
Home-made drones now threaten conventional armed forces - pmuk
https://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21736498-their-small-size-and-large-numbers-can-overwhelm-defences-home-made-drones-now
======
sushisource
Reminds me of
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA)

Which is one of the scariest things I've seen in a while. The video glosses
over the fact that EMPs would probably make for a viable (if collateral-
damage-inducing) defense, but still pretty terrifying.

~~~
robkop
Ever since I saw that video I've been wondering how effective it would be to
use essentially an upgraded fire suppression system to take on the drones.

Essentially instead of spraying water out of the sprinklers, spray paint or
other liquids that would block the vision of the drones. I think that would be
a lot cheaper and harder to build defences for than an EMP.

(Just realised that you could also spray a opaque gas which would also block
vision and might make less of a mess to clean up).

~~~
state_less
I imagine instead of liquids or silly string, we'll witness the first robot
wars.

A military base might have robotic sentry guns [1] to begin with, as they are
already armed with these today to defend against incoming mortars. Later on, I
imagine with offensive drone capabilities being developed, it will lead to
repurposing the drones in a defensive posture. Perhaps the best answer is to
scale with the threat.

The defensive drone fleet circle the base. Upon a detection of an incoming
fleet, rather than one sentry gun taking on 100 or 1000 drones, a defensive
swarm targets the incoming swarm. More of a one-to-one fight or perhaps 1:4 if
your drones are more capable fighters.

This is all a bit of a bummer. We talk about how we'll get robots to obey the
three laws of robotics, but it'd be nice if we could just get humans to follow
the first law. "A robot (human) may not injure a human being or, through
inaction, allow a human being to come to harm."

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4PXou0aGiE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4PXou0aGiE)

~~~
robkop
I've seen the robotically controlled Lockheed Martin laser that is meant to be
able to take on drone swarms which is very similar to what you are talking
about.

The question to me is how do you defend civilian targets like universities,
city halls and malls? You can't build military style defences around these
targets and the budget is going to be pretty low. Also you need a
exceptionally low response time since the drones can deploy and kill in
seconds.

~~~
state_less
That's difficult to answer. Soft targets are, well, soft. If you arm the state
capital, they'll move to the university, museum, or large landmark. Protect
those, and they'll move to further down the chain. Perhaps one of the best
option is to try to prevent social unrest before it happens. Maybe we can
repurpose tech to help us communicate better with each other.

Beyond that, you might see people purchasing defensive measures once attacks
become more of a threat. Whether that's lasers, other drones or something we
haven't thought of. There would be a demand for counter measures - you can
already see the market forming for such counter measures.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Another approach is to criminalise possession and sale of ROV components and
prosecute with extreme prejudice.

~~~
Zardoz84
And another brick on the wall...

Do you really think that it would work to avoid to someone grab the necessary
components to build a cheap drone ?

What must criminalise is the components to make drones a weapon. Aka,
EXPLOSIVES and WEAPONS. And restrict access to chemicals to make explosives.

And this would not work when the guys building it, are living on anarchy place
where the effective law are made by they.

~~~
matheweis
Some kind of explosives are trivially made, a fact which is severely
complicating basic STEM education as common materials that have other uses but
happen to be usable for making weapons are increasingly difficult to obtain...

~~~
mncharity
It also comes up in STEM education _content_. For example, industrial dust
explosions could be a good illustration of several principles (including the
importance of surface to volume ratio), but... there are potential downsides
to using it. More generally, STEM education remains innocuous only as long as
it pervasively fails. If that ever changes, society will have some issues to
decide. And not a great track record of handling similar ones. Even a simple
matrix of "what do you get when you mix one common household material with
another" has some "seriously: don't do that" nodes.

------
nradov
The War Zone had a good article about the recent attacks that ISIS executed
using cheap commercial drones.

[http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/7155/isis-drone-
droppin...](http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/7155/isis-drone-dropping-
bomblet-on-abrams-tank-is-a-sign-of-whats-to-come)

The US Army has had to react by rebuilding short-range air defense
capabilities. They used to be able to depend on the US Air Force to protect
ground forces from aerial attack but now those days are gone.

[http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/17747/us-army-rushes-
to...](http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/17747/us-army-rushes-to-add-
hundreds-of-stinger-missile-teams-as-threat-of-small-drones-evolves)

~~~
craftyguy
They literally need a bunch of bird hunters with shotguns lurking about.

~~~
nradov
Shotguns don't have enough range. Modern drones move too fast and are hard to
spot.

~~~
craftyguy
Are they harder to spot/hit than a dove flying at over 50mph? I'd guess not,
but maybe they are deploying super small and fast drones?

~~~
nradov
Some drones can move faster than 50mph now.

------
mrfusion
When my university wanted to keep sea gulls away from the patio they strung
fishing line all over.

~~~
duckwheat
That is a really good idea. My first thought was basically start with the
tree, a drone's natural enemy, and amplify the stuff that makes it so
dangerous to a drone - tiny sticks that are hard to see. Fishing line would
pretty much accomplish that.

~~~
JackFr
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrage_balloon](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrage_balloon)

~~~
King-Aaron
I was thinking along these lines, but with more of a BallonFest '89 flavour to
it

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balloonfest_%2786](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balloonfest_%2786)

------
Overtonwindow
Related: "Kill Decision" by Daniel Suarez. Talked about this exact thing. What
happens when drones become so cheap and able to be armed, that a swarm of
drones could come out of nowhere, commit a crime, and no one would have a clue
where they came form.

~~~
lopmotr
Similar technology like using a gun from a car [1], or putting a bomb in a
rubbish bin, or mailing antrax, already exists and does cause occasional mass
killings. The main the stopping it is humans usually don't want to do that.
Even with drones, there will still be evidence and police hunting for who did
it. It's not going to be anarchy.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.C._sniper_attacks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.C._sniper_attacks)

~~~
nyolfen
19 people decided to fly planes into buildings and we invaded two countries,
massively expanded and accelerated the most powerful surveillance apparatus
that has ever existed, and invented a gargantuan bureaucracy that carries out
tens of millions of man-hours a year of security screenings. it doens't take
anarchy to shift the security calculus enough to greatly alter culture.

~~~
lopmotr
Sure, there might be overreaction. I'm saying we don't need to worry about
criminals or terrorists using them any more than we do conventional weapons.
Of course people will still worry too much if it's on the news, just like 911.

------
Zardoz84
What I think, is why no body weaponized aircraft model before. Since 80's/90's
small aircraft models had enough capacity to carry grenades and small
explosives.

Also, I'm impressed that a cheap drone can use optical navigation. The last
time that someone talked about it, was about it's usage on Tomahawk cruise
missiles, since 80's, as a tech miracle of electronics.

~~~
zaphod4prez
...aircraft have been weaponized for a longgg time. Kamikaze pilots! That's
been the problem, though. They cant be self-guided, you have to lose a human
life in order to use them. And that's where rockets came from, the Germans
started trying to figure out how to weaponize flight without losing soldiers
(see V2 rockets). That's why autonomous control is so scary, it's the first
time that this sort of thing is actually realistically hitting the point of
being cost-effective, and especially scary when we're talking about it become
cost-effective for really small forces to use. (I feel awful using a term like
"cost-effective" when talking about human life, but that's the way military-
types think about these things. Yuck.)

~~~
CardenB
Seems like the parent comment is referring to model aircraft, which would be
radio controlled passengerless fast aircraft.

------
erikb
I feel the headline is too attention-seeking.

It is natural that if one side starts to develop a new technology and employs
it successfully, that the other parties will follow as well. This changes the
landscape, sure. But it's not threatening. That's the normal process of
development.

Every army is better of if they can use machines to do their attacks for them.
At least between both armies this should also decrease the overall casualties
I hope. I'm not so naive to assume that this would decrease civilian
casualties, though.

~~~
nextlevelwizard
Asymmetric is the keyword in the article.

Unless US military comes up with relieable and cheap solution they will
eventually starve themselves as the parts to make attack drones gets cheaper
and cheaper. Like the stinger missiles in the article, they cost almost $200k
while a drone costs $2k + whatever they are dropping. Obviously US has money
to spend, but for how long?

There are plenty of examples of asymmetric warfare like what happened to US in
Vietnam or what happened to Russians in Finland.

------
happycube
I've always figured the Chinese, if they went to a total war footing, would be
able to shift their supply/production chains to mass produce effective swarms
of drones.

~~~
goldenkey
The thing is, defending against small drones is pretty cheap. Air-to-air
missiles aren't needed. A simple 50 cal rifle will probably destroy these
planes with 1 or 2 shots.

~~~
azernik
Not even 50 cal, a regular old assault rifle will do.

The problem is _hitting_ the damn things. They're small, can turn on a dime,
don't reflect radar very well, and run cold enough to give IR tracking some
issues. Army manuals like [1] typically call for a coordinated fire of small
arms across a large volume of airspace to hit a drone, but advise commanders
that hit probabilities are low. Their most urgent advice is to keep spotters
looking for enemy drones, and to use concealment and camouflage as much as
possible to avoid enemy drone surveillance.

[1]
[https://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/atp3-01-8.pdf](https://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/atp3-01-8.pdf),
search for "UAS" (Unmanned Aerial System)

~~~
gaius
_Not even 50 cal, a regular old assault rifle will do._

Could you hit a moving drone with a rifle? Even when I shot competitively at
500m, I probably couldn't. You can hit clay pigeons with a shotgun but a drone
can easily manoeuvre beyond range.

~~~
Zardoz84
I think that He was talking about firepower, not about easiness to hit the
target. Even, you can strike down a drone throwing a small stone. Other thing
is hitting it.

~~~
goldenkey
Right. And with missiles, missed shots cost a lot of money. With a high
powered rifle round that has a relatively straight trajectory -- the cost is
miniscule. So firing many times is no problem in the case of minor errors in
accuracy. Even a gatling gun could be used -- warthog style.

------
megaman22
Drones are still a lot more expensive than a 60 or 80mm mortar tube, though. I
haven't seen many drones that could put an equivalent payload on target, and
unless batteries get wildly better, I don't see much advantage in range for
small, home-brew drones.

------
RachelF
Reminded me of this
[https://youtu.be/SNPJMk2fgJU](https://youtu.be/SNPJMk2fgJU)

I don't think it is real, but it shows the future.

~~~
tobyhinloopen
Why do you think it is fake? It seems like something you could easily build

~~~
icebraining
Seems like a bad 3D render to me.

------
arca_vorago
I've heard from some of my fellow Marines they were starting to get back into
camouflaged outposts and such after mostly forgetting those skills in the
(early) GWOT days.

There is nothing new under the sun.

------
hamitron
Couldn't we just use bird netting around our military bases?

~~~
ceejayoz
Sure, but then a certain percentage of drone swarms will come with razor
blades on them.

------
rmetzler
I wonder what will happen when lasers as drone defense system becomes a
reality.

I guess terrorists will use them against US drones, and military and
commercial aircrafts.

~~~
alex_duf
I can imagine the effects of false positive on birds will be interesting to
watch

~~~
sangnoir
Considering that flapping-wing ornithopter drones exist[1], zapping everything
that flies would be the safest bet.

1\. [https://youtu.be/w6VLzKACnS8?t=37s](https://youtu.be/w6VLzKACnS8?t=37s)

------
neonate
[http://archive.is/5686t](http://archive.is/5686t)

------
sizzle
Eerily similar to Black Mirror season 3 episode 6 "Hated in the Nation"

------
remind_me_again
That attack was way too sophisticated beyond the capability of any home-made
effort. The attackers tried to cover it behind "home-made" veil. At any rate
it threatens any conventional army.

~~~
saas_co_de
The article is somewhat misleading because the Russians claim that the
technology was provided by a state actor and that it was only made to look
primitive in order to provide deniability.

\----

On Tuesday, the Russian Defence Ministry appeared to accuse the US of being
involved in the latest attack, claiming that an American Poseidon intelligence
aircraft patrolling over the base during the attack was a “strange
coincidence”.

It also said in an earlier post that the perpetrators needed technology from
“countries with high-technological capabilities” and the drones’ explosive
devices had “foreign detonating fuses”.

[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-
east/russia-m...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/russia-
military-bases-drones-syria-armed-attacks-tartus-uavs-latakia-a8151066.html)

------
ricardobeat
Unpassable paywall, web search link doesn’t skip it, mobile. Can we for the
love of god stop posting or at least flag these?

~~~
dang
Please see
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)
and
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989)
and don't post comments like this.

Users often post workaround URLs in these threads, but even if they don't, in
most cases there are standard ways of reading the articles that work fine.

~~~
ricardobeat
Sorry to disappoint you, but they don't work fine.

I've been saying this for months. If you browse HN using a mobile device it is
not easy to work around a paywall. Publishers are constantly making it more
difficult, coming from google search doesn't give you a free pass anymore. I
can't "focus on the content" if there is no way to access it.

Notice how the top voted comment in the thread you posted is asking for the
same (a paywall tag). Maybe you could try going mobile-only for a few weeks to
understand the pain?

------
duncan_bayne
Globally, that might not be a bad thing. The 20th Century has many examples of
genocide and mass murder committed by armed State- or State-backed actors
against their own population.

Democratizing a means of preventing that might help prevent similar atrocities
in the 21st Century.

A second amendment for the 3D printed drone age, if you will.

