US Army warns of the potential dangers of swarming toy drones on US soldiers US warplanners are going to have to deal with an increasing drone threat, both from off-the-shelf hardware today to possibly more intelligent dangers. The increasing power and sophistication of "hobby drones" is making them attractive to insurgents, according to a report drafted by the US National Academy of Sciences, …
Looks like Stansilaw Lem's "The Upside-Down Evolution" comes a bit early.
they pose a growing threat to the U.S. warfighting forces if used for nefarious intents
It's goo to know that they don't pose a growing threat to the donut-eating forces, especially if used for benevolent intents.
Anyways:
Armies began to change from living to nonliving forces. Initially, the effects of the change were undramatic. It was like the automobile, whose inventors did not immediately come up with an entirely new shape but, instead, simply put an internal-combustion engine in a cart or carriage, with the harness removed. Similarly, the earliest pioneers of aviation gave their flying machines the wings of birds. Thanks to this kind of mental inertia, which in the military is considerable, not very radical new missiles, unmanned tanks, and self-propelled artillery were adapted for the new microsilicon "soldier," simply by reducing them in size and installing computer-controlled command modules. But this was anachronistic. The new, nonliving microsoldier required a whole new approach to tactics, strategy, and, of course, to the question of what kinds of weapons he could put to best use.
This came at a time when the world was slowly recovering from two economic crises. The first was caused by the formation of the OPEC cartel and the big increases in the price of crude oil; the second, by the collapse of OPEC and the sudden drop in the price of oil. Although early nuclear-power plants were in operation, they were of no use for powering land or air vehicles. This is why the cost of heavy equipment such as troop carriers, artillery, missiles, trucks, tanks, and submarines, not to mention the cost of the newer (late-twentieth-century) types of heavy weapons, was constantly on the rise, even though by then the troop carriers had no one to transport and before long the artillery would have no one to shell.
This final phase of the military's gigantomania in weaponry gave way to a period of microminiaturization under the banner of artificial nonintelligence. Oddly enough, it was only in 2040 that the informationists, cipher theorists, and other experts expressed surprise at how their predecessors could have been so blind for so long, struggling to create artificial intelligence. After all, for the overwhelming majority of tasks performed by people in 97.8 percent of both blue- and white-collar jobs, intelligence was not necessary. What was necessary? A command of the situation, skill, care, and enterprise. All these qualities are found in insects.
Drones does not necessarily mean slow, weak quadcopters. Small fixed wing devices would be better, faster, smaller, carry a bigger payload further. Say 100km/hr for 50 km. Give them a gun or just explosive.
And yes, the bad guys are thinking about this too. Also things like smart cluster bombs. No motor at all, just glide to target.
A B52 can be shot down. And the bad guys don't have them. But a swarm of drones is a different world.
That said, we already have fire and forget anti tank missiles.
The future is not what it used to be.
Drones does not necessarily mean slow, weak quadcopters. Small fixed wing devices would be better, faster, smaller, carry a bigger payload further. Say 100km/hr for 50 km. Give them a gun or just explosive.
That is exactly what was used for the attack on the Russian base on Latakia.
But a swarm of drones is a different world.
The limit for number of simultaneously engaged targets in the most advanced missile systems out there is 40. That is where that number comes from. If you throw > 80 at at time against a target it is pretty much history.
'If you throw > 80 at at time against a target it is pretty much history.'
Which is where defence in depth comes from, i.e. more than one defensive weapons system. Although with Phalanx in fully automatic mode I think it'll just work its way through them starting with the closest.
How about throwing a bit of imprinting into the mix?
e.g. as shown by Skinner, where goslings "imprinted" on him (treated him as "parent" bird and would follow hime).
Rear lots of chicks (of a flying bird species) - imprint them on drones, then your mass drone attack can have drones supported by many distraction birds, a real PITA for defence systems.
Yes I know its too convoluted and slow (long term planning for birds to grow up) to work - far easier to have biger drone swarm - only need some to have an actual payload, others can just be decoys
Uh, no. Little drones generally can't take out armoured targets or ships.
What happens is that the target shoots itself out of high performance, high price anti aircraft missiles that (each) cost several thousand times what the drone did. What's going to happen as a result is that the anti aircraft guns developed just before the end of the cold war (ie; marconi marksman) are probably going to get built since a hail of cheap 35mm shells is perfectly suited to the job.
Or by shooting slower, though upping the size of the magazine is always good.
The max fire rate of 30 proximity fused high explosive 35mm shells per second is useful for shredding fast moving and evading full size jets a couple of miles away, but one suspects that a drone moving at speeds measured in miles per hour (rather than mach numbers) within a range where the shell will reach it within a second is probably an easier target requiring less in the way of ammunition.
You are wrong.
A little drone with a shaped charge CAN take an armored vehicle.. as the top armor is crap.
Look at this:
https://defencyclopedia.com/2015/06/12/cbu-105-sensor-fuzed-weapon-usafs-ultimate-tank-buster/
So what you need is just a single skeet.
http://armamentresearch.com/us-cbu-97cbu-105-sensor-fuzed-weapon-cluster-munition/
Each skeet weights 3,4kg, sensors and power source included.. including some structure to be inside the submunition plus battery.. so I guess you could get a less than 3kg skeet.
Now, many drones are able to lift 3kg... example:
DJI S900
So, with some smart programming and delivery method (truck), lets say 20 of these go and attack a place from low altitude.. no way you can defend your tanks/planes. And the ammo is 40K£ in drones and whatever the skeets cost (I would say another 30K).
that would be at least 10 vehicles destroyed.. for 70k, and without air superiority
>definately
indeed
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=definately
on a more useful note, I recommend https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34810337-the-last-good-man by Linda Nagata. Much more thoughtful than the average MilSF but then again that's usually how she rolls. Think "soldiers vs drones" as in "cavalrymen vs AFVs" and you get the idea - looks at technological obsolescence from the POV of the obsolete. Does a good job of credible near future extrapolation.
they can blend into their environment more easily, hiding behind trees or amongst a flock of birds.
I'd like to see that. A quadcopter trying to "blend in" to a flock of birds, I mean. Presumably not Australian wedge-tailed eagles, though.
The mental image of a drone "hiding behind a tree" and then leaping out to shout "boo!" at a passing GI is also quite appealing.
Definitely needs more reports. Ideally with dramatised or animated simulations. Sponsored by Netflix.
Im surprised a cluster type pod device hasn't been designed yet that allows the mass dropping of possibly hundreds of bird [?] type drones that blend into whatever neighbourhood they are let loose in.They could blend in quite well and have a range of several miles using either on-board intel or remote laser/satellite updatable guidance.
Theres nothing to stop them being like clustered mines that wait for an opportunistic target to pounce on.You could even seed the waters with homing fish types that attach to passing craft either for tracking purposes such as in submarine lanes or to interfere with onboard communications.
The Culture terror weapon from Look To Windward - in one mode it resembles a swarm of bees.
More near-future, drones that resemble birds or insects make sense from an aeronautical point of view, as well as a tactical pint of view.
In the past, animals have been recruited to the military, with varying levels of success. Hannibal and elephants, russian dogs trained to lay mines under tanks... sadly trained in Russian tanks with inevitable self-defeating results. British messenger pigeons, Germans recruiting specialist pigeon shooters.
pleased to meet you, they'll fight it out among themselves, and leave the poor meatbags below alone.
...
nosir, it won't work like that. Because we'll want our drones to take out their drones AND their meatbags below, and the best way to do that, is by, but of course, sending more drones. Obviously, "they" will want to send more drones to take down our drones trying to take down their drones trying to take down our boys so we'll need to send more drones to...
Some way down the line, one party to the fun is going to introduce a SECRET WEAPON to take down their drones (possibly carried by one of our drones), and they will, in due course, or earlier, introduced an EVEN MORE SECRET WEAPON to take down our SECRET WEAPON, at which point we will...
Ah, never mind, just repeat after politicians: drones are GOOD! Drones mean that precious lives of (our) soldiers will never be lost again! Drones are going to be so devastatingly effective they're going to render all conflict utterly futile, thus - eternal peace on earth, etc, etc.
It should not have taken more than five minutes to think of the many ways drones can be used to harm society. We've already seen near mid-air collisions and it's only going to get much worse as there is little means to regulate drones and their use. The general public may need to carry a shotgun with them 24/7 to defend against flying evil. Let's hope they are a good shot and have plenty of ammo.
One at time are quite noisy, a swarm would be pretty deafening, plenty of time to get the Mossberg 12 gauge ready, a team if two men would take little time to render a swarm into useless bits of plastic, and bonus points for igniting explosive packages far enough away to take out the other drones!
Two men, say two guns apiece, dunno magazine size but will say 12, so that's 48 rounds. Forty drones at forty miles an hour, coming at them from multiple directions and being discourteous enough to not fly in straight paths. Hmmm.
Were the drones to fly in a nice conveniently tight-packed bunch, that would be a tactical error on the part of the programming system.
It's purely tactics. A falcon will have a hard time picking a single bird from a flock. However, a swarm is susceptible to a typical shotgun round or explosive round.
There's no point in deploying a few dozen offensive drones if their control systems result in tactically stupid behaviour.
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Here are a few of my 5-minute ideas:
1) Drones are going to obsolete a lot of weapons systems, or force substantial changes. But some (many?) of the ideas have simple counters. For instance, tank top armour has been weak for a century. A fact noted as not future proof forty years ago at least. (Footfall anyone?) But there is no reason that top armour cannot be added relatively cheaply.
2) Drones have a tremendous breath of form factors. For me, the real issue is not size, but autonomy. On man cannot track and control forty drones. Most of us would have trouble with two. Therefore, in the short term, the "swarm" size is limited by the number of people controlling them. So long as the drones lack autonomy, their weakness is their communications to their controller. Note that convoys are already using this against radio-controlled bombs.
3) Anyone who has hunted doves knows that you don't target individual birds, you target the flock. Defence in depth is key, with the earlier rounds basically throwing flak.
4) Civilian drones vs military? I would design small, cheap drone-interceptors. Designed to home in on very small engines other than their own. Launch in batches of 100. In other words, autonomous systems beat others easily. Note: when fighting insurgents, spending 10-to-1 or 100-to-1 is often entirely acceptable--especially if it keeps our casualties down.
5) Autonomous systems are much scarier. (And arguably include cruise missiles.) Sensor blinding feels like a good way to go in many cases. Autonomous swarms are still going to have communications as their big weakness, however, as the swarms have to communicate inside the swarm. Some of that flak will be chaff...
6) Far, FAR more interesting potential in attacks on the homeland.
You may recall back when the (UK) army was plodding around Afghanistan in the early 2000s it was equipped with an all singing / all dancing communication system called BOWMAN. Which didn't work. The acronym was changed to "Better Off With Map And Nokia" (...an early cellphone make). The problem is that bespoke military technology can't keep up with commercial development, its too costly and too slow. Same with quadcopters (please don't keep calling them 'drones'....). The latest DJI model has a number of video cameras around it which is used to identify obstacles around and below it. Put simply, the thing can see. Its also supposed to respond to gestures but this apparently doesn't work too well (although give it time .... its "only software").
The devices described in this article seem to be about two generations back from what people can buy (unless they're the US military -- can't use DJI because its probably telling its Chinese masters all about things it can see....). But I suppose that's to be expected -- don't they tell us that the brass is always preparing for the last war?
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