Take a look at this drone launch. Do you think that you can shoot down this drone while it is moving at 120 miles per hour? Are you that good of a skeet shooter? Are your eyes that good?
Drones are transforming the front lines in Ukraine. If an enemy drone is in the area, you are going to be attacked by that drone, or by the force that it is calling down upon your head. In war, there’s never a safe space. What if the eyes in the sky are unblinking? What happens when the hunters are also the hunted?
The drones are being used to directly attack individuals and vehicles. They are being used as spotters for artillery and airstrikes, or even for reconnaissance. This has caused the war to move into the field of electronic warfare. The people in Ukraine are not only tracking where the drones are, they are tracking where they came from. This way, drones can then be sent to the launch site to attack the enemy drone operators.
Individual troops carry early warning receivers to alert them when drones are nearby. Each side tries to jam the other’s drone using electronic warfare. They use drones to bring explosives to the other side’s jamming equipment.
This is our future. Drones are a force multiplier. For both sides. What makes drones so powerful of a force multiplier is that they are commercially available, and there are tools that will enable private citizens to cause some extreme pain to a much larger foe. Imagine the fear that an infantryman feels when he can’t sleep outside, because he knows that 24/7, even while off duty, there is an eye in the sky that is on the prowl, not only looking to target you, but to find out where you live so that your family can be targeted later.
The coming civil war will be anything but civil. The lesson here is to learn more and more about the future of drone warfare.
15 Comments
joe · December 26, 2023 at 5:39 am
they have changed the landscape of war completely… England just released one that can launch missiles and it’s not much bigger than a medium size dog… even vehicles are moving towards being unmanned…
ModernDayJeremiah · December 26, 2023 at 10:39 am
This could be nearly as revolutionary as the invention of the aircraft itself. Deplorables with these could target pResident ShitsHisPants F-15s (multimillions each) with drones that cost a couple thousand each. Kamikaze warfare where the pilot survives to fly more missions.
Joe Blow · December 27, 2023 at 6:25 am
This is bigger than just that.
It has absolutely revolutionized combat to a degree I don’t think many people understand.
If you haven’t, watch some of the video’s online. Yes, they are horrific, and painful, but watch a couple anyways so that you grok the seriousness here, and just imagine you’re one of those guys in the trenches:
https://voenhronika.ru/
The take-aways are as mentioned: 24/7/365 hunter killers, thermal/nigh vision, kamikaze, $1500 a pop.
They’re taking Mavic3 drones (the Zon, 1500 bucks) and strapping an artillery shell to them with a rigged detonator. Under $2k complete. Can kill a tank, yes, an M1-Abrams at 39 bajillion dollars each, or a platoon of soldiers. For 2 grand.
What’s a patriot missile cost, 2 million each?
There have been recorded videos of drone on drone warfare, too. The cheap one chased down an expensive one and blew it up. In one video the drone surveys a comms tower, finds just the right box to hit, backs up and runs right into it. Utterly amazing.
As for that video example, THAT drone couldn’t carry a hand-grenade, let alone anything more powerful, but it can be just as deadly as eyes in the sky. Calling in arty while buzzing between the tree’s in the forest? Not a good time to be a meat sack. War has changed. Old tactics are useless. F-15’s mean nothing, you could have a fleet of them. A swarm of Mavic’s too small for your radar to see come up over the fence and blow them all to hell right on the tarmac in the middle of the night. Oooops, a trillion here, a trillion there, what’s that matter?
A 1500 dollar hobby drone… Raytheon ain’t got shit. Too funny.
Steady Steve · December 28, 2023 at 11:17 pm
A Mavic 3 could not lift a grenade, much less an artillery shell. The ones being used in 404 are purpose built quadcopters and dropping stripped down RPG rounds. The ones taking out armor (Lancet) are quite sizable but fast. A hobby drone could be made, using plastic explosive, as a concussion munition though.
Tar · December 26, 2023 at 11:41 am
Been thinking about anti-drone tech for a while now. Just like with tanks, mobility, firepower, and armor all cost weight: boosting any one involves trading off one or both of the other. For drones, it’s more like mobility, payload, and battery/fuel (loiter time).
Drones main strength is they’re expendable… so armor is the obvious “dump stat”. The one in this video has a ridiculous amount of mobility. Load it with any significant payload or long-life battery, however, and it’ll slow down… somewhat.
Batteries are heavier per watt of energy output than gasoline or other hydrocarbon fuel… but electric-driven drones will be quieter. Then again, a munitions-carrying drone would be better if it were carrying flammable fuel: the fuel becomes destructive payload when it goes boom.
The main weakness I can see is this: whatever powers them, all drones require electronics to operate and communicate. While “skeet shooting” is theoretically possible with shotguns, the range is limited to maybe 50-100 yards, tops. Surveillance drones usually operate higher than that, and an attack drone will be going top speed (or dropping at terminal velocity) at that range.
OTOH… what if we used a microwave beam? For comparison, ADS (Active Denial System) runs a 100 KW beam at 95 GHz and has a range of 700 meters. Your average home’s microwave oven runs at 2.4-2.5 GHz at about 800-1000 watts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System
The trick would be focusing it into a tight beam and pointing it at the target, while shielding your operator and bystanders. Just guessing, but it’s probably more complicated than jamming a metal pipe through the door of a microwave oven and pointing said pipe at the target?
Assuming it’s possible, they could build a Faraday Cage of aluminum foil around sensitive drone electronics… but if it’s being directed by radio / wifi, it’s going to have an antenna, which would be vulnerable, and it’s not like you can ground the thing to dump electric surge while it’s flying.
Sardaukar · December 26, 2023 at 1:45 pm
Tar- During the early 2000’s a R&D outfit I worked for was developing an anti-drone detection system that used a Visual/IR camera scanning the sky looking for ‘subminiature’ drone/ recon craft. The test /target vehicles were small, delta shaped RC planes (gas powered). Top speed of those was around 75mph. We had rigged up a Remington 12ga 1100 (30” barrel Magnum with goose loads) to it. The system detected the planes about 95% of the time. The ‘fun’ part was if the planes flew within 300 ft/100 yds and no higher than that, the Remington brought them down every time. Rarely took more than two shots. Sadly, never got it to completion, as the company was bought out. Was one of the most enjoyable projects I ever worked on.
That said, microwave is the way forward, along with using other automatous drones as interceptors (IMHO).
Tar · December 26, 2023 at 3:37 pm
Sardaukar – DUDE, that’s awesome! I know y’all were prototyping and never got to full production (and still got very impressive results) – my only concern (aside from range issues) with COTS semi-auto shotgun for a kinetic anti-drone platform is the magazine capacity vs. swarming / PDS saturation tactics (AKA “Macross Missile Massacre”).
In other words… NEEDZ MOAR DAKKA!
I tried looking up a belt-fed shotgun, but apparently the only ones that exist are homebrew, not commercially manufactured. The homebrew ones on YouTube etc look prone to jamming. Perhaps more efficient in an electrically-driven chain gun?
Anonymous · December 26, 2023 at 12:09 pm
there are tools that will enable private citizens to cause some extreme pain to a much larger foe
Due to diminishing returns, technological innovation advantages the little guy more than the big group. When crime no longer pays, it will stop.
Anonymous · December 26, 2023 at 3:08 pm
You remember the complaining back in the 90’s when a hobbyist in Australia proposed making small cruise missiles for cheap? The point of modern war is for the aggressor’s elite to impoverish the aggressor’s middle class, so it can’t compete with them. These new weapons can reach father back and target the elites directly. They don’t like that. It isn’t sporting.
SoCoRuss · December 26, 2023 at 3:36 pm
Thanks for this article DM. This is an expansion on my comments a few post ago. The anti drone measures will have to be considered if you want to survive in the modern battlespaces.
The military has multiple systems coming and current, FS-LIDS or LMADIS. There is a new Army school at Ft Sill for teaching this.
Its not just a simple jammer or long range guns answer except for lower grade civilian drones. Military level drones have multi band systems that change spectrum bands when jammed and with new AI guided ones, that can take over so you so jamming is useless. So you would have to basically have the ability and power to fry the drones electronics to bring them down.
Gryphon · December 26, 2023 at 7:07 pm
Looking at Vids posted on Russian Sites (these come from MOD Sources, RU Army is Prohibited from having Cell Phones) it seems the two most effective ‘Drone’ Systems are the short-range FPV- Controlled “Grenade Drones” and the larger, “Orlan-10” (Eagle) Observation Drone. Observation from 1,000-Meters+ gives Situational Awareness and Targeting. Grenade Drone Operators are given Target Designation from Observers, and can Attack within about a 3-Km. Distance. Most of the Anti-Armor/Artillery/Vehicle Attacks are carried out by the “Zala” (Kalashnikov Arms Mfr.) Cruise Missile, that is often referred to as a “Drone”, but since it has Autonomous Navigation (Glonass) to the Targeted Area, it is more of a Missile System than a true “Drone”.
Electronic Countermeasures is the Way to Go for Defense. The Red Army has rapidly fielded Detection and Jamming Systems from Truck-Mounted, High-Power Microwave (Radar) to Plug-n-Play Vehicle Jammers, to Hand-Held Warning Devices. For Improvised Defense Systems, an Electronic Detector would be essential; I believe that a Gun-Launcher that throws a Weighted Fishnet type of Projectile could be effective. Think a “Potato Gun” Firing a Soupcan loaded with the Net…
McChuck · December 27, 2023 at 4:04 am
In English, you don’t capitalize all the nouns, just the proper names.
As for the net idea, you’d be better off just hitting the drone with the soup can.
anonymous coward · December 26, 2023 at 9:42 pm
I imagine the days of being able to buy a drone without government approval is probably coming to an end soon… Public safety and all.
Matthew · December 27, 2023 at 11:47 am
Drone defense using RF jamming or other electronic countermeasures is the only viable way to defeat the inevitable wave of semi-autonomous, micro, suicide drones. There’s just no way to throw enough lead in the air to take out something this fast, especially if there are multiple examples coming from different directions.
The problem with that method is that someone will eventually start employing some sort of fully autonomous AI tech plus you can wind up jamming your own comms.
Drone warfare is going to get real scary, real soon.
Jonesy · December 27, 2023 at 11:40 pm
It’s been mentioned that a $1500 drone can be effectively used by civilians. Even though it’s about the same cost as a decent battle rifle, I’m betting that most like minded folks we cross paths with aren’t considering one. Nor would they plan on using it in kamikaze fashion (at least as a forethought).
So there’s an issue with how folks would acquire these in sufficient quantities when the time comes. Tracking or limiting purchases won’t be far behind any perceived demand.
It seems like countermeasures might be the way to go, since civilians might experience the brunt of a well funded government. Would it be cheap, easy for someone handy to build/replicate?Also, expect the feds to flag online research.
None of this is going to be easy…..
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