Hobby Drones in War Scenario

Just saw this interesting post on Hobby Drones used in war.
I guess because they are less expensive than a Predator Drone.
https://wetalkuav.com/dji-drones-use...battle-marawi/

Jerry

Drones are getting so affordable and high tech, it's just amazing the things they can do. Good read, thanks for posting.

Huh? I thought this would be something about new drones being used in the middle east. Turns out they are being used by both sides in a martial law conflict. I bought a drone for my daughter about a year and a half ago. The price has dropped considerably since then. Might have to get her a better one.

They already have high altitude cams that can capture amazing quality, just wait until they miniaturize the backscatter x-ray technology, and the battery technology makes a leap, really I want to see AI programmed with our Constitution, but that's a fight for later, right now we do have police drones which is probably good, but giving back civil asset forfeiture was a mistake Mr. Sessions, it will be abused again, sorry but cops are just people and ....sorry I am off topic, there is so much potential in drones for good and bad uses, I do enjoy seeing the technology move forward, I also worry.

It's an interesting conflict: small, inexepsensive drones against best of the best military aircraft.

Lets take for example a current F16 fighter jet, priced at a few dozen million dollars each depending on equipent. Even if it only cost 10 million each, you could at the same price
point swarm it with 10.000 dji phantom drones (or 100.000+ cheap ebay ones).

Assuming ingesting a drone of such size would incapacitate the fighter jet, it could be a really effective defense against them. Obviously the jet fighter is much faster than the drones, but if your objective would be to defend a city from air attack deploying swarms of thousands or even millions of them is feasible.

Yes, there is strength in numbers, but in the open air if the drones can be disabled by a directional EMP or have their payload triggered then they are too slow to intercept ground to air as far as a second wave, as part of a defense system they have value.

Now at ground level used for surveillance and lets face it, anti personnel, they could serve as robotic soldiers, throw away single use but still much cheaper than growing and training an 18 year old human.

There are already automated area denial systems that fire grenades, they could just as easily launch a steerable drone grenade.

I am sure the future of terroristic tactics will increasingly use drones. Also, lone wolves can use them with a fairly high ability to remain hidden and never found. The more terrorists use them, the more likely a few individuals with personal grudges will too, using terrorism as a cover.

This reminds me of old joke - "Hit with your shovel at weak spots of F-117":
(Hit the navigation, cockpit or throw gravel into air duct entrances

Alaskan said:

I am sure the future of terroristic tactics will increasingly use drones. Also, lone wolves can use them with a fairly high ability to remain hidden and never found. The more terrorists use them, the more likely a few individuals with personal grudges will too, using terrorism as a cover.

Click to expand...

Yes it has been the focus of many of our Nato allies to counter this threat, Germany has a laser system they set up at sporting events or anywhere they suspect a threat, but the EMP approach is what the US uses at last I read because with a few hundred launched at once, each flying itself to a programed point guided by GPS we need to be able to clear a large airspace and drop them in mass, once the bad guys adopt more advanced tactics that I won't mention there will no doubt be casualties, it's a shame but anything can be used as a weapon, heavy trucks have done terrible damage in crowded areas recently, it's a problem that I am afraid will take at least a couple of generations to preach out once they get serious about changing the teachings.

Banning them won't stop the brainwashed zealots because even if we can't buy them from China the bad guys still will be able to and they can pretty much build this stuff, hell with the 150 BILLION dollars Barry gave Iran they will be able to buy quite a bit of technology.

If they're cheap (relatively)... why not use them.
They've been used to smuggle drugs and guns
into prisons in the past. I'd rather loose a drone
than do time for smuggling crap into a prison...

Jerry

They can surely be used for that - smuggle items into prisons, limited quantities of drugs over borders and all that. Then again a slighshot/catapult/trebuchet would be about as effective so it's nothing really new.

Disabling a fighter yet while still on the ground is fairly trivial as well, you could just damage the tires so i cannot take off safely. Jet fighters are fairly vulnerable on the ground as it is.

Once in the air this all changes quickly, there is no cheap means of, for example, bringing down an F16 or MIG29 when it is in flight. Drones could change that to some degree, as long as they are cheap and can manage to get in the flightpath of such fighter jets.

The idea would be to swarm a jet with thousands of them so evading them is not possible, but ingestion would cause serious engine damage (you could fit them with small titaniun om even tungstencabide rods if they are structurally too weak to do serious damage as is)

I have no idea if this will become a military strategy at some point, but i think it could be feasible on paper: just get a million $10 each drones to fly over a city and no jet fighter woud venture into that swarm which costs less than a single jet fighter to purchase.

Also most of the drones would not be lost and could be re-charged on a schedule to keep a sizeable swarm in place for a long period of time, essentially creating a minefield in the sky at a very low budget.

Things like anti-aircraft missiles are fairly expensive and are lost when they miss target, drones are not.

Hypersonic ground to air missiles are hard to stop, especially with an EMP pulse as they are in a faraday cage to start with, but the lightweight multi rotor drones have control circuits just to run the brushless motors that are very susceptible to disruptive currents induced from a HERF or EMP pulse and they move slow enough compared aircraft and their line of sight to the horizon, even ships have enough time to easily react on the open seas.

But humans soldiers in an urban scenario will face a terrible threat once one the countermeasures for an area are defeated, drones may hunt other drones, and their use for over the horizon intel is already useful.

When used in conjunction with mortars and man fired smart grenades anti personnel drones will add to the strength of an assault as a force multiplier that can basically make a U turn and flank enemy troops during a mortar/ smart munitions assault.

Also automated area denial systems may well include small disposable drones carrying fragmentation munitions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM25_CDTE

EDIT

With drones loitering over cities camera surveillance already is being tested and improved, but imagine a drone that carries micro drones to gather intel.
https://www.thenewamerican.com/tech...mous-microdrones-designed-to-sneak-into-homes

https://www.thenewamerican.com/tech...mous-microdrones-designed-to-sneak-into-homes

There are many different scernarios, but i suppose the theme here is using something fairly cheap to defeat something fairly expensive.

Flying drones in a position where they get ingested in enemy aircrafts engines causing them to malfunction would be an excellent example of this.

It would be more or less the equivalent of throwing a brick into an enemy fighters turbofan engine whilst on the tarmac, just witout being very close to it.

Such approaches are not unheard of in modern warfare: Say you were defending some territory with patriot missiles that cost a million dollars a piece, and your enemy can fire missiles that cost $10k each, without decent flight control and only small payloads, yet dangerous enough to want to avoid.

1000 shots later you are down a billion dollars, your enemy spent only 10 million, and the stalemate remains. You can do this forever, after a million attempts you've spent you're entire GDP on patriot missiles while your enemy can keep up their effort selling oil on the black market.

And such things are not just imagnation either. It seems that in the yugoslav wars people actually rigged $50 or so microwave ovens to operate with their doors open, each attracting radar seeking missiles costing a million or so each.

Such tactics could still work today - get some means to get the enemy to expend very expensive weapons hitting worthless targets and you can get them to give up the war effort for cost reasons.

Light superglue said:

This reminds me of old joke - "Hit with your shovel at weak spots of F-117":
(Hit the navigation, cockpit or throw gravel into air duct entrances

Click to expand...

I'm sorry I missed this before now. It is pretty funny. A shovel against an F-117.

Benm said:

There are many different scernarios, but i suppose the theme here is using something fairly cheap to defeat something fairly expensive.

And such things are not just imagnation either. It seems that in the yugoslav wars people actually rigged $50 or so microwave ovens to operate with their doors open, each attracting radar seeking missiles costing a million or so each.

Such tactics could still work today - get some means to get the enemy to expend very expensive weapons hitting worthless targets and you can get them to give up the war effort for cost reasons.

Click to expand...

Sigh, this tired old microwave oven hoax.
Pardon some of the language in the exchange from the following link, but as mentioned within, I agree that the author has earned a pass.
Oh yeah, we were about to give up the war effort and throw in the towel after the 77th day LMFAO!

Snopes response to Yugoslav Microwave oven hoax

And while we are on this subject, let's talk about just how the Serbs, were able to down the F-117.

Not too hard to lock onto an Albatross, or a Stork, flying at 600kts during a previously observed time period flying on a pre observed and designated route. This was more due to the bravado and self assured arrogance of the NATO commanders getting a good dose of lo-tech (shovels) upside their noggins. Were the Serbs, able to repeat that feat? nope.

People do still make a huge difference, no matter what sort of Hi-tech is employed- this is true.
Does the Lo-tech vs overcoming the Hi-tech argument stand on solid ground? nope.
Just ask the Serbs.

I'm just going to post this as a general reply and ask that the dates of both my post, and the publish date on the link that I'm referencing below be duly noted as well.
Thank you.

Air Defense: Iron Dome Evolves Into Drone Dome

Also please note that Lasers, are being employed as the Nemesis.

As for the operators of the UAV's Hobby Drones etc; they can also be located and dealt with as needs dictate.

Also please note the publish dates here as well.

The Pike Missile.

and Here.