Iran creates new drone-bomber

[Lonestar]

Additionally, if you direct enough radar energy at them you will essentially get a soft kill, assuming they are not hardened.

Spoken like a true SWO on a Aegis vessel.

[ShadowDragon8685]

The cheap and easy answer is just to jam all of them, this would not be hard for a localized defense.

Additionally, if you direct enough radar energy at them you will essentially get a soft kill, assuming they are not hardened.

The problem with that is assuming that the Iranians are sophisticated enough to field a constant man-in-the-loop on these things, or even that the desire to do so if they had that capability.

Most likely these things will not have a man in the loop except for (maybe, on the deluxe edition) the option of pressing a recall button. Chances are these things will be running software that says "fly out to here, bomb <target> and return to home base."

[Lonestar]

The problem with that is assuming that the Iranians are sophisticated enough to field a constant man-in-the-loop on these things, or even that the desire to do so if they had that capability.

If it's using radar mapping to find it's way, then ECM could be used. Same with some kind of satellite navigation stuff. Jamming doesn't always mean "comms jamming" in this case.

[Shroom Man 777]

Or you can just stick reflectors on power lines to fuck with the TERCOM?

[Sea Skimmer]

True SAR radar mapping on a drone doesn’t seem that likely (anytime soon anyway) given Iranian technological and fiscal limitations, but it’d also require a lot of jammers to defeat that over something the size of an airfield, let alone also masking all the nearby land marks that might be used for blind bombing. We’d probably have to use up EA-6s sorties to do the job, since the US Army just hasn’t spent that much money on mobile high power jammers in the last 20 years. They have some modern jammer helicopters, but just not much in the way of ground equipment you could park and leave to operate full time.

I don’t know if all those low power anti IED jammers we did buy could be repurposed for this role easily, they might not be since they are based off a fairly simple VT fuse jammer. It just had to pump out some power to confuse the fuse, not spoof complicated waveforms.

TERCOM based guidance though ought to be much more jammable, and even jamming it for a short period could make the drone crash or else climb to an undesired height and become an easy target. Radar decoys can screw with TERCOM if you deploy enough of them, but that’s problematic when you have to get host government approval to spread them around. Once the war starts the ideal solution of placing them on power lines would take too long to deploy, and throwing thousands of them on the ground won't work as well. However TERCOM can use fairly simple LIDAR as well as radar, and decoys wont work so well on that.

But it would seem clear that the solution is… don’t rely on one solution. We can all think of lots of ways to use a drone and lots of ways to build one and likewise that has to be countered lots of ways.

As an example of what a UAV with a modern radar could do, the image below was created with the Lynx radar on a Predator drone. Resolution is about 1ft, which is not the best possible today. In the desert with no tree clutter quaility would be higher out of hand.
http://www.ga-asi.com/products/sensors/ ... -large.jpg

[Laughing Mechanicus]

As an example of what a UAV with a modern radar could do, the image below was created with the Lynx radar on a Predator drone. Resolution is about 1ft, which is not the best possible today. In the desert with no tree clutter quaility would be higher out of hand.
http://www.ga-asi.com/products/sensors/ ... -large.jpg

That's an interesting picture, you can even see the diffusion caused by each tree - have you any idea what causes the long vertical shadows? Is the radar actually picking up some components of solar radiation (or the lack thereof) there?

[Sea Skimmer]

That's an interesting picture, you can even see the diffusion caused by each tree - have you any idea what causes the long vertical shadows? Is the radar actually picking up some components of solar radiation (or the lack thereof) there?

Its nothing more complicated then those are literally radar shadows from the trees and buildings. While this looks like its top down image it isn’t, it was taken with a sideways radar scan and synthetically generated to appear top down. So the radar can’t see behind the buildings and shows a shadow instead. This is a reason to want higher altitude drones, as the higher you fly the more stuff you can see over even at a significant slant range. The Predator radar is supposed to be able to generate this image at a slant range of 50km. For larger radars the distance could be much higher.

Radars exist in development which can penetrate trees too and even jungle canopies, by using a very wide range of wavelengths, is testing one as we speak, but they are fairly specialized things.

We are also working on smarter algorithms which can help fill in the shadows as the radar moves past, by processing information from multipath reflections (reflections which bounce off more then one object, allowing data from otherwise hidden areas to be received). Simpler things like flying in an arc around the target or even just zig zagging across the sky as you fly along can also of course help fill in the gaps without needing new technology.

[SapphireFox]

Is it just me or does it seem that this low tech drone spam attack require a low tech solution? I mean massed rapid fire guns seems to hearken back to WWII air defensive arrangements to me. If the best weapons to deal with this low tech spam are also low tech would it not indicate that the solution for other low tech threats might be similarly found in mostly low tech answers?

For that matter do we have something fits the same criteria for a cheap spamable drone weapon like this? Or would we need mod/create something that would fit this type of possibly reusable cheap spam attack weapon?

[Simon_Jester]

The main constraints on how far that can be taken, SapphireFox, are in the differences between the age of "low tech" (however that may be defined) and today. Manpower is far more expensive for militaries than it was during the World Wars, and the fraction of industrial output a nation could be expected to mobilize for wartime purposes is lower because we're fighting brush wars that do not justify a true war mobilization- politically, no one's going to accept the need for conscription or a major dislocation of our economy to fight Iran, even if that means making it harder for us to fight Iran.

In consequence, the ratio of force to space has declined; you cannot afford to put so many men in a given area as you once could. That makes area defense using short ranged weapons difficult (the big problem we see with using rapid fire AAA to counter drone swarms) and mobility more valuable (the big problem with using fixed AAA of any kind to counter drone swarms).

And so on.

[SapphireFox]

The main constraints on how far that can be taken, SapphireFox, are in the differences between the age of "low tech" (however that may be defined) and today. Manpower is far more expensive for militaries than it was during tnhe World Wars, and the fraction of industrial output a nation could be expected to mobilize for wartime purposes is lower because we're fighting brush wars that do not justify a true war mobilization- politically, no one's going to accept the need for conscription or a major dislocation of our economy to fight Iran, even if that means making it harder for us to fight Iran.

Not quite what I am getting at Simon_Jester. What I mean by low tech is something that is inexpensive and does not require any parts that are difficult or lengthy to produce. As to your manpower statement it actually makes things worse in regards to dealing with the kind of "zerg rush"/spam attack that is being described in this thread. Each loss is felt more keenly than the military of years ago. (actually my comment about WWII in my previous post was only an observation of similar tactics to that time rather than judging between the eras)

In consequence, the ratio of force to space has declined; you cannot afford to put so many men in a given area as you once could. That makes area defense using short ranged weapons difficult (the big problem we see with using rapid fire AAA to counter drone swarms) and mobility more valuable (the big problem with using fixed AAA of any kind to counter drone swarms).

You are right about the smaller numbers of soldiers per area and that is part of the problem I was getting at earlier as it only increases the vulnerability to swarm/zerg rush/spam type of attacks. The kind of solution needed I think would be in something that could be counter spamed back at the drone swarm. The only current type of air defense that does that currently to my knowledge is rapid fire AAA fixed or otherwise. It is the old argument of quantity verses quality past a certain point quantity will overwhelm the quality defense and get through.

As far as I can tell the best kind of defense that would be applicable in this era would be a mobile air transportable CWIS or other longer range AAA type of weapon that is attached to the top of a M2 Bradely hull, the mostly automated the weapon would be linked others in its unit to provide full coverage and would be mobile and able to patrol the base in a circuit. When a swarm attack is detected the units would be able to move in between the base and the swarm adding the whole units firepower to stopping the swarm before it crossed the defenders line. If in a complete surprise situation the units would still be on patrol on the perimeter and able to respond to the best of ability. I figure the most people needed per unit would be three to five each. driver, targeter/gunner, ammo feeder, and if an ammo truck/vehicle is present following the unit then another driver and ammo feeder.

A possible second would be similar vehicle with a massed array of small anti-aircraft missiles like the stinger type, however this type of option would have the downside of being both expensive to fire and long to reload thus leaving a vulnerability to a second wave or running out during the first.

[MKSheppard]

The cheap and easy answer is just to jam all of them, this would not be hard for a localized defense.

That would be something interesting to try against the ultimate drone which eliminates the radar altimeter; thus eliminating it's susceptibility to the old "put radar reflectors on a pole or power line" trick; thanks to the NASA SRTM mission that flew and provided to the whole world terrain maps accurate to 90m.

Actually, they mapped the world down to 30 meters; but so far only 30m data has been released publically of CONUS; the rest of the data is DoD-held.

Of course, you'd need to put to work a small team of 10 guys to work with the SRTM data and correct it/check it against what you know, because in heavily built up areas it appears that the released data is off by a bit due to buildings causing higher reflections.

Hard work, yes; but you only need the data for the Middle East and immediate areas; it's not like we're trying to launch a 12,000 mile cruise missile across the Eastern US, then fly over Europe before striking Russia....

So by this point you've got a drone that doesn't emit or receive any signals, other than the GPS/GLONASS/COMPASS antennas on the top; and those can be hardened with surge arresters.

Additionally, if you direct enough radar energy at them you will essentially get a soft kill, assuming they are not hardened.

The problem is; there aren't that many systems out there that have that kind of radar power density -- the F-22 is advanced enough to do it; as is the Navy's AEGIS warships -- and I would not be surprised if the Army has quietly software-upgraded it's Patriot Battery radars for this...but there's a lot of area to cover and not enough advanced radar kill systems out there.

The big problem is that jamming the other GPS systems in the world is infeasible in anything but WW3 against a Sino-Russian AXIS OF EVIL.

The Europeans can't do anything about the US degrading GALILEO accuracy over the Middle East; but the Chinese or the Russians would take that as an affront; and they can start messing with our own GPS system by hard killing our own GPS satellites, sort of like "you mess with my system, I'll put your system in the hospital."

[JointStrikeFighter]

Obviously the solution is millions of brilliant pebble terminal defense launchers on every tank

[Sea Skimmer]

Obviously the solution is millions of brilliant pebble terminal defense launchers on every tank

The whole military situation really does favor using active defense on every large armored vehicle as part of the overall air defense system. The US military wants a 1km effective range out of Quick Kill. If they can make that work then dozens of tanks, command vehicles and self propelled artilery together could defend a fairly large area against small low flying drone spam without requiring any additional forces at all.

But IFF will remain troublesome if you allow the active defense system to shoot at passing targets like a drone, which aren’t clearly flying/diving right at the tank and thus aren't clear threats. We don't want our own micro drone spam being shot down, and placing IFF devices into numerous tiny drones we expect to loose in combat would our IFF technology and codes to easy capture. This is going to be a problem for any defensive system.

[Lonestar]

There are others who are scoffing at the drones, not the least because the Iranian airforce was shooting them down with ease.

There's more than one reason to treat the unveiling of Iran's new killer drone with a bit of skepticism. No fewer than three of Iran's super-scary drones have been shot down over the course of the past week.

By vintage F-4 Phantom fighters.

Iran's F-4 Phantom fighters. The ones we sold them before the 1978 Revolution.

According to the Wall Street Journal (with a H/T to the Great Satan's Girlfriend):

While some have expressed concern over a confrontation with the Iranian Navy in the Persian Gulf, it seems increasingly possible that the US could instead face a collapsing Iran.

The Iranian regime loves to boast of its military strength, international clout and hold on domestic power. Much of this is accepted by outside experts, but in fact the regime is in trouble. Iran's leaders have lost legitimacy in the eyes of the people, are unable to manage the country's many problems, face a growing opposition, and are openly fighting with one another.


A few weeks ago, according to official and private reports, the Iranian air force shot down three drones near the southwestern city of Bushehr, where a Russian-supplied nuclear reactor has just started up. When the Revolutionary Guards inspected the debris, they expected to find proof of high-altitude spying. Instead, the Guards had to report to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that the air force had blasted Iran's own unmanned aircraft out of the sky.


Apparently, according to official Iranian press accounts, the Iranian military had created a special unit to deploy the drones—some for surveillance and others, as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad bragged on Sunday, to carry bombs—but hadn't informed the air force. [Ed. note: Learn about the Air Tasking Order, Luke]


These incidents have taken place against a general backdrop of internal conflict within the regime. In late July, Mohammad Ali Jaffari, commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the regime's Praetorian Guard, admitted publicly that many top officers were supporters of the opposition Green Movement. Shortly thereafter, according to official government announcements, some 250 officers suddenly resigned. In the past weeks, several journalists from the Guards' FARS news agency have defected, some to France and others to the United States.

[Sea Skimmer]

You’d kind of expect a drone zooming around over friendly territory on a training sortie to be an easy target, all the more so over the Bushehr-Khark island area which is one of the few spots in Iran that has any real air defenses. Its not like the US hasn’t managed to shoot down its own aircraft anyway, drones certainly make IFF harder since you have no pilot onboard to hear local radio calls. I'm really not surprised that Iran has awful interservice coordination either. They after all are already setup the same way the Nazi military was with the Revolutionary Guard progressively branching into every combat arm just like the SS slowly did.

Assuming the story is true for the moment, the mere fact that Iran had three of them to loose is already an indication of a serious capability. I would have thought Iran would announce they weapon when they literally had just one or two they could show off

[open_sketchbook]

For all we know, they had four and just lost three on a test flight. We've not got any more information to go on than that.

[Solauren]

Given Irans tech capabilities, what are the odds these things could take a EMP?

Isn't the US working on EMP weapons? Non-nuclear ones anyway.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Whether they had three or three hundred, I have the feeling heads are going to roll over that gaffe. Knowing that shithole, quite possibly literally.


I feel kinda sorry for the poor bastard pilots, though. Chances are not good that they went off on a wild hare and did it themselves, it was probably their air-defense commanders saying "we have confirmed drone overflights! Those yankee pigdogs think their drones are soooo invisible but they're not! Get up there and shoot them down for all glory of Iran!"

So they fly up their in their ancient-ass airplanes, lock-on with ancient-ass radars, shoot the bogies down with their ancient-ass missiles, get a combat rush for having achieved definite kills on hostile drones, land to take a look, and realize "awh shit, we shot down our own ancient-ass stuff."


Solauren: Generally speaking, using an EMP for defense (unless it's some kind of Star-wars ion-cannon directed blast thingamabob) is only slightly less of a desperation move than using a nuke. Sure, it might wipe out the incoming drones, but it will also fuck up your own shit beyond all recognition.

[Sea Skimmer]

Given Irans tech capabilities, what are the odds these things could take a EMP?

EMP hardening is a matter of degrees. You can get a whole lot of hardening with pretty basic technology. You have two basic requirements. Seal the electronics area with a conductive seal, and then filter and surge protect the incoming power, data and antenna wires that pierce the shielding. One must also be sure that energy leaking out of those filters and surge protectors is contained itself.

The question then becomes a matter of how well those systems work, how many layers the protection is configured in and thus how intensive of an EMP they can withstand. Not all EMP is equally strong but it doesn’t vary in intensity so predictably like a high explosive blast radius would. EMP wavelengths are spread over a broad range and are not all equally damaging to a given target. Against weak EMP at long range nothing more then a modern power strip would offer real protection.

Isn't the US working on EMP weapons? Non-nuclear ones anyway.

Plenty of people are working on non nuclear EMP weapons, but usually these are more properly called High Power Microwave weapons.

They work, in that you can build several different kinds of devices which will produce an EMP like effect, just not that strong of one to be very useful yet. Also many designs still use some high explosives so its not actually a 'safe' weapon you could use freely. Current ones are in the range of gigawatts, when something more in the range of 35 gigawatts would be required to be really effective and even then only over a limited radius. That is, unless the US or someone else has cracked the problem and is just keeping it classified. That's possible but kind of unlikely in my view. Building a giant 30 ft radar dish for 2 billion dollars today could give you a working HPM weapon, trouble is range still wont be that great and you'll need a ship to make it mobile.

HPM devices also only produce the burst of electronic energy on a narrow range of microwave frequencies in an effort to be more intensive. This means they can be tailored against specific kinds of targets, but it also means you might not disable/destroy everything you'd like at the same time.

Nuclear EMP is broad band as well as intensive and that’s what can make it very destructive to unprotected systems. It’s not just destroying electronics and conductors in one way at a time. IF you get really close to the nuke then the direct ionizing radiation from the nuclear burst becomes an issue too. Neutrons make little holes in electronics just like they make little holes in plant and animal DNA and they can heat up the chip so much it just melts. That threat is completely lacking from non nuclear HPM.

[Starglider]

We don't want our own micro drone spam being shot down, and placing IFF devices into numerous tiny drones we expect to loose in combat would our IFF technology and codes to easy capture. This is going to be a problem for any defensive system.

I really doubt this is a problem, at least for new systems. Capture of hardware should only be an issue for jamming, crypto security is inherently defined with the assumption the attacker has full knowledge of the algorithm. We have been able to make challenge/response tamper-proof crypto chips that fit onto a credit card since the mid 90s. You can buy off-the-shelf USB sticks with 256 bit AES encryption. In this application the code table could just be stored in volatile RAM, such that any crash wipes the memory, plus with the US military network-centric-everything you could use platform-specific codes that can be cancelled if the unit is lost. Is the US military burdened with legacy IFF systems that can't support this sort of thing?

[Solauren]

Solauren: Generally speaking, using an EMP for defense (unless it's some kind of Star-wars ion-cannon directed blast thingamabob) is only slightly less of a desperation move than using a nuke. Sure, it might wipe out the incoming drones, but it will also fuck up your own shit beyond all recognition.

I was thinking an 'airburst' over the Iranian airfields as they got ready to launch.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Solauren: Generally speaking, using an EMP for defense (unless it's some kind of Star-wars ion-cannon directed blast thingamabob) is only slightly less of a desperation move than using a nuke. Sure, it might wipe out the incoming drones, but it will also fuck up your own shit beyond all recognition.

I was thinking an 'airburst' over the Iranian airfields as they got ready to launch.

Well, that might work, but we're talking about defending against the situation that they're already airborne and heading your way to merrily drop their cargoes. Obviously, if you have the power to do that, you could just use an FAE weapon or something else more physically devastating.