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

[carl]

There is one result I do not like: All recce units got issued mandatory ballistic plate carriers and helmets, and no one does covert dismounted long range recce ops for multiple days any more. And it´s needed there. Drones are amazing, but they can´t win alone in counterinsurgency campaign, while the rest is carrying their armoured bodies in vehicles and get blown up on IEDs daily.

I find this kind of thing ironic because years ago I read of the Russians going into Grozny and the stories most always had an arch tone of disapproval when noting that they were reluctant to get out of their vehicles.

[slapout9]

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



http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/

[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]

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.

[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.

[Bill Moore]

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

Moving drugs is a business, and I'm not sure it would be profitable to move narcotics this way, and furthermore I'm not sure how a swarm would land in a consolidated location where the drugs could be received by the next link in the network without being detected? I can see the potential of criminals using UAVs for surveillance prior to moving their load in some cases, but so far spotters seem to be working. I suspect that UAVs will be used to fill a need, and if there isn't a need criminals won't adapt the technology. The same holds true for states and terrorists. States have the means to experiment and expand the realm of the possible. Criminals and terrorists will generally adapt existing technologies instead of developing new technologies.

I remain concerned about what creative terrorists will be able to do with this technology as it evolves, and while I'm thinking bigger than a hand grenade, one can't downplay the psychological effect of a handgrenade dropped on a target from a UAV in someplace like the UK, Canada, or the U.S..

However, to put things in perspective the non-lethal potential of UAVs to support social needs such as search and rescue, delivering supplies, fighting fires, supporting law enforcement, collecting various forms of data to support non-military planning, etc. is far greater than its potential negative impact.

This isn't much different than the bio-sciences in that regard, for the most part this science has greatly improved the lot of man, but there are elements of this science that could be used by state and non-state actors alike to threaten or harm.

[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.

[bourbon]

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.

A couple points:

- The problem we face today is not being unable to put enough ordnance on a target, but rather putting too much ordnance on target and the collateral damage it produces.
- Sensors these days are pretty amazing; not being able to see things is less and less of a problem.
- Just because DOD has a corrupt procurement system that gold-plates the hell out of everything, it does not necessarily mean that drones are expensive –- in-fact the technology is incredibly cheap.

[Fuchs]

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

Isn't it remarkable how much this thread is focused on assassination?


Drone tactics are so much more.

For example: It's tricky to keep them from getting shot down when you face a somewhat capable enemy. The French were dumb enough to fly their Cerecelle (?) type UAVs on a predictable schedule and course in 1999 and lost several of them to Yugoslav ManPADS.

Another aspect of drone tactics are the interesting games played with decoy drones, such as MALD (?) or the Ryan models over North Vietnam.

There's also a huge tactical problem associated with the use of loiter munitions - kamikaze drones that cannot be recovered and should thus not be launched without a good reason. Worse; at least some types of them were autonomous (a German model, for example - and the British Brimstone missile is similar).

There are also interesting problems associated with transport drones, such as the Kaman K-Max-based drone (a helicopter with external payload). How could they be used in other than flat terrain?

There are also EW drones, most notably some radio comm jamming drones which were developed to do radio comm jamming in incredible depths (up to 150 km IIRC). How could you keep such a electromagnetic lighthouse from getting shot down against an opponent who warrants such a jamming effort?

Or superficially simple operational analysis problems regarding the slow cruise speed of a Predator or (still slow) Reaper when facing an opponent who is smart enough to learn the reaction time and break off his actions after a few minutes? You may be able to loiter over an area for hours with such drones, but not over all areas!

How about deconfliction? Shouldn't it be possible to fly drones at a few narrow altitude bands and free them this way from deconfliction concerns? Mortars, artillery, fighter-bombers - they all should not have any deconfliction concerns with drones, but last I heard is there are such concerns. And they keep especially the very small drones in practice almost always on the ground. Should a huge country ("airspace") like Afghanistan with few hundred manned aircraft in-theatre really have an elaborate deconfliction regime at all? I was especially astonished by the huge effort spent on having a flying deconfliction clearing house in form of AWACS aircraft...it doesn't get more expensive than that.

[carl]

A couple points:

- The problem we face today is not being unable to put enough ordnance on a target, but rather putting too much ordnance on target and the collateral damage it produces.
- Sensors these days are pretty amazing; not being able to see things is less and less of a problem.
- Just because DOD has a corrupt procurement system that gold-plates the hell out of everything, it does not necessarily mean that drones are expensive –- in-fact the technology is incredibly cheap.

For certain applications, putting a little bit of explosive on a target is great. I just don't think it changes the game radically. And I still contend it is quite expensive when you factor in all the costs associated with operating a drone. It takes a lot of people on the ground to support one of those things and that costs. The drones crash a lot too and have to be replaced. The fact that procurement system is busted is immaterial. It is what we have and it is not going to change. Drones ain't cheap.

Sensors are amazing but can they easily see through the forest canopy, or a rainstorm or into a bunker? To my knowledge they can't. Some can't even do very well with a bush or a stand of cattails. When they can do as well as the Rhodesian pilots used to do, picking out footprints in the dust, in addition to what they do now, I'll be truly impressed. When they can do what a Pygmy tracker does, I'll be even more impressed.

None of the drones handle weather very well, especially the tiny ones. Weather is something you have to be concerned about if you are going to fly anything, big or tiny.

Fuchs: Deconfliction is a problem when the drones are in control. It is an impossible problem when they go out of control, which they do. So to account for that you have to give them more airpspace to operate in. As you said, that's expensive

[Fuchs]

A story about airspace deconfliction:

During WW2 the British Bomber Command bombarded German cities, German anti-air artillery shot back. The effectiveness of the AAA was nearly proportional to the time they were able to shoot at targets.

Bomber command decided after some operational research that a different manoeuvring scheme would allow to drastically cut down the duration of bombers over a city.

Some afternoon the bomber fleet's cockpit crews were briefed about the flight plan and they began to protest: A thousand bombers dropping bombs over a city in only a few minutes would lead to collisions.
The OR people replied that they had calculated that most likely two bomber crews would be lost by collision, but many more would be saved because of the AAA's reduced lethality.
The bomber fleet sortied, executed the plan, returned home - and only two bombers had collided over the target. Losses to AAA were unusually low.


I regret today's deconfliction craze would not allow for this. It has become a self-licking ice cone, an end in itself.

[Entropy]

I regret today's deconfliction craze would not allow for this. It has become a self-licking ice cone, an end in itself.

Fuchs,

Deconfliction will always be necessary, even in Afghanistan. Afghanistan does have a lot of airspace, but aircraft tend to congregate in certain areas. If there is, for example, a big firefight going on then a variety of aircraft need to operate in the vicinity of that event and those aircraft have to be deconflicted. You are also misinformed about AWACs in Afghanistan.

[Fuchs]

Really?

As a result, AWACS crews pulled double duty, providing deconfliction and radar control to aircraft transiting the airspace while simultaneously responding to numerous requests for CAS. Providing command and control and establishing communications with battlespace participants proved difficult. There were instances of preplanned strike aircraft flying through the formation of aircraft attempting to support ground forces.

my emphasis


(JFQ)
http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/jfq_pubs/1438.pdf

[Entropy]

Really?

You realize that portion of the article is talking about the war in 2001 and early 2002, before there were aircraft stationed in theater (in any significant numbers), and before there was an ATC system to do basic deconfliction and before there was an ASOC in Afghanistan?

If you think AWACs are doing any of that today then you are mistaken.

[slapout9]

1-All,Used to be Drones were targets that you practiced on. This is a remote controlled weapons system! From a 1950's systems analysis point of view ... you have a mobile launch platform, a delivery system, a guidance system and a "War Head". You want see drug dealers use it much because it has no designed "Pay-Load" capacity. But as Bill Moore points out Terrorist will really be interested it. Also the tecnology is getting cheaper all the time,not good for us.

2-carl, don't get hung up on the grenade analogy my point was that the (mystery Force of the future) wants to be able to "Put The Warhead On The Forehead." We can already do the "Big Bang".....what we need are smaller and more precise warheads.

3-davidpro,during the 1980's drug dealers in Florida tried modified R/C Aircraft for smuggling but they just couldn't haul the weight needed and at the time they still needed be controlled by line of sight (no on board cameras). The person operating the Plane had to be able to see where it was going to land, which really didn't help much. The only thing that halfway worked was when the drugs were wrapped watertight and dropped into a lake and recovered by other means, but that didn't work because they(dealers) became vulnerable to traditional LE methods. This is in contrast to subs which can carry huge loads and be offloaded at sea points to fast moving cigarette boats or simply sailed into a covered boat house or other concealed point and off loaded in a more traditional manner.

4-What Fuchs says about the tactics being a lot more than what is normaly talked has a lot of merit. This truly is 60 year old technolgy invented by the Germans in late WW2. There is a lot that is already known but itsn't being talked about as far as these weapons systems go.