UAS developments and/or issues

Todjaeger

Potstirrer
The article is perfect example to why the US Military is considered to be a bunch of technological fetishists :)

Long story short, if they think they are ready to take on an amassed attack of a crapload of cheap drones with EW, they should put that EW system in the middle of a weapons range, attack it with a couple dozen of good old Tomahawks(serving as target drones in this case) and see what happens. Spoiler: nothing good, because the problem at large cannot be solved through simple procurement. This is not possible in principle.
Thanks for suggesting an apples to oranges type test to demonstrate the validity of using EW against UAS.

Since you do not seem to think EW efforts (by the US at least) would work, despite the article being quite light on specifics and EW being a subject that the operators of sometimes get twitchy about details, how would you recommend dealing with the en masse deployment of low cost UAV swarms against targets?
 

kinetic

New Member
The threat of small drones in fact has very little to do with proliferation of affordable, commercially available drone technology allowing the metaphorical Akhmed the Technologically Adept Mujahideen to order himself a bunch of parts on Ali Express, throw together a dendrofecal-grade improvised loitering munition and try using it to blow up something important.

In reality ALL truly significant attacks with such 'improvised' weaponry that took place in last five years were either orchestrated or outright performed by state actors.

That's what you should be concerned about, mission-specific engineering and prototype warfare on part of hostile state actors as a new form of deniable operation.

It's flat out impossible to protect one's things of strategic importance against this sort of threat in any other way except addressing it on technological, organizational and doctrinal levels on all scales.

To illustrate my point, take a look into specifics of the guidance system of old Tomahawks, what do you see? You see a very, very hard customer for Air Defence which is extremely resilient to basically all tactical means of electronic defeat except the ones capable to outright functionally defeat it. It combines INS-assisted GPS with terrain and target recognition, allowing it to pull through the localized jamming without getting mission-killed or suffering unacceptable losses in practical performance.

The real fun begins when you realize that it won't take neither US nor Russia nor China much effort to cobble together a platform-independent functional analogue of Tomahawk's guidance system. Throw in great power militaries-level intelligence, planning, Ali Express hardware, suitably 'dendrofecal'-looking design and voila, a bunch of dendrofecal ghetto-Tomahawks executing textbook saturation attacks on your rival's strategic infrastructure, high-value assets, military forces and what not.

Would you like to know how do you combat the actual Tomahawks? Why, all it takes is radically changing the state of electromagnetic environment in desired ways on a five-digit figure of square kilometers, and very quickly.

I wish you greatest luck in trying to pull off that kind of tricks through any sort of tactical kung-fu :)

P.S. The above-written is simplified description of certain non-kinetic active measures of cruise missile defence of the Mordor's national IADS. Simply put, shit's real, boyz.
 

Feanor

Super Moderator
Staff member
The article is perfect example to why the US Military is considered to be a bunch of technological fetishists :)

Long story short, if they think they are ready to take on an amassed attack of a crapload of cheap drones with EW, they should put that EW system in the middle of a weapons range, attack it with a couple dozen of good old Tomahawks(serving as target drones in this case) and see what happens. Spoiler: nothing good, because the problem at large cannot be solved through simple procurement. This is not possible in principle.
You're missing the part where Russia uses EW as a center piece of it's anti-UAV fight in Syria. We already know that, in fact, EW is an excellent tool against UAVs.
 

kinetic

New Member
You're missing the part where Russia uses EW as a center piece of it's anti-UAV fight in Syria. We already know that, in fact, EW is an excellent tool against UAVs.
No one is disputing that EW is excellent tool against most things on modern battlefield, I'm talking about integration of various EW-related things into the system of air defence on theatre to achieve the desired objectives.

Put simply, if a hypothetical defender in 2019 is still ignorant of the fact that SA Missile, Field Artillery, Tactical Aviation, Signals, Engineers, CBRN are also electronic combatants, he's so fucked it's not even funny. And all that is supposed to be put to use, otherwise it will end in tears.
 
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Feanor

Super Moderator
Staff member
No one is disputing that EW is excellent tool against most things on modern battlefield, I'm talking about integration of various EW-related things into the system of air defence on theatre to achieve the desired objectives.

Put simply, if a hypothetical defender in 2019 is still ignorant of the fact that SA Missile, Field Artillery, Tactical Aviation, Signals, Engineers, CBRN are also electronic combatants, he's so fucked it's not even funny. And all that is supposed to be put to use, otherwise it will end in tears.
Ok so how does the US putting EW in the center of an anti-UAV IADS set up make them technological fetishists?
 

kinetic

New Member
Ok so how does the US putting EW in the center of an anti-UAV IADS set up make them technological fetishists?
Heh, I won't have said a word if the article wasn't catering to American propensity for technological fetishism. They traditionally tend to seek a technological counter to specific enemy capabilities instead of seeking a counter to the enemy's operational concepts.

Note that the article doesn't even mention the utility of aimed application of passive jamming, such as chaff(radar), smokescreens(optics), multispectral aerosols(laser, infrared, optics). Nor can the author be bothered to mention the distributed jamming systems, nor anything else hinting that he even realizes that jamming GPS or putting a blinder in close proximity to the protected object very well might get you absolutely nowhere.
 

Boagrius

Well-Known Member
Heh, I won't have said a word if the article wasn't catering to American propensity for technological fetishism. They traditionally tend to seek a technological counter to specific enemy capabilities instead of seeking a counter to the enemy's operational concepts.

Note that the article doesn't even mention the utility of aimed application of passive jamming, such as chaff(radar), smokescreens(optics), multispectral aerosols(laser, infrared, optics). Nor can the author be bothered to mention the distributed jamming systems, nor anything else hinting that he even realizes that jamming GPS or putting a blinder in close proximity to the protected object very well might get you absolutely nowhere.
You haven't actually answered Feanor's question here. I've got to say that this doesn't square at all with my understanding of the American approach to contemporary warfare. The focus on network centricism and the integration of all components of a joint force is anything but specific to a peace-meal aspect of enemy capability. Rather, it is a holistic approach to all of the components that must be brought to the battlefield along with those that enable them. I'm honestly not sure if you're here to post constructively or just engage in an east vs west appendage swinging match(?) but that's just my 2c...o_O
 
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Feanor

Super Moderator
Staff member
Heh, I won't have said a word if the article wasn't catering to American propensity for technological fetishism. They traditionally tend to seek a technological counter to specific enemy capabilities instead of seeking a counter to the enemy's operational concepts.

Note that the article doesn't even mention the utility of aimed application of passive jamming, such as chaff(radar), smokescreens(optics), multispectral aerosols(laser, infrared, optics). Nor can the author be bothered to mention the distributed jamming systems, nor anything else hinting that he even realizes that jamming GPS or putting a blinder in close proximity to the protected object very well might get you absolutely nowhere.
You keep dodging the question of evidence. You've got an article that, very briefly, covers the idea that UAVs are a growing threat, and EW is an emerging solution. You then accuse the authors of "technological fetishism" because they don't go into all the details of anti-UAV tactics, operations, and approaches? Your comments are insulting, and extremely shallow.

You've gotten moderator warnings regarding your behavior before. There are clearly stated and enforced expectations of behavior on these forums. This is your final warning. Your English skills are clearly good enough to understand what you're saying. If you continue to make insulting remarks or unsupported claims there will be immediate consequences.
 

OPSSG

Super Moderator
Staff member
Guys, can we go back to discussing the topic at hand (about UAS developments)? We can always disagree, but the areas of disagreement in the topic (being discussed) should serve to inform and not be an attempt to score propaganda points. Disagreement is not disrespect but disrespect is not going to be long tolerated. Please read and observe the Forum Rules going forward. Enough with baiting others, to push an agenda.

Mod Team tolerance mode, turned off (from this point on). No trolling or borderline attempts at trolling will be tolerated.
 
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Boagrius

Well-Known Member
Would you like to know how do you combat the actual Tomahawks? Why, all it takes is radically changing the state of electromagnetic environment in desired ways on a five-digit figure of square kilometers, and very quickly...

...The above-written is simplified description of certain non-kinetic active measures of cruise missile defence of the Mordor's national IADS.
I was looking back through this thread and remember finding this quote interesting. My interpretation of the (somewhat cryptic) claim is that Russian EW assets possess the ability to deny/soft kill cruise missile strikes via the likes of Tomahawk over large expanses (thousands of square kilometres) of its territory. If the claim is indeed accurate then I suspect it would have huge potential implications for how other countries may think about countering not just LACM attacks, but UAS at large.

I must admit, despite the fact that the Russian EW capability is obviously formidable, I can't figure out how this claim could possibly be true. The sheer physical limitations imposed by the radar horizon must drastically hamper the amount of low altitude airspace that land based systems could influence against terrain hugging cruise missiles, and airborne assets could only emit to larger sections of terrain for limited periods of time. On top of this, a weapon like Tomahawk uses guidance methods (INS, TERCOM and DSMAC) that should function quite independently of any RF/EM energy being directed their way(?). Interested to hear the thoughts of others on this topic.
 
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Boagrius

Well-Known Member
On second thought, I suppose "5 digit" square km terrain coverage is not all that implausible in that it could merely involve ground based assets located near selected high value sites covering terrain out to wherever the earth's curvature and local topography allows (I reflexively envisioned much larger tracts of terrain being covered).

That said, I still can't fathom how such systems would overcome the likes of INS, TERCOM and DSMAC. There is plenty of precedent for disrupting RF based communication links (e.g. the Ukrainian UAS experience in the Donbass) but INS/DSMAC/TERCOM shouldn't be affected in the same way...
 

Boagrius

Well-Known Member
After doing some additional research/self education I have come to realise that it is plausible to interfere with TERCOM by jamming the missile's radar altimeter. In theory this could force it to higher altitude (to avoid terrain) where it would be more vulnerable to interception by air defences or even cause it to hit the ground. In a worst case scenario (for the missile) it may be possible to reduce its functioning guidance modalities to INS + DSMAC, which on its own ought to increase its CEP/reduce its accuracy due to INS drift. I suppose it comes back to the age old race between measures (in this case the Tomahawk's guidance modalities), countermeasures (Russian EW systems) and counter-countermeasures (Tomahawk EW hardening).

Insofar as it relates to UAS, I can see how most countries have been hesitant to make the jump to fully fledged fighter-type UCAVs because manned aircraft still bypass this race altogether.
 

Sandhi Yudha

Well-Known Member
Some news about the European FCAS. The FCAS is actually planned to the operational derivative of the BAe Taranis,


So there are now three UCAV-programs in development in Europe.
- The EADS Barracuda, developed by Germany and Spain.
- The Airbus/Dassault/Indra FCAS from France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the UK.
- The Dassault nEUROn, supported by France, Hellas, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Zwitserland.

Its complicated and confusing, and i have the feeling thats they are spending time, energy and budget in an inefficient way. The Barracuda is smaller than the other two projects, but we can see that the same countries are working on two different but similar systems.
 
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Redlands18

Well-Known Member
Some news about the European FCAS. The FCAS is actually planned to the operational derivative of the BAe Taranis,

Probably the wrong thread for this news, may even be worth starting a new thread covering FCAS, Tempest and the F-3 as these programs seem to be paralleling each other.
 

Sandhi Yudha

Well-Known Member
Probably the wrong thread for this news, may even be worth starting a new thread covering FCAS, Tempest and the F-3 as these programs seem to be paralleling each other.
Yes you are right, maybe ive to put the article in a special European 5-/6- generation fighter thread, regardless its manned or not.
 
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Vivendi

Well-Known Member
I am not sure if this belongs in this thread, or a separate thread on it's own, but I believe the development of "artificial intelligence" (AI) for the various air roles to become highly significant in the future. UAS (or UCAV) that can perform various tasks completely autonomously I think is going to become a big thing.

Progress is made in many different directions, for instance the DARPA "competition" that pitted an AI against an experience pilot in an F-16 simulator won 5-0 in a dogfight scenario.


Although 1:1 dogfights are not very important in the grand scheme of things, and although this was just a simulation it is interesting to note that the AI proved to be very successful in this endevaour.

I have read that both China and Russia are investing heavily in AI, and they intend to use the AI technology to develop autonomous drones. How do you think autonomous drones controlled by advanced AIs can impact the different fighter air roles, in particular a2a and a2g? When can we expect this to happen?
 

Sandhi Yudha

Well-Known Member
Not only twin engine UAVs are uncommon, but

"What makes Eurodrone different from any other drone is that it is civil certification-ready,” said Francisco Sanchez Segura, Airbus executive vice president and head of engineering."


It looks like an RQ-4 Global Hawk and a Piaggio-Selex P.1HH got a child together.
 

Big_Zucchini

Well-Known Member
Not only twin engine UAVs are uncommon, but

"What makes Eurodrone different from any other drone is that it is civil certification-ready,” said Francisco Sanchez Segura, Airbus executive vice president and head of engineering."


It looks like an RQ-4 Global Hawk and a Piaggio-Selex P.1HH got a child together.
Not sure whether it's ultra safe or the EU is just over-bureaucratic.
Anyway, with a drone that large, I can't really see an armed version being of particular use.
As an oversized platform it is better used carrying dedicated payload rather than munitions, to increase its endurance.
At its weight class the only weapons that are viable are long range munitions.

Europe needs new MALE drones and to make them cheap. Heavy HALE is too much of a niche, albeit an important one.
 

Sandhi Yudha

Well-Known Member
The firsr reason for this police raid is because of an illegal take over of Alpi Aviation, an Italian UAV-manufacturer, by a chinese company.

Alpi Aviation also broke Italian law on defense exports by failing to inform the government when it temporarily exported a drone for display at a 2019 Shanghai trade fair, police said. By listing the UAV as a “model aircraft,” the firm avoided limitations on exports set down by the law, the statement added.

 
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