The new warfare - Drone wars

aidanodr

Im a big fan of Star Wars and there is where I first heard these two words - "Drone wars". Never thought I would hear this in real life how ever.

Id say most militaries in the world outside of Russia and Ukraine militaries are looking on and realising they are just not prepared. By that I mean all other militaries might have the theories but have not fought in a drone war other than Russia & Ukraine. Nothing beats on field experience I would imagine.

Interesting take about this recently in the GUARDIAN

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/13/the-guardian-view-on-the-new-drone-wars-as-prices-fall-casualties-mount

The headline alone says it all really.

AND:

Drone technology has been used extensively in twenty-first-century armed conflict, but the Russia-Ukraine war is driving innovations in autonomous warfare not seen on other battlefields.  

https://www.cfr.org/article/how-drone-war-ukraine-transforming-conflict

Wait until the size of these gets to a fly size ( I have no doubt already ) and has a massive explosive yield ( or deadly toxin ) on board and can get in anywhere unnoticed.

So where does all this go?

Here is a graphic vid somewhere in Ukraine showing Russian Troops getting annihilated in groups and one by one down to the last man literally, by drones

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1770025474208530611

cnocbui

Drones likely won't get down to fly size due to the power requirement. Nor would something that small be capable of a massive explosive yield.

The FPV explosives laden drones Ukraine pioneered are very effective. I have funded the construction of several of them.

aidanodr

UKRAINE Drones in action inside Russia

Industry experts estimate that Ukraine’s campaign of long-range drone strikes on Russia’s energy industry has already succeeded in knocking out between 600,000 and 900,000 barrels of Russia’s daily oil-refining capacity, Bloomberg reports.

https://businessukraine.ua/industry-experts-ukrainian-drones-have-knocked-out-600000-to-90000-barrels-of-russias-daily-oil-refining-capacity/

ToweringPerformance

It's worrying the Russians now have vast battlefield experience with drones and are developing a lot more capable devices alongside Iran.

aidanodr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121913736#Comment_121913736

@ToweringPerformance As per that CFR article link in the OP. This:

In a recently uncovered partnership project with Iran, Russia finished constructing a drone factory in Tatarstan, 500 miles (805 kilometers) east of Moscow, where it could produce an estimated six thousand Shahed-136 prototypes (renamed the Geran-2 by Moscow) by mid-2025. 

Hande hoche!

It's a bit mad that the Russo Ukrainian war is a mixture of WW1 with a hefty sprinkling of the Terminator.

The proliferation of drones will also have an impact on the lethality of smaller conflicts. Forces that would have struggled to field a few helicopters or a rusty fighter bomber now can effectively carry out air strikes.

That's before you bring up the potential uses in terrorism or the ethics of various autonomous modes of certain models. Bit unnerving all the same...

TheValeyard

And we haven't even really seen the proper use of swarm drones yet.

It's definitely a game changer when a couple of thousand euro drone with bomb/mines is taking out a tank worth a few million. Definitely bang for buck there.

briany

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121913824#Comment_121913824

Not that I want to be giving would-be terrorists any ideas, not that this is much of a stretch of the imagination, but I'm relieved/surprised that we haven't seen a whole new wave of terrorist attacks in the West which use drones almost exclusively. Jihadists and the like wouldn't even have to blow themselves up when they could just strap an explosive charge to a commercially available drone and fly it into a crowd of people.

Hande hoche!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121913998#Comment_121913998

Very well stated. A few years ago, there was quite a few vehicular assaults committed by Islamists and others. Wouldn't be too much of a stretch of imagination to envisage something similar on the drone front unfortunately.

igCorcaigh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121914015#Comment_121914015

Yes, and they have been used to cause problems for airports too...

Is the purchase of drones regulated in any way? I know there are laws about where you can fly them, but I have no idea apart from that.

Yakov P. Golyadkin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121913605#Comment_121913605

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hornet_Nano

This is the smallest I'm aware of, as you say though any explosive yield is going to be so small as to be mostly ineffective. They may be useful for delivering poisons to targeted individuals.

I'm not certain terrorists would get any great utility out of what is commercially available - While they may be able to carry more explosives than the above, if you're looking to carry out a mass casualty attack the only drones capable of carrying enough explosives are extremely noisy so mitigation any surprise.

İnteresting times ahead though, assuming Ukraine can hold Russia off, I'm sure they'll become a force to be reckoned with in the drone marketplace.

Overheal

It would be more likely a targeting system for larger weapons systems, or confirming targets and enemy combatants etc. are present at a proposed target site. I doubt it even has the payload cap to deliver a blowdart much less a bioweapon or a bomb. The ones Ukraine is using to drop grenades on foxholes are your ones practically off the shelf with a cheap system rigged to release a solenoid or similar when you're over the target to drop the grenade.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121913605#Comment_121913605

It's only a matter of time and manufacturing capabilities that they get that small, if not already in the skunkworks or somewhere else. Possibly unlikely that it uses a propeller for lift instead of a biomimetic mechanism like a housefly's wings, fluid dynamics at that scale get a bit hairy.

silverharp

Its created a defensive asymmetry which has to be seen as a positive , even if you dont like who is taking advantage of it at the moment. Sub $1,000 drones being shot down by million dollar missiles only has one outcome over time.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121921875#Comment_121921875

It’s likely similar units to this will be conventionalized to counter light drones

https://japantoday.com/category/tech/anti-insect-laser-gun-turrets-designed-by-osaka-university-expected-to-work-on-roaches-too

iirc there are a lot of open source projects for this

Grayson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121914468#Comment_121914468

Right now? no. But I did see a guy who was attaching a sniper rifle to a large drone. When it was flying on the spot in shade, it could hit targets hundreds of metres away.

It's not a leap of imagination to see that militaries will develop these things. They could have them flying over a squad in battle. And likewise terrorists could replicate with consumer technology. And it doesn't have to be a sniper rifle. It could be a regular assault rifle. Eventually we'll probably see it in mass shootings in the US. There's a depressing thought.

And at that point there will be anti drone drones, who's job it is to take out other drones. And it's possible law enforcement will have to carry them around in cars.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121922100#Comment_121922100

One of my favorite T’au units.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121921875#Comment_121921875

You are conflating Iranian Shahed drones which costs $375,000 and carry a 200 Kg warhead with DJI Mavic and near equivalents that carry grenades and other light ordnannce weighing 2 Kg or less. Ukraine is not firing million euro missiles at DJIs.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/erictegler/2024/02/07/375000the-sticker-price-for-an-iranian-shahed-drone/

I will give you the point that a US ally supposedly did use a $3million Patriot to down a $200 quadcopter, but that was in 2017 and I suspect it was the Saudi's who don't seem to give a toss what things cost.

banie01

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121918976#Comment_121918976

The talk of miniaturisation always puts me in mind of the insectothopter. As you've said, fluid dynamics at the mini end of the scale are both hard to predict and incredibly cutting edge.

https://www.cia.gov/legacy/museum/artifact/insectothopter/#:~:text=Developed%20by%20CIA's%20Office%20of,miniaturized%20platforms%20for%20intelligence%20collection.

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

What might also be of interest, especially considering this was over 50yrs ago. Is what capability the US might have that's as yet unknown. The ability to remotely target and have real time intel was far beyond what many might have thought possible at the time.

https://twitter.com/heatloss1986/status/1768462147330203781?t=GheHS3ZJkxnx_aaD42fEaQ&s=19

silverharp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121922984#Comment_121922984

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1770148075924844579

here I was thinking of this, which is a $1-2m missile taking drone worth built for a couple of hundred bucks

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121924722#Comment_121924722

I don't have an account so can't see comments, which I am assuming is where the target details are coming from. If the frigate is outside Yemen's territorial waters - you can't see a trace of land in that video and Yemen tends to rugged volcanic mountains making it visible from afar - then it's very unlikely to be a cheap consumer drone. My guess is they are well outside the territorial waters limit for their own safety. If it was the Dec 9 incident, they were 110km off the coast, so not a $200 drone.

https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2024/01/11/french-navy-defends-use-of-million-euro-missiles-to-down-houthi-drones/

This article mentions sophisticated observation drones. It's ever so slightly possible these could be high and DJI's, which are around the €5,000 - €12,000 mark, but again, they have very limited range even though they wouldn't be carrying a payload.

I would agree that were such missiles being used against a consumer drone that would be overkill as they are easily susceptible to just jamming their wifi signal.

The estimate of the cost of Shaheds was 20 - 60 K, but then it turns out that the Orcs are paying six times more than the upper end of that range.

Without some better evidence, I am sceptical of the consumer drone claim on account of their very limited range and the ease of ECM intervention.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121925037#Comment_121925037

even if its a more advanced drone the missile is overkill, if it costs more than the target - significantly more, asymmetric warfare bleeds the superpowers for a bargain.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121926921#Comment_121926921

The drone was headed for a ship worth considerably more than the missile used to stop it.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121927480#Comment_121927480

Understood, but the missile is still worth more than the drone by a significant factor also. Even if it successfully protects the cargo ship and its cargo, the cost of defense bleeds the defenders through thrifty attrition.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121924722#Comment_121924722

Coincidentally just came across this and it includes the same twitter vid. Puts things in better perspective:

https://www.defenseromania.ro/imagini-cu-momentul-in-care-fregata-franceza-fs-alsace-intercepteaza-un-tir-de-3-rachete-balistice-anti-nava-lansate-de-gruparea-terorista-houthi_627496.html

More likely an anti ship missile than a cheap drone.