
Tehran tracked, captured, studied, copied RQ-170 - vinnyglennon
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/f3fc9b2c087a
======
beloch
There seems to be a lot of comments to the effect of, "They'll never get their
version to work.". First, this probably isn't true and, second, it's not
what's really important here.

How many parts inside these drones are off-the-shelf parts manufactured in
China? Of the parts that aren't off-the-shelf, how many can be reproduced
exactly just by sending a design files and a check to the right place? How
much of the software do they now have binaries for? Iran could probably
produce a drone configured to run on the U.S. TDRSS system fairly quickly. All
they'd have to do is reproduce the drone that crashed exactly. Unfortunately,
this wouldn't do them a whole lot of good. The big problem is probably going
to be to reverse engineer and adapt the drone's software/hardware so they can
be used with Iranian systems, which probably don't exactly have _global_
coverage. It's another challenge still to learn enough from this design for
Iran to be able to produce different designs. Copying is a great way to learn
though.

The drone's stealth tech may be compromised for a variety of reasons, such as
the difficulty of reproducing paint coatings, etc.. This brings us to what is
really important. This same stealth tech was already compromised by the
Chinese radar installations Iran used to detect and hijack the drone in the
first place. Iran is already using Chinese radar systems and is probably not
working alone. The opportunity to reverse engineer the latest stealth drone
hardware is going to make China (or perhaps Russia) _very_ generous to Iran.

Chinese radar systems can already penetrate the latest U.S. stealth tech given
the right circumstances, but now they are likely to get even more effective.
Stealth requires such huge compromises from aircraft designs that I wouldn't
be surprised if stealth designs are soon abandoned. This incident is not the
beginning of the end for Stealth aircraft, it's closer to the end of the end!

~~~
cc439
Stealth will end up as a footnote in the history of military technology just
like reinforced concrete. Prior to WWI, reinforced concrete gave rise to an
era where networks of large forts could hold against any attack with proper
coordination. Then early formulations of "modern" high explosives combined
with advances in metalworking gave rise to artillery that could easily blast
any fort to pieces.

Stealth worked well against radar systems lacking the computing horsepower
needed to filter an aircraft out of the noise. Military hardware lags far
behind the capabilities of consumer hardware since the rate of progression has
been so rapid while military projects are planned over decades but if systems
from 1998 are capable of tracking the latest in stealth technology the next
few years will be the bookend of the stealth era.

Personally, I think the future will be an environment where swarms of small
drones are thrown against these advanced radar systems in an effort to
overwhelm their tracking capability. It'll be an updated strategy along the
lines of Baldwin's "the bomber will always get through" ideology. The
difference is that drones don't cost lives so the weak point of WWII era
bombing strategy won't be of any concern. The winning side will be the one
that can afford to keep throwing 1,000 drones at every mission.

~~~
adventured
There will always be more weapons to shoot down each drone, at a lower cost,
than there will be drones. The throw 10,000 drones at them approach will not
shake the super powers.

Aircraft bombing runs against high powered military nations is long since
over. It will never see a return as a broad strategy method.

The swarm strategy won't produce a winning side in any scenario except for
ones in which a high-powered military takes on a weaker military. Nothing will
fundamentally change about who dominates the global military sphere.

~~~
andrewfong
Maybe, but you're not considering (a) the value of the target or (b) the
effectiveness of drone defense. Even if defense is cheaper than offense, it
will never be perfect. If all it takes is one drone to destroy the target and
the target is sufficiently high-value, then the 10,000 drone strategy may be
worth it.

For comparison, see ICBMs and missile defense.

------
knowaveragejoe
There's a lot of claims in this article, but from what I can tell they're
taking the Iranian media's reports entirely on good faith. Given Iran's
propensity in the past to stretch the truth(putting it lightly) with regards
to their military capabilities, I'd take this article with a huge grain of
salt.

This was linked in the Further Reading section, which seems to debunk many of
those claims(similar arguments have been made in the comments here):

[https://medium.com/war-is-boring/ed9dd24dffa8](https://medium.com/war-is-
boring/ed9dd24dffa8)

> That a drone landed in Iranian hands is still an intelligence failure—the
> CIA is widely believed to operate the Sentinel. But one rule of drones is to
> not fly anything you’re not willing to lose. This is because drones are
> finicky and crash at higher rates compared to manned aircraft.

> Aviation Week also reported in 2011 that the RQ-170’s sensor package was
> already obsolete. And it’s unclear if Iran managed to copy the drone’s
> sensors. Even if the Iranian drone can fly, it doesn’t mean it can spy.

~~~
Shivetya
obsolete for us isn't obsolete for everyone.

plus we are the great satan so anytime they triumph over us its a victory for
their leadership, let alone the proof they need to rightly claim we are doing
what they claim we do

------
geoffsanders
I'm prior Air Force.

Few pieces of military technology are so individually valuable to overall
tactical and strategic capabilities that knowledge or possession of such
technology would tip the scales one way or the other. An exception would be
the nuclear bomb.

We may have embarrassingly given the Iranians a freebie, but their ability to
dissect and understand it is far different from their ability to reproduce or
manufacture it for any tangible military advantage.

Keep in mind, the global dominance of the U.S. Air Force isn't rooted in any
one aircraft or technology, rather it comes from the _massive_ network of
supporting technologies (e.g. global radar networks, manufacturing
technologies, communication and satellite tech, etc.) and personnel (e.g.
intelligence agencies, engineers and scientists, pilots, etc.) that support
such advanced aircraft.

~~~
adventured
People seem to miss the part where Iran won't be able to build a thousand of
these, supply them, fly them, train for them, maintain them, upgrade them,
equip them with the appropriate technology, and build the next generation of
them.

It'd be like saying: oh look I stole an Intel processor, and was able to
figure out how it works. Now all I need is to build a fab and a global supply
chain so I can churn out thirty million of them. Or hey, I know how PageRank
works, Google better watch out.

------
3327
Strange comments here. It saddens me that the US lost a drone like this. Maybe
not everyone is American here, but the technology in this vehicle will be in
China's hands Russia's hands etc. The whole world will miss the old world
order some day. By that I mean today's world order. the US will some day will
not be able to police the world for one reason or another. Then the world will
realize how valuable what the US stood for despite its shortcomings.

~~~
meric
"Then the world will realize how valuable what the US stood for despite its
shortcomings."

The West, maybe.

Not if you're living in a Middle Eastern country, with oppressive rulers kept
in power by US funds, forcing the country to sell its oil resources cheaply.

Not if you're living in Eastern Ukraine, where the US toppled an elected
government to install a government that is hostile to your people.
[http://www.presstv.com/detail/2014/03/25/355978/nuke-8-milli...](http://www.presstv.com/detail/2014/03/25/355978/nuke-8-million-
russians-in-ukraine/) You could pretty much tell her attitude to them by the
way she suggested the 8 million ethnic Russians living in Eastern Ukraine
should be nuked.

Not if you're living in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Iran.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RC1Mepk_Sw#t=79](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RC1Mepk_Sw#t=79)
All countries where the U.S. has sought to destroy domestic, independent,
public institutions if and when they arise.

If you're living in an African country where the U.S. has previously tried to
destabilize your government, and where China instead have offered to build
infrastructure for your country, you might not be so sad that the US has lost
a drone, which it was probably using for spying purposes.

If the world was Panem, then U.S. is the Capitol, and its closest allies are
the Capitol's adjacent districts.

Of course, you're probably from the U.S., if not, then probably, U.K or
Australia, or N.Z. Of course you'd have something to lose if the US will some
day not be able to police the world.

EDIT: What's the downvote for? A lack of citations?

~~~
rat87
The US did not bring down an elected government in Ukraine. It was taken down
by Ukrainian protesters. While I admit that having the threat of force cause
elected albeit very corrupt politicians to flee is very sketchy its a million
times better then what happened in Crimea and eastern Ukraine and especially
in Crimea Russia orchestrated quite a bit of it.

~~~
meric
Here's a video of Victoria Nuland of the Department of State claiming U.S. has
spent $5 billion since 1991 to 'build democratic institutions' in Ukraine.
Take note of the sponsorship flags by Chevron and ExxonMobil in the
background. Note how she uses the word 'invested'.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y0y-JUsPTU#t=448](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y0y-JUsPTU#t=448)

IMO that is evidence of U.S. interference in Ukraine's political affairs.

It is crazy to suggest U.S. is not involved in encouraging Ukraine's
aspirations to join NATO.

On one hand the U.S. supports a government installed via a coup, toppling the
previous elected government, and on the other give no comments on the Kiev
government sending army units to crack down on Anti-Kiev protesters.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariupol_standoff](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariupol_standoff)

The U.S. media calls armed men storming Pro-Russia government buildings
"protesters", while armed men storming Pro-US government buildings are
"separatists", "militants". I'm not for U.S. or Russia, I see the Ukraine
situation for what it is, a small country whose people are being manipulated
by larger ones.

Russia's move into Crimea isn't even illegal, it was specified clearly in the
terms of the treaty leasing the Russia naval base. It was also a defensive
one. If Ukraine would join NATO, the lease for the base would terminate, and
Russia will lose a naval port. Crimea was also historically Russian, the fact
that Ukraine had it after Soviet Union's collapse was pure accident; the
Soviet Union 'awarded' the Ukraine state with Crimea in 1954 as a meaningless
proclamation, probably for domestic propaganda purposes. It was the people in
Crimea who decided to join Russia.
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UkraineNativeLanguagesCens...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UkraineNativeLanguagesCensus2001detailed-
en.png)) U.S. (and probably all governments if given the chance) favors self-
determination when it favors them (e.g.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkland_Islands_sovereignty_re...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkland_Islands_sovereignty_referendum,_2013)),
calls them illegitimate when it doesn't.

~~~
maxerickson
$5 billion is less than $10 per Ukrainian per year. That doesn't necessarily
say much about how much influence the money would buy, but it can be
interesting to try to stick a denominator under big aggregate numbers.

($5 billion / 45 million -> $111, I left lots of wiggle room for changes in
population)

------
AmVess
Kind of a strange exercise they are doing. Not that I can blame them, I'd be
pulling it apart to see what makes it tick myself.

As a practical exercise, however, this is rather futile; they aren't going to
be able to replicate the stealth technology, nor the electronics, nor the
engine...or anything else important, for that matter.

What they do have, however, is a large scale model making hobby. Maybe they
should contact Airfix or Revell for a licensing deal.

~~~
jacquesm
The best way to find weaknesses in a system is to analyze, and then to see if
you can replicate it. This has been done just about forever with weapons
systems. Piloting a drone will teach you about the blind spots of a drone,
that's golden knowledge if you need to take them down.

~~~
mpyne
If Iran is approaching this the same way they have approached "replicating"
U.S. aircraft carriers then I don't think the West would have much to worry
about with this. So I suppose that's the big question here, what exactly is
this replicated drone—an accurate copy of at least the airframe, or a
propaganda piece designed to appeal to the local populace?

~~~
jacquesm
Replicating an aircraft carrier versus replicating a drone is a challenge of a
totally different level, never mind the practical applications. Iran is much
more likely to encounter a US built drone on its territory than it is to
encounter an aircraft carrier within the 12 mile zone.

Most likely it is more than you think it is and less than they would want, and
its only practical uses right now are analysis of soft spots and propaganda
(and that's working well by the looks of it).

------
Oculus
_Sentinel has two separate hard drives, both encrypted. After deciphering the
hard drives, the IRGC-AF_

And that's how we know most of what the Iranian military says regarding the
Sentinel is completely fabricated. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't it be
nearly impossible for them to decrypt a properly encrypted hard drive unless
they had an powerful supercomputer?

~~~
anologwintermut
Depends entirely on why and how it was encrypted. If we are talking about the
flight control software, the airplane must(edit,not necessarily) have the keys
to boot clearly.

If we are talking about recorded data, it's less clear. The imagery data may
be encrypted to provide access control after the drives are removed from the
plane and handed somewhere else. In which case, there's little reason the
drone wouldn't have the decrypt keys.

You could encrypt the data with a public key and store it so that the drone
itself can't read it. About the only reason to do this would be to ensure if
it was captured, the target wouldn't see what was on it. I'd suspect the way
the military planed to handle that eventuality, however, would use on an
exothermic random number generator (a.k.a. a self destruct mechanism/
explosive charge) rather than encryption. There's a lot of way more sensitive
thing on the aircraft than just what it took pictures of that you need to
destroy.

~~~
tsuraan
> If we are talking about the flight control software, the airplane must have
> the keys to boot clearly

My _laptop_ doesn't have the keys to decrypt its own hard drive; it boots to
initrd and waits for my smart card, which does the decryption. I would imagine
the military can do better.

~~~
anologwintermut
True. On the other hand, the military may need to be able to reboot the thing
remotely/automatically, in which case it's possible they don't want to risk
having to send the keys first.

~~~
rbanffy
If I were to design such a system, booting to full functionality would require
human intervention prior to launch, but would allow a reboot to a separate
partition with enough functionality to fly the drone back to base. Data, as
was pointed before, would be asymmetrically encrypted and would require a
separate key that would never reach the drone.

------
maxerickson
The money quote:

 _At the end of the presentation, Hajizadeh said that Iran’s 1:7-scale copy of
the drone has already flown, while half-scale and full-scale models would fly
this year_

So they haven't finished matching the capabilities of it yet (matching the
capabilities is sort of implied by "copied").

------
hangonhn
I'm part way through James Fallows' "China Airborne" and he talks about what
it would mean for China to have an airline industry like the US. It means it
would have the technical know-how in designing engines, manufacturing high-
precision parts for engines, advanced metallurgy for body, wings, etc.,
advanced electronics, and software to tie it all together. In addition, it
must have the organizational ability to direct all the flights around the
country and do advanced scheduling (computationally difficult) to minimize
wait time, etc.

China is part way there but not completely. It will be a while. Even their
fighters today use Russian engines.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengdu_J-10](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengdu_J-10)

If someone is going to copy the RQ-170 and use it operationally the same way
the US does, it won't be China and much less Iran anytime soon.

------
mpyne
Similar to how the Russians bootstrapped their strategic bomber (by copying,
rivet-for-rivet, some interned B-29s).

~~~
commandar
>(by copying, rivet-for-rivet, some interned B-29s)

Not quite. The Tu-4 _was_ a very close copy of the B-29, but the sheet metal
the Soviets had available was slightly thicker (and thus heavier)than American
sheet metal, which required some engineering to work around.

~~~
jacquesm
It was the difference between 'metric' and numbered gages that had this
effect. They took the next standard size up but still ended up with a plane
that weighed almost the same as the B-29. Makes you wonder how much weight the
B-29 could have still saved.

------
aceperry
Very interesting. I would love it if the Iranians open-sourced the drone that
they captured. :-)

~~~
mschuster91
Put it up on Kickstarter. iDrone ;)

------
qq66
The bottom line is that you can't fly a bunch of planes around an airspace
without losing a few, and the people who build and fly these planes know this.

Second, the technology behind bare-bones drone surveillance isn't that
special. For $250 you can get an "FPV" remote control plane (first-person
view) that lets you fly around and see a real-time video-feed from the plane.
Of course the RQ-170 is a million times more powerful than a Walmart toy, but
the fact of the matter is that any government that wants to can put
surveillance drones in the sky.

------
growupkids
A bit of a click bait headline. The end of the article summarizes by stating
"even if the Iranian Sentinels fly on the schedule, they probably won’t be
truly stealthy." The intent of the RQ-170 is the be stealthy, a copy that's
not stealthy isn't a copy. It's propaganda.

------
eyeareque
I think their copying is more propaganda for them than anything else. Just
look at how they're displaying these models for show in a plastic tent.
Really?

------
Pxtl
I'm more disturbed that they managed to remotely "trick" a US drone into
taking new orders.

Imagine if that was a Reaper.

