Re-flash the software to ignore all flight restrictions
      4. Wait until the president is at Mar-A-Largo
      5. Program the drones to fly to 1000 feet, drop down over the target and release their "bombs" over visible areas and then fly out to sea on a random flight path until their batteries run out
      6. Release the hounds^w drones at night (or more bonus points for the middle of a golf game)
      7. Wash. Rinse. Repeat at other locations.
      8. Sit back and watch the government spend a shitload more than $3.4 million as they try to control the situation.

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    2. Re:Potential Damages? by OzPeter · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It does sound like a modern art project to me.

      Oh come on. If I was going for an art project I'd be suggesting pig's blood and not red paint!

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  2. They'll probably need something like AEGIS by DeplorableCodeMonkey · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What they need as a starting point is something like AEGIS, but that is plug and play onto any vehicle. Something as simple as a turret that is radar-controlled and that uses 5.56 could shred consumer drones all day. It's be a foregone conclusion if they use 7.62.