Autonomous drones: looks like I was right

 

A week ago I put up an article titled "Drone warfare developments - it's a scary future".  In it, I looked at autonomous AI-guided drones that found targets with a minimum of human input, then made the kill/no-kill decision on their own without a "man-in-the-loop" to make the final call.

It's happening already.

Three Ukrainian civilians were slaughtered by Russian drones that were guided by artificial intelligence, marking an ominous escalation in warfare’s robotic age.

Tetiana Bubynets, 19, a university student, and two others were blown to bits last month at a gas station in the city of Zaporizhzhia by a drone outfitted with an experimental artificial intelligence system that decides, without a human operator, where to strike, the New York Times reported.

The drone, which looked like a model airplane, was programmed to fly towards the gas station, but once it closed in, an AI system autonomously chose its target — most likely propane tanks —  based on its training to recognize such objects, experts and military officials told the paper.

“This is a risk for the whole world,” said Col. Serhiy Minaiev, the commander of Ukrainian air defenses in Zaporizhzhia.

“In a few years, we will be living in a ‘Terminator’ movie. It’s no joke. Machines are making decisions to strike.”

Debris recovered from the gas station and other strike sites around the city revealed that the drones were running on Nvidia minicomputers that determined where the drone would detonate, officials and experts said.

There's more at the link, including photographs of Russia's autonomous AI-guided drone.

What's particularly ominous about that report is that the drone deliberately targeted three civilians, who would not have been wearing uniform and would not have been in a military location.  Instead, they were at a "gas station", where "an AI system autonomously chose its target — most likely propane tanks —  based on its training to recognize such objects".  Those three civilian deaths can't be classed as "collateral damage", as so many official statements so often label such incidents.  They were deliberate damage, selected by the AI in accordance with its programming, because they happened to be convenient targets to spread terror and fear among the local populace.  Furthermore, the NVIDIA chips powering those Russian drones are officially not allowed to be exported to that country . . . but they got there anyway.  If governments can smuggle them through embargoes, so can non-governmental threat groups and criminals.  It's not all that difficult to do.

What's worse is that AI-driven drone technology, and the tactics to use it, are now spreading from Ukraine and Russia to the rest of the world.  For example, Finland is buying and using Ukrainian drone technology, and hiring battlefield-experienced Ukrainian experts to show them how to use it.

Finland is directly integrating Ukrainian battlefield data into its defense industrial base, with President Alexander Stubb emphasizing that Kyiv possesses unprecedented expertise in modern high-intensity warfare.

Speaking on the strategic value of frontline data, Stubb noted that Ukraine holds more real-world combat insights than the rest of Europe combined. Helsinki is now actively applying these hard-learned lessons across its defense sector, drawing critical data on the tactical deployment of drones, missile systems, unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), and combat casualty care under modern fire conditions.

By systematically absorbing Ukraine’s operational data into Nordic defense manufacturing, Helsinki is rapidly adapting NATO’s northern flank to modern, sensor-saturated combat without having to learn those lessons through direct conflict.

Again, more at the link in the X thread - read the many comments from others.  Nor is Finland alone in such measures.  As mentioned last week, a US company is now supplying Ukraine with AI guidance systems for its drone hardware, making them much more deadly on the battlefield.  I've seen reports from at least a dozen countries talking about how they need to learn from Ukraine, and/or buy drone hardware and software from Ukraine, in order to ensure their own national security.  (One of them is Taiwan, which is arming itself to repel a threatened Chinese invasion.  Imagine what a cross-beach amphibious landing would suffer, in terms of both lives and matériel, if it were attacked by a hundred thousand or more autonomous drones before even one enemy soldier had set foot on shore!  Needless to say, China isn't terribly enthusiastic about this.)

It's time we all faced up to the reality of this threat - not just from nations, but from terrorists, and cross-border criminal enterprises such as drug cartels, and even from internal dissident groups such as ANTIFA, BLM and others.  Many of them are extremists, and won't hesitate to garner publicity for their cause by murdering their opponents, or anyone whom they perceive as an enemy.  Think how this might impact routine law enforcement activities.

• A drug cartel in Mexico might find it useful to send a few autonomous drones across the border to attack local, state and federal patrols, so they could sneak their illegal wares into the USA under cover of all the fuss as law enforcement tries to help its comrades.  They're already murdering their own police in Mexico, so why should they hesitate to do the same to ours?
• Rival gangs such as the Crips, the Bloods, the Mexican Mafia, etc. would probably not hesitate to use such weapons against each other (and possibly even against local law enforcement agencies) in their ongoing, never-ending fight to control urban territory for their criminal activities.
• Extremist political groups could use them to attack rival groups and/or individuals.  For example, Charlie Kirk was killed by a sniper while addressing a public gathering.  What if a future speaker could be killed by a high-explosive autonomous drone?  The "shooter" could launch it from several miles away, and be in little or no danger of detection or arrest.

Those are just a few possible examples, and they're all entirely feasible.  I think that in as little as three to five years from now, we're going to see attacks on civilian targets by autonomous drones in many countries, from who knows how many sources.  There's no guarantee that we, personally, might not become a victim of them.

Peter

Thought-provoking comments on trade/craft positions in industry

 

John Ringo, best-selling science fiction author, put up this post on X.com yesterday.  It made me think very hard about the current shortage of skilled professional craft/trade persons, which we've discussed in these pages on previous occasions.  Because some readers don't have access to X.com, I'm going to reproduce almost all of it here.  If you're on X, please feel free to read the many comments following his post, and reply to John there (and leave a comment here anyway!).

One very critical thing to know/remember about 'the trades' and 'why did we get rid of votech in HS?'

I'm a late boomer and not one to automatically blame everything on boomers, but... the boomers are a big reason.

Essentially, boomers filled nearly ALL of the trade positions that the US needed, even got laid off when manufacturing got outsourced, and there were lots and lots of people born between 1946 and 1964 who were doing plumbing, electrician, mechanic, etc jobs.

And they didn't retire. It used to be skilled union workers could retire after 20 years. The boomers didn't. My best friend is a NETA Level Four and has been doing ETT for 30 years. All the 'kids' who would have moved into his job couldn't... because he was doing it.

During the '90s there just WERE VERY FEW TRADE JOBS AVAILABLE in the United States. There was no reason for HS to keep votech when NOBODY COULD GET A JOB. There WEREN'T (many) plumber jobs, electrician jobs, machinists positions available for people entering the work force. They were all filled up by boomers.

(Example: Have a friend who works in the nuclear industry. Had to regularly certify this big complex part that was hand machined by one guy who had been doing it since 1976. THAT WAS WHEN CARTER WAS IN OFFICE! 'What happens when he retires?' 'We're not sure. There's nobody else on earth that has the skills.')

Now, as they are finally retiring, suddenly WE NEED VOTECH! WE NEED KIDS TO WORK IN TRADES! WE NEED KIDS TO MAN THE ASSEMBLY LINES! WHERE ARE THE WELDERS?! WHAT'S WRONG WITH KIDS THESE DAYS?! THEY'RE JUST LAZY AND WANT TO PLAY VIDEO GAMES/BE INFLUENCERS/PLAY ON THEIR PHONES ALL DAY!

The United States essentially eliminated skilled trade as a POSSIBLE job much less a STATUS VALUE job for at least one entire 25 year generation. We need x million new electricians in 2026. We needed about 5 in 1996. 'Sorry, kid, we're not hiring/training new electrician apprentices unless your dad is a master electrician. We just don't need that many.'

So, most of the training, HS votech, apprenticeships just went away.

It's gonna take time to fix that.

Food for thought indeed!  Please provide your own input on the subject in Comments.

Peter

Drone warfare developments - it's a scary future

 

Many of my readers doubtless took note of a report earlier this month about a US-Ukrainian military exercise earlier this year.

Ukrainian drone teams demolished a brigade of US Army tanks and armored vehicles during a live war game held this year—but the US soldiers were lucky enough to get “respawn” attempts while learning from the experience.

The semiannual military exercise, called Combined Resolve, gave the US military a firsthand taste of how modern drone warfare has evolved on the battlefields of Ukraine. The Ukrainian drone operators participating in the exercise were easily able to spot and destroy US armored vehicles by mimicking the actions of dropping bombs from above or moving close enough to simulate a kamikaze strike, according to US officials and a participant who spoke with The Wall Street Journal.

. . .

... by repeating the training scenario throughout the two-week exercise, US Army troops got better at figuring out how to disperse and hide from the drones while using countermeasures such as electronic warfare.

The US military is not alone in learning such lessons from battle-hardened Ukrainian drone operators.

Ukrainian drone teams also participated in a Swedish-led military exercise for NATO, called Aurora 26, that was also held in May. A mock mechanized assault by NATO tanks and infantry fighting vehicles allowed Ukrainian drones to take out dozens of the attacking armored vehicles, which eventually forced planners to reset the war game, The Kyiv Independent reported.

There's more at the link.

While trying to find out more, I came across this 45-minute video article from Deutsche Welle.  Itfeatures both a drone operator's perspective (a British soldier fighting for Ukraine) and drone casualties speaking of it from their point of view.  It also goes into how the technology is developing, and how China already has a commanding lead in the field.  As wars become more widespread, what will this mean for soldiers?  I recommend the report very highly if you aren't up to date with recent developments.

The technological advances referred to in the video report are already making headlines.  Earlier this month, we learned that US AI technology is now "enhancing" conventional Ukrainian drones.

In mid-July, the Ukrainian military began receiving Shrike drones made by the Ukrainian company SkyFall equipped with AI-powered autonomy hardware and software developed by the US company Auterion. The companies plan to deliver 50,000 drones equipped with Auterion’s Skynode S strike kits in the coming months.

That allows human operators to manually fly the Shrike first-person view (FPV) drones into a battlefield area, designate a target up to half a mile away, and then “flip the switch to turn it into fire-and-forget terminal guidance mode,” Lorenz Meier, co-founder and CEO of Auterion, told Ars.

The operator can abort a strike or choose a different target as long as they have a radio signal connection with the drone, Meier explained. But the drone can still automatically track and fly into targets without any human guidance, even if it loses its connection with the operator due to buildings or terrain blocking the signal or because of enemy jamming on the same radio frequencies.

To home in on targets, Auterion’s software relies solely on the visual information available from the Shrike drone’s main onboard camera. That means the Shrike drones can track and strike moving targets without any reliance on GPS—a crucial advantage on modern battlefields, where GPS jamming has also become common.

Again, more at the link.

When I think back on my own days in uniform, I can only be devoutly grateful that we didn't have to face such devices on African battlefields almost half a century ago.  I think my odds of surviving such combat would have been a whole lot lower if they'd been around!

The scary thing, to my mind, is that all this technology has already devolved to individual user level, in manufacturing as much as in operation.  A private person can buy just about all the drone propulsion and guidance technology used in military battlefield drones, and assemble his own versions.  A warhead isn't difficult to devise, given a little chemical knowledge and/or access to stolen military or commercial explosives.  What might happen if a well-organized terrorist outfit such as Al Qaeda or ISIS, or their various and sundry offshoots, were able to get hold of drone "swarming" technology and launch fifty or a hundred explosive drones against a major target?  I'm thinking sports stadiums, or government buildings, or even key targets such as the President when he's traveling by vehicle.  What if some of the drones could try to obstruct the takeoff or landing of the Presidential aircraft?  What if they did the same to a normal commercial flight, potentially causing hundreds of casualties and disrupting the entire air transport network for who knows how long?

I fear we haven't even begun to witness how dangerous such technology might be in the wrong hands.

Peter

A sobering look at automation, here and in China

 

Fedex is making news by employing robots to load and unload trailers.

FedEx says that trailer loading remains one of the most physically demanding and challenging workflows in parcel logistics, but has historically been difficult to automate using traditional solutions. However, the workflow is fundamental to FedEx operations since the company loads tens of thousands of trailers daily across its U.S. network.

Through its collaboration with Dexterity, FedEx said it is now establishing not only how physical AI performs in trailer loading operations, but also how the technology integrates into broader hub operations, including destination planning, trailer assignment, maintenance, and workforce processes.

Dexterity says its platform uses the company’s “Foresight” world model for physical AI to make real-time decisions in dynamic environments., and to control its dual-armed superhumanoid robot called “Mech,” that is designed for heavy industrial operations while remaining compact enough to operate inside trailers.

There's more at the link.

That is (or should be) yet another wake-up call to the trades unions representing US transport and cargo handling workers.  Slowly but surely, their members' jobs are being taken over by automation.  Amazon is already using a largely robotic workforce at many of its biggest and busiest customer service warehouses and hubs, and where Fedex goes, UPS and other shippers will go there too (if they haven't done so already).  I suspect most blue-collar workers have not given enough thought to what they'll do for a living if jobs like those are automated out from under them.

The bigger worry, to me, is the enormous gap between automation in first-world economies versus what's happening in China.  Consider this chart (click the image for a larger view):

The article accompanying that chart says, in part:

The data covers only physical industrial robots, not software or consumer technologies.

The chart shows that in 2011, China, the United States, Japan, Germany, and South Korea were all installing similar numbers of these robots. However, in the decade that followed, the paths of these countries diverged. By 2023, annual installations in China had risen to 276,000 robots, a twelvefold increase.

Over the same period, installations in the United States, Japan, Germany, and South Korea also increased, but much more slowly: none of them even doubled. The United States, which saw the second-largest rise, went from 21,000 new installations in 2011 to 38,000 in 2023.

These figures refer to new robots installed each year; that is, annual additions to the existing stock of robots. The IFR also publishes data on the total number of robots in operation, and by this measure, China also had the largest installed base, at around 1.76 million robots in 2023.

Again, more at the link.

The USA's total installed base of industrial robots was less than 400,000 units at the end of 2024.  At the same time, China had more than two million units in service.  The gap has only widened since then, and at a faster pace, too.

Those who say that we need to revive US manufacturing aren't looking hard enough at those numbers.  I don't believe it's possible any longer to rejuvenate US manufacturing in the traditional sense.  If we focus on technological sophistication, that's a different story:  but China's working on that just as hard as we are, if not more so.  Yes, I've read recent reports that China's economy is in trouble, and that they may be facing recession or depression:  but that doesn't take away from the immense technological lead they've built up in manufacturing.

This latest news from Fedex is a step forward for the company.  However, it's a drop in the bucket compared to what China is already doing.  American companies had better innovate a lot faster if they want to avoid being swept away by a Chinese-led tsunami in the business world.  That's not just a problem here, of course:  Europe is even worse off than we are.  Trouble is, I don't think enough of our private sector business leaders are paying it enough attention.  They're focused on their next quarterly results, not whether they'll still exist in a few years' time . . .

Let's give the last word to Dire Straits.

Peter

Is the UAE taking combat warship lessons from Israel?

 

Some years ago, I said about the Israeli Navy:

I like the Israeli approach, which crams lots of hitting power into even small hulls (see, for example, its Sa'ar 5 class corvettes, which as far as I know are the most heavily armed ships of their size [just over 1,000 tons] anywhere in the world, and on an armament-per-ton or tons-per-weapon basis might be the most heavily armed warships since the age of the dreadnought).

That approach has since been epitomized even more in Israel's Sa'ar 6 corvettes, almost twice the displacement of the earlier Sa'ar 5's, but even more heavily armed.  There are probably more weapons and weapon systems aboard a Sa'ar 6 than aboard any two, or even three, typical NATO frigates.

I thought about this when reading an article about the new Falaj 3 class "patrol boats" of the United Arab Emirates.  Their displacement is only about 670 tons, but they've packed an awful lot of firepower into that small hull.

Photos of the United Arab Emirates’ Falaj 3 class patrol boat are a reminder that a vessel doesn’t need to be a corvette or even a frigate to be armed like one. At a little over 200 feet long, the Falaj 3 is officially designated an offshore patrol vessel (OPV), but it boasts a weapons suite that would be impressive on a missile corvette and, in some respects, even a light frigate. In fact, at around 670 tons full load displacement, and a crew of just 39, it may be one of the most heavily armed warships anywhere in the world for its size.

OPVs are generally built for constabulary duties rather than high-end naval combat. Their primary missions include enforcing exclusive economic zones, countering piracy and smuggling, fisheries protection, search and rescue, and humanitarian assistance. As a result, they typically prioritize endurance, seakeeping, and low operating costs over heavy armament. Many Western designs in this category carry little more than a medium-caliber gun and a handful of remotely operated weapon systems, with no dedicated anti-ship missiles or significant air-defense systems.

The Falaj 3 takes a very different approach, as is immediately apparent from these photos.

Forward sits a Leonardo 76mm OTO Super Rapid gun equipped with the STRALES guided ammunition system, giving the ship a weapon capable of engaging everything from surface targets to fast-moving aerial threats ... Directly behind the gun is an eight-cell vertical launch system loaded with MBDA VL MICA surface-to-air missiles. This ‘fire and forget’ missile can intercept targets at a range of up to around 12 miles and at altitudes of up to 30,000 feet.  Further aft is a 21-cell Raytheon Mk 49 launcher for the RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM), giving the vessel a second, independent layer of point air defense. Most OPVs are fortunate to carry an adapted man-portable air defense system, if they have any dedicated air-defense system at all.

The offensive fit is equally notable. Four MM40 Exocet Block 3C anti-ship missiles provide over-the-horizon strike capability, while two 12-cell Low-cost Guided Imaging Rocket (LOGIR) guided rocket launchers offer an inexpensive way to engage drones, uncrewed surface vessels, and fast attack craft without expending much more costly missiles ... Completing the package are two Electro Optic Systems (EOS) R400-M 30mm remote weapon stations and two 32-barrel Rheinmetall Multi Ammunition Soft-kill System (MASS) decoy launchers, providing close-range firepower and survivability against incoming guided weapons, respectively.

There's more at the link.

I entirely agree with a powerful weapons load-out like that.  It remains a perennial worry to some naval observers (including me) that so many corvettes, frigates and destroyers in US and European service are relatively lightly armed for their size.  There isn't enough depth to their defenses, particularly if they face a swarm of incoming drones or missiles.  If they miss even one, they may suffer severe, disabling damage.  They can't even reload missiles at sea, meaning that in a serious engagement, they'd shoot themselves dry in a relatively short space of time.  After that . . . they're expensive targets.  (Compare them to their equivalents in the former Soviet Union and/or the Russian Navy today.  The Russians have not forgotten the lessons of history, and arm their ships accordingly.  See, for example, that nation's Steregushchiy and Gremyashchiy classes.)

I hope the example of the Falaj 3 class of patrol vessels is studied, and spreads.  We live in an increasingly dangerous world, particularly the ocean passages through narrow straits like Hormuz, Bab-el-Mandeb, etc.  To defend them, we need larger numbers of considerably more powerful vessels than have so far been employed.  Air power has its place, of course, but in the end ships at sea are like infantry on the ground.  You need them to take and hold strategic areas.

Peter

I had no idea these things existed

 

I've heard of machines that deploy barbed or razor wire, making it easy to set up fences, obstacles, etc.  However, I'd never heard of a machine that got rid of those fences, even decades after they'd been strung.

A wire winder mounted on a skid steer can roll up a half-mile of old fence in about two minutes, a task that would probably take a half-day to accomplish by hand, said John Graves, director of conservation and resource management for the Sheridan Community Land Trust.

“It’s pretty darn cool,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “To sit there in the cab of the skid steer and watch that wire come in, it’s great.”

The importance of removing old barbed wire and woven-wire fences can’t be overstated, said Steve Martin, Wyoming director of the North American Pronghorn Association.

Old fences can block pronghorn from reaching thousands of acres of habitat in the Red Desert and other places in Wyoming and Montana, Martin told Cowboy State Daily.

There are countless miles of fence that must be removed and replaced with wildlife-friendly fencing, he said.

. . .

“Unlike deer and elk, pronghorn will rarely, if ever, jump a fence. They want to crawl under it,” he said.

So woven-wire fences are particularly hard on pronghorn, he said, because there’s no way to get underneath them.

Researchers from the University of Wyoming concluded that fences trapped pronghorn in areas of the Red Desert during the harsh 2022-2023 winter, and many of them died.

Recent upgrades to wildlife-friendly fences in the Red Desert opened up about 10,000 acres to pronghorn, Martin said.

There's more at the link.  Here's a brief video clip of the wire winder at work.

That's pretty ingenious.  I wonder who came up with the idea?  It's just another addition to the huge variety of tools and equipment that can be hung onto or off of skid-steer machines.  I saw one around here that had more than a dozen different attachments arranged in a long row at one side of the yard.  The driver could simply drive up to a gap in the row, drop the attachment he'd been using into the open space, drive to the next gizmo he needed, connect it up, and away he went.  It can't have taken more than a minute or two per attachment.  That's productivity for you!

Peter

So much for advanced computer technology!

 

Many of us will know of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, a long-standing comic strip by Zach Weinersmith.  Sometimes he can make me laugh out loud.  As an "old-school" computer operator, programmer and analyst, way back in my distant youth, I did so when I read this one.  Click the image to be taken to a larger version at the comic's Web page (which will also allow you to read the mouseover text attached to the original image).

While on the subject of computer technology, there's an interesting article about Steve Krug, one of the pioneers of Web design.  He thinks social media is the worst thing that's happened in the last forty years.

He lays out his ideal version of social media. Users wouldn't be able to have more than 100 followers, which would tamp down on virality. Short-form videos would also be more difficult to find — only available via search and subscriptions, not through a curated algorithm — and wouldn't be "spoon-fed to you in such large doses," he says. That's a level of friction that he'd enjoy.

"There could have been a really good life for social networking that could have been a benefit to society," Krug says. "It hasn't gone in that direction at all."

He's especially worried about kids. When he was young, there were only three TV stations. Still, his parents didn't let him sit in front of the television every day after school, so he went to run around with the neighborhood kids instead. It benefited him, he says.

"They're designed for addiction, because that's how they make money," Krug says of the social platforms.

There's more at the link.  Recommended reading.

Peter

I wouldn't bet against this man...

 

I was intrigued to read this post about Elon Musk.  Click the screen capture below to be taken to the full-size version on X.com.

I admire Elon Musk.  He's made some mistakes, sure, but who hasn't?  However, he seems to learn from his mistakes a lot faster and a lot better than the rest of us, and proceeds to show the rest of the world how it's done.

That's why I'm also intrigued by the launch of X Money a few days ago.  Musk was one of the founders of Paypal, and withdrew from it several years ago.  He learned a lot about the consumer finance industry at that time (not to mention all he's learned about the corporate finance industry before and since).  X Money is still in its early stages, but I expect it'll incorporate all those lessons in due course, and will probably end up being a major threat to the consumer banking industry.  It's already offering an interest rate of 6% - three times higher than most banks of which I'm aware.  For those who keep "nest eggs" handy, either as an emergency reserve or saving to buy something expensive, that's a very large incentive, offering interest rates that offset most of what inflation is costing us.

This isn't an advertisement for X Money.  I'm just very interested to see what Musk's new venture will offer people like you and I.  I fully expect panicked reaction from consumer banks as they try to stop their customers from trying X Money for themselves.  Will this turn into his latest success story?  I wouldn't bet against it - or him.

Peter

A Grail Gun for collectors

 

Readers with any connection to the shooting sports and/or law enforcement will recognize the name of Bill Jordan.  His accomplishments are far too many to describe here:  one was to draw his firearm from a holster, shoot, and hit his target in 0.27 of a second!  He merits inclusion in any Top Ten list of American shooters.

Now comes the news that a special presentation Smith & Wesson Model 19 "Combat Magnum" revolver, a one-of-a-kind firearm with engraving specially developed for this weapon, is up for sale on Gunbroker.  It's almost certain to go for six figures, I think.  Feast your eyes on this (click the image for a larger view) and the other photographs available at the link.

The seller's headline for the gun is simply "GRAIL", shorthand for "grail gun", a well-known term used by firearms collectors.  The blurb reads as follows:

Presented here is a truly extraordinary and one-of-a-kind engraved revolver, meticulously crafted and personally presented to U.S. lawman, Marine, Texas resident, and renowned author Bill Jordan in recognition of his distinguished service with the United States Border Patrol, his pioneering role as the father of the K-Frame .357 Magnum Combat revolver, and his illustrious career as an exhibition shooter. This special revolver features intricate gold inlay and masterful engraving, with a high-quality design completed on April 25, 1989, never to be repeated. The work includes gold outline borders surrounding the "SMITH & WESSON" barrel marking and flowing into Jordan’s signature, also inlaid in gold, along with floral scroll engravings on the under lug. The frame boasts 75% coverage floral scrolls, a gold banner inscribed with "No Second Place Winner" from Jordan’s book, and a gold and silver Border Patrol badge on the side plate. The top of the backstrap bears the signature of Smith & Wesson Master Engraver Paul Piquette. The cylinder features floral scrolls between the flutes, all inside gold inlaid triangular borders, and the revolver is fitted with a gold bar inlaid blade front sight, an adjustable rear sight, and custom scrimshaw-Ivory inlaid grips—one medallion depicting the U.S. Border Patrol and the other a portrait of Jordan. Encased in a finely fitted walnut display case with a green interior and Border Patrol medallion on the lid, this piece is accompanied by a wealth of documentation, including a factory letter confirming its unique status, a letter from former S&W President T. Stephen Melvin expressing gratitude for Jordan’s contributions, remarks from Melvin at the NRA presentation event, and an article by Walton P. Sellers about his brief acquaintance with Jordan.

William Henry Jordan (1911–1997) was a celebrated Texas native whose over three-decade career with the U.S. Border Patrol included serving as Assistant Chief Patrol Inspector, and he was also a Marine Corps Reserve colonel during World War II and the Korean War. Jordan made significant contributions to firearms development, collaborating with Walter Roper on revolver grips, assisting Smith & Wesson in designing the .357 Magnum K-Frame, and helping Elmer Keith and Skeeter Skelton develop the .41 Magnum. Recognized with the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Ronald Reagan, Jordan also served as a field representative for the NRA, demonstrating exceptional quick draw skills, teaching western actors, and authoring numerous articles and books, including his acclaimed autobiography, "No Second Place Winner," which is included with this piece. His legacy as a lawman, shooter, innovator, and author is celebrated through this extraordinary engraved revolver, a fitting tribute to his remarkable life and career.

I'm afraid that revolver would be wasted on me, because I don't have any "safe queens" that never get used.  If I have a gun, I'd like to shoot it from time to time - and shooting this one-of-a-kind presentation piece, even once, would knock thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) off its value.  I hope whoever buys it will appreciate the sheer artistry it exhibits, and enjoy looking at it - and that he/she has another Model 19 to shoot regularly, so as to appreciate it all the more!

Peter

The growing relationship between sound and healing

 

For thousands of years, shamanistic medicine has included music (usually in fairly primitive forms, such as drumming or a shuffling dance rhythm) in its repertoire of healing techniques.  It now appears that perhaps music - or, rather, sound waves - may indeed have an integral role to play in healing.  Ted Gioia tells us more.

Every month, some remarkable new property of sonic healing gets validated by research or clinical practice. And the developments of the last few days are especially exciting.

Consider the recent news from MIT, where researchers eliminated 50% of the brain plaque associated with Alzheimer’s. And they did it with 40 Hz soundwaves—no surgery or drugs were necessary. The procedure is completely non-invasive.

And look at this brand new study, which reveals the potential to counter inflammation and reduce joint pain with low-intensity ultrasound. Body tissue magically starts to repair itself—with potential for use in everything from treating arthritis to recovering from injuries.

And check out this article, published just yesterday, which describes a significant improvement in motor skills among Parkinson’s patients—all because of ultrasound.

But I’m especially excited by the recent announcement from San Francisco research lab Midjourney. They have developed a new scanning technology involving ultrasound—and it sounds like science fiction. “We’re building a bold new kind of machine to reimagine the foundations of healthcare and our relationships to our bodies,” the company boasts.

It doesn’t even feel like a medical procedure—more like a visit to the health spa. In fact, that’s what the company will call its diagnostic centers: Spas.

It starts by stepping into a shallow pool of golden light. You then begin to descend into the water. Your body passes through a ring of underwater sensors, each acting like a dolphin, using its echolocation. The sensors send ultrasonic sound waves through your body from every angle. With enough waves, and enough angles, we form an image of what’s happening inside your body.

The goal is for this process to take no more than 60 seconds.

You go into the water, you come out of the water, and you’re done.

The result is “a 3D map of your body, down to a fraction of a millimeter.” But here’s the payoff:

We think it's completely possible that with enough early imaging in the future, the world could avoid 30% of all deaths and 50% of all healthcare costs.

There's more at the link.

As a musician, Ted is particularly excited by the potential mingling of his field and that of medicine.  He goes into a lot of background detail about it, which should be of particular interest to other musicians, but also to us less tuneful folk who merely want to get better in health terms.  I was particularly intrigued to learn that Midjourney, previously known as an AI-assisted graphics program, was now moving in an entirely new and (as far as I know) unrelated direction.

Recommended reading.

Peter

Stories that developed during my absence

 

I've been following a number of stories in recent days, and some others popped up during my absence at LibertyCon.  I thought I'd put them all into a single post here, so you can decide which ones you'd like to investigate further.  Click the title to be taken to the post/article concerned.

1.  The Commies Mount An Across the Board Push: DSA targets local elections around the nation in a well-planned strategy.

Instapundit author Glenn Reynolds points out that "The DSA and its allies have targeted local elections because they can mobilize a small but decisive number of voters in low-turnout elections".  This thinly-disguised extreme Socialist/Communist movement is trying to take over the Democratic Party from the inside, working its way upward through the ranks.  It's a timely warning, IMHO.

2.  Income needed to afford a median-priced home has nearly doubled since 2020, report finds.

It's no wonder younger people today complain that they simply can't afford a home of their own.  The cost of the latter has almost doubled in six years, but salaries certainly haven't followed suit.  I'd hoped for a "price dividend" as illegal aliens were deported (or deported themselves), but their absence from the housing market hasn't yet made much of a difference.  Can things find a new balance?

3.  Everest hospital scrambles for antivenom as snakes migrate to high ground.

"Experts said venomous snakes, including king cobras, were heading up the mountains as the climate warmed, threatening tourists and climbers."  That's a new and unexpected danger in the Himalayas, which have been relatively snake-free until now due to their extremely cold ambient temperature.

4.  Try Not to Crack a Rib Laughing.

"Police say 41-year-old Leonard “Lil Riblet” Barksdale allegedly hopped a privacy fence in Southeast Memphis around 2:13 AM after spotting what he reportedly described as '“a lightly supervised gas grill'. According to neighbors, Lil Riblet moved through the backyard 'with the confidence of a man who’s never once considered consequences.' That confidence lasted approximately four seconds. Because waiting in the yard was Memphiszilla… a pit bull described by witnesses as 'Built like a refrigerator with childhood trauma'."

5.  AI helped diagnose 18 children whose rare diseases had stumped doctors.

"OpenAI’s o3 Deep Research model helped clarify 18 diagnoses for children who had struggled to find causes for their illnesses and symptoms. 'It’s a total game changer,' said one of the study’s lead researchers, Catherine Brownstein, the scientific director of the genetic investigations arm of the Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research at Boston Children’s Hospital."

6.  Pokémon Go Scans Quietly Trained the Navigation Tech Now Headed Into Military Drones.

"Hundreds of millions of Pokémon Go players spent years filming the streets, parks, and buildings around them to earn in-game rewards. Those roughly 30 billion environmental scans are now owned by Niantic Spatial, and they helped train a camera-based navigation model that a U.S. defense contractor is preparing to put into drones and other military robots. Most of the players had no idea."

I hope you found them as interesting as I did.

Peter

Artificial intelligence and music: noteworthy?

 

I was struck by an article in RealClear Books & Culture, titled "A.I. Panic Hits Music City".  Here's an excerpt.

Suno is the AI music app sweeping the music world and raising serious questions about the future of the industry. By typing a few prompts into a text box, you—or rather, the algorithm—can generate professional-sounding songs. If you upload your own melodies or lyrics, it can create new versions of your original content. As one song after another plays in the pitch meeting, more of these AI-produced tracks appear, most carrying that same disorienting quality: songs that sound better than they actually are, polished to a high gloss by machine production.

As Barack Obama once said, you can put lipstick on a pig and it's still a pig. Likewise, you can have Michelangelo paint a mural on the ceiling of your uncle Ned's double-wide trailer, but that doesn't make it the Sistine Chapel. Whatever one thinks of the songs, one thing is certain: AI is alarmingly good at producing music at a quality level that, until now, required highly-paid professionals who had spent their lives honing their craft.

Songwriting, Nashville style, is a craft, and a slow-burning one at that. You spend years learning how to write a great bridge, how to make a hook land, how to fit your whole life into three minutes and fifteen seconds. I had heard friends in the business grumbling about what AI was doing to all of that. But I knew I had to find out firsthand. So I went home and fed my song into the machine.

Confronting AI for the first time as a musician can be harrowing. I'd recently watched a video posted by a local touring guitarist—the kind of sideman Nashville produces in abundance—who described receiving an AI guitar track from a client as a reference. The problem: the AI-performed track was so good, he wasn't sure he could match it. He felt there might be only five human beings in the world who could play it so well. This is coming from a professional in a city that represents perhaps the greatest concentration of musical talent in the world.

So it was with some dread that I picked a pop-country tune I'd written recently and uploaded it to Suno, instructing it to “Make a dark, soulful indie country cover of this song with a driving beat.” The platform can generate a complete song from scratch. Meaning, a person with zero talent and almost zero effort can make songs. People are currently creating more than 7 million songs per day on that platform alone, enough volume to surpass the entire Spotify catalog every two weeks. But the technology can also be used more subtly, to create faithful covers of work you've already recorded. It's like having your own band of professional musicians in a box, ready to take direction. That's what I chose to do: I uploaded my rough demo, along with my lyrics, asked it to make a faithful cover, and clicked "generate."

The results were all over the place. One early experiment produced something that sounded like a hit single. The AI singer was so soulful that I would have pulled over to Google him had I heard the track on the radio. But the same version had a hideous, wildly inappropriate drum sound that started firing in verse two, as if Christopher Walken had possessed the algorithm and started demanding more snare. Other versions produced strange discordant moments or went emotionally flat. Working effectively with AI in music isn't a single push of a button. It's an iterative process of trial and error. But after making many versions, I found two keepers.

. . .

There was only one problem: the AI singer had possibly sung my song better than I ever could. In a town full of great singers, I'm considered at least a good one. But the AI voice had everything—incredible control, emotional nuance, and a back-country drawl I'll never have as a Florida native ... Still, the AI offered something genuinely useful: production ideas I wouldn't have thought of myself. A minor chord in the bridge that improved the arrangement. Taking the final chorus up an octave for power and exuberance. A cool twist on the background vocals in the outro. Killer mandolin parts injecting energy into the choruses. These are the kinds of ideas I might have paid a top producer to provide. I was getting them for the price of a $15 subscription.

There's more at the link.

I haven't looked into AI in music in any depth, so this article came as a surprise to me.  Intrigued, I looked for AI country music on YouTube, and found innumerable examples.  Try this one for size.  The source blurb for the collection from which it's drawn notes:  "Made with AI. Sounds or visuals were altered or fully generated."

It's a good song, IMHO, and I enjoyed it . . . but I'm left feeling empty, because behind that powerful singing and memorable tune, behind those excellently-played instrumentals . . . there's nobody.  The inspiration it offers is artificial.

Would I feel different if I hadn't known it was AI music?  I don't know, but I think I would.  A song composed and performed by a human being connects heart-to-heart, I guess.  Synthetic songs can imitate that, and if they're as good as the one above, they can fool people, but . . . it just feels wrong.

What say you, friends?

Peter

Is the tank dead on today's battlefield? Two perspectives

 

During my military service, I was never involved with tanks (or any other armored vehicle), apart from hitching a ride on one now and again.  I also had a couple of Soviet-built tanks shooting at my position once upon a time, which was most unpleasant.  Fortunately they went away without doing too much damage.

Be that as it may, the advent of drone warfare has made many question whether the tank has a future or not.  That question has been asked before, of course, particularly when the first anti-tank missiles made their appearance in the 1950's.  Those early missiles might have been buggy, clumsy and not very accurate, but if they hit what they were aimed at, the results tended to be unpleasant for those inside.  (I can remember the first-generation French ENTAC missile, which was used by South Africa along with later-generation MILAN missiles.  The former was a bit of a dog.  The latter was very successful, and very useful.)

Two articles over the past week, both by British authors and focused around British and NATO equipment, have examined the issue anew.  First:  "On Nato’s border with Russia, I witnessed the death of tank warfare".

Last week Latvia's military chief warned that Moscow has gained an edge over Nato in drone warfare and could exploit Europe's slow rearmament drive and invade the Baltics by 2028.

Nato commanders now face a looming crisis: learning how to fight on a 21st-century battlefield dominated by AI-assisted drones that can rapidly spot and target tanks and military vehicles from the skies.

. . .

Traditionally, the frontlines were ruled by tanks. Acting as armoured juggernauts, they were able to punch through enemy defences with firepower.

And while military planners still believe tanks have a place in war, some have questioned whether they are able to hold ground as they did in the past.

. . .

Across Ukraine, drones account for more than 90 per cent of battlefield casualties, the vast majority being tanks and armoured vehicles.

The enormous task of overcoming this modern threat faces commanders from across Nato, as allied nations scramble to re-equip their militaries and stockpile weapons systems capable of defending against the inevitable drone onslaught that will dominate the wars of the future.

. . .

To combat the threat posed by Russia, Nato has set up the eastern flank deterrence line (EFDI), to defend its border from Finland to Romania.

It is like a modern-day Maginot Line, an ill-fated series of fortifications built by France in the 1930s but which failed to stop Nazi Germany from invading in the Second World War.

However, Nato chiefs are confident the EFDI will be able to hold, using AI-enabled targeting and autonomous systems to destroy assaulting troops and vehicles in a kill zone stretching hundreds of miles.

"We have changed our exercises to directly rehearse how we will fight," said Gen Christopher Donahue, the commander of US Army Europe & Africa.

. . .

Currently, the Army has around 6,000 drones in its arsenal. However, it is understood these could be depleted within a week in a war with Russia. Soldiers say the pace of drone delivery needs to increase, describing the kit as "absolute game-changers".

"We need to get them rolled out like now. I can't emphasise it enough," said Cpl John Mackenzie, 27, who was training in Finland.

There's more at the link.

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former tank officer, has a different view.  His article is titled "The tank isn’t dead. It’s just changing."

In the drone-infested battlefields of Ukraine, and across Nato exercises increasingly dominated by unmanned systems, it is easy to conclude that the tank's days are numbered. The burnt-out wrecks of Russian armour scattered across the Donbass seem to provide compelling evidence.

Yet history urges caution. Since the first great tank battle at Cambrai in 1917, commentators, academics and journalists have repeatedly declared the death of the tank. Every time, they have been proven wrong.

. . .

Reducing our ability to conduct armoured manoeuvre warfare would undermine one of the fundamental pillars of land combat, a principle that has endured since the First World War and arguably much longer. An even greater error would be to procure digitally enabled platforms such as Challenger 3 and Ajax without fully funding the active protection systems and hard-kill defensive suites required for them to survive on a battlefield saturated with drones and autonomous weapons.

. . .

The [Strategic Defence Review] correctly recognises that warfare is changing. It estimates that 80 per cent of future battlefield lethality will come from drones and autonomous systems, with only 20 per cent delivered by traditional platforms such as Challenger 3, Ajax and attack helicopters.

The implication is clear: there will be far more unmanned systems and far fewer manned vehicles. The British Army's future force of 148 Challenger 3 tanks is in stark contrast to the nearly 700 main battle tanks in service when I joined the Army 37 years ago. Back then, drones did not exist.

The future battlefield will include robotic combat vehicles. Challenger 3 must therefore operate as the command node of a wider digital combat system, controlling a family of drones and autonomous platforms that enhance both its lethality and survivability.

. . .

Tanks have always been vulnerable when operating without infantry support. The lesson has not changed. Tanks must be protected by infantry. Today, they must also be protected by drones and defended against them.

Again, more at the link.

I suspect the real problem is going to be economics.  If a $24 million [Wikipedia's figure] Abrams M1A2 SEPv3 tank can be taken out by a few drones costing less than $5,000 each (possibly much less than that), what's the point of spending that $24 million on one tank instead of four or five thousand drones?  There is a point, of course, from a military perspective, but what's a politician going to think (and say)?  How can he justify the larger expense to his constituents when they're clamoring to save money on defense and spend it on entitlement programs?  That's the cold, hard reality of politics in almost every NATO country right now, and the USA is no exception.

The same arithmetic affects almost every branch of military expenditure right now.  For example, a friend served in an artillery battery with the US Marine Corps.  His M777 howitzer costs $3.7 million apiece (according to one source).  Medium- to long-range drones, accurate enough to hit their targets first time, every time, and even to fly into buildings to run down their exact target, cost about $10,000 apiece from Western manufacturers right now.  Thus, the cost of one M777 cannon, without ammunition, would instead buy up to 400 drones of equivalent terminal performance to an artillery shell, with their warheads built in.  Is it any wonder that the USMC (and many other armed forces around the world) are either considering, or already actively engaged in, reducing their artillery forces while increasing their drone forces?

I'm sure many of my readers have sufficient expertise and experience to weigh in.  What say you, friends?

Peter

A military procurement nightmare: Britain's Typhoon fighter and its successor

 

In a long and very detailed article, Lewis Page argues that "Britain’s next-generation fighter jet is a disaster in the making".  He goes into detail on the background to the present project, and the aircraft that have preceded it in Royal Air Force service.  It's far too long an article to reproduce here, so I've selected as an example just one cost comparison between the current front-line aircraft of the US and UK air forces.

The Eurofighter Typhoon, as flown by the RAF, is the most expensive tactical aircraft ever built by the human race. When the last Tranche 1 planes are gone next year (disposed of with half their lifetime hours unused) the RAF will possess 107 aircraft.

Recent statements reveal that the size of an RAF front-line squadron has fallen from 12 to “up to 10” jets. Officials have recently congratulated themselves that they typically have “65 to 70” Typhoons “available” nowadays for the seven RAF front-line Typhoon squadrons that exist on paper.

Some more Typhoons are in the training and test units but it’s clear that others, probably more than 20, are in a long-term un-flyable condition: in deep maintenance, with parts robbed from them to get others flying, or both.

Each of the 107 Typhoons, according to the National Audit Office, cost well over £215m to obtain in 2011 money, or around $355m (£264m) if we use contemporary exchange rates.

By comparison, the undisputed, most powerful fighter jet in the world is the US Air Force’s F-22 Raptor. Only 183 Raptors were made in the end, as opposed to the 600-plus Eurofighters so far.

But despite this much shorter production run and the fact that it is an entire generation more advanced than a Typhoon, the acquisition cost of one Raptor to the US taxpayer was somewhat lower than the cost of one Typhoon to the UK taxpayer. The Raptor throws into stark relief the almost unbelievably bad value for money offered by the Typhoon.

In short, the Typhoon was a procurement disaster.

There's much more at the link.  Highly recommended reading for aviation and military enthusiasts.

The article helps us understand why military hardware has become so expensive.  The deadweight of bureaucratic and political control interfered so much with the Typhoon's development, and the lack of vision among military leaders in making it a single-purpose rather than a multi-role aircraft, effectively doomed it to operational irrelevance for much of its service life.  Furthermore, the astronomical costs of not just each aircraft, but spare parts to keep it flying, wasted so much of the Royal Air Force budget that funds were not available for different types of aircraft, or urgently needed upgrades.  (For example, for the past two decades almost every major frontline strike fighter has had AESA radar, offering vastly improved performance over older types:  but the RAF's Typhoons are only now beginning to get one - and, at that, only enough to fit to less than half the fleet.  Without it, if they had had to fight against other modern fighters, they would have been at a huge disadvantage.)

I suppose we could draw parallels between Britain's fighters and the US Navy's ships.  The USN has had so many problems developing new designs that it's had to scrap almost all of them as being too complex and/or too expensive, after its "experts" had spent years gold-plating them and adding every feature they could think of.  It's now been forced to bodge together a "frigate" that is basically a slightly more heavily armed Coast Guard cutter, because the much more sophisticated Constellation class frigates have had to be abandoned due to their design becoming bogged down in excessive complexity.  Will something similar happen to Britain's proposed new fighter aircraft?  I think there's a very good chance that it will.

China is producing new aircraft and ship designs in multiples every year, and building them by the dozens.  One hopes that both Britain and the USA will wake up to reality and start moving faster . . . but if the politicians insist on sticking their oar in, that's not very likely.  Can Secretary of War Hegseth cut through the entrenched bureaucracy and layers of control that have bedeviled US military design?  That remains to be seen.

Peter

Technology restrictions: a strategic move that's falling short

 

Joseph Assad explains the conundrum.

There is a moment from my time living in Abu Dhabi that I have never forgotten. During a tense negotiation over a defense technology sale, talks had stalled — not over price, not over capability, but over American export control regulations that prevented us from delivering the full system the UAE needed. During a coffee break, a UAE Brigadier General pulled me aside and spoke to me in Arabic. Holding up a phone charging cable, he said quietly: "The U.S. wants to sell us this wire for $100. China will sell it to us for $20. We said we will pay the $100, but now your delegation says we must wait two years. We can have the Chinese wire tomorrow." 

He paused, then added with a resignation that still stings: "And when we say we will buy from China, the U.S. accuses us of betraying our friendship. What are we to do?"

That question deserves an honest answer from Washington. So far, it hasn't gotten one.

American export controls on semiconductors and related technologies were designed with a single adversary in mind: China. The logic was sound — deny Beijing access to advanced chips powering artificial intelligence, and you slow its military modernization and geopolitical ambitions ... [but] Overzealous and inflexible application of these controls has swept up trusted allies and strategic partners — particularly in the Gulf — leaving them locked out of American technology they are willing and able to buy.

. . .

China is responding to U.S. and allied export controls with a whole-of-nation effort to make itself independent of Western semiconductor technology. In 2019, the first Trump administration cut off Huawei's access to U.S. technology, a move that appeared to consign the company to irreversible decline. Instead, Huawei launched an effort to wean itself from reliance on U.S. technology — and by 2024, it had launched new products featuring advanced semiconductors and was developing 5G mobile network infrastructure.

There's more at the link.

It's a very real problem.  Mr. Assad suggests that the USA is moving in the right direction, trying to free up access to its latest technology in return for verified commitment from customer nations.  However, there will always be the problem of supplies filtering through from third parties.

I saw this at first hand in South Africa during the years of the mandatory UN arms embargo.  South Africa couldn't obtain major items, such as warships or fighters, from major powers, but still bought or made almost everything it needed.  Sophisticated nations such as Israel and Taiwan, and political allies such as Chile or Paraguay, could act as third party channels through whom much could be obtained.  Other nations such as West Germany and Portugal simply ordered more of some materials than they needed for their own armed forces and manufacturers, and sold the surplus to South African agents.  Romania, at the time behind Warsaw Pact lines, nevertheless defied its Communist principles (?) to sell carbon-fiber helicopter fuselage components through third parties to South Africa, which was able to obtain elsewhere (or make itself) the engines and avionics needed to build them into fully operational aircraft.  Thus, even though the whole world was technically obliged to restrict South Africa's access to high technology, it really wasn't that hard to bypass most of those restrictions.

(It helped that at the time, South Africa was the single largest producer of gold in the world.  Gold coins and bars make an untraceable and very acceptable medium of exchange when wanting to disguise the origin and/or destination of a shipment of high-tech gear.  Paperwork?  What paperwork?)

America's trade and technology war with China is simply running headlong into the same conundrum.  Despite restrictions, China was able to buy enough advanced US chips to study their design, and are now building their own equivalents - and apparently refusing to buy more from the USA, despite the lifting of the US technology embargo.  As for preventing other nations from buying Chinese technology, it all boils down to economics.  Charge too much, delay delivery enough, impose enough restrictions, and the customer will look somewhere else.  If someone's prepared to pay enough, or wants independence of supply strongly enough, there are always ways to get around restrictions.  Low-balling an opponent's price is another very popular way of gaining access to a market:  and, once gained, it can be maintained in all sorts of ways.

Peter

Third version lucky?

 

As I write these words, SpaceX is planning to launch the 12th Starship mission today.

SpaceX's Starship Version 3 is finally about to make its debut with a suborbital launch from Starbase, Texas.

The mission, dubbed Starship Flight 12, is the 12th test flight of SpaceX's integrated Starship-Super Heavy rocket, but the first flight of this new generation of the launch vehicle.

Because of all the changes and upgrades made to both stages of the two-stage rocket, SpaceX will not attempt to catch either the Starship upper stage (Ship 39) or the Super Heavy booster (Booster 19).

There's so much information to absorb, I couldn't summarize it in a brief blog post.  Therefore, here's a 15-minute video describing how we got to today's launch, and what the company expects from it.

Here's wishing success to SpaceX, and to the entire team involved in this project.

Peter

The lower the cost, the easier the proliferation

 

I was struck today by the title of an article:

10,000 Low-Cost Cruise Missiles In Three Years

Procurement Plan Laid Out By Pentagon

You can read the details for yourself at the link.  Of particular food for thought to me was this:  if "low-cost cruise missiles" are now a mainstream item, how long can it be before they become cheap enough - and easy enough - to be manufactured almost anywhere?  And, if and when that happens, how long will it take renegade religious or tribal groups (e.g. the Houthis in Yemen), or terrorist organizations (e.g. Hezbollah, ISIS, Al Qaeda, etc.) to start manufacturing their own equivalents?

It's not as hard as it sounds.  Remember Bruce Simpson?  More than two decades ago, he designed and built a low-cost cruise missile (LCCM) in his home garage, using off-the-shelf components bought from Internet retailers.  He wrote an article about how easy it was to do it, including the following excerpt:

... during the past decade, huge strides have been made in commercializing much of the technology on which the cruise missile is based and it is my firm belief that building a low-cost, autonomous, self-guided, air-breathing missile with a significant payload capability is now well within the reach of almost any person or small group of persons with the necessary knowledge and skills.

Targeting/Guidance

As mentioned above, one of the key components of a cruise missile's guidance system is a mil-spec satellite-based GPS system.

Today, compact, high quality, high accuracy GPS receivers are readily available for just a few hundred dollars. The inclusion of an easily used computer interface in many of these units makes them well suited for use in a low-cost cruise missile (LCCM).

While the GPS provides information necessary for tracking waypoints and identifying the final destination, smaller course corrections (for stability) can be provided by the solid-state gyro systems now readily available for use in model helicopters and aircraft.

Instantaneous measurement of altitude and groundspeed can be provided by a semi-forward looking radar and doppler radar units (possibly built around components such as these and these. This allows the LCCM to fly lower than would be possible if relying solely on GPS and offers a degree of contour-hugging even when the exact nature of the terrain is not available.

The gyroscopic and radar-based systems could also provide an inertial backup guidance facility in the event that the GPS system was lost, blocked or simply turned off when an attack by such LCCMs was imminent or underway.

Onboard Computing

As Moore's law continues to produce a rapid rise in the speed and fall in the cost of computer chips, we've already reached the point where obtaining sufficient number crunching capability is no longer difficult or expensive.

Single-board computer systems are another readily available off the shelf component that can be recruited for use in an LCCM. Even the sophisticated realitime operating systems necessary for supporting the type of software needed to interface the guidance/targeting systems to the control servos are just a download away.

. . .

The total component costs for an LCCM (less payload) could be as little as $6,000 for the smallest, simplest version, with a larger, more sophisticated design still requiring little more than $10,000 worth of parts and materials.

There's more at the link.

That technical data, and those prices, date back to May 2002 - twenty-four years ago this month.  In those intervening years, components have become much, much smaller and lighter, much more capable, and much cheaper.  They're still freely available as elements of radio-controlled models (aircraft, boats, vehicles, whatever).  Plastic sheeting, 3D printed components, and ultra-light structural elements are easy to buy and often just as easy to make yourself.  Heck, people have built and flown in ultralight aircraft made out of packaging cardboard!  I'd say it's likely the cost to home-build a LCCM today might well be less than $2,000, and at most $3,000.  Cargo delivery drones can be even cheaper:  for example, a drone capable of delivering 20-odd pounds at a range of 6+ miles costs only a little over $500 in quantity.  Longer range?  Heavier cargo capacity?  No problem.  A warhead would be extra, of course, but with the advent of powerful "home-brewed" explosives, a warhead strong enough to demolish the average house - but still small and light enough to be carried by a LCCM or light delivery drone - could probably be assembled in a domestic bathroom or kitchen.

So, if our armed forces are talking about buying thousands of low-cost cruise missiles, what are the odds that terrorist and/or extremist groups aren't planning on doing exactly the same thing?  How would we defend against such simple, terrifying weapons if a wave of them were launched into the average American city?  It could be done by driving a rented truck or trucks to a suitable launch site, a few miles from the target zone (e.g. a park or golf course, particularly at night, or putting them onto a boat a couple of miles offshore);  erecting a wire or wood frame to hold the missiles at an appropriate angle for launch, and aimed in the right direction;  and setting them off at the chosen time.  Unless the perpetrators were seen during the preparation phase, it's doubtful they'd be detected in time to stop them;  and once the missiles had been fired, they'd simply abandon the trucks and drive away in other inconspicuous vehicles.  For that matter, they may not care about getting away.  They may have a martyrdom mentality that would welcome a final shootout with the cops (on television, of course, for the whole world to see).

That scenario is entirely feasible and practical.  I think we've got a whole new threat to our security to consider.  What we can do about it (if anything) remains to be seen.

Peter

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