Submitted by Caratteraccio t3_11d9r6y in worldnews
ScottyC33 t1_ja89z61 wrote
Reply to comment by Fuduzan in Anti-war partisans in Belarus claim to have damaged Russian plane | Belarus by Caratteraccio
I think a lot of militaries are very quickly realizing that swarms of kamikaze drones are an incredible counter to expensive machinery like tanks and grounded planes.
korben2600 t1_ja8k70r wrote
Reminds me of that scifi vid "Slaughterbots". And also Black Mirror "Hated in the Nation" with the autonomous bee-sized drones and "Metalhead" with the killer drone dog. Oh and of course Angel Has Fallen with Gerard Butler.
I'm sure this sort of autonomous drone tech will be a very real thing by the end of this decade. Focus then will be on jammers/ewar/kinetic counters.
Joltie t1_ja8tu25 wrote
I don't know but it looked realistic until the Steve Jobs stand-in just showed the crowd footage of a robot kill someone who was running away. I imagine if it was real life, there would have been audible gasps.
FlipskiZ t1_jabdfg3 wrote
Would there have been if you were told they were ISIS level of evil, though?
magistrate101 t1_jaci2gh wrote
And if everyone in the audience was keenly interested in funding or getting their hands on the technology
Matt3989 t1_ja97sah wrote
Competent Militaries have known that, and have prepared for it.
Russia had a front row seat to watch the US use drones to overwhelm Iraq's Air Defenses in 1991... It's not like drones should be news to them.
Noblman_Swerve t1_ja9q5zo wrote
I mean there are not many examples of high-tech militaries dealing with significant drone attacks because we haven't seen WW3. Jamming is only effective against commercial drones.
US military has placed countering UAS as a priority, they do not have a coordinated strategy on dealing with them. US still relies on conventional AAA to deal with drones. Every different theater would need many different answers as it currently stands, which is not a problem for the enemy just mass-producing cheap kamikaze drones.
CryptoOGkauai t1_jab7tap wrote
This is one solution that’s already being tested on Navy destroyers as a close in weapons system against drones, boats, jets and missiles: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/43795/navy-is-betting-big-on-high-power-microwave-weapons
The nice thing about this solution is it’s much cheaper than kinetic weapons and it can cover a wide area cone to get multiple targets at once. Another advantage: the microwave beam travels at light speed so it cannot be dodged.
jl2352 t1_ja9vwve wrote
Also Israel has been researching military equipment to deal with low cost missiles, and the US has been paying close attention to that.
The big worry however are the seaborn drones. It's not so much the cheap drones, but having them attack in timed swarms together. That makes the drones significantly more effective, and is why Russia's Navy now mostly stays away from Ukrainian shores.
SapperBomb t1_ja9y64h wrote
> the US use drones to overwhelm Iraq's Air Defenses in 1991...
Im sorry what?
Mydogsblackasshole t1_jaaapog wrote
Had drones fly over/around Iraqi air defense radar sites to saturate their view and leave them unable to determine what was a drone, and what was a manned aircraft.
SapperBomb t1_jaasjn5 wrote
I'm aware of drones being used for reconnaissance and after some searching I found an article that mentions using 3 drones as part of a SEAD/strike package to get enemy SAMs to light up. Is that what you are referring to?
Matt3989 t1_jaa20nh wrote
You'll probably also be surprised to learn that we were using radio controlled unmanned aircraft as early as WWI.
And prior to that the Austrian military used balloons with timers to drop bombs on Venice.
SapperBomb t1_jaasy2b wrote
>You'll probably also be surprised to learn that we were using radio controlled unmanned aircraft as early as WWI. > >And prior to that the Austrian military used balloons with timers to drop bombs on Venice.
....?
So anyway, I did some searching and I'm not coming up with what you are talking about. Do you wanna point me in a direction or drop a source?
[deleted] t1_jab2csb wrote
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SapperBomb t1_jabairq wrote
I'm sorry if I wasn't clear.
The "...?" was me being puzzled as to why you started talking about Austrian balloons and WW1 when I questioned your claim about "American drones over whelming Iraqi air defenses", during the gulf war
And the reason I followed that with " so anyway...", was due to the condescending nature of your comments and I didn't want to engage you on Austrian fucking balloons and WW1 as it had nothing to do with what I was asking about and frankly, I don't care anymore.
[deleted] t1_jabceez wrote
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SapperBomb t1_jabdz2y wrote
Well I don't really give a fuck what you think because you didn't even have the consideration to read any of my replies otherwise you would have answered them coherently instead of trying to dazzle me with your faux take on history.
You have still yet to back up your original claim, which I attempted to verify myself but could not, presumably because your full of shit. Stick to Austrian balloons kiddo
[deleted] t1_jabxkbs wrote
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Omega-pod t1_ja9eyk1 wrote
Drones are positively horrifying now. They're only going to get more insidious, tiny, and deadly.
Zombie_Harambe t1_jab3hkm wrote
Someday we'll have nanite swarms.
Omega-pod t1_jad3mms wrote
Exactly. Skies darken and the mist of nano-drones descends like fog. Take a breath in, and the nanobots will create a different way to exit your body. You die of course...H.P. Lovecraft kinda stuff, but real.
DetectiveFinch t1_ja9unzc wrote
This happened 9 years ago and could have been a successful assassination:
Edit: Just to clarify, I'm not saying it should have been an assassination, just pointing out how powerless everyone was to stop that little drone.
kilkenny99 t1_ja96jwt wrote
Yeah, a lot more hangars are going to need to be built & stop leaving aircraft out on the tarmac or apron.
CryptographerOdd299 t1_jaajbpf wrote
The only effective defense seems to be things like the German antidrome cannon
adam_demamps_wingman t1_ja8hu4h wrote
The US Navy is going to learn several thousand men in a tub might not be as impervious as they used to be. Time on target works with drones.
Badloss t1_ja8k982 wrote
The US Navy has lasers on their ships that could pretty effortlessly shoot down slow fragile drones
paul_wi11iams t1_ja8ytyd wrote
> The US Navy has lasers on their ships that could pretty effortlessly shoot down slow fragile drones
Transposing to the current situation, the Belarus/Russians will surely figure out defenses an apply these, but they tie up personnel, generating a cost and a loss of effectiveness on the equipment defended.
This kind of military harassment strategy was used by the WW2 French resistance, and certainly dates deep back into history.
It also creates media noise, attracting attention where the adversary wants to remain discreet. And successfully so in this Russian "AWACS" case
The69BodyProblem t1_ja8qw1c wrote
What's the range on those things? How long do they need to hut each target to knock it out? Once someone figures those numbers out it's fairly easy to figure out the number of drones needed to swamp that particular defensive system
Badloss t1_ja8shyz wrote
That's true of any defense, but if the number is high enough then the attack is prohibitive. That's generally also why the high value targets like Carriers are sitting in the center of a web of ships that are all networked together.
The69BodyProblem t1_ja8yxsp wrote
Fair, but drones are way cheaper then basically every other weapon system that could take down a warship. It's not something insurmountable, but will certainly require an adaptation of tactics.
teeth_lurk_beneath t1_ja94z8a wrote
I highly doubt a suicide drone could take out a warship. You'd have to sneak it into ammo storage or something extremely precise.
The69BodyProblem t1_ja9anc1 wrote
The Ukrainians have had some pretty good luck with drones vs the Russian navy.
Not a uav, but a drone none the less.
MassiveStallion t1_ja8wiac wrote
Drones have limited payloads and are usually one use.
The obvious counter is super all around heavy armor. Not to mention human wave tactics.
"Next guy picks up the rifle" is surprisingly valid with drone attacks. Frankly it's easier to swarm with lightly armed and poorly trained infantry than to build a done.
The69BodyProblem t1_ja8yo83 wrote
Sure, but human waves aren't very effective against boats, which is what we were talking about. Drones are also a pretty good force multiplier, so if a country doesn't want to, or doesn't have the manpower for human waves they may serve a role there.
TheDJZ t1_ja8re9k wrote
The warhead needed to sink something in that tonnage is pretty hefty. You’re gonna need a drone with a lot of payload and kinetic energy to do serious damage. Not to mention CIWS and other defensive countermeasures.
theaviationhistorian t1_ja90gsx wrote
Exactly, something the size of a speedboat. It's why Ukraine launched a raid at the Sevastopol port at night when the Russian guard is down. An ongoing vessel will be constantly on guard and will need to spam the defenses to get even one hit in. And that one hit isn't guaranteed to be lethal to the ship (as seen with the Tanker War & the USS Cole) unless it's fire retention, crew training, & maintenance has been god awful as it was on the Moskva.
guspaz t1_ja8uotx wrote
That's why you use naval drones to take out ships, not aerial drones. They're much harder to detect, much harder to hit, have very long range and loitering capabilities, and can easily carry a payload big enough to cause major damage to a warship.
TheDJZ t1_ja8wh8w wrote
Ah that’s my mistake I thought they meant a drone swarm as in the switchblades kamikaze drones. I’m not too familiar with naval drones but from my understanding it’s a bit like a waterborne VBIED almost right?
Maybe I’m ignorant of their capabilities but I feel like CIWS should be able to engage it in addition to other weapons systems such as missiles and energy weapons. Would love to read more about these kind of drones either way.
guspaz t1_ja95l0q wrote
CIWS wasn't able to do much with them until block 1B in 2016 added FLIR to help target small surface craft. Even then, it's a challenge, they're harder to see/detect, they're harder to hit, they can be armoured, and you'd probably swarm them.
However, I'd imagine swarms of small missile boats are probably a bigger problem. It's a very cheap way to get a lot of anti-ship missiles in the air to saturate defenses.
thetasigma_1355 t1_jaahhws wrote
Somehow it never occurred to me that underwater drones were a possibility even as I’ve literally watched underwater robots do things.
Probably a hell of a lot easier to build and don’t have nearly the same weight challenges as it doesn’t have to, you know, fly.
guspaz t1_jaaocoj wrote
I was referring more to small stealthy surface drones, like Ukraine's can carry a 200kg warhead and have a one-way range of 800km, but underwater drones... I mean, that's pretty much the literal definition of a torpedo, no? A modern Mark 48 torpedo has an estimated max range of 38 km at 55 kt or 50 km at 40 kt, probably even farther if you ran it slower... or if you weren't trying to fit it into a 21-inch-wide tube.
theaviationhistorian t1_ja8zkgt wrote
The US Navy has been training for this exact scenario for decades. Just replace drones with a rush of cannon fodder with missile launchers riding Boghammars.
And if a ship is manned by a thousand plus people, that capital ship will have plenty of friends nearby as destroyers & frigates don't need that much manpower.
adam_demamps_wingman t1_ja9frjj wrote
“There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today.”
That applies to more than one initial engagement, including future ones.
Its_a_me_marty_yo t1_ja8slv2 wrote
You think the US military hasn't been aware of drones and planned how to defend from and attack with them since before you ever even heard of them?
Noblman_Swerve t1_ja9ren4 wrote
People keep saying this but have only pointed towards naval answers which are incidental because they are more worried about missiles. There is no comprehensive anti-UAS platform, just a lot of conventional AAA weapons. You don't want single shot overkill weapons for cheap kamikaze drones.
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