Interesting articles

Lol.

Any word on who supplied the system?

Don’t think it’s actually been provided yet, given the way the committee was talking about it. For once I agree with the Shinner that as usual we’ve left it late for something that was clearly going to be needed.

In a bit of a random question, has the French frigate broken down or are they trying a sales demo? Cause she’s been in Cobh for some time.

Paul Murphy and RBB would just die from abject rage, while Gibney would have to think about painting her nails again in protest (while trying to figure out how to Nationalise social media…), but that's just port courtesy.

Oh so us asking nicely not to fly drones didn't work out… Insert Shocked Face!

Any chance the mandarins in the various departments might for once get their heads out of their arses and figure out that a) this was going to happen, and b) we are 6 months from having many more delegations arriving in Dublin. For the love of God, stop stalling and start buying!

CUAS systems for Baldonnel haven't been ordered yet, so it would arguably be less secure than Dublin Airport that invested in some anti-drone systems a while back. As for the Yeats engaging the drones… Manually aimed secondaries at night at small targets? That's a recipe for a lot of rounds going places they shouldn't, besides which I'm sure the SG would demand to be asked permission to fire first.

This part in the Article is real chickens coming home as well.

A high-level meeting between An Garda Sochána, the Irish Defence Forces and senior civil servants with responsibility for national security was called yesterday in Dublin to discuss the incident.

There was apperently a bit of confusion of who was in charge of certain aspects of the security. But that should not be a suprise as many Government reports have highlighted when it comes to security roles such as between Military and Garda Intel there needs to be clear guidance to who does what but course the irish state shrugs it shoulders and says we will get a round to that.

@cranberry1 Ireland clearly does not have enough assets, that said it had the capability last night to bring down the drones if it needed to. Almost certainly the radar on the Casa-295 picked the drones up, and it was seen from the naval vessel (although the ship has no dedicated AA search radar, they may well have been picked up on the ships X band and S band radars, which are actually half decent). The naval vessel also has fairly sophisticated AA armament in the form of a laser guided 76mm gun, which probably could have successfully engaged the drones. There is a perception that Ireland has no assets, that is actually wrong, it has a fair bit, just not close to what is needed in the changed world Ireland find's itself.

To be fair, if whatever drones were positioned with the city behind them, I can't see any ships captain getting permission to fire with the chance of landing shrapnel in the Capital, particularly as the 76mm doesn't have any anti-air rounds. Ideally though it might drive home to the Powers that be that the ship upgrades (radar and secondaries) can't be long fingered as they currently are.

The AC 295 does not have the capability to detect and/or identify airborne targets, save for transponder equipped aircraft.

Save for seeing something out the window with the naked eye.

Detecting drones isn't just using radar to physically detect them…

The 295's have the Sitaware ISR platform installed, which allows spectrum monitoring along with modular add ons into the detection suite.

If they were commercial drones, they would monitor the known video feed frequencies quite easily.

The journal story for me doesn't add up. The fact they were able to say they were military drones (by frequencies in use, potentially?), and suspected came from the north (when they were on station on the south of the city).

Also explains why the PC-12 was up the following day. It has the ISTAR suite, which has better detection and location capabilities… but again, on the south of the city.

Was probably all hands on deck to get that serviceable and in the air.

Id assume the pilots were wearing nods anything with a ir signature will light up like a christmas tree .

Meanwhile the Oireachtas National Security and Defence Committee asked for a closed door meeting with AGS, DoD, DF, and officials from the National Security unit in the Taoiseach's department, to discuss an agenda concerning national security matters.

Guards: "No."

DoT: "No."

DoD & DF: "Well, we'll send a mandarin or two and Brigadier Staunton in charge of cyber defence, but we'll only talk about cyber security and undersea cables, cos everything else is none of your business. Okies?"

🤷🏼‍♂️