The early days of drone warfare

 

CDR Salamander noted yesterday that the Iranian Shahed-136 drone was based, at least in part, on a joint US-West German development from the 1980's.  He quotes Wikipedia's description.

In the early 1980s, the United States and West Germany began developing an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) designed to detect and engage enemy radar systems. The aircraft was also intended to mimic larger aircraft, acting as a decoy to divert enemy fire from manned aircraft. On the German side, Dornier, and later its successor company DASA, was working on the project for the German Air Force.

During the project’s development, a workable seeker head could not be developed, limiting its suitability for the intended anti-radar mission. This, along with the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, led to the project’s eventual termination. Following the end of the project, details of the system’s design were sold to Israel, which would develop its own IAI Harpy.

There's more at the link.

That's true, of course, but there was an additional drone being developed at the same time that was also sold to Israel.  It was a South African project known as the Kentron ARD-10 Lark.  The following image and report date from the early 1990's.

At the time, South Africa was becoming increasingly sophisticated in its use of the relatively primitive unmanned aerial vehicles of the time.  I had some peripheral involvement in the electronics being developed for them.  An account of the period includes the following:

Various use must have been made during the following years after 1983, however the next open mention was during the 1987-88 raids into Angola (Operations Modular/Hooper/Packer) in which extensive use was made of UAV's for surveillance, reconnaissance, artillery spotting and more interestingly to lure Soviet SAM batteries out of hiding so that our long range G-5/6 guns could hit them. Two Kentron Seeker systems were lost to the last mentioned tactic, although it was apparently more than worth it - many expensive SAM-8/9/13 were fired attempting to shoot the Seeker's down, in doing so not only did they waste valuable ammunition - but also revealed their positions and many of their Soviet SAM sites were then promptly destroyed by G-5/6 artillery fire (apparently one Seeker survived between 16-17 SAM-8 missiles being fired at it before it was finally shot down).

The latter engagements were during 1987/88.  As a direct result of those engagements, the ARD-10 was developed as a more advanced surveillance and reconnaissance platform, with particular emphasis on forcing enemy radars and air defense ordnance to reveal their position.  However, during the same period South Africa embarked on the process that was to lead to democratic elections in 1994, and the ARD-10 was one of many military projects (including the Carver strike fighter) that were canceled due to the peace conference and the end of the Border War.  Its design was sold to Israel for a relative pittance, probably at about the same time that the US-West German project found the same destination.  There seems little doubt that both of those designs were used as input to Israel's Harpy drone, shown below.

It achieved wide international sales and was prominent in a number of smaller wars.  It was later developed into the much more sophisticated Harop drone, shown below, which in modern versions is pretty much state-of-the-art in its field.  It became prominent due to its success in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020. 

Information available about the Kentron ARD-10, Dornier DAR, and Israeli Harpy drones was undoubtedly studied in Iran, and that country's subsequent Shahed 136 bears an unmistakeable resemblance to them all.  All of those aircraft are relatively backward and primitive compared to modern designs;  but then, for a simple strike drone that can be bought cheaply in large numbers and launched in "swarms" to overwhelm enemy defenses, one doesn't need great sophistication.

Russia manufactures the Shahed 136 under license as the Geran-2, and has apparently developed a jet-propelled version of the drone that flies much faster and higher.  This will be harder to intercept, and if its cost can be kept low enough to afford mass production, may make air defense's job much more difficult.  As long as the cost to intercept the drone can be kept higher than the cost to build and operate the drone, the attacker will have an economic advantage.  We'll have to see whether that remains the case as drone technology advances.  If "stealthy" attack drones can be made cheaply enough (something I'm sure many nations are working on), they may pose a grave threat to almost all air defense systems.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 311

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

On the road again

 

My wife and I are headed to Amarillo, where Alma Boykin has invited me to scare terrify enlighten her class about what Africa is really like, versus what their "woke" textbook portrays.  Needless to say, the latter bears little or no relationship to reality!

I'll be offline until Monday morning.  Amuse yourselves with the bloggers in my sidebar.

Peter

Adventures with medical bureaucracy

 

Last Friday I mentioned that my blog post that day would be abbreviated due to a medical appointment.  I duly attended it, and it accomplished what I wanted.  I asked about alternative neurosurgical practices, since I'm not happy with the one I've been using, and the doctor referred me to another neurosurgeon in Dallas for further investigation.  (It seems the problem is to decide precisely what surgery I need:  to fuse two or three more vertebrae in addition to the existing pair, or to remove the latter and encase my entire lumbar spine in a sort of metal cage to stabilize the whole area.  There appears to be serious disagreement over which approach would work best, so I've asked for a second opinion from a more professional professional, if you know what I mean.)

So far, so good . . . but then I called the new doctor's office to set up the appointment.  The conversation went something like this.

Me:  I've been referred to Dr. X for further investigation of my spine injury.  You should have been sent my medical history, copies of X-rays and myelograms, and all that stuff.

Doctor's nurse:  Let me check . . . Yes, we have those.  You'll have to get another myelogram, though, because the previous one was done more than six months ago.  Dr. X won't see you until the new results are available.

Me:  Er . . . this is a problem.  A myelogram is a very expensive and complex procedure.  I can't just ask for it as a private patient:  I have to be referred for it by a doctor.  However, if Dr. X won't see me, he can't issue the referral;  and my local general practitioner certainly can't do so, because it's a specialist procedure.  I can't ask for a referral from my previous neurosurgeons, because I'm moving on from them.  What now?

Doctor's nurse:  I'm afraid that's Dr. X's protocol.  He won't see you without an updated myelogram.

Me:  Well, his protocol has just run headlong into medical bureaucrats, and I'm pretty sure they're going to win.  You're asking me to do the impossible.

Doctor's nurse:  I'm sorry, but my hands are tied.  You're going to have to find some other way to get that myelogram.

Me:  Hangs up, bites tongue, bangs head against brick wall, etc.

I checked with my general practitioner, and sure enough, they can't refer me for a myelogram because it's a specialist procedure, outside their area of competence.  The neurosurgery practice that ordered the previous myelogram has no good reason to order another one.  After all, I'm going to see one of their competitors for a second opinion,  so they'll expect the new doctor to prescribe whatever tests he thinks are necessary.  They're not going to do it for him.

"Laugh!", they said.  "Things could be worse!"  So I did.  And they were.

Oh, well.  This, too, shall pass . . . I just need the administrative equivalent of an enema for the bureaucrats, to make sure it does!

Peter

Two different perspectives on technology, and both are thought-provoking

 

First, an article in American Intelligence addresses artificial intelligence in the agricultural sector.  (American Intelligence provides very few details about itself or those behind it.  I did a search using Supergrok, which provided these details, if you're interested.)

America cannot lead the AI farming revolution while federal policy keeps imported labor cheaper than machines

Every agricultural economy has a legacy. The question is which part is being preserved. The fertile soil is a legacy. The family farms are a legacy. The harvest is a legacy. So is the labor model that brings it in. And across American agriculture, that model has for forty years depended heavily on foreign labor, illegal hiring, and a political class determined not to disturb either.

When a city brochure pairs “legacy” with AI robotics in the same breath, it is not just describing the future. It is making a quiet promise: the technology will advance, but the labor model will not.

America is preparing for the AI age everywhere except the place that feeds the country.

. . .

Autonomous tractors already plant, till, and spray without a driver. Computer-vision systems can scout crops plant by plant. Machine-learning models can optimize water, fertilizer, pest control, and yield down to the meter. Robotic harvesters can pick faster, cleaner, and longer than hand crews. Precision irrigation can be guided by satellite analytics. AI-assisted breeding can compress decades of plant selection into months.

The question is no longer whether American agriculture can automate. It is whether Washington will stop subsidizing the cheap labor model that makes automation a losing bet.

America should be leading this revolution. It builds the software, funds the research, trains the engineers, and talks constantly about technological dominance. Yet federal policy still props up an agricultural labor model built on cheap imported labor, illegal hiring, and guestworker expansion. That bargain has kept human labor cheaper than machines, delayed mechanization, and now risks leaving the United States on the sidelines of a revolution it should own.

There's more at the link.

To a technologist, that sounds wonderful.  Machine intelligence and labor will take over the agricultural sector, modernizing everything and guaranteeing much greater yields and more efficient utilization of resources.  So far, so good . . . but what happens to the many millions of people who earn their living working on farms and in the food industry?  When they're replaced in the fields and the food processors, where will they find employment?  Almost every other sector of the economy is also paring back on human resources and switching to ever greater automation.  How is our economy, our nation, going to cope with the burden of all those thrown out of work by this sea-change?

Furthermore, what will it do to nations that cannot afford to grow their own food even today, but also cannot afford to automate their agriculture?  Will there be seeds they can grow, or will even that be absorbed into techno-agriculture?  What about the illegal aliens who used to flood across our borders to work on American farms?  Now they'll be stuck in their own countries, without work, and possibly without local food either.

I'm not a Luddite.  I think automation and technology can serve us well, if properly managed, and hold out great hope for the future.  However, we can't embrace them blindly unless we also account for those who will be displaced by them.  How are we going to cope with them in our increasingly digital society?  How are they going to adapt, particularly if there's no work available for them to earn a living while they and their families adapt?

That dilemma was discussed last year at the Nexus Conference 2025, 'Apocalypse Now: The Revelation of our Time'.  It was held under the auspices of the Nexus Institute, which describes its mission like this:

As an independent non-profit foundation, the Nexus Institute brings together the world’s foremost intellectuals, artists, scientists and politicians, and encourages them to discuss the questions that really matter. How are we to live? How can we shape our future? Can we learn from our past? Which values and ideas are important, and why?

From reading its Web site, the Institute seems fairly typically left-wing and progressive, but it does appear to try to provide those with different philosophies with an opportunity to participate in wide-ranging discussions.  Here's an excerpt from a panel from last year's conference titled "The Wild West of digital technology in a capitalist system".  I don't agree with many of the points raised (unsurprising, from my right-of-center perspective), but I think they present aspects of the problem that are important, and worth examining.

The future of our technological society is far from settled, and is in many cases unsettling to think about.  I try to keep informed about all sides of the debate, and the article and video clip above have helped me to do that.  I hope you enjoyed them, too.

Peter