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

[Firn]

I'm not surprised by this connection, given how 'drones' were part of a large package which was created by Israel after it was forced to think and act laterally after the bloody face it's airforce was given under Zugzwang in 1973.

----

The rather cheap and low level drones are of course a different story with different implications. They have already penetrated the civil society and are increasingly used here in the Alps by firefighters, mountain rescue teams, wildlife protection* (roe deer fawns) and many more and so forth.

The only big tech hardware problem for those applications remains the battery. Organisation, cooperation, training and laws are still a challenge in some areas. Canines have long been used by rescue services, law enforcement and hunters and arguably demand a lot more effort and training and can only work with their handler. The adoption of drones should overall be easier and cheaper.

ISIL certainly demostrated how much tech was available at a surprisingly low price and what could be done on a low budget. There is obviously still a lot of scope and room to explore.

Firn

*During haying. Can help to finance the common project.

[Firn]

Sven has a fine blog post about this topic.

Aerial drones are no doubt part of the future combat supply mix.

Firn

[AdamG]

Meet the Counter-Measure.

As drones increase in availability, more organizations and governments are looking for ways to protect assets from nefarious drones. Fortem has developed a system called DroneHunter that, well, hunts drones. Literally. DroneHunter involves detecting and then removing drones by shooting them down or capturing them with another drone. This is dogfighting with drones.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/08/fo...-rogue-drones/

I can't wait for the Counter-Counter Measure.

[AdamG]

Russian military forces at the Hmeymim air base and the Tartus logistics center in Syria came under attack by what appears to have been a swarm of drones. Some thirteen small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) made the attack, six of which were diverted by Russian electronic warfare systems while seven additional aircraft were dispatched by Pantsir-S1 air defense batteries.
"During the hours of darkness Russian air defense facilities made clear 13 remoted unknown small-sized air targets approaching the Russian military assets,” the Russian Defense Ministry told the TASS news agency. “Ten combat UAVs were approaching Russia’s Hmeymim air base and three more - the logistics center of Tartus."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-ca...010700010.html

[AdamG]

Russia is in possession of an underwater nuclear drone capable of carrying a 100-megaton nuclear warhead, a recently leaked draft of the Pentagon's Nuclear Posture Review confirmed.
The weapon, referred to in the document as an “AUV,” or autonomous underwater vehicle, is featured in a chart that lays out Russia's multiple nuclear delivery vehicles.
Pentagon officials warn in the posture review that Russia has actively diversified its nuclear capabilities, a strategic advantage it has over the United States:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...cid=spartandhp

[AdamG]

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A missile from a suspected U.S. drone killed an Afghan militant commander as he was taking a shower early Wednesday, according to Pakistani police and Taliban sources.

Nasir Mahmood — a member of the feared Taliban-linked Haqqani network — was in a house in Pakistan's semi-autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas near the border with Afghanistan when he died, according to Ameer Zaman, a senior police officer. Nasir Mahmood, whose given name was Ihsanullah, was also known as Khowarai by his fighters.
Three Taliban sources confirmed that Mahmood, who like millions of fellow Afghans left for Pakistan over the last four decades, had been killed. They shared a photo of his body as he was being being prepared for burial.

Due to their wealth and deep links to local tribes, one Western diplomat once called the Haqqanis "the Kennedys of the Taliban movement."
Fearing for their safety, Taliban members spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity. U.S. officials did not immediately comment on the news.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/s...wered-n840591?

[AdamG]

DENVER, Colorado — Last winter, on the outskirts of a large U.S. city, an FBI hostage rescue team set up an elevated observation post to assess an unfolding situation. Soon they heard the buzz of small drones — and then the tiny aircraft were all around them, swooping past in a series of “high-speed low passes at the agents in the observation post to flush them,” the head of the agency’s operational technology law unit told attendees of the AUVSI Xponential conference here. Result: “We were then blind,” said Joe Mazel, meaning the group lost situational awareness of the target. “It definitely presented some challenges.”
The incident remains “law enforcement-sensitive,” Mazel said Wednesday, declining to say just where or when it took place. But it shows how criminal groups are using small drones for increasingly elaborate crimes.
Mazel said the suspects had backpacked the drones to the area in anticipation of the FBI’s arrival. Not only did they buzz the hostage rescue team, they also kept a continuous eye on the agents, feeding video to the group’s other members via YouTube. “They had people fly their own drones up and put the footage to YouTube so that the guys who had cellular access could go to the YouTube site and pull down the video,” he said.
Mazel said counter surveillance of law enforcement agents is the fastest-growing way that organized criminals are using drones.

https://www.defenseone.com/technolog...i-raid/147956/

See also http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/criminals-armed-drones

[AdamG]

A start-up called Volans-i is building drones that can deliver heavy parts over long distances, even to a ship that's sailing at sea. This kind of technology could have saved the Titanic, CEO and co-founder Hannan Parvizian quipped.
*
Volans-i's drones are able to travel for up to 500 miles carrying 20 pounds of cargo at a time at a top speed of 200 miles per hour. (A delivery from Los Angeles to San Francisco would take three to four hours.) They are able to do this by employing fixed wings along with vertical-take-off-and-landing systems for flight, and both batteries and fuel for propulsion.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/26/vola...ving-ship.html

[davidbfpo]

From CTC @ West Point this unread paper 'The Islamic State and Drones: Supply, Scale, and Future Threats':

how the Islamic State was able to pull off its drone feats and bring its program to scale in a relatively short amount of time...... It also highlights some of the broader threat and policy implications associated with the Islamic State’s pioneering use of drones.

Link:https://ctc.usma.edu/islamic-state-d...future-threats

[davidbfpo]

A short commentary on the intense US aerial campaign against militant Islamist groups between 2009 and 2014, in Pakistan's tribal areas (FATA) and in particular North Waziristan.

It is part of an academic project into drones (UAV) at Birmingham University (UK):

we carried out more than 30 interviews and two general surveys, with more than 400 respondents, in Pakistan to assess the impact of the drones in the tribal areas. From what they told us, we learned that conflicting perceptions of the use of drones can shape not only conflict but also coexistence – and even cooperation.

It ends with a passage, which echoes much of what SWJ is about:

In a nutshell, the reason the drone campaign helped dash hopes of a settlement was the social, political, and cultural dynamics of Pakistan’s tribal region and the way the tribal system’s core elements were undermined. If you want to explain what happened to the short-lived peace process in Pakistan in 2013-14, you have to start there. And so does anyone charged with coming up with any new counter-insurgency strategy, whether it includes drone strikes or not.

Link:https://theconversation.com/interviews-with-pakistani-civilians-and-pervez-musharraf-tell-a-complicated-story-of-drone-warfare-102288?

[AdamG]

Across the Middle East, countries locked out of purchasing U.S.-made drones due to rules over excessive civilian casualties are being wooed by Chinese arms dealers, who are world’s main distributor of armed drones.

“The Chinese product now doesn’t lack technology, it only lacks market share,” said Song Zhongping, a Chinese military analyst and former lecturer at the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force University of Engineering. “And the United States restricting its arms exports is precisely what gives China a great opportunity.”

The sales are helping expand Chinese influence across a region vital to American security interests.

“It’s a hedging strategy and the Chinese will look to benefit from that,” said Douglas Barrie, an airpower specialist at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “I think the Chinese are far less liable to be swayed by concerns over civilian casualties,” he said.

At the start of the year, a satellite passing over southern Saudi Arabia photographed U.S.-made surveillance drones at an airfield, alongside Chinese-manufactured armed ones.

https://apnews.com/1da29d68e3cc47b58631768c1dcfa445

[davidbfpo]

I have merged a small 2018 thread, with four posts, on logistic drones into this the main thread.

[davidbfpo]

An Israeli think tank report that may be of interest; only partially read.
Link:https://www.terrorism-info.org.il/en...orist-attacks/

[davidbfpo]

A short article via Lawfare, it starts with this and my bold added:

Many analysts, practitioners, and scholars are skeptical of the efficacy of drone strikes for counterterrorism, suggesting that they provide short-term gains at best and are counterproductive at worst. .....Contrary to the skeptics, I find that drone strikes in Pakistan were effective in degrading the targeted armed groups. And, troublingly, they succeeded in doing so even though they harmed civilians.

There are numerous links within, which I have not explored.
Link:https://www.lawfareblog.com/us-drone...stan-revisited

[davidbfpo]

From RUSI and on open access. Their aim was to:

...to provide an in-depth inventory of armed drones possessed by Middle Eastern states, assessing quantity, types and timeframes; and to explore where and how armed drones have been used so far, to assess whether and how countries' practices and ethical considerations around airpower and airstrikes are affected.

The two main research questions addressed in this paper are:

• What are the flows of UAV technology from and to the Middle East and their uses?
• Which norms, practices and methodologies are exported to and/or used by Middle Eastern powers in the deployment of UAV technology

The focus of the study is on UAVs that fall under the ‘Category 1’ and ‘Category 2’ definitions of the Missile Technology Control Regime. In the Middle East, the countries that operate or simply possess these drones are Jordan, Iraq, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Turkey.

Link:https://rusi.org/publication/occasio...d-norms-region

[AdamG]

Not the Drones you were expecting, but Drones all the same.

A drone attack at one of the UK's busiest airports has left tens of thousands of passengers facing major disruption. Gatwick's runway has been shut since Wednesday night, when two devices were seen flying over the perimeter fence. The airport said a drone had been spotted "in the last hour" and the runway would not open "until it was safe to do so".

Sussex Police said it was not terror-related but a "deliberate act" of disruption. Dr Alan McKenna, from the University of Kent, said the drones appeared to be "of an industrial size" not "one you can buy from the shops".
What happened?
The shutdown started just after 21:00 GMT on Wednesday, when two drones were spotted flying "over the perimeter fence and into where the runway operates from".
The runway briefly reopened at 03:01 but was closed again about 45 minutes later amid "a further sighting of drones".

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-sussex-46623754

[davidbfpo]

A reasonable commentary:https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/1...tdown_reasons/

[davidbfpo]

A rather well informed article, complete with photos of the kit in situ. It starts with:

he Army used a cutting-edge Israeli anti-drone system to defeat the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that brought misery to hundreds of thousands of people at Gatwick airport. The British Army bought six 'Drone Dome' systems for £15.8 million in 2018 ....Police had been seen on Thursday with an off-the-shelf DJI system that tracks drones made by that manufacturer and shows officers where the operator is (DJI is the most popular commercial drone brand.)

Link:https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...twick-UAV.html

I still prefer the PR disaster mitigation option of deploying Apache attack helicopters.

[davidbfpo]

An academic overview after the Gatwick incident, with multiple links and it ends with:

It’s not the first time Gatwick Airport has had to contend with an errant drone, but this occasion should be a wake-up call to the need for reliable and affordable counter-measures, and the need to think more creatively about the potential risks posed by (multiple) drones more widely.

Link:https://theconversation.com/gatwick-...o-life-109187?

[Compost]

An exemplar on several levels

For an outside assessment of the nature of UAV targeting recently employed against Saudi oil facilities see:
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/wh...es-teaches-us/