BLOG Drone Swarms Are The Threat Of The 2020s

[Dozdoats]

If you don’t think Drone Swarms are THE Threat of the 2020s, you are Mistaken | laststandonzombieisland

IF YOU DON’T THINK DRONE SWARMS ARE THE THREAT OF THE 2020S, YOU ARE MISTAKEN
Posted on January 19, 2021 by laststandonzombieisland Leave a comment

In the recent five-week Nagorno-Karabakh war, between Azerbaijan– supported by Syrian mercenaries and Turkey — and the so-called Republic of Artsakh together with Armenia (who had the low-key support of Moscow), cheap drones proved absolutely decisive. The Azerbaijani relied heavily on Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 and Israeli Harop/Orbiter/SkyStryker kamikaze drones to strike at the Armenian/Artsakh forces.

Besides tanks and APCs, the Azerbaijan Department of Defense said that several Osa, Strela-10, and S-300 air defense systems were also destroyed by TB2s. Azerbaijan also reportedly modified its slowpoke 1950s-era Antonov An-2 Colt biplanes with remote-control systems, flying them to the front lines to draw out Armenian air defenses. In short, SEAD by UAV, showing these craft as the modern Wild Weasels.
[SEAD = suppression of enemy air defenses]


The Bayraktar TB2, with a max takeoff weight of just 1,400-pounds, isn’t fast, pedaling around at just 120 knots, roughly the same speed as a Great War biplane. However, it can carry four laser-guided smart munitions, each capable of zapping a tank. (Photo via wiki commons)

In all, the former Soviet republic had less than 200 drones of all kinds on hand, but they proved the key to battle.

The really scary part is how plug-and-play the Turkish drones were, only fielded by the Azerbaijanis less than six months before the conflict.
From a CSIS report on the conflict:

Azerbaijani drones provided significant advantages in ISR as well as long-range strike capabilities. They enabled Azerbaijani forces to find, fix, track, and kill targets with precise strikes far beyond the front lines. UAVs were operationally integrated with fires from manned aircraft and land-based artillery but also frequently used their own ordinance to destroy various high-value military assets. Open-source reporting suggests that drones contributed to disabling a huge number of Armenian tanks, fighting vehicles, artillery units, and air defenses. Their penetration of Nagorno-Karabakh’s deep rear also weakened Armenian supply lines and logistics, facilitating later Azerbaijani success in battle.

Azerbaijani drone strikes hit Armenian targets - YouTube
RT 00:46


So for cheap, UAVs stand to flip the battlespace in favor of low power states.
For instance, Iran, which has both reverse-engineered downed U.S. drones and acquired other designs as needed, has shown off hundreds of indigenous craft of late.

Iran holds drone combat exercise drills - YouTube
RT 01:00

Iran holds massive drone exercise - YouTube
RT 02:43


All of this means that it is no surprise that DOD just released their official 36-page Counter-Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Strategy.

Expect far more counter-drone jammers and active defenses on the battlefield of the future, or else it is going to be very one-sided.

 

[20Gauge]

When I read the title, my first thought was something different.

What occurred to me was having 3-4000 little drones with small explosive packages going forth in to the battle much like bird swarms. This to me is the real future.

It has been said and often proved that quantity has a quality of its own. This is one of those cases where I do agree with that.

You can send a huge bomb that will destroy the entire location (nukes / moabs) at very high costs say millions per launch or spend a few 10s of thousands and build thousands of drones that can do the same thing. Kill the enemy.

You would need a decent AI to do this, or at least a really good program.

The future is not drone operators in the Nevada desert, but rather a single platoon with a truck load of these taking out enemy positions

 

[Millwright]

ATM, the swarm of drones that concerns me is 50+ antifafa getting off a bus.

 

[desert_fox]

Chaff will make a comeback.

 

[CapeCMom]

Ever seen the movie “ Angel has fallen” ? The bad guys go after the President with drone swarms armed with explosives. It was downright scary.

 

[IceWave]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fa9lVwHHqg

Dystopian docudrama called Slaughterbots.
8m2s

“Slaugherbots” by Stewart Sugg

The 7 minute film opens with a Silicon Valley CEO-type delivering a product presentation to a live audience a la Steve Jobs. The presentation seems innocuous enough at first—the presenter seems to be unveiling some new drone technology—but takes a dark turn when he demonstrates how these autonomous drones can slaughter humans like cattle by delivering “a shaped explosive” to the skull.The audience eats it up, clapping and laughing along with the CEO as if they hadn’t witnessed anything more dangerous than the unveiling of the iPhone X. The CEO goes further, showing videos of the tiny killer drone in action. “Let’s watch what happens when the weapons make the decisions,” the CEO says, as the bot executes a number of people on the massive screen behind him. “Now trust me, these are all bad guys.” What follows is a deeply unsettling portrait of a dystopian world where these small weaponised drones use their onboard technologies—“cameras like you use for your social media apps, facial recognition like you have on your phones!”—to make autonomous decisions about who lives and who dies.

 

[Dozdoats]

Chaff will make a comeback.

Dispensed from drones

 

[20Gauge]

Ever seen the movie “ Angel has fallen” ? The bad guys go after the President with drone swarms armed with explosives. It was downright scary.

Yes. that is what solidified the idea in my head.

 

[Troke]

Dispensed from drones

One of these days, I expect the White House to go, with drones purchased at WalMart.

One more time. Technology has enhanced the power of the Weak while PC as castrated the Strong.

 

[ArisenCarcass]

It is kind of crazy, but this is the plot to a Call of Duty game (Below).
In a different COD, they had kinetic orbital platforms (Rods from God) as a significant setpiece.

I'm not sure if it is the cultural zeitgeist and science+fiction that is filtering into the writing for the games, or scientific reality being bent by expectations from the media we use, but this makes several times that COD has been prescient.


In COD: Advanced Warfare:
In it, the US sends troops in exoskeleton armor into Iran after hostilities.
The Iranians use AI controlled micro drone swarms to put a hurting on US forces.
The son of a powerful CEO is killed in the fighting, driving him a bit crazy.
The Atlas Corporation becomes the leading humanitarian contractor after terrorists (in Atlas' employ) meltdown and blow up multiple nuclear reactors worldwide.
To get help (food, housing, water, etc) in the aftermath, you get chipped, put in a camp and Atlas takes your DNA.
The CEO has developed a DNA-based weapon that will kill anyone not in the Atlas DNA database, and tries to use it as a blackmailing agent to stop all wars and usher in world peace.
A world coalition drives back the Atlas Corp and the CEO is killed, though the world's military forces take massive casualties due to the localized release of the weapon.

 

[nomifyle]

I have often thought about this when folks talk about being untouchable where they live. In my minds eye I can see them coming in over the trees.

God is good all the time

Judy