Drone Attacks, A Real Threat Now?

[KellyinAvon]

Looks like everybody uses the same radar that's in Iceland. Wikipedia lists 28 nations using the FPS117 radar. (The main radar for the Peace Shield system, but it integrates other radars from army and navy air defense sites).

The version 5 was in Iceland when I was the Materiel Controller at the 932nd ACS back in the day. They had the version 4 in Alaska so lateral support was easy; if we didn't have the part, nobody did.

 

[Alamo]

Saudi oil attacks didn't spark a U.S. fuel crisis. Thank Texas

I'm surprised that the Dallas Morning News editorial board came up with this.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

Saudi oil attacks didn't spark a U.S. fuel crisis. Thank Texas

I'm surprised that the Dallas Morning News editorial board came up with this.

Just fyi, I got a virus warning when I went to that link. It wouldn't let me close the window, but it did let me shut down the browser which got rid of it. Ran my virus scan and didn't find anything, but just thought I'd let you know.

 

[Keith_Indy]

From the Dallas MN link:

That’s because the world, and especially the U.S., has plenty of oil. The Saudis have enough reserves to keep their customers supplied for a month; the kingdom even told other OPEC countries to stand down in boosting production. And U.S. producers have the ability to quickly boost oil production thanks to fracking technology.

Ah, here is the confusion, I never bothered reading an article about "Trump authorizes releases from oil reserves."

"IF NEEDED" was the part glaringly missing from headlines...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-...erve-after-attack-saudi-oil-sites-2019-09-15/

[FONT=&quot]President Trump on Sunday said that the U.S. would be tapping into its Strategic Petroleum Reserve "if needed" in the wake of [/FONT][FONT=&quot]attacks on oil sites[/FONT][FONT=&quot] in Saudi Arabia. "I have also informed all appropriate agencies to expedite approvals of the oil pipelines currently in the permitting process in Texas and various other States," the president said in a [/FONT]series of tweets[FONT=&quot].[/FONT]

Expediting our pipelines... ah, there's the real reason for the attacks </snark>

 

[Keith_Indy]

As for drone attacks, the hardware and software for guidance is available for anyone to piece together whatever size UAV they want. Wouldn't be military grade, but would certainly be cheap, and simple enough for what was done.

https://opensource.com/article/18/2/drone-projects

[video=youtube_share;6m93xnm74jc]https://youtu.be/6m93xnm74jc[/video]

 

[Keith_Indy]

More info about these kinds of attacks...

https://www.ft.com/content/f2a73b40-d920-11e9-8f9b-77216ebe1f17

The asymmetry between strike and response is notable. Israel has used Patriot missiles costing $3m to $4m to take down quadcopter drones costing about $1,000. Mr Watling’s research has uncovered details of Syrian opposition forces making drone bodies from plywood covered with plastic sheeting, the wings and tails constructed from expanded polystyrene. He describes Iranian-designed drones manufactured in Yemen by Houthi groups on 3D printers, fitted at the last minute with Iranian electronics. “These are not particularly sophisticated,” he said.Anti-drone defence infrastructure is expensive to build, including GPS jammers to neutralise drone navigation, search and track facilities to identify incoming drones, and missile and radar-guided canon interceptors to destroy them.

 

[Ark]

Most of the world seems hell bent on denying that Iran has been waging a campaign of attacks on Saudi oil production and shipping, and thus far the administration does not seem willing to retaliate on the Saudi's behalf. At this point it's just a question of how far Iran is willing to lean over the line, and how the Saudis will react on their own. After several years of being bled to death in Yemen, I don't think they're itching for a shooting war with the Iranians either.

IMO the point here is for Iran to bleed their treasure in Yemen, destroy their ability to make treasure by producing and selling oil, and eventually collapse the Saudi regime and eliminate their number one regional rival.

At this point I'm honestly not sure which is the more terrifying outcome: The US pulled into a full scale shooting war with Iran in defense of the Saudis (gagging noises), or Saudi Arabia collapsing into a failed state awash in loose cash, Western weapons, and people with insane beliefs. The best way out would be to sanction the living crap out of the Iranians until they withdraw support for the rebels in Yemen and stop blowing up Saudi property, but that requires a degree of international cooperation that just isn't possible when everyone else would declare the sky was purple if they heard Trump say it was blue.

On the subject of drones, the tech is cheap now and anyone can build a single use kamakaze drone with a small payload and enough brains to dive-bomb on a set of GPS coordinates. While the attack on the oil facilities appears to involve something closer to low-tech cruise missiles, just dropping hand grenade sized charges on important bits could create a tremendous amount of chaos.

https://www.liveleak.com/view?t=1ca_1488028343

Stuff like this got a big debut in the Battle of Mosul last year. I heard somebody on a podcast once estimate that the total cost of an improvised munition drop like this was maybe $1k. They'd use multiple drones at once, some for spotting and recording, and others for drops. Very cost effective, and their peak tempo was 300 such flights per month.

If I had my way, we'd be rolling out directed energy weapons and short range, high resolution radar at every piece of critical infrastructure in the country, with a panoramic camera and some basic image recognition software to avoid blinding random humans for walking too close. I'm not scared of Iranian drones buzzing in over the horizon, I'm scared of a dude with $1,500 in his pocket buzzing a drone loaded with tannerite up to the window of a senator's office or in the propped-open door of a nuke plant control room.

 

[DeadeyeChrista'sdad]

. I'm not scared of Iranian drones buzzing in over the horizon, I'm scared of a dude with $1,500 in his pocket buzzing a drone loaded with tannerite up to the window of a senator's office or in the propped-open door of a nuke plant control room.

That, in my opinion, (which will get you a DELICIOUS cup of coffee, if you also have ten bucks,) is the next real threat in domestic and international terrorism. It's the kind of thing that I do NOT talk about on F.B. so as not to inspire some nut job. Given the payload some of the newer "toy" drones can carry, the implications are a little bit disturbing.

 

[Keith_Indy]

ask and ye shall receive...

https://www.foxnews.com/us/pennsylvania-man-explosives-ex-girlfriends-property-drone

A man arrested in June for allegedly dropping explosive devices in an eastern Pennsylvania community via a drone was targeting his ex-girlfriend's home, according to prosecutors.
Jason Muzzicato, 44, was taken into custody in Washington Township in Northampton County by the FBI and local authorities after he was linked to the explosions. Evidence at his home and his business, Bangor Motor Works, tied him to several explosions in the township since March.

 

[NKBJ]

Recent years have given us a pretty much nonstop propaganda parade of misidentification of forces, of weaponry, who supplied what, who attacks what, who blew up who...
I'm not buying jack doodlely about any of this until way afterward when the blown smoke kinda drifts away.