Using drones: principles, tactics and results (amended title)

[Hoplite99]

It depends how you do it. If you accompany your Drone strike with a "Courteous by your leave Sir!" - then sure you can conduct your strikes at will. Which is in essence what we are doing. By providing foreign aid to the tune of $2B USD per year, the US has essentially "purchased" the requisite permissions for its occasional transgressions. The Proof? Merely the acquiesence of the Paki's...

[Bill Moore]

Posted by slapout

Link from John Robb's Global Guerrila's on the new small drone weapons system...about 11 pounds

We will only determine the rules and tactics for how we employ UAVs our UASs, as this technology continues to proliferate to both state and non-state actors they will employ them in unique ways to achieve their objectives. Imagine the challenges for protecting the homeland, our troops, our civilian leaders, our industries, and so forth. The fence, the wall, the counter sniper ops, etc. will provide little protection. Traditional air defense will also become obsolete, but air defense against these small to mini armed UAVs will take on a new importance.

We developed the atom bomb and that gave us a strategic edge for how many years? Now it is existential threat. We celebrate advances in UAV technology, but perhaps we're celebrating prematurely?

[carl]

I don't see the difference between this thing and the Pred/Hellfire combination except the Shadow Hawk munition will have a smaller explosive payload. The article doesn't say what that is. It is a pretty complicated way to deliver a bang that may not be so big.

The article was quite breathless about this but imagine employing it against the kind of camoflauged (sic) bunkers the VC and the Japanese made. You probably couldn't see them and even a direct hit by a munition that weighed 11 pounds total might not do anything at at all.

Drones like this are great big RC airplanes. If you interrupt the radio signal it wanders where it will. Taking advantage of that would be a way to defend against it.

Also if you took small, cheap, manned airplane like this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassutt_Special), put in a 12 gauge shotgun in a schrage music installation, you could shoot down Shadows and Preds and there wouldn't be a thing they could do to defend themselves. It would cost just a small fraction of the price of those drones.

Everybody gets excited about drones but something like a GPS guided 120 mm mortar shell is a lot scarier, at least to a civilian like me.

[slapout9]

I don't see the difference between this thing and the Pred/Hellfire combination except the Shadow Hawk munition will have a smaller explosive payload. The article doesn't say what that is. It is a pretty complicated way to deliver a bang that may not be so big.

carl, they are trying to get small on purpose. Hand Grenade small from 30,000 feet with close to zero margin of error at the strike point.

[Bill Moore]

Carl, you making assumptions off dated information, and based on the rate of technological evolution, we all risk being outdated from week to week, which is why we face an ever greater risk of strategic surprise.

Check out Do It Yourself Drones

http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/...search-copters

[davidbfpo]

This sentence by Bill Moore led me to think:

..as this technology continues to proliferate to both state and non-state actors they will employ them in unique ways to achieve their objectives.

We are aware of the considerable investment made in drug smuggling submersibles. Is there any evidence - in the public domain - of drug smugglers using this aerial technology?

Imagine a "swarm" of UAS carrying high-value drugs across the US border. Some I suspect would fail.

Then I recalled reading predictions about the possible impact of naval missiles, after the sinking of the Israeli destroyer Eilat in 1967 by Styx SSM and many years later cruise missile technology. Yes they have made a difference, IMHO not on the predicted scale.

It is when non-lethal uses are made of such technology, principally by commerce and criminals that the state lags behind.

[carl]

Slap and Bill:

If you drop a hand grenade accurately from however high you choose, it is still just a hand grenade. And you may be able to put it precisely on a target but you have to be able to see and identify a target. If there is something between your sensor and what you want to hit, a tree a roof or a rainstorm, it won't matter how deadeye you can be because you can't hit what you can't see. No matter anything else, it is still a very expensive way to deliver a munition.

I realize the tech is advancing quickly but certain things don't change. The item Bill referenced still needed radio reception and transmission to work. It was powered by batteries which severely limit the payload and endurance of any aircraft. Something little like that will work in well inside a building but can it handle a 20 knot gusty wind? Computational power and control tech advance but there are still the problems of power, weight, weather and being able to find something that is hiding. David is right, all this may be what it is cracked up to be someday, but that day may be a ways off.

David, an even better example of the phenomenon you mention are air to air missiles. They are quite deadly now but in the 50s people expected them to quite deadly immediately and made decisions based on belief. It took 40 years for the missiles to get there.

[bourbon]

This sentence by Bill Moore led me to think:

We are aware of the considerable investment made in drug smuggling submersibles. Is there any evidence - in the public domain - of drug smugglers using this aerial technology?

Imagine a "swarm" of UAS carrying high-value drugs across the US border. Some I suspect would fail.

Some of the first submersibles used by the cartels were unmanned. Ultralight aircraft are used on the US-Mexico border to smuggle drugs; it wont be long until the cartels utilizing drones somehow – if they haven't already.

I think they will probably first be used for diversionary purposes; divert the border patrols attention, then bring loads over using the standard means.

[slapout9]

We celebrate advances in UAV technology, but perhaps we're celebrating prematurely?

Yep, I don't hink anybody knows where this is going to end up except it is likely to be very nasty both for those with this technology as well as those without it.