
Major Saudi Arabia oil facilities hit by Houthi drone strikes - jarmitage
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/14/major-saudi-arabia-oil-facilities-hit-by-drone-strikes
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aazaa
This reminds me of a certain line of discussion about WWI. The leaders of the
countries involved looked to the last war for clues on how to fight the next
one. Except in the case of WWI, mechanization and the fruits of the industrial
revolution had transformed the way war could be and ultimately was fought. The
result was catastrophic.

It seems that we may be seeing a similar transformation with weaponized
robots. Not just planes, but ships, tanks, trucks, and even submarines.

The US is leading the way here, with its ongoing, active drone warfare
program:

[https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/](https://theintercept.com/drone-
papers/)

But unlike nuclear weapons, the barrier to entering the drone club is much
lower. Poor countries and even non-state entities can play.

The strike against Saudi Arabia also hints at the enormous leverage possible
when automated warriors are used with the goal of economic strangulation.

As such, this attack may be a preview of a world in which automated killing
machines rework power relationships between countries rather suddenly.

~~~
jmpman
The barrier is getting so low, that a dispersed group, 1000 miles from a
target could all 3D print the same drone, powered by an efficient commercially
available RC engine, using a GPS guided computer (cell phone) with the
capabilities to switch to visual terrain guidance and inertial navigation
(making them immune to RF jamming), could all be launched at the same time,
and deliver their payloads on the same target at exactly the same millisecond.
All the software is available on GitHub today. The model airplane community
has proven flights of 1888 miles, with 3 quarts of fuel, flying at 50mph. So
1000 miles plus a payload equivalent to the weight of 1 quart of kerosene has
been demonstrated to be possible. The technology is proven.

How many people in a 1000 mile diameter from a sensitive target could be
motivated enough to build such a device and launch them simultaneously?
Depending upon the fanaticism, I could imagine 10,000 of these drone, all
swarming in from every direction, from every altitude, overwhelming any
defense. How does a society defend themselves from such an attack? With such a
swarm, the final 500 yards from a target is covered in 30 seconds. I don’t
know of anything that can stop 10,000 RF shielded drones in 30 seconds. That
dystopia is our future.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
The real question is how many people within 1000 miles of a target are capable
of building and testing a working drone and equipping it with some kind of
explosive or other weaponised payload?

Currently that number is extremely low. It will remain low until 3D printing
is a complete zero-effort solution - which is going to take a very long time.

The reality is that this kind of open source terrorism is an incredibly
unlikely threat. Numerically there are almost no terrorists, and the
terrorists that do exist have almost no engineering skills.

Weaponised engineer terrorists would be a scary thing, but they don't exist in
non-trivial numbers. And unless something very bad happens, that's unlikely to
change.

As for the drone scenario - it's not exactly stealthy. At 50mph there's
roughly 20 hours of warning - plenty of time to put up drone catcher nets, or
even launch a suicide drone swarm.

It's not that drone attacks aren't a threat, but they're going to need to be
more robust than anything a DIY off-the-server design can produce for some
time to come.

~~~
jmpman
Where you and I live, there may be no terrorists, and you and I may not be a
target, but there are some parts of the world with an overrepresentation of
terrorists. ISIS numbered over 100,000 at their peak. What was within 1000
mile range of ISIS held territory? Did ISIS have 100 competent engineers each
capable of guiding 10 others? It would be underestimating your enemy to
believe they didn’t.

How hard is it to build a Qassam rocket? Over 2000 were launched in 2008. I
expect this type of drone would take the same level of engineering skills once
the kinks were worked out.

As for the stealth factor. Let’s assume the drones are launched evenly
throughout the 1000 mile diameter range, all at the same time. That’s a search
area of 3M sq miles, or one drone every 3000 sq miles. Half way through the
journey, with T-10 hours, all drones in the swarm could be evenly distributed
in 785k sq miles, with one drone every 785 sq miles. An hour away, they’re all
in a 7850 sq mile search area, or one drone every 7.8 sq miles. 5 minutes out,
still a search area of 54 sq miles, and the drones are spaced out by over 1000
feet. 1 minute out, they’re all a bit less than a mile from the target, but up
to 6000 feet up. An army of 10,000 soldiers armed with AR-15s couldn’t hit the
drones at this point. 30 seconds out, the drones are 3000 feet up and still
out of range. 10 seconds out and the drones are 1000 feet up, barely within
range, but it doesn’t matter because they’re all on a terminal trajectory. Now
you’re trying to shoot 10000 armed hand grenades falling from the sky. Good
luck.

As for drone catcher nets? Let’s say half the drones are each armed with 1
pound of thermite, and ignite during a terminal trajectory from 1000 feet.
What’s going to stop 5000 lbs of thermite followed by 5000 lbs of tnt?

These drones can climb to a few thousand feet, and weigh around 10 pounds. Can
you visually identify such a drone versus an eagle? At night? When they’re
1000 feet away - 10 seconds from impact?

Can you hear them at 5000ft? 10,000ft? The same RC hobbiest who flew 1888
miles also set an altitude record of 26k feet.

Or they could fly at 50 feet above the ground, obscured by trees. Dismissed as
your neighbor flying his RC plane, too low to be seen by radar, and looking
like a cell phone in a car for all RF purposes.

Such a swarm goes from almost invisible to the explosive power of an F/A18 in
seconds.

Besides the radar signature of a half pound engine, how else can they be
detected? They have the same RF signature of a common cell phone.

I can 3D print amazing RC planes in 24 hours. Are they capable of 1888 mile
range? No. That took an expert thousands of hours to perfect. But you can
probably get an electric powered 3D printed plane capable of flying 50mph for
an hour - today. Tomorrow maybe for two hours. In a decade, maybe 4.

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yorwba
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20969633](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20969633)

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Fjolsvith
So, everyone is worried about a fleet of drones attacking. I've seen some
interesting drone flight formations for Chinese celebrations at night which
indicate to me that they could be controlled, perhaps, by AI, to search out
and attack incoming hostile drones.

Imagine facing a fleet of the drones from, for example, the movie Oblivion.

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AYBABTME
Anyone knows what type of drone they used?

~~~
mikhailfranco
Previous Houthi attacks have used _Ababil_ drones, with some variants known as
_Qasef_.

The Ababil-T can deliver up to a 45-kilogram (100-pound) warhead up to 150
kilometers (95 miles) away.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HESA_Ababil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HESA_Ababil)

 _Yemen: Drone attack on base kills at least six soldiers_

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xba_q6Kr_fU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xba_q6Kr_fU)

 _Archive of drones used allegedly by Houthis_

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-Z_8HQrH5E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-Z_8HQrH5E)

~~~
mikhailfranco
Update from UN investigation panel:

[https://undocs.org/en/S/2019/83](https://undocs.org/en/S/2019/83)

pp30,31 describe and photograph a previously unknown drone, imaginatively
given codename UAV-X, which was used in attacks on UAE and KSA:

 _The most distinctive feature of the UAV-X is its significantly increased
endurance and range. Powered by the Chinese-made DLE 170 or the German-made
3W110i B2 engine, with a top speed of between 200 km /h and 250 km/h, the
unmanned aerial vehicle may have a maximum range of between 1,200 km and 1,500
km, depending on wind conditions._

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xenospn
This is what happens when you play Civilization in God mode.

