Click over to this video on Twitter and watch a Russian soldier trying - in vain - to get away from an enemy drone by dodging around a destroyed tank. The drone catches up with him anyway, and . . . well, you can see for yourself.
In "my" war during the 1980's, a well-armed, well-trained soldier could hold his own against most enemies, and in concert with his comrades in arms could usually prevail. Now? He's at the mercy of a drone using sensors that can see him by day or night, in sun or rain or snow or hail, and doggedly stay on his tracks until it gets close enough to kill him. He can see his own death approaching and can do nothing to stop it. Even if he should somehow succeed in shooting down that drone before it kills him, there'll be another one along in a moment, and then another, and so on and so forth. Sooner or later, technology will kill him as pitilessly and mercilessly as a lion taking down its supper.
I'd hate to be a soldier on a modern battlefield. I think I'd feel utterly helpless, powerless to fend off impending doom.
Peter
28 comments:
Soldiers?
How about civilians? Livestock? Infrastructure? Vehicles? Aircraft?
The applications are limitless.
The future is horror.
Where is the center/man guiding the drone?
I'd hate to think it was in a "restricted" building/area such as a hospital/school such as Hamas was using.
If the center (or the country that fed information to the center) were anyhere but in the Ukraine, that country would then be a reasonable target for Russia's forces - no?
The saying, "Keep your friends close, your enemies closer' is taking on new meaning. I would think some of the technology I was working on thirty years ago would be reaching a deployable state. It certainly seemed like a good counter solution to battlefield surveillance.
Humans will adapt and find ways to continue fighting.
It will be like WWI, but with covered trenches.
Frontal assaults only after the airspace has been cleared of drones with EMP drones.
And massive artillery barrages from distances the drones don't handle.
The war will be fought in the electromagnetic spectrum.
That was a nice one...
umm, where is his weapon?
and sadly, as far as I can tell the US Army is taking no steps to counter these drones. It's like they think and will persist in thinking that 'this won't happen on our battlefields.'
Soldier? Try being a civilian. No-knock drone attacks.
The best thing about sending so much armaments and armor overseas to Ukraine and Israel, is that there should be less to use on the populace in the US.
Soldiers?
These devices can be opportunistically deployed against a multitude of targets, with little or no regard for "rules of engagement" or "lawful orders".
Civilians, livestock, infrastructure, vehicles, aircraft will all be easy to delete, from an office, potentially half a world away.
The autonomous flying smart mine... ...horror of (all) of our very near futures.
It's being worked on, but in the US, we have a sever case of generals fighting the last war. The best option I'm aware of that is ready to be fielded in numbers (but won't be) is the DE-MSHORAD program. That's a short-range high-energy laser system mounted on a Stryker hull. It has worked in tests so far but isn't getting priority from the Army. In Israel they are working on Iron Beam and have Smart Shot. https://www.smart-shooter.com/
Read the last war. It highlights how drones will change the landscape of war forever. One drones are programmed to fly themselves possibilities become wider in scope.
It's not just soldiers who will be targeted by this technology. In the future everyone and everything will be fair game. And it may not even be a human deciding on who gets targeted.
"War is a mere continuation of politics by other means" -- Carl von Clausewitz
Another variation on a theme. Assume a tyrannical government [who would most likely have such weapons] that is at war with a political movement, an ethnic group, a religious group, or just some people who have micturated in the government's Wheaties. Civilian assassination, mass-murder, or genocide would be greatly enabled by such weaponry and the will to use it ruthlessly.
Subotai Bahadur
Search YouTube for racing drones. 140 mph, give or take. Civilian target? No payload needed, just impact.
B.S. flag thrown.
That was a "soldier" like I'm the king of Siam.
That thing could have been taken out by any middle-school-age redneck with a single-shot 12 ga. and a turkey load.
If they're going to use drones to chase unarmed people around like white coeds in a horror movie kill house, yes, they can do anything they want. This was like watching the annual harvest of baby Harp seals.
Anyone who was an actual soldier with a loaded, functioning weapon would have won that contest in about 1 magazine.
Notably, no after-video was included with that clip, and it's as likely as not that the dude being chased got up and ran off afterwards, because otherwise they'd have included the graphic proof of success. It isn't like anyone's been squeamish about what's been released before now.
Habeus corpus, or no sale.
Thanks for playing, but we're all full-up on baloney from this conflict, from all sides.
from now on it might be a good idea to carry a shotgun loaded with #4 buck with you at all times
Now is not the time for a drone gap - now is the time for American patriots to begin assembling a drone army for liberty!
A shotgun with double ought might have helped
You all do maintain a pheasant, duck, or skeet shooter in your crew, yes?
what's the price of the drones? they aren't free to build, either in resources or manpower
What shot size for drone? Somewhere between #4 buck and #4 shot, I would think. BB might be a good compromise.
Drones now appear to be cheaper, lighter, and more effective than mortars.
Turkey loads are my bet. Need penetration but also need hits, and 9 pellets of 00 leaves a lot of drone sized gaps after 20 yards.
Maybe a jungle mix of buckshot, buffered with #4 lead shot or turkey shot?
Let's just hope in the coming "troubles" of civilized men vs. barbarian gangs of immigrants and thugs, they won't have such technology. Yeah...it's gonna get to that.
I'm waiting for employees grenades like in Battlefield 2042. They recently tweaked that game where the Recon drone operator Casper can't attach c4 to the drone anymore. Players were using Caspers drone just like it was being used in Ukraine. Wonder if that's where the idea came from.
It was cool to find a sniper with the drone and land it behind him then set off the C4. I guess too many wallet warriors complained.
Drone operator can be anywhere and should use hardline to a transmitter, which shouldn’t be near his position. There is a counter drone war going on too. We are witnessing a replay of WW1 where combat aviation came into fruition.
@ Anonymous
no argument, but the "Drone operator" is receiving info from somewhere.
is the country/firm providing this information therefore a combatant/a willing/paid participant?
Drones are absolutely the future of warfare. Especially against nations like Russia with lots of ground and limited amounts of AA kit.
In the last couple of days Ukraine deployed a large drone (a cessna on remote control) to hit Russia's drone factory.
It also launched a swarm of about 50 (each) to attack 4 airfields in Russia destroying (or damaging enough to make unflyable) at least a dozen Russian aircraft. Likely cost of the 50 drone swarm around US$1M. Cost to Russia between $100M and $1B (and in fact priceless because Russia literally cannot replace these aircraft)
And then there's this Forbes article - https://archive.md/G1uRz
Ukraine is designing and building very cheap kamikaze drones
Cost under $10,000, made in part of standard plumbing/electrical pipe and plastic water bottles as fuel tanks, can be constructed in a small tool shop by a couple of people in an hour or so assuming the key bits like the motors are available
"In the last couple of days Ukraine deployed a large drone (a cessna on remote control) to hit Russia's drone factory."
Supposedly it hit a trade school dormitory.
But in war, who trusts either the Ukrainians or the Russians to report the actual facts?
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