Russian Military Base Attacked By Drones (bellingcat.com)

A Russian military base in Syria was recently attacked -- 20 miles from the frontline. The only video of the attack is from a Facebook group for a nearby town, which identifies the noises as an "anti-aircraft response to a remote-controlled aircraft," while the Russian Ministry of Defence claims at least 13 drones were involved in the attack, displaying pictures of drones with a wingspan around 13 feet (four meters).

Long-time Slashdot reader 0x2A shares a report from a former British Army officer who calls drones "the poor man's Air Force," who writes that the attack shows "a strategic grasp of the use of drones, as well as a high level of planning." The lack of cameras on the drones suggest that they are likely pre-loaded with a flight plan and then flown autonomously to their target, where they dropped their payload en masse on a given GPS coordinate... The lack of any kind of claim, or even rumours from the rebels, indicates that whoever is producing these drone and launching these attacks has a high level of discipline and an understanding of operational and personal security...

Although some regard the threat from commerical off-the-shelf and improvised drones as negligible, they have the power to inflict losses at both a tactical and strategic level... Although the plastic sheeting, tape and simple design may belie the illusion of sophistication, it seems that the use of drones, whether military, commerical off-the-shelf or improvised, is taking another step to becoming the future of conflict.
The article notes there's already been four weaponized drone attacks in Syria over the last two weeks, which according to CNBC may be part of a growing trend. "Experts said swarm-like attacks using weaponized drones is a growing threat and likely to only get worse. They also said the possibility exists of terrorists using these drones in urban areas against civilians."

Comments

4 meter wing spans?

[ScentCone]

A "swarm" of a dozen of these big beasts, as reported, should be pretty easy for modern radar systems to spot, no?

Re:4 meter wing spans?

[HornWumpus]

Carbon fiber and balsa wood have low radar returns.

About the only metal would be the engines, electronics and bomb casings. All of which should be well under a radar wavelength in size.

Re:4 meter wing spans?

[ScentCone]

Some adaptation is required, if you're trying to defend a sensitive facility. Radar for this purpose goes up on a fairly tall mast, so it can spot this kind of movement at tree-top level. You can also run observation platforms on tethered inflatables, or let long-fight site-orbiting drones of your own do that job, with look-down rigs. Still, the details you've included in your sensible response certainly are compelling.

Re: 4 meter wing spans?

[known_coward_69]

enough to damage planes on the tarmac to make them unable to fly. That's all you need.

Re:4 meter wing spans?

[ShanghaiBill]

A "swarm" of a dozen of these big beasts, as reported, should be pretty easy for modern radar systems to spot, no?

If they are low, slow, and mostly made out of plastic, then no, they would not be easy to pick out of ground clutter.

How are you going to use doppler radar to differentiate between a drone going 80 km/hr at 3 meters AGL, and a truck?

The attack was coordinated with a rocket attack, so your radar would be dealing with shrapnel, smoke, and debris which would add to ground clutter. If the attackers were smart, they would have loaded the rockets with some chaff.

TFS says they were "swarm-like", but TFA does not use the word "swarm" at all. They may have all come in together on a single vector, but only if the operators were morons. There is no way that a defender should expect that from a competent adversary.

Re:4 meter wing spans?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except, these drones were detected on radar and shot down by radar guided missiles and radar guided AAA.

The myth of the "wooden plane" having no radar signature is stupid enough that people with any sort of technical background shouldn't fall for it. The An-2 is not only not stealth, it is a giant obvious beacon to AAA. Carbon fiber, metal struts, propellers, wing skin, wooden beams - all of this reflects radar.

Re:4 meter wing spans?

[nukenerd]

Sounds like the only difference between these and a cruise missile is the speed, and maybe the height. I should think they are easy to down if you prepare for them with radar controlled Gatling guns.

In WW2 Germany used V1 "cruise missiles" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... against Allied territory, particularly London. While they were an initial shock, they became easy targets to AA guns equiped with a mechanical computer called a "Predictor" - the gunner optically tracked their path for a few seconds than fired. The only problem was the Predictor operator seeing the V1 in the dark, but not a problem with radar.

Re: 4 meter wing spans?

[Hal_Porter]

I've always wondered what would happen if you dropped a bunch of tank seeking drones with a shaped charge warhead. Shaped charge warheads are small and light and you could imagine building a drone which is just large enough to carry one which could knock out an MBT.

Something like a B-52 could carry hundreds of them. A dedicated launch platform could carry thousands. And each one could be told which GPS coordinates to head to and use image recognition like the sensor fuzed weapon to find military targets - tanks, anti aircraft systems, APCs etc.

And they could fly low enough to hard to track with radar. And fast and erratic enough that they'd be hard to knock out with ZSU type guns.

So you'd unload them outside the country's airspace and they'd fly to their targets and nail anything which was on the target list.

Some would get shot down of course but if you kept unloading B-52 loads of them programmed to destroy anti aircraft systems they'd eventually destroy the air defence systems of a country. And a lot of other stuff too - all the tanks and fuel dumps for example.

And then of course more valuable aircraft could be sent in to destroy everything else.

If an air defence system is an immune system, these things would be like HIV viruses. You could probably make them really cheap too - somewhere between the price of a civilian drones and a JDAM.

Re:4 meter wing spans?

[ScentCone]

stop being a faggot

Well, it is hard to argue with someone who relies on reason and solid information to make their point, that's for sure.

you've never had to shoot down one incoming anything

Interestingly, you don't know anything at all about what I've shot at what, nor how many times. Regardless, a Phalanx or the like could possibly be a less appropriate defense in a place near civilian housing and the like. And we're not talking about taking out incoming ship-killer missiles, we're talking about overgrown, lumbering model airplanes at prop speeds. More importantly, we're talking about a relatively new threat, and that new ways to detect and act are required. Do you really think they've been testing upgrades to TARS just to improve traffic monitoring on the roads? Rigs like that are designed to spot such stuff from miles out while it totters in on small props. Counter measures are a lot different when a slow-moving fixed-wing thing more or less like an ultra-light is wandering in. Even mentioning something like CIWS in that context shows you're not actually thinking about this, and just looking to use the word 'faggot' because it's exciting to you to type it.

Re: 4 meter wing spans?

[Gorobei]

They seemed to be carrying about 20 bomblets apiece. Each bomblet seemed to be a small charge + ball-bearings + contact detonation at around 6" above ground. So, in total, a primitive & cheap anti-personnel and unarmored target system.

Re: 4 meter wing spans?

[Rei]

Indeed, an ammo dump at Slinfah was hit by one of them as well - it was first assumed to be an Israeli airstrike, and only later determined to be a drone attack. The drones are perfectly designed for hitting soft targets - rather than single powerful charges, they use 8-20 PETN bomblets, packed full of ball bearings.

Concerning tracking them... these are not that large, and made of wood. I imagine they're pretty hard to track and home in on. Plus, having to waste an antiaircraft missile on someone people glued together with bargain basement parts is asymmetric to the benefit of the rebels. Russia's Hmeimim base is packed full of their most advanced antiaircraft systems, yet they still lost planes (ironically, as usual, they spent the next several days both simultaneously confirming and denying that they got hit ;) ). Locals described the sky as lit up by antiaircraft fire.

The US should take a lesson from this and seriously up their efforts toward anti-drone defenses. For now, I expect Russian/Iranian/Assad/Hezbollah/etc forces to put more effort toward hardening depots, airfields, etc against attacks from the air. The drones have a 100km range, which lets them reach from well behind the frontlines.

I would expect GPS to have been jammed at Hmeimim. If not, Russia is incompetent. If so, the drones would appear to be prepared to deal with the loss of GPS signal. Russia was apparently caught off guard with the sophistication of the drones and is now trying to claim that they couldn't have figured out how to make them on their own. I don't buy this at all; both anti-ISIS rebels and ISIS have long been working on drone technology, as well as other "advanced" technology (such as remote-controlled robotic guns).

Re: 4 meter wing spans?

[Rei]

Oh, and another thing: this article says that there was no claim of responsibility. Nonsense. FSA Free Alawite Movement claimed responsibility for it, and promised more attacks.

Re: 4 meter wing spans?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wood might've fooled primitive radar systems like the Funkmessgerat, (and even then it wasn't guaranteed you could fool the radar), but nowadays that doesn't really work anymore. It's more likely Ivan the Radar Officer was too busy getting drunk and didn't bother to verify the returns as a threat, and Russia is just covering for their military's incompetence.

This is basically the same case with IEDs in the Iraq War. At first our humvees were getting blown up by these things, but eventually MRAPs and radio jammers really neutured the threat they posed to troops. It's really more of a case of getting something cheap enough to shoot these things down, much like how the US military shelved the XM25 and is now distributing the Carl Gustav loaded with special(and cheaper) ammunition for firefights.

Now the element of surprise is lost on the attackers, and unless your average insurgent can build something that doesn't look like a 4th graders side project, I doubt these will pose to much of a threat. Russia's military incompetence is far more pressing anyway.

Re: 4 meter wing spans?

[ScentCone]

As I thought, zero to say on subject, just confused about who's tossing around insults. Anonymous cowards, being cowards. Thanks for recognizing that CIWS belongs on a ship, where it's designed to operate, and that you haven't even lifted a finger to look into the many years of work that been done on exactly this topic. Because you're far more interested in making sure we all see that you know how to spell 'faggot' when you're trying to show how smart you are.

Re: 4 meter wing spans?

[Hal_Porter]

I linked to the SFW. The difference between what I'm proposing and in the CBU-97 dispenses BLU-108s which then dispense the skeets. The limitation is that the skeets are not powered - they travel for a short distance and then either find a target or self destruct. A CBU-97 is designed to be dropped on top of an armoured convoy which it then devastates.

In my scheme I basically want to put a warhead on something the size of remote controlled aircraft. That would fly around until it found a target, ram the target and detonate its warhead. The idea being that you could launch them en masse outside a country's airspace. They'd then fly in under their own power and head for a set of GPS coordinates. Once there they'd prowl around looking for a suitable target.

You could add in lots of stuff - GPS, INS and object recognition. Maybe a data link to retarget them or get back video. You'd want the drones to have a decent ability to prowl for a while before they self destruct. Then again you could imagine ones that could work out when they were running low on fuel and head back to a carrier lurking off the coast to refuel.

With somewhere like North Korea you could fill their skies with drones that would destroy any military equipment that was out in the open. And it wouldn't really matter if the Norks shot a few down in the early days of the campaign. By the end of it they wouldn't have anything to shoot with.

Re:4 meter wing spans?

[arglebargle_xiv]

Probably not. They're not commercial metal drones but homebuilt wood and cloth by the looks of it, not much radar signature.

Re:4 meter wing spans?

[AHuxley]

The Western thinking is Russian electronics cant keep its systems locked on and tracking so many drones at the same time.
That defensive weapons systems would need a reload time and so the nations backing the terrorists would get to see what the timing and what defensive systems could do.
Russia would be looking for any other nations electronic intelligence collection in the area at that time.

Re: 4 meter wing spans?

[nasch]

One could imagine the North Koreans disguising a bus full of senior citizens as a military vehicle and then publishing the horrific attack on civilians. Just one possible fly in the honey.

Re: 4 meter wing spans?

[ScentCone]

It seems your cognitive problems on the actual subject matter extend to a reading comprehension issue, keeping track of your own childishness. That's fine, I appreciate the trouble you're going to to demonstrate that you have no idea what you're talking about. Thanks for making my point for me! Please, carry on reinforcing it even more. Doing a great job.

Re: 4 meter wing spans?

[Bert64]

There's usually an effective counter strategy for anything... You need the element of surprise to pull something like this off, and once you did it once it couldn't be done again so it might not be worth the investment not only to develop the system, but also keep it secret for long enough so you could use it against a single enemy...

Re: 4 meter wing spans?

[Bert64]

While bombs like this would likely be totally ineffective against tanks or other armored equipment, aircraft which are parked on the ground could easily be damaged by such weapons as they are generally much less armored (due to weight concerns).

You may still not be able to destroy a plane with a weapon like this, but you can damage it which then requires time and money to repair. Chances are the cost of repairing even minor damage to a modern military aircraft will far exceed the cost of these drones.

Re: 4 meter wing spans?

[SlovakWakko]

"Russia's Hmeimim base is packed full of their most advanced antiaircraft systems, yet they still lost planes (ironically, as usual, they spent the next several days both simultaneously confirming and denying that they got hit ;) ). Locals described the sky as lit up by antiaircraft fire."
It's pretty comical that despite all the facts already being shared by RuMoD like 5 days ago, many people still don't know them. There was a mortar attack on December 31, when several planes were *damaged* by shrapnel and 2 servicemen were killed. In the recent drone attack nothing was damaged and nobody got hurt, as all 13 of them were intercepted before getting to the bases (3 went for Tartus, 10 for Khmeimim). Of these 7 were shot down by Pantsirs and 6 were intercepted by EW hardware, most likely directed microwave emitters which fried their electronics. They fell down, 3 were destroyed by explosions of their bomblets, 3 remained largely intact. There's ton of material about it out there already...

"Plus, having to waste an antiaircraft missile on someone people glued together with bargain basement parts is asymmetric to the benefit of the rebels."
Nobody knows whether any missiles were fired, it's only that some western reports added the missiles to the original Russian report, which does not mention them. From other signs it's more likely that the Pantsirs' IR tracking and 30mm cannons were used to destroy the drones.

Re:4 meter wing spans?

[rtb61]

Catch is by playing at amateur build, they end up being very low performance and all they will do now is antagonise reciprocal returns, except others might not choose the amateur game and on their side, well, nobody likes the Americans any more and it wouldn't take much of a bounty to get them all sorts of criminals to act that the Americans foolishly trained, it tends to be the regions hobby, so picking up a quick buck for turning Americans into sitting ducks, well.

Expect high performance military drones to performance will beyond the abilities of intelligence agency mock ups. But there is also AMERICAN anti-tank missiles etc. that the US/Saudi/Israeli governments supplied to terrorists, that were captured and could now be returned well in part. Don't play a game, where they support is opposed and is for sale to the current bidder, long term loyalty not a thing for them, not much at all beyond family in fact and the US has managed to kill quite a few of them.

Re: 4 meter wing spans?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, Ivan, for parroting official state lines. Except that Russia also insisted that nothing was damaged in the mortar attack either. The photos showing the damage? Why, clearly fakes!

Russia always denies damage, regardless of evidence to the contrary, unless they don't think they can get away with it.

Nobody knows whether any missiles were fired

Heavy blasts were reported by locals in the area. The drones only contained tiny bomblets. Either missiles were fired, or the drones took out targets on the surface - take your pick.

BTW, is it pure coincidence that the pace of Russian air raids significantly declined after the attack, allowing a major reversal in the SAA offensive toward, which has since been collapsing more and more every day?

Re: 4 meter wing spans?

[mjwx]

I've always wondered what would happen if you dropped a bunch of tank seeking drones with a shaped charge warhead.

Likely the GPS and comms would immediately be jammed and they'd be entirely dependent on local processing which is not a good thing. First off, this kind of image recognition is very processor intensive, the hardware alone needed to run this would be 4-5 KG on its own... possibly not even including sensors. Also tanks are real easy to make them look like they're not tanks. Both the allies and the Germans did a lot of this during the war you know. False positives are going to be a huge nightmare, a drone mistakenly blowing up a truck of food is going to be handing victory to the enemy on a platter (because that truck of food was bound for starving orphans... wars are not won by martial might these days).

Shaped charge warheads are small and light and you could imagine building a drone which is just large enough to carry one which could knock out an MBT.

That's a 450 KG bomb. The drones in the article would likely have a carrying capacity measured in single digits (less than 10 KG). An MQ-9 Reaper has a carrying capacity of 1,400 KG and a wingspan of 26m for comparison.

Something like a B-52 could carry hundreds of them.

Solution looking for a problem. The B-52 needs to be retired as the heavy bomber has had it's day (70 years ago). A C17 could do the same job if you're looking for a deployment platform but we'd be better off using either a land base or naval launch systems (re purposing nuclear submarines, destroyers and helicopter landing ships).

A dedicated launch platform could carry thousands. And each one could be told which GPS coordinates to head to and use image recognition like the sensor fuzed weapon to find military targets - tanks, anti aircraft systems, APCs etc.

The big problem you'll have here is that weapon needs to be directed, it can hit the target once it's been identified and aimed, but cannot select it's own target. Again, going back to my first point, processing sensor information for something specific is very processor intensive, more so if you want results in anything resembling real time so if communications are jammed or unreliable, you're going to need a lot of processing power on board.

And they could fly low enough to hard to track with radar. And fast and erratic enough that they'd be hard to knock out with ZSU type guns.

For large drones, a ZSU (23 mm) is fine. Especially if it's mounted on an auto-tracking turret.

For the kind of drones mentioned in the article, a turret mounted 7.62 machine gun will be sufficient. You don't actually have to destroy an aircraft to knock it out, you just have to do enough damage to make it lose control and let it crash on its own. Most anti-fighter missiles are designed to destroy control surfaces making the aircraft un-flyable. Back in the war, British Meteor jet fighters found it more effective to use the wings of the Meteor to flip German V1 flying bombs than to use the machine guns to shoot it down (using the wingtip vortex so no actual contact was made). Once in a spin, the V1's couldn't recover and it was faster than trying to hit one with the guns.

So you'd unload them outside the country's airspace and they'd fly to their targets and nail anything which was on the target list.

Some would get shot down of course but if you kept unloading B-52 loads of them programmed to destroy anti aircraft systems they'd eventually destroy the air defence systems of a country. And a lot of other stuff too - all the tanks and fuel dumps for example.

And then of course more valuable aircraft could be sent in to destroy everything e

Re: 4 meter wing spans?

[Rei]

Mortar attack on December 31 - oh really?

Russian officials have suggested the U.S. or its allies may have had a role in the drone attacks on the bases. Mr. Putin said drones captured in the course of the attacks revealed highly sophisticated technological elements that were acquired and passed to the rebels from abroad.

The Pentagon has said it played no role in the drone attacks.

A person close to Russia’s Defense Ministry said the accusations have largely served to deflect attention away from Russia’s own failure to protect its main Syrian base at Hmeimim.

The base was hit by a number of drones on New Year’s Eve, killing two service people, injuring 10 and damaging at least six planes, the person said. The attack was allegedly the first to penetrate the base’s formidable defenses including Pantsir and S-400 surface-to-air missiles.

Re: 4 meter wing spans?

[WindBourne]

no, but they are using gas model engines. That will make it easy enough to track via noise.
If they were smart, they would be using an electric, while also using a much larger drone that is up at say 5K' and about 1-2 miles away, to launch a number of these drones at night time. By launching from height, they can glide in mostly and then use electricity to leave the area.

Re: 4 meter wing spans?

[Hal_Porter]

Likely the GPS and comms would immediately be jammed and they'd be entirely dependent on local processing which is not a good thing

From what I can understand the US has GPS dependent weapons and GPS independent ones.

The GPS independent weapons are for fighting a technologically capable opponents - Russia or China.

The GPS dependent ones are for fighting a non technologically capable opponent. However the thing is there are a lot of non capable opponents - Iraq for example. Serbia wasn't really technologically capable either - they had one radar operator who was competent and bagged a F-117, but that competence was not the norm. Obviously ISIS and the Taliban were not at all technologically competent

I'd say Russia, China, France and the UK would all be able to jam GPS. But GPS jamming is not all that common. And you've alway got inertial navigation and terrain following TERCOM to fall back on.

Shaped charge warheads are small and light and you could imagine building a drone which is just large enough to carry one which could knock out an MBT.

That's a 450 KG bomb.

No it's not - the small and light link I posted links to Sidney Alford demonstrating a Coke can sized shaped charge. If your drones are set up to ram an armoured target such a weapon would be viable. It's probably less than a kilo..

For large drones, a ZSU (23 mm) is fine. Especially if it's mounted on an auto-tracking turret.

I imagine these things flying very close to the terrain and popping up to attack a ZSU. And you could swarm it from multiple directions simultaneously. Basically spam it with drones until one gets it.

Actually, stopping drones are quite easy, just flood the area with your own drones

Russia or China could do that. So could France or the UK. But fighting those means you're screwed anyway. This is aimed at something like the attack on Iraq. Or Afghanistan.

The US shouldn't attack Assad for a whole variety of reasons but even though Assad's Syria is not technologically capable place, it is backed by Russia and Iran. Russia is technologically capable and Iran shouldn't be underestimated either.

But Saddam's Iraq and the Taliban didn't have a technologically capable protector state and they'd be very vulnerable.

Koreans are not stupid but North Korea has a completely crippled economy so it couldn't produce vast numbers of drones to stop US ones. It would have to buy them from China. So North Korea would be vulnerable. Of course in the long run China would no doubt help the regime because it needs NK as a buffer state and a proxy. But if the US was able to topple the regime quickly I think China would grumble a bit but accepted a unified Korea under South Korean control, probably provided US troops didn't go north of the old DMZ.

Swarming the NK's artillery and ballistic missiles capable of attacking Seoul with drones seems to be worth investigating.

Payload around 6kg (13 pounds)

[raymorris]

I just designed and built a similar, though smaller plane from scratch. Based on the reported wingspan of three to four meters, we estimate the payload capacity at around 6kg.

Based on my experience with people professional pyro, I'd say that a 6kg weapon using a simple explosive like black powder would be a dangerous item to have laying around the house, but not particularly effective as a military weapon. (Remember most of the weight is the casing, it would be less than a kg of explosive composition.). Modern military explosives are significantly more powerful, and much harder to make, if the people launching these have access to a good supply of military explosives.

Re:Payload around 6kg (13 pounds)

[arth1]

Based on my experience with people professional pyro, I'd say that a 6kg weapon using a simple explosive like black powder would be a dangerous item to have laying around the house, but not particularly effective as a military weapon.

2 kg of C4 and 1 kg of non-explosives like radioactive materials, mercury or anthrax could be very effective, depending on what the target and strategic goals were.
And remember the V bombs used against Britain. The major object was to instil fear; if they blew up something of strategic value, that was just a bonus.

It seems like better defences against drones might be prudent.

Re:Payload around 6kg (13 pounds)

[Anonymous Coward]

So hard to tell sometimes.

It's easy to tell. Our guys are praised. Their guys are terrorists.

Re: Payload around 6kg (13 pounds)

[Anonymous Coward]

1km is actually a generous figure when talking about "strategic bombing" in wwii

Re:Payload around 6kg (13 pounds)

[AmazingRuss]

We are so GOOD at fucking up eachother's shit.

Re:Payload around 6kg (13 pounds)

[DerekLyons]

I'd say that a 6kg weapon using a simple explosive like black powder would be a dangerous item to have laying around the house, but not particularly effective as a military weapon. (Remember most of the weight is the casing, it would be less than a kg of explosive composition.).

I don't think you grasp why so much weight is in the casing... which is to produce shrapnel. The low percentage of explosive filler isn't a bug, it's a feature - because a higher percentage of explosive means a lower weight of fragments. Its quite effective as an anti-personnel weapon. It also works very well at making them keep their head down, stay under cover, never gather in large groups, etc... etc... (AKA terror and increasing friction.)

Modern military explosives are significantly more powerful, and much harder to make, if the people launching these have access to a good supply of military explosives.

An irrelevant non-sequitur. You don't need modern explosive to cause significant casualties and damage.

Re:Payload around 6kg (13 pounds)

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say that a 6kg weapon using a simple explosive like black powder would be a dangerous item to have laying around the house, but not particularly effective as a military weapon. (Remember most of the weight is the casing, it would be less than a kg of explosive composition.).

From my reading, professionally made HE munitions of all sizes from grenades to 1000kg bombs all seem to have around 45% explosive content by weight, with the rest being casing.

godel_56 with mod points

Re: Payload around 6kg (13 pounds)

[Anonymous Coward]

They targeted cities because that's as accurate as they could get, and sometimes, they even missed the city. It was called "carpet bombing" because if you dump enough bombs, (in theory) you will destroy your target.

Re:Payload around 6kg (13 pounds)

[techno-vampire]

When I was in the Navy back in '72, I ran across a manual that described, among other things, a 16" turret. If memory serves, a bombardment round weighed 2200#, of which 500# were HE, and the rest was there to hold it together until impact. I don't think that shrapnel was a consideration, because I don't remember it being mentioned. Armor Piercing was far heavier, weighing in at 2700# with a 150# bursting charge, and most of the mass devoted to a thick nose that used momentum to force its way through armor before the delayed action fuse set off the charge. Of course, this was artillery, and the shells had to withstand the stresses of being fired. In a drone, all you need is enough plastic or cardboard to keep the charge from falling apart before the drone takes off.

Re:Payload around 6kg (13 pounds)

[sysrammer]

Or are they freedom fighters? So hard to tell sometimes.

Their guys cut off people's heads for fun and prophet.

Re:Payload around 6kg (13 pounds)

[Bert64]

You don't need a huge amount of casing for a few kg of black powder, and these groups do generally have access to far more powerful explosives too.

Depending what the target is, you don't need a hugely powerful explosive anyway.. A small one capable of launching ball bearings at high speed (which seems to be what they used) is enough to kill or injure soldiers, and enough to damage equipment like planes. Soldiers are also less likely to be wearing body armor if you take them by surprise at their base.

A small bomb like this could easily damage an aircraft thats sitting on the ground, not enough to destroy it but enough to keep it grounded and consume resources while it gets repaired.

Also injuring a soldier is more effective than killing one, an injured soldier becomes a liability as they have to provide medical treatment. A dead soldier requires far less resources.

If you can drop a $50 bomb and cause $5000 worth of damage then it's a successful attack.

Re:Payload around 6kg (13 pounds)

[jedidiah]

> 20m is well outside the kill zone for either. You're talking 5-10 at most.

So if we got ourselves a standard issue frag grenade you wouldn't flinch if we detonated it 20m from you then?

Re:Payload around 6kg (13 pounds)

[Wulf2k]

"Mission accomplished, guys, we made Private Johnson crap himself."

Re:Payload around 6kg (13 pounds)

[arth1]

Mercury on its own won't do much, because it won't react with the sapphire dust that covers all exposed aluminium.
But add some gallium and a tiny bit of lye, and the story is different.

Re:Payload around 6kg (13 pounds)

[techno-vampire]

The figures I quote were what I remember reading in an official USN manual. Where did you get yours?

Drone review is already on Yelp

[Gravis Zero]

"Build quality terrible! Would not bomb again!" ;)

Only a matter of (short) time

[blind biker]

it's only a matter of time when drones will be used in Western cities for terrorist attacks. And I doubt it'll be a long wait, because we have no real deterrent or countermesure. It's about as efective as a suicide bomber, without having to use up a suicider.

Re:Only a matter of (short) time

[arth1]

Yeah, a drone popping a bag of flour over a packed sports stadium could easily cause hundreds of deaths.

The best way to prevent terrorism is to not piss of people so much that they become terrorists. For each preventative measure that can be put in place, two new approaches to killing people can be found. That is simply not a war that can be won.

Re: Only a matter of (short) time

[Bert64]

These groups were both very "pissed off', the nazis for instance got a lot of public support because of the punitive terms imposed on them after their defeat during WW1.

Re:Only a matter of (short) time

[arth1]

So surrender to their demands instead then?

Things are not black and white. It's not either/or.
Taking off our own blinders and engaging in dialogue is a good start.

Wave of the future

[burtosis]

You can't put technology "back in the box" and drones are here to stay. This type of weaponry has been in a popular viral video. Swarms of small drones can be quite dangerous, though we are maybe 20ish years behind on the on board processing shown in the linked video and it's uncertain how you would design a power source light yet powerful yet stores tons of power to give them enough run time. Unfortunately, drone weapons like these don't suffer from needing overly complex processing nor mission run time and can tide us all over 'till true Armageddon arrives.

Re:Wave of the future

[HornWumpus]

What do you think they can ban? GPS receivers? Small computers? Model airplane engines? Programming?

These weren't off the shelf drones to begin with, it's hopeless.

They will end up with parameter defensive drone swarms, perhaps seaking on non-linear junctions or electronic noise, like a bug detector. Will have limited effectiveness.

I expect there will come a time where anytime winds are under 10mph, bases goes on 'slow fly' drone alert. All aircraft parked in small bomb resistant hangers.

Re:Wave of the future

[DontBeAMoran]

And that project was launched after a general watched this movie.

Re:Wave of the future

[Bert64]

If there's no easy way to procure them, people will find a difficult way. Drugs have been illegal for years, and yet there are many black market sources of them and many users.
Also there are so many otherwise legal items that can easily be repurposed into weapons, you will end up banning so many things that you massively inconvenience law abiding citizens.

This is just the start

[Baron_Yam]

Wait until somebody catches on to modding a large Styrofoam model into a UAV. Fly it nice and high and it might look like a bird on radar if it shows up at all. Fly a bunch of them like a flock of birds, maybe even paint them to look vaguely like something indigenous to the area just in case... then let them drop on their GPS target.

Military bases putting up walls of lead are going to be VERY unpopular with the surround area where said lead walls will eventually drop.

Re:This is just the start

[ceoyoyo]

That's okay, they've got lasers now.

And if you mistake an actual flock of birds for drones, you've got dinner.

Followed a mortar attack

[quonset]

These drone attacks came not long after a mortar barrage at the same base in Hmeimim, Syria. In that attack, two Russian soldiers were killed and seven Russian jets were either damaged or destroyed, with another report saying up to ten planes were hit. Of those confirmed damaged, only two returned to operational service.

Whoever is behind these attacks has a high level of sophistication and operational awareness. With the ease of making and using drones, expect to see more such attacks and in even greater numbers.

Re:Followed a mortar attack

[wonkey_monkey]

greater numbers.

Sand People! I knew it.

Re:Followed a mortar attack

[William Baric]

Talk about not having a clue. Iran is supporting the Syrian regime and considers Russia as an ally. It's either Turkey (although Putin said it wasn't them), Saudi Arabia, Israel or the US.

Re:Followed a mortar attack

[AmazingRuss]

Football stadiums, open air concerts, Times Square on New Years Eve...

I'm surprised it's taken this long.

Re:Followed a mortar attack

[AHuxley]

Re "Whoever is behind these attacks has a high level of sophistication and operational awareness"
The range is the tell that another nations security services helped the terrorists plan their actions.

Re:Followed a mortar attack

[AHuxley]

AC the drone range is not a known commodity. Someone with advance nation level skills helped the terrorists with that plan.

Re:Followed a mortar attack

[houghi]

Whoever is behind these attacks has a high level of sophistication and operational awareness.

I would not be surprised if they are linked and even done by Ukraine, while the real person behind it is Russia. Funding this so they can say they need to invade that country.
It is something I see Russia capable of doing. It worked in the past, it will work again. It is enough to keep others out of the region.

If you can build a GPS controlled Drone....

[Zurkeyon3733]

Its only a few steps to automating vehicles and magnifying your potential payload about 1000x. Scale the Tech with Relays. Any first year electronics student could do it.

Who cares?

[nospam007]

" Although the plastic sheeting, tape and simple design may belie the illusion of sophistication, "

The only people who care about that are the Drone Design Fashion Police.
The rest just doesn't want bombs to fall from the sky or worse, fly into building via doors and windows.

Obref

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Begun This Drone War Has

Re:Trump is a traitor and will be raped to death

[jfdavis668]

No, he's not there, he's here.

Skynet has a beginning

[jfdavis668]

Soon it will take over.

Old style "flak" useful again

[Anonymous Coward]

If 10 drones are coming and need to shoot 10 patriot missiles, it gets a little expensive. Especially if it happens every other day. Also, it's not really sure current defenses work really well against a swarm.

Maybe the old-style anti-aircraft weapons can be brought back into action.

Re:Old style "flak" useful again

[techno-vampire]

Maybe the old-style anti-aircraft weapons can be brought back into action.

That was my first thought too. Put a bunch of 20mm machine guns on proper mounts and the drones will have a hard time getting through, especially when you consider that unlike WW II bombers, drones don't try to take evasive action.

Re:Old style "flak" useful again

[sysrammer]

Maybe the old-style anti-aircraft weapons can be brought back into action.

If a Bofors and a half can shoot down a drone and a half at a klick and a half, how many do you need to defend yourself with?

Re:Old style "flak" useful again

[AHuxley]

AC 'They could be programmed to take an erratic path" would show another nations security services helped.

Re:Old style "flak" useful again

[AHuxley]

AC it was 20 miles with accuracy that could only have been given to the terrorists by another nations security services.

I forgot to subtract fuel weight

[raymorris]

In my payload estimate I forgot to account for how far they are going. If they take off from the front line, 20 miles away, they'll burn very roughly a kilogram of fuel (could be half that, or twice that). So figure 5kg of payload.

The fuel burn over such long distance for a craft that small will significantly affect CG unless it's carefully designed to have the tank right at the CG. That makes design and flight harder.

It's like in Ukraine

[Hal_Porter]

These drones literally grown on trees, which is how the Russian separatists were able to get hold of so many of them without needing to get them from the regular Russian army.

I guess it must be the same in Syria too.

Re:It's like in Ukraine

[sysrammer]

These drones literally grown on trees, which is how the Russian separatists were able to get hold of so many of them without needing to get them from the regular Russian army.

I guess it must be the same in Syria too.

Sure. And they smell good. Made out of cedar of Lebanon.

CIA

[labnet]

They should check carefully if they have 'property of CIA' inscribed anywhere.

Actually, on a side note: Some of the chips that are needed for drones (ARM controllers, IMUs) have serial numbers (such as mac addresses). Could track the supply chain!

Re:CIA

[sysrammer]

Fly away, troll.

wtf, of course there was a US resource lingering off the coast. There's *always* a US resource lingering off coast. Call it recon, intel, E3, C&C, whatever. It's what they do.

To give them the benefit of the doubt, we have a nation-state that is apparently flummoxed about the "high technical challenges" of making wood drones.

I imagine that their imaginations fly free.

Re:CIA

[AHuxley]

Nothing will be found physically that will point back to another nations design as in the average parts used.
The real finding will be in the command and control, the range and level of accuracy given the range.
Another nation helped with that.
Any other nations electronic intelligence platform in the area watching Russia respond.
What radar first spotted the drones, what was the next system to be turned on. What defensive systems got used at what range to stop the terrorist drone attack.
Reload times, range of activation.

Re:CIA

[Agripa]

They should check carefully if they have 'property of CIA' inscribed anywhere.

Just look for the FAA drone registration number. This is a solved problem in the US at least.

Re:We should just make them illegal.

[sysrammer]

If we make them illegal then it will be a whole lot harder for these terrorists to get them, which will make everyone much safer.

You can have my drone when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

Not hard to go from kids toy to lethal weapon

[Anonymous Coward]

In world war 2, aircraft could only fly to altitudes at about 30,000 feet. This was considered 'high altitude'. The USAAF (US Army Air Force) would drop bombs using the "Norton Bomb Sight" which was considered a high precision instrument, and top secret. Its accuracy: about 3/4 of a mile. 3/4 of a mile was considered "right on the pickle barrel". Up to about 1970, accuracy didn't improve that much, until GPS and "steerable tail kits". Then you could take a "dumb" world war 2 style bomb, and stick a GPS attached to steerable fins (usually a few thousand dollars worth of parts), and get "dumb bombs" to hit targets within a few meters or less, and if they were off, they were at least heading in the right direction. To take a drone which can only lift maybe a few pounds worth of material, and make that material 1/4 pound of HMX and 3/4 pounds of ball bearings, and you have an anti-personnel bomb that can kill everyone within 300 feet. If the material is rust and powdered aluminum and a battery that gets a wire to red hot, you have a thermite device that can melt tank armor. GPS chips are cheap, and all the drones have them. Even if you lost all of your drones, you can do a lot of damage.

Re:Trump is a traitor and will be raped to death

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Is it supposed to be 'here here' or 'hear hear'?

There, there.

Re:The future is drones.

[arth1]

You fly into my territory with your $200 million a pop super jets and you'll fly into a swarm of cheap-ass drones, use up your bullets and then it's easy pick'ins - and body bags going home.

Rinse and repeat.

Guess who's gonna win in the long run. The F-22 and F-35 are already obsolete.

Jet fighters and fighter/bombers fly at a quite different altitude and speed than drones do. Blocking jet planes with drones is as effective as blocking drones with Czech hedgehogs.

Re:The future is drones.

[ceoyoyo]

True, but you could build drones that fly faster than jet fighters. You could make them so they home in on the fighter too. They'd have limited dwell time, so you'd probably want to only launch them when you saw some planes you want to destroy. Maybe have a few of them and a radar together in one place. Scatter units like those along your border and around your strategic locations like bases and cities.

Wait, this sounds familiar....

What in the world would make you think that? Wrong

[raymorris]

> I don't think you grasp why so much weight is in the casing... which is to produce shrapnel.

First, what in the world would make you think I don't know why I build my casings the way I do? Second, you are mistaken about the reason. With a low explosive such as black powder, flash, etc casing thickness is all about the pressure developed. Unconfined, these explosives don't so much as explode as burn quickly. The explosion comes from what's essentially a pressure vessel explosion. The burning composition produces a lot of gas very quickly, which creates a lot of pressure. Eventually it blows like a balloon that's been inflated too far. A weak casing will rupture exactly like a balloon - weakly. A strong casing won't rupture until there is a very high pressure, creating a powerful explosion.

A casing that's TOO strong will waste weight, peel open instead of fracturing, and some point not rupture at all.

Next time you think about correcting you might first ask yourself "do I have a clue what I'm talking about?" When you're considering educating someone about what they do, maybe ask yourself "have I ever even once *tried* doing this? Do I really know better than the people who do this stuff?"

Re:The future is drones.

[NewtonsLaw]

Well I did sound the alarm bells about this back in 2002

The danger of the low-cost cruise missile

Hello... anyone home???

Campaign to Stop Killer Robots

[Pseudonymus Bosch]

Several NGO's have been working at the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots.

HE yes. Which is why I said LE "like black powder"

[raymorris]

Yes, high explosives don't require confinement to explode, or much confinement. As I said, they are also much more difficult to make or acquire especially to make safely.

  Which is why I discussed the two separately, saying "simple explosives like black powder", flash comp, etc ...
If they have ready access to modern high explosives ...

I can make LE at Walmart or Home Depot, using items readily available in those stores. HE is a different animal. If I tried to make HE from readily available ingredients, there would be a significant likelihood I'd die.

Re:We should just make them illegal.

[BlueStrat]

You can have my drone when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

[MiB 'Bug' or US Gov]

"Your proposal is acceptable."

[/MiB 'Bug' or US Gov]

Strat

Re:Damn

[sysrammer]

The thread already has 38 posts and not a single "In Soviet Russia" joke?

And now we know why.

Re:real drones or toy drones....

[sysrammer]

Is that a real poncho or is that a Sears poncho?

Re:Courtesy of CIA

[sysrammer]

Hey, how's the cointelpro biz going nowadays? Still paying the rent?

Re:Beware, anyone can make those drones, anywhere

[Bert64]

A lot of people are criticising how cheaply made these drones were, but simplicity is genius...
The amount spent by the Russians to shoot these drones down must have vastly exceeded the cost to build and launch the drones, not to mention the cost of repairing/replacing anything that the drones managed to hit. If you can spend $50 and cause your enemy to waste $500 repelling your attack then you've achieved a successful result.

The drones didn't have cameras, but assuming they did - how would the footage have got back to the drone operators? Chances are the Russians would be jamming any transmissions, and if the drone was programmed to fly back with recorded footage the Russians could follow it and attack whoever came to collect the footage.

As for a lack of GPS, there are plenty of other ways to navigate especially if you know where the target is, the nazis had flying bombs which were built to just run out of fuel and crash onto london.

These drones look like they were built to be cheap, easily/quickly manufactured and disposable. Modern militaries are typically set up to fight similar forces, they will need to adjust their strategy to deal with this kind of threat.

Re: Trump is a traitor and will be raped to death

[Reverend Green]

Trump keeps winning and winning and winning

Hillaryists scream and shout, wave their arms and stamp their feet

But Trump just keeps on winning

Re:Beware, anyone can make those drones, anywhere

[Henning Rogge]

A lot of people are criticising how cheaply made these drones were, but simplicity is genius...
The amount spent by the Russians to shoot these drones down must have vastly exceeded the cost to build and launch the drones, not to mention the cost of repairing/replacing anything that the drones managed to hit. If you can spend $50 and cause your enemy to waste $500 repelling your attack then you've achieved a successful result.

Only if you have at least 10% of the resources of your enemy available... otherwise you will run out of steam before the enemy, which is not a successful result.

Don't make me laugh.

[DerekLyons]

> I don't think you grasp why so much weight is in the casing... which is to produce shrapnel.

First, what in the world would make you think I don't know why I build my casings the way I do?

I don't give a rats ass about why you build your casings the way do you. Your casings aren't the topic of discussion here. Military weapons are the topic of discussion.

With a low explosive such as black powder, flash, etc casing thickness is all about the pressure developed.

Nobody with an IQ over the freezing point of water is talking about low explosives, because the odds that someone is using such explosives are roughly nil.
 

A casing that's TOO strong will waste weight, peel open instead of fracturing, and some point not rupture at all.

Again, nobody with an IQ above the freezing point of water (a group which excludes you) is discussing a casing that's "too strong".
 

Next time you think about correcting you might first ask yourself "do I have a clue what I'm talking about?"

I did, and the answer is, I do.
 

When you're considering educating someone about what they do

You have provided absolutely zero evidence that you've done such things. You've provided abundant evidence you have zero clue - and even more evidence that you're an ignorant shithead trying to impress someone who does know. You've failed.

Re:Beware, anyone can make those drones, anywhere

[Bert64]

Well needing 10% of their resources is better than needing 100%, you have to be frugal in war especially when fighting a superior enemy.

Re: 4 meter wing spans: lasers.

[sonamchauhan]

No, an air-superiority 'droner'. To launch and use drone and counter drones

Re:Beware, anyone can make those drones, anywhere

[Rei]

In the real world, antiaircraft missiles are a couple million dollars each.

I seriously doubt it costs a tenth as much to build these. More like 1/100th, if that much. Possibly as little as 1/1000th.

Isnâ(TM)t this how WWII got started?

[wisebabo]

I seem to remember reading Hitler claimed that Poland attacked some German border posts and as proof displayed the bodies of the dead German defenders. Based on that he declared war on Poland, thus starting WWII.

Of course the dead bodies were those of executed convicts and the attacks were just set up to give him an excuse to invade.

So now Putin (I presume) is claiming an attack on Russian forces. So letâ(TM)s see who the prime mover behind all the âoeFake Newsâ in the world will decide to blame. (Trump isnâ(TM)t the prime producer, heâ(TM)s the prime consumer). Will it be the Iraqis? The Kurds? The Americans? If itâ(TM)s anyone other than ISIS, Iâ(TM)d be skeptical of what he claims

Re:HE yes. Which is why I said LE "like black powd

[dunkelfalke]

Even the hamas monkeys manage to work with HE just fine.

You forgot what you just said?

[raymorris]

Nobody with an IQ over the freezing point of water is talking about low explosives

Go back and read your own post that I replied to. Maybe read this part:

explosive like black powder

Black powder is a low explosive, btw. You're ranting maniacly without even reading, even your OWN posts.

Re:Beware, anyone can make those drones, anywhere

[NikeHerc]

As for a lack of GPS, there are plenty of other ways to navigate especially if you know where the target is, the nazis had flying bombs which were built to just run out of fuel and crash onto london.

If you're thinking of the V-1, they didn't "just run out of fuel and crash onto london." See "Guidance system" at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-1_flying_bomb.

The V-2 didn't "just run out of fuel and crash onto london." See "Technical details" at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-2_rocket.

Re:Beware, anyone can make those drones, anywhere

[Agripa]

The drones didn't have cameras, but assuming they did - how would the footage have got back to the drone operators? Chances are the Russians would be jamming any transmissions, and if the drone was programmed to fly back with recorded footage the Russians could follow it and attack whoever came to collect the footage.

Jamming does not work like that. You jam a receiver so it cannot distinguish the transmitter and this is much easier when you have proximity to the receiver instead of the transmitter. In this case, if the jamming transmitter is on the ground, it may not even have line of sight to the receiver further reducing its effectiveness compared to the transmitter which is airborne.

Jamming GPS is made easier, it is actually trivial unless the receiver is built to be jam resistant, by the transmitters being far away and the receivers being close which is the opposite of a drone transmitting back to its sender.

Re:Beware, anyone can make those drones, anywhere

[Agripa]

As for a lack of GPS, there are plenty of other ways to navigate especially if you know where the target is, the nazis had flying bombs which were built to just run out of fuel and crash onto london.

I looked into this a couple years ago and concluded that dead reckoning, magnetic compass, and radio direction finding of broadcast transmitters like FM , TV, and cellular would be suitable for gross navigation until GPS jamming stopped however I do not think this would be sufficient for precision bombing unless the broadcast transmitters were close and radio direction finding could also be jammed.