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This year, the world saw a long-theorized weapon in action: a commercial drone, like a person might find at Best Buy, dropping a bomb on a target in Iraq. These drone bombers, used by the ultra-violent quasi-state ISIS in Iraq and Syria, are the flashiest combination of modern technologies with the modern battlefield. Cheap, camera-carrying robots, put to nefarious ends by a group that could never otherwise dream of fielding an air force. Dropping grenades isn't the deadliest thing an insurgent group can do with a small flying robot, but it leads to a very important question: What, exactly, is the answer to such a drone?
[...] Here is just a short sample of the more out-there anti-drone tools: net guns, drones carrying nets, squads of drones with nets, drones with net guns, and a smart anti-drone bazooka that fires, you guessed it, a net at a drone (we liked that last one). There was a vaporware drone concept that ensnared the propellers of other drones with wire. A Russian firm floated the concept of a microwave gun, to fry the electronics of hostile drones. And most famously, there are the Dutch police eagles, trained to snag a drone from the sky.
Part of the problem for law enforcement, the Pentagon, and other entities trying to protect against drones is that they're cheap. Workable quadcopters cost as little as a couple hundred dollars. Is there a way to knock drones out of the sky that's just as cheap as the drone itself?
Source
http://www.popsci.com/how-to-stop-a-drone
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Monday February 13 2017, @01:59PM
I'd imagine the tough bit is not destroying these RC aircraft, they're pretty fragile little things (unlike real drones,) but detecting them so you can respond before they drop their grenade or whatever could be quite difficult.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 13 2017, @02:09PM
I can't imagine this hasn't been an issue for the last 30 years in the middle east. So, just ask the commanders what they do there.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Monday February 13 2017, @02:20PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Monday February 13 2017, @02:30PM
I think its public knowledge that they're already into radio jammers because of IEDs now you need a GPS jammer for the autonomous ones and they're good. I don't know if the army is going to issue short range jammers with every soldiers TA50 just like helmets and gas masks, but, well, maybe?
Its also very wealthy western thinking, to safely and remotely use a $1000 single use toy, or even a $100 single use toy, when a $100 AK47 has better range, repeatability, reliability, requires less training... Also those folks occasionally spontaneously go "boom" both over there and over here, so why transport a few ounces of boom on a drone when you've got people looking for revenge who can easily carry a hundred pound of boom on their body or tons in a truck maybe.
Drone attacks are very "snakes on a plane" movie plot. Yes snakes on a plane would be quite annoying if it actually happened but merely being annoying isn't enough for actual military effectiveness.
The real danger isn't things that go boom anyway, its cameras. The USA has had air superiority since late WWII, yeah well not so much anymore. Opfor is going to have detailed up to date photographs of both tactical formations and logistics and specific gear, the didn't have that in 1990 but it isn't 1990 anymore. You can assume that in 1990 opfor had no idea where we were (partially because we were lost, but I digress) but in 2020 opfor knows almost as much about us as we know about ourselves.
There are some strategic countermeasures like not getting involved in a 2nd or 3rd Vietnam where we serve no mission other than catching bullets for people who hate that we're there, or if you can't win COIN insurgencies try not starting them by invading, just because Israel wants us to do something like invade one of their neighbors again doesn't mean we have to salute and say yes sir in Hebrew as we have for a couple decades. The latter alone would keep us out of a lot of stupid situations.
(Score: 5, Informative) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday February 13 2017, @03:08PM
Its also very wealthy western thinking, to safely and remotely use a $1000 single use toy, or even a $100 single use toy, when a $100 AK47 has better range, repeatability, reliability, requires less training...
I don't think anybody is saying that these drones are being used instead of AK47s on the battlefield, they are being used more like mobile, targetted IEDs against targets in the field or as more precise / easier to hide alternatives to mortars for attacking stationary targets (ie bases).
If they achieve nothing else, they've given their enemy something else to worry about - the US must now invest time, money and effort defending themselves against this novel threat. This was Osama Bin Laden's big plan all along, and it's exactly how Al Qaeda etc have been winning the "war on terror" since 2001:
1 - Use creative but inexpensive methods to kill some people and induce panic in the US population (US government and media will help you with the panic bit, don't worry.)
2 - Induce insane military spending on the part of the US gov and its allies. (They will happily help you with this as well. Yay military industrial complex!)
3 - Keep it cheap: Make sure you spend no more than a couple thousand dollars for every five million the US spends.
4 - Point and laugh as they bankrupt themselves and gut their own country fielding billion dollar fighter jets, drones, aircraft carriers and cruise missiles against a nebulous bunch of scruffy goatherders.
5 - Those expensive military toys create a lot of "collateral damage". Use that in your propaganda to recruit ever more scruffy goatherders. Make sure you recruit at least 5 people for every one the US kills.
6 - Rinse, repeat.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday February 13 2017, @04:07PM
Keep it cheap: Make sure you spend no more than a couple thousand dollars for every five million the US spends.
A drone works, its just a wire and shovel is even cheaper and more reliable (dig hole, bury IED, run wire).
Labor is cheap.
Releasing hundreds of snakes on a plane would work, but not work as well as most anything else.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 13 2017, @04:37PM
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday February 13 2017, @05:01PM
They might choose to dig up the road when no one is around to shoot them.
In Montreal is we were to shoot everyone digging up the road, it would stop the sewer renovation project dead in its tracks.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday February 14 2017, @05:16AM
In Montreal is we were to shoot everyone digging up the road, it would stop the sewer renovation project dead in its tracks.
Hey, don't even joke about that. TFA refers to "ISIS in Iraq and Syria", so by extension there must be an ISIS in Dorval and Kirkland as well. They're probably funded by stealing PIN Numbers from ATM Machines with LCD Displays, as reported on the CNN News Network.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday February 13 2017, @05:26PM
Indeed. Now the "IED" can be hidden ten or twenty metres away from the road, and when the US patrol drives past it simply takes to the air and follows them.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday February 13 2017, @05:44PM
Also relevant here: The US helps even more by backing local leaders who at least appear to be worse for the population than you are.
For example, the reason the Taliban has as much support as it does in Afghanistan: The warlords that are backed by the US and the Kabul government routinely rape boys [nytimes.com]. ISIS got as much support in Iraq as it did because Nouri al-Maliki's government was abusing the Sunni population [pbs.org], so when ISIS showed up people thought "Hey, these guys can't be any worse" (they were wrong). Many Saudis hate the US because we've consistently backed the thoroughly corrupt and oppressive Saudi royal family. And so on.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 13 2017, @07:44PM
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 14 2017, @03:40AM
Just to clarify - a lot of people backed the rebels, until it became clear that ISIS/DAESH were using the rebels. Today, you would have a very hard time separating rebels from any of a dozen different foreign interests, and the leading foreign interest is DAESH.
Back when the rebels were really a thing, we didn't give them nearly enough resources to accomplish their goal. I can't say at what point the rebel forces were subjugated by foreign interests, but it should have been clear to the state department long before we spent millions on training and arming them.
But, if we go back just a little further, Iraq pretty much proved that when we topple one regime that we hate, we can't predict what will replace it. Whatever else they may or may not do, a long established regime does offer stability to a nation, as well as the region it is located in. Toppling regimes just leads to chaos.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Tuesday February 14 2017, @09:13AM
Toppling regimes just leads to chaos.
As a Brit on a largely US-centric website, the irony here isn't lost on me.
You're right for the vast majority of cases though, of course.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday February 14 2017, @12:44PM
The rebel forces were subjugated by foreign interests from Day 1. Specifically, by the United States.
As in, the US immediately began arming them, and may have in fact been behind the attempt to remove Assad in the first place. Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made it very clear in her leaked emails that overthrowing Assad was a major foreign policy goal for the United States. And that concerns about the humanitarian situation, freedom, democracy, and so forth had exactly zero to do with that decision. The US had 3 major reasons for trying to oust Assad:
1. Israel wanted them to. Probably because a new Syrian government would probably be willing to cede all claims to the Golan Heights and probably additional territory in the southern areas of Syria.
2. They wanted to set up oil and natural gas pipelines from Saudi Arabia and Iraq through Syria and Turkey into Europe, to directly compete with the Russian pipelines that many eastern European nations depend on.
3. Syria was an isolated Russia-friendly government surrounded by US-friendly Israel, Jordan, Iraq, and Turkey. Taking over Syria, and then taking over Iran, would be 2 moves that would substantially shorten the Middle Eastern front of the ongoing US-Russia Cold War. (You probably thought the Cold War ended in no later than 1992, but the US is still very much fighting it.)
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 14 2017, @02:39PM
You're mostly on target, but there were rebels fighting against the Syrian government before '08. Bush wouldn't consider aiding them, and by the time Obama was elected, it was already to late. Had we sent the rebels all the aid they needed around 2005, or 2006, Syria might well be a stable nation today. Or not. But, while we're considering if's, maybe if Syria had a more western government, then Iraq wouldn't be in such severe shit.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 13 2017, @08:16PM
This is why it's time to say, 'Fuck it', and drop the bomb, exterminate them all. Right now we are fighting a PR war, and we will lose until we do what is necessary. Too many people on the planet anyway. We could do quite well to wipe out 5 or 6 billion people and still keep a sufficient labor force to clean up. The time is now. Let's see if Trump is up to the task.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 14 2017, @02:50AM
Troll?! Obviously some people can't handle the truth. You wimps are destroying America! Dark days of tyranny lie ahead because of you people. You're so fucking weak! Most likely democrats. You're letting the nazis win.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 14 2017, @03:49AM
Truth is often in the eye of the beholder.
Wiping people out for the sake of wiping people out is pretty damned stupid.
Want to nuke a bunch of people, and maybe do some good along the way? What if I offer you something just as dramatic and intimidating, but less poisonous, and with a goal in mind?
Kinetic weapons from space! Harness a metal asteroid. Start mining it. Forge some nice finned spears out of that metal. Transport the spears to earth orbit. Start dropping those spears on mosques around the world. Pinpoint accuracy, you can single out a mosque in crowded neighborhood, and destroy it with "acceptable" collateral damage. Demoralize the Muslims - just tell them, "Your Allah can't even protect his own house, he won't protect you either!" With those spears, you can destroy single buildings, or with larger spears, you can destroy entire neighborhoods - even cities. And, they don't introduce any radiation.
We have more than sufficient reason to hate Islam. We have no reason to hate Arabs, or Africans, or Europeans, or anyone else who happens to be Islamic. Most of them are just like you and me - we grew up believing what our parents taught us to believe. Demoralize Islam, and start converting all those Muslims to other, less dangerous faiths.
No need to be hateful, no need to poison the planet.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Bogsnoticus on Tuesday February 14 2017, @05:38AM
Less dangerous faiths? Like christianity with its history of buggering altar boys, bombing planned parenthood centres, and murdering doctors?
All religions are dangerous, as they promote a lack of critical thinking, they don't have to think for themselves, because their book of fairytales insists that something is the way it is due to the skydaddy(s) making that way, and thus cannot be chanhged.
Genius by birth. Evil by choice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 14 2017, @07:18AM
All religions are dangerous
That's why nukes are the best way to take care of the problem. And who cares about the 'religion' angle? The best place to start is the Middle East, Africa, India and Asia. They're nothing but a drain on civilized society anyway, regardless of their religion. Let's get rid of them all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 14 2017, @07:36AM
Corporations are a bigger drain on civilized society, they leach wealth from local economies.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday February 14 2017, @09:56AM
I guess you got modded troll because there isn't a "-1 genocidal loon" mod option.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 14 2017, @04:17AM
Quickest way to get the things going: start with NY, Washington, LA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 13 2017, @08:34PM
Shouldn't it be possible to build a drone that acquires a target from a distance using GPS, and then uses some other unjammable techniques or cheap sensors to deliver the payload to the target?
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday February 13 2017, @10:55PM
of course.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday February 13 2017, @02:27PM
I'm really surprised this wasn't one of the listed options. Instead all of these "net" ideas of trying to snare the drones somehow. There is a reason you shot small birds with shotguns, same applies to small drones. Hitting is great but hard but if you use a shotgun they don't need to take the full blast to fall out of the sky. That said if they carry bombs (or grenades) you might not want them to just fall out of the sky anywhere - which is I guess where the whole net and trap idea would shine, but they are really only good then if you trap it and can drag it away - not entangle it so it falls out of the sky anyway. Then that would be just as uncontrollable decent wise as the shotgun blast.
A shotgun can technically knock a drone out of the sky, provided the drone is within range and the person firing the shotgun is ready for the legal consequences that come with discharging a firearm at a robot.
Provided the drone is in range? Compared to the "net" solutions that don't require that? Right. A shortened shotgun (or sawed off -- which technically probably isn't legal) can shot almost whatever scrap you can find and it would devastate an unarmored drone at close range and bringing it down. I was also under the impression here that it was the military and LEO that was the drone hunters. Not that all citizens should walk around with 12gauges and shooting at anything that flies by. Legal issues resolved. You could also make adjustments to the shotgun blast as far as range and lethally goes but then the price will go up as you won't be using off the shelf components anymore.
If you are using a jammer, such as the DroneDefender mentioned in the article, will the drone just crash or will it stop and land in a controlled manner? Which might be just as dangerous then either way.
Since range is an issue you could also just make some kind of kamikaze-drone that smacks into the other drone. Possibly with a minor explosive device of it's own. Fighting bombs with other little bombs.
But still the main issue remains. How do you detect and track a small mostly plastic object flying around. None of the ideas seem to tackle that issue.
If the main problem is that they are to cheap I guess they could just institute a drone-tax which would make the price skyrocket instead. Still it would require a fairly large tax if you want to make drone-bombs less appealing then car- or truckbombs or just any kind of roadside IED.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Arik on Monday February 13 2017, @02:45PM
You and I are thinking of it as a technical problem to solve, while those who are actually working on this for money are viewing the problem as 'how to get paid lots of tax money' so simple and inexpensive is not what they are going for.
"Hitting is great but hard but if you use a shotgun they don't need to take the full blast to fall out of the sky."
Yep. Some experimentation would be good to determine range and best loads but I'm thinking number 8 birdshot might be ideal for a quadcopter or similar target. You only need to damage 1 critical component, there are several, and they're not armored.
Some of the stuff being cooked up in Syria may be slightly more challenging, but from what I've read not much, they're working with stuff on the same scale and of course armor on any sort of airplane is a big problem since weight is so important.
"A shortened shotgun (or sawed off -- which technically probably isn't legal) can shot almost whatever scrap you can find and it would devastate an unarmored drone at close range and bringing it down."
A short barreled shotgun cant fire 'whatever scrap you find' at least not without a lot of work processing that scrap into ammunition. You're thinking of a blunderbuss? A modern sawed-off shotgun is going to take normal shotgun shells as ammunition. They just scatter the shot much more quickly. Devastating at extremely short range but nearly useless beyond that. Doubt you would be shooting at drones so close this would be a good idea.
"If you are using a jammer, such as the DroneDefender mentioned in the article, will the drone just crash or will it stop and land in a controlled manner? Which might be just as dangerous then either way."
It would be a neat trick to simply hijack control, and far from impossible (the Iranians pulled it off with a US drone a few years ago,) but a bit tricky. Just jamming it should be much easier and less error prone, but yes there is a problem. With a normal quadcopter, when the control is jammed, they will descend and halt for safety (at least the one I saw do this did, and it's my understanding this is standard practice - for safety.) So that would be nice BUT there's no guarantee these are 'normal' devices with intact safeties. The guys making them can probably program whatever behavior they want to kick in when jammed, so that might be bad.
"Since range is an issue you could also just make some kind of kamikaze-drone that smacks into the other drone. Possibly with a minor explosive device of it's own. Fighting bombs with other little bombs."
That could work but it doesn't seem like the easiest path. Might be a profitable one though, obviously every time one of these things blows up that's a new sale, and the little defensive drone could easily wind up costing 1000 times as much as the threat that it stops.
"If the main problem is that they are to cheap I guess they could just institute a drone-tax which would make the price skyrocket instead. "
I'm sure the jihadis building these things in underground workshops in Syria will just quit work immediately when they realize they can't pay the taxes on them. What?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday February 13 2017, @02:47PM
How do you detect and track a small mostly plastic object flying around.
Having built a little sub-250g one myself I can assure you that the non military community puts zero effort into RFI suppression.
Probably a good place to start before building little mini HARM missiles would be sniff for completely unshielded 3-phase brushless motors running 1000+ RPM. Electrically noisy as all hell. When you detect one sound an alarm. Use DF loops and with enough sensors reporting strength and alignment a very small perl script should be able to plot the location pretty quickly.
There is an almost too obvious solution, if they can launch one drone on you, go MAD strategy and give each squad a cloud of military grade drones. So you have better 360 degree coverage at a further range than the attackers. I hope you like that whining sound of drones because I suspect the battlefield in 2020s is going to sound like a leaf blower sales convention.
Lets see if every M1A1 had a row of autonomous fast chargers and auto battery pack swappers 1500 HP of gas turbine could electrically keep quite a fleet of our drones in the air. So if every window has one of our drones looking in it, how do you propose the opfor will attack us?
If you want to get the conspiracy theory people going just tell them crappy teen FPS games are drone training. You only live a couple minutes before respawning, you stay low alt because if you see it you can kill it and all the high value stuff is on the ground anyway... Given an infinite supply of bandwidth to the fighting area... Remember we have a lot of people predicted to lose their jobs due to automation, and they're all fat and old and high. We have enough quality cannon fodder to staff army divisions but now each 4 man tank requires say 160 drone pilots back home, that gives you four shifts for 24x7 coverage and ten active drones per tank which frankly might be low and you need maybe 20 drones for military effectiveness and lets say 40 battery packs and a 20 pack multi-battery charger... Its not entirely insane of an idea.
I've gone to a couple outdoor drone racing events and given a small target and competitive testosterone its not unusual for drones to hit each other, so have half the drone force for a tank (five) flying CAP near the tank and the other half (five) doing recon missions in areas where it would be convenient to view and attack a tank. That forces the opfor into positions where its not easy to see what the tank is doing, which may very well be the whole point of the exercise. Sure Mr Opfor our drones will mercilessly hassle you when you're in the five best places to ambush their tank, so you go to the sixth best place where the infantry carefully set up a textbook perfect killbox ambush for you and then ...
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Monday February 13 2017, @04:36PM
I like your thinking. I order to reduce the cost of operation, we can make the drones semi autonomous. Then you can have dozens of drones controlled by a master "manager" that will keep observation of all the drones, ensure the drones are patrolling the correct locations, schedule charging, alert ground forces when the drones spot something on their sensors, and ensure that all the TPS reports are submitted with the correct cover letter of the week.
If the reports aren't necessary, then even the manager's job could be automated.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday February 13 2017, @05:03PM
From a combat perspective suddenly having tank commanders going from three people and a radio yelling at them to an extra ten pilots high on energy drinks back home is likely to be a problem, so I like the idea of a flight controller talking exclusively to the tank commander.
Something I like about grognard hex based military sims/games is I can bolt something like this on to MBT (a great cardboard game, not computer game) and just try it out. So the alternative rules of simulation is zero fog of war in all adjacent hexes because of CAP, zero ambush situations, plus you can warp the arty game mechanic into tasking a drone recon force to any hex in sight. It would seem to unbalance the game so much as to make it unplayable, which I guess makes it a good or inevitable weapons system.
Culturally things would get weird if tank crews go from mostly being tankers to mostly being drone combat pilots teleoperated from back home. I wonder if drone combat pilots would have to be enlisted and put up with the green weenie or be the usual civilian contractor types. Hmm.
There's probably a decent hard sci fi or military sci fi book buried in here somewheres. Really I have no idea why I do this computer shit when I should probably be writing sci fi novels. In my infinite spare time, I guess.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday February 13 2017, @11:00PM
So what you are saying, some dude with a $200 drone can invoke a $5,000,000 counteroffensive. Sounds like the $200 guy wins no matter what here.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday February 14 2017, @01:07AM
The drones will be fully autonomous, and a flock was just launched from a Super Hornet for testing recently.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Funny) by Thexalon on Monday February 13 2017, @02:29PM
Another low-tech option: spear throwing [upi.com].
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Monday February 13 2017, @02:49PM
That's just messed up. What else was a medieval man with a spear supposed to do when some sort of supernatural gnat started buzzing him? The organizers that gave 'permission' for that anachronism to appear are the ones that should be apologizing.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Bogsnoticus on Tuesday February 14 2017, @06:07AM
Instead of spears, just use a football [ibtimes.co.uk].
Genius by birth. Evil by choice.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday February 13 2017, @02:36PM
There is thing thing called range and accuracy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 13 2017, @02:40PM
Its a shotgun, it doesn't work like video games.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Monday February 13 2017, @02:41PM
Best options I can think of seem to be local area effect weapons like the various net based solutions designed to snare the propellers (but again, you still need to spot and aim at the target), or wider area effect weapons like the EM/microwave solutions to jam the signal or fry the electronics. The problem with the EM approach is that drones generally go "safe" when they lose contact with their controller, and if going "safe" includes returning to home GPS co-ords then those could be preset to a best guess as to those of the intended target rather than the operator, and frying the electronics at range takes a fair bit of power which means a much bulkier weapon, even it is re-usable, and you *still* need to spot and aim.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Monday February 13 2017, @02:55PM
You might be surprised to know that shotguns are used often, probably primarily, for hunting birds.
Live birds, flying in the air, usually significantly smaller targets than these RC aircraft.
"Even assuming buckshot rather than a single bullet"
Buckshot? Don't be silly. Number 8 birdshot should be plenty big enough to take it down, and it's a lot easier to get a hit with.
"even cheap drones can fly at sufficient altitude to make accurate targetting difficult"
Sure, but that cuts both ways, they need to come down low to deliver their own ordinance.
"Best options I can think of seem to be local area effect weapons like the various net based solutions designed to snare the propellers'
Wait, wait, hold up. First you're worried the shotgun won't have enough range. Then you're talking about net throwers with much less range as an alternative. How does that make any sense?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Monday February 13 2017, @03:42PM
I'd imagine the best flight model for grenade delivery would be a gradual climb to altitude to save power, maintain altitude until right on top of the target and to try and avoid detection/incoming fire, then descend to drop height to release only the last moment. If you allow for just a three second timer delay then for a near-surface detontation that's an altitude of 60m, and with a five second delay that's up to 150m - not really all that low, and the window of opportunity for a non-specialist weapon like a shotgun is going to be only seconds. You've also got the possibility that your shot will result in a live grenade dropping on top of you to keep in mind, so maybe not such a practical solution compared to something that has both a little more range and altitude. As a last resort though, sure, why not?
As to the net throwers, I was thinking something that fires something like a cartridge containing the net but only actually deploys the net once hopefully close enough to the drone to have an effect - not something that just launches the net right off the bat. Or perhaps something akin to a mini AK-AK that replaces the net with a small cloud of shrapnel - same effect as the birdshot, but with more range than a COTS shotgun load. Problem is, of course, that once you start specialising you start limiting your deployment options; maybe OK for cheaply defending a fixed installation, but do you *really* want yet another type of ammo, let alone another weapon, for your infantry to lug around in the field? And we're still not really tackling the targetting issue either; whatever your weapon, you've still got to figure out how to get it pointed at a target which may be small, in camo, near silent, and flying at a reasonable alitude in less than optimal lighting conditions.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday February 13 2017, @04:24PM
It is, and firing at a 45 degree or even greater is fairly common.
"If you allow for just a three second timer delay then for a near-surface detontation that's an altitude of 60m, and with a five second delay that's up to 150m - not really all that low, and the window of opportunity for a non-specialist weapon like a shotgun is going to be only seconds."
Obviously you'd like to have more range and accuracy anytime you can, but those are not crazy ranges for a shotgun. Most people figure extreme range for bird hunting reaches out to about 300m.
As a cheap and practical reaction it seems quite sensible. Certainly it's not a Magical Shield of Invulnerability(r) - those are incredibly expensive and often fail to deliver on their promises anyway. But it wouldn't cost much money to put a bunch of shotguns in the hands of men already in the field, and they could definitely be effective.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 13 2017, @06:28PM
#8 shot has an effective range of 30-35 yards, not 300. Not a single pellet will make it more than half way to that 300 meter target (and be ineffective for the last 115 meters) as they will all literally drop to the ground at about 150. If you use duck loads (#4 size range) you can extend that a couple yards. 00 buckshot will get you to 50 yards or so effective. That assumes you have a barrel and load that will pattern well at range, not all will. A slug could get you out to 100 meters, but good luck hitting that drone.
No sane person thinks shotguns have 300 meter range. Try searching "max range of #8 shot" on your favorite search engine, or go see how it works at a trap/skeet/sporting clays range.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Monday February 13 2017, @10:12PM
To the contrary, people that shoot trap think they have a 300 meter range, that's considered minimum distance for safety. Of course you'd find it difficult to hit anything at that range - but birdshot can and does travel that far and retain enough energy to do damage.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1) by Arik on Monday February 13 2017, @10:20PM
http://www.njskeet.com/files/shotgun_statistics.pdf
Bottom left.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 14 2017, @03:48PM
Yes - bottom left. #12 shot is very small, and it's extreme range is about 40 or 50 yards. Defining "extreme range" to mean, the shot has so little energy left, that it isn't going to penetrate the bird's feathers, let alone his skin. #1 shot extreme range is about 225 yards. Extreme range isn't the bottom of the arc, but rather, the end of the (more or less) straight line, and the beginning of the downward arc. Ought or double ought buckshot will get closer to 300 yards, but as I stated above, it probably won't reach 300 fired from a standard 12 guage shotgun.
I can't find "ballistics" for ten guage shot or slugs, but a couple near-misses suggested this site for more info on 10 guage loads. It seems you have to pay for their manuals in order to get the info. http://www.ballisticproducts.com/default.asp [ballisticproducts.com]
Anyway - to reiterate my earlier point, no one is knocking birds or drones out of the air at 300 yards or meters with a standard 12 guage shotgun, or with a standard 12 guage load.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Tuesday February 14 2017, @04:26PM
Sure #12 is shorter range but I wasn't talking about #12 I was talking about birdshot. Everything on that scale is included, with the most typical probably being the 7 1/2 about the middle of the chart and both extremes included. You can cherry pick #12 I can do the same with #1, are you trying to have a conversation or win an argument?
With 7 1/2 or 6 it will definitely still do damage if it hits at near to 300 yards, and it can definitely get there, especially if you use a 40deg muzzle instead of the 30 shown in that chart.
"Anyway - to reiterate my earlier point, no one is knocking birds or drones out of the air at 300 yards or meters with a standard 12 guage shotgun, or with a standard 12 guage load."
Way to completely miss the point. I made it perfectly clear I was talking about ballistic range, not accurate range. You're not likely to hit a bird at 300yards because the pellets are spread out so far the bird has a good chance of flying right between the pellets, but they'll still kill if you get lucky and hit, they can still break windows and injure people badly at that range if they hit.
So when the prior poster was saying that it was unrealistic to think they'd be effective at *half* that range, in a military situation (which means that unlike bird hunting no one is going to stop you from getting a dozen guys or more all firing at the same object at long range in order to get a good chance that one hits) I had to call bullshit. And it's still bullshit. The ballistics absolutely work out that far, you just need several shots to get enough pellet density that hits start to become reasonably likely.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 14 2017, @05:29PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=325&v=F42Bsc8YtnU [youtube.com]
(Score: 1) by Arik on Tuesday February 14 2017, @05:42PM
You could save me a lot of time by saying what you mean instead of pointing me to a video perhaps?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 14 2017, @03:22PM
Extreme range for bird hunting, out to 300 meters? Hmm. I'm kinda scratching my head on that one. You're probably right, or near enough to it, except, we don't see many goose guns these days. Big 10 guage guns, with 30 inch barrels, full choked - I suppose you can probably still find one if you look, but I've not seen one in decades.
Hmmmm - quick search for "goose gun", and I find all sorts of hits for 12 guage guns, and no especially long barrels. Wikipedia has an entry on the Marlin Model 55 - but only one of the 6 guns mentioned is a 10 guage.
Let's face it, 300 meters (328 yards) is a terribly long shot for any standard shotgun.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday February 13 2017, @04:18PM
Do they?
I think the issue here is there are far too many variables for any one solution to work.
The purpose behind the UAV IED is to instill a new kind of fear. Now you have guys nervously looking up at the sky for bombs which is a great distraction. Hell, if I were them, I would make a few dummy IED UAV's fly around just to distract and scare the shit out of ground forces while they fire away revealing their positions.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Monday February 13 2017, @04:37PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 13 2017, @04:40PM
lolwut?
1. Fly up to 600 feet, above the range of any shotgun.
2. Fly to target, maintaining 600 foot altitude.
3a. (If the drone is expendable) When at target, power off motors and fall.
3b. (If the drone is reused) When at target, release payload, then fly to recovery point and land.
At no point in any of this (save for launch, where it will be heavily guarded, and falling on target, where it won't matter) is the drone within reach of a shotgun.
(Score: 2) by Geezer on Monday February 13 2017, @04:29PM
Was going to say, a load of 00 buck is highly cost-effective, until our Pentagon awards Beretta a $500M contract for the new "Dronerator" 18.5mm hand-held anti-UAV kinetic weapons system.
(Score: 2) by fnj on Monday February 13 2017, @05:07PM
ALL aircraft are ridiculously fragile and vulnerable. Speed is their only real protection. Even an A-10 or Su-25, with their titanium armored cockpits, might as well be made of tissue paper if they get hit by anything bigger than 20 mm or so, or by any kind of missile.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Monday February 13 2017, @05:30PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 13 2017, @07:00PM
Why does the font on this reply look different than all the other fonts?
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Tuesday February 14 2017, @04:02AM
Some people like abusing the fixed-width font feature.
(Score: 3, Funny) by driverless on Tuesday February 14 2017, @04:28AM
Shotgun shells aren't very expensive, and probably your best readily available off-the-shelf solution.
That was my immediate reaction as well. Drive in a bunch of rednecks on monster trucks, give them all the shotgun shells and beer and tobaccer they want, and let 'em at it. You could even televise it, call it something like Drone Dynasty or Alabama AA.
(Score: 2) by Bogsnoticus on Tuesday February 14 2017, @06:03AM
For those concerned about range, or knockout ability of a shotgun shell, there is always the M203/M32/MK19 grenade launchers loaded with M576 buckshot round, or Beehive (flechette) or Hornets Nest (10 x .22LR) rounds.
Genius by birth. Evil by choice.