The cost of each new generation of military aircraft rises exponentially.

Wednesday, March 13th, 2024

Swarm Troopers by David HamblingIn 1984, Norman Augustine, former Under Secretary of the Army, and CEO of aerospace company Martin Marietta, published a set of “laws” about military procurement, David Hambling explains (in Swarm Troopers):

His most celebrated pearl of wisdom is Augustine’s Law 16, which says that the cost of each new generation of military aircraft rises exponentially.

[…]

Although intended facetiously, Augustine’s Law 16 has been remarkably accurate. The North American P-51 Mustang was one of the most important US fighters of WWII. Over fifteen thousand were built, at a cost of around $50,000 each in 1945 dollars ($655,000 in 2014). It was succeeded in the 1950s by the jet-powered F-100 Super Sabre at a cost of $700,000 ($6 million in 2014), ten times as expensive in real terms. The McDonnell-Douglas F-4 Phantom, which first flew in 1960, broke the million-dollar barrier, costing $2.4 million apiece in 1965 ($18 million in 2014), tripling the cost of its predecessor. Even allowing for inflation, the upwards curve is steep.

[…]

The USAF’s new F-15 Eagle, also from McDonnell Douglas, was set to replace the F-4. The Eagle was a superb aircraft, but it had reached a new high, costing in excess of $20 million ($45 million in 2014), almost tripling again the cost of its predecessor.

[…]

Extensive flying exercises found that the big twin-engine F-15 was only slightly superior to the small, cheap fighters fielded by the Russians in a dogfight. If it came to a war, the small band of F-15s would be overwhelmed by swarms of Russian MiGs. Certainly, the F-15s would be able to knock out plenty of the Russians at long range, but when the survivors closed with them, the contest would be bloody and one-sided.

The Air Force decided to go for a “high-low” mix, supplementing the elite F-15s with a large number of cheaper aircraft known as lightweight fighters. The aircraft selected for the lightweight fighter role was the single-engine F-16 Fighting Falcon, two-thirds the size of the F-15. It was to be the embodiment of a concept by fighter guru John Boyd for an austere aircraft with extreme agility that could beat anything in a dogfight. Being less complex, it would be so cheap it could be acquired in vast numbers. The F-15 with its powerful radar was the champion at long-range combat; the agile F-16 was to be the champion in the “furball” of dogfighting.

During the development process, the purity of the F-16 was slowly corrupted. It became heavier, less agile, and more expensive as more and more capabilities were added.

[…]

At $15 million in 1998 dollars ($22 million in 2014), the F-16 was cheaper than the F-15, but more expensive than anything in the previous generation, including the big F-4.

[…]

The US Navy went through a parallel experience. They also replaced the F-4 Phantom, and chose the F-14 Tomcat, a $ 38 million (1998 dollars, $ 55 million in 2014) carrier-based fighter. Like the F-15 it had a big radar and impressive long-range capabilities.

Again the F-14 was too pricey to acquire in large quantities, and the Navy took up the idea of bolstering numbers with a smaller, cheaper aircraft. They chose the F-18 Hornet, originally a failed competitor in the Air Force’s lightweight fighter competition. The F-18s costs grew from a planned $5 million to around $29 million (2003 = $37 million in 2014).

One of their friends was firing her weapon, and it suddenly jammed

Friday, March 8th, 2024

Troubled by Rob HendersonRob Henderson fills the first part of Troubled with stories from his childhood in foster care, until he gets adopted by a couple that gets divorced. Then his adopted Mom brings home a “friend” named Shelly, who becomes a second mom. They don’t feel safe, so they decide to learn to shoot:

Shelly and Mom had met up with several of their friends at an outdoor shooting range. They’d gone once before; this was their second time. One of their friends was firing her weapon, and it suddenly jammed. As she tried to figure out what was wrong, she carelessly moved the pistol around. Suddenly, the gun fired. Shelly was standing fifteen feet away, talking to a man and his young son. The bullet went straight into her lower back. Had Shelly not been standing there, the bullet would likely have killed the boy.

They were barely able to make ends meet before Shelly was disabled:

At last, Shelly had received a large insurance settlement from the shooting. She and Mom never mentioned the specific amount. I figured it was a few hundred thousand dollars, given what they bought: a new truck for Shelly, a Ford Mustang for Mom, and a motorboat they kept docked at a marina at Shasta Lake. In Red Bluff, having a new boat and a new Ford Mustang was really something.

Mom and Shelly also bought three houses in Red Bluff. One was for us to move into and two were investments to “flip.” They had agreed that the family should move into another home as a way to “start over.” But they strongly disagreed about what to do with the rest of the insurance settlement.

[…]

Mom and Shelly expected to make a lot of money by selling the other two homes they’d bought. These houses required some upkeep, and I wanted to help out, so I’d stop by both homes every week to rake the leaves and mow the lawns. Shelly explained that both houses would likely be sold within two or three months at the most, and I didn’t mind doing the extra work for that amount of time.

But three months passed, and there were no buyers.

[…]

“I would lie awake in bed at night for months, because I knew this day would come,” Mom said.

We were sitting in the living room of the biggest house I had ever lived in, and I learned that it had been a temporary dream. Eight months had passed, and the two houses Mom and Shelly had intended to flip had still not sold. Shelly and Mom had run out of money. The year 2005 was the right time to invest in houses in California, they said. But not 2006. They explained that all our homes were being foreclosed, and that we had to leave Red Bluff.

A helicopter is necessarily a complex, delicate, and expensive piece of equipment

Wednesday, March 6th, 2024

Swarm Troopers by David HamblingDavid Hambling explains (in Swarm Troopers) the history of quadcopter drones:

A helicopter is necessarily a complex, delicate, and expensive piece of equipment. This is because steering involves changing the angle or pitch of the rotor blades, which needs an elaborate mechanical arrangement. The quadrotor has four sets of blades, and steers and maintains stability simply by speeding up or slowing down different rotors. Without modern electronics, it would be impossible; with them it is easy.

Modern multirotors date back to the late 1980s with the Gyrosaucer toy produced by Japanese company Keyence. However, modern developments tend to be traced back to US engineer Mike Dammarm, who developed his first battery-powered quadcopter in the early 90s. This was marketed by Spectrolutions Inc. as the Roswell Flyer in 1999 and later adapted into the Draganflyer, a range which is still going.

Multicopters multiplied, and the big breakthrough came in 2010 when Parrot produced their first AR.Drone. This was hailed as a fantastic toy: a helicopter sending back video via Wi-Fi which you control with an iPhone. The AR.Drone was a bestseller, and the world woke up to the potential of multicopters.

[…]

Multirotors have a couple of major advantages over fixed-wings. For one thing, they can operate indoors, going through buildings, tunnels, and bunker complexes. And they give a more stable view than a moving fixed-wing.

You have to fire a lot of unguided weapons to score a hit

Tuesday, February 27th, 2024

Swarm Troopers by David HamblingThe implications of the lethal, portable drones for ground combat have not yet been worked out, David Hambling notes (in Swarm Troopers):

Soldiers can see the enemy at a distance and attack them with incredible precision. If someone is shooting at you with machine guns or rockets, you can hide behind a wall or in a hole. There is no way of taking cover from LMAMS short of being inside a closed bunker. It can fly around to attack from any direction and can dive into trenches. This makes it unique, and the tried and tested tactics of previous decades will have to be revised. Lying flat and keeping your head down may simply make you an easier target.

In the future, firefights with rifles may become as rare as stabbing with bayonets. The real action may take place at longer ranges without any face-to-face contact at all.

[…]

You have to fire a lot of unguided weapons to score a hit. For rifles and machine-guns, a figure of twenty thousand rounds or more is often quoted for every casualty. Artillery and mortars fire hundreds of rounds, tearing up vast areas of landscape without hitting a target. Guided weapons are different. From their first use in the 1960s, laser-guided weapons were hitting the target more than half the time. With such weapons, range is irrelevant: a target is as easy to hit from two miles away as from two hundred yards. A squad with twenty LMAMS is likely to score close to twenty hits — which may be on vehicles, firing positions, or individuals.

British tests of Trident missiles are rare

Thursday, February 22nd, 2024

The test firing of a Trident missile from a Royal Navy submarine has failed, for the second time in a row:

The latest test of the UK’s nuclear deterrent was from HMS Vanguard and was seen by Defence Secretary Grant Shapps.

The missile’s booster rockets failed and it landed in the sea close to the launch site, according to the Sun, which first reported the malfunction.

Mr Shapps said he has “absolute confidence” in Trident’s submarines, missiles and nuclear warheads.

This is highly embarrassing for both the UK and the US manufacturer of the Trident missile.

British tests of Trident missiles are rare, not least because of the cost. Each missile is worth around £17m and the last test in 2016 also ended in failure when the missile veered off course. Test-fired missiles are not armed with their nuclear warheads.

[…]

The missile was supposed to have flown several thousand miles before landing harmlessly in the Atlantic between Brazil and West Africa. Instead, it dropped into the ocean near to where it was launched.

[…]

The missiles the UK uses are drawn from a common pool that the US and UK both use, and the US has conducted multiple tests without these kind of problems.

XTEND say that operators can fly one of their drones like a pro within a few minutes of trying it out

Wednesday, February 21st, 2024

Skilled FPV drone operators are becoming the most feared opponents in the war in Ukraine, David Hambling notes:

When a Ukrainian drone strike team recently took out the Russian FPV operator known as Moisey it was seen as a big success. Moisey was personally credited with destroying dozens of vehicles and killing almost 400 Ukrainian soldiers.

Standard consumer quadcopters like the ubiquitous DJI Mavic series are designed to be flown out of the box by an untrained user. The operator does not exactly fly the drone so much as tell it where to go, with the drone doing all the piloting and preventing crashes. The drone will auto-hover at a fixed point even in gusty winds and, thanks to sonar and other sensors, avoid obstacles.

[…]

FPVs by contrast are stripped-down racing machines without any of the piloting aides on standard quadcopters. This is partly a matter of cost, but mainly to do with speed — a drone switched to manual mode with all the obstacle avoidance turned off is faster than one in normal mode where speed is automatically limited to how fast it can fly safely.

This is why FPV pilots wear VR-style goggles: they need to have good situational awareness, to look ahead and plan their path to avoid flying into things. FPV cameras have a wide field of view so the operator does not make a sharp turn and find a wall in front of them.

[…]

Russia’s Academy BAS says its combat FPV operator course takes a month, working 12 hour days with no days off. The equivalent training at Ukraine’s Victory Drones takes 33 days, and participants are expected to have 20 hours practice on a simulator before they start. The pass rate on FPV courses can be as low as 60%, compared to up to 95% for regular drones.

The average hit rate for FPV drones is sometimes quoted at 10% whereas highly skilled operators may succeed with 70% or more of their attacks.

[…]

XTEND say that operators can fly one of their drones like a pro within a few minutes of trying it out. This includes carrying out tricky maneuvers like flying through doorways or windows, which is exactly the kind of skill needed by an FPV kamikaze operator, or even flying around inside buildings or tunnels.

The intelligence provided by XTEND also solves one of the big issues with current FPVs, that of losing communication in the last second of flight as the drone drops below the radio horizon.

“Our XOS operating system enables a drone to have several ‘state’ solutions to determine what happens during comms-failure, including: hover, continue to target, return to home, patrol, and more,” says Shapira.

This effectively allows the operator to ‘lock on’ to a target as soon as they identify it, so the drone will find a target even if it is evading rapidly, or the signal is lost due to jamming or other causes. In principle XOS could be trained to aim at the weak spot on a target, such as the turret rear of Russian tanks where an FPV hit often results in instant destruction.

[…]

Last year, XTEND signed a contract to supply Israel’s Ministry of Defence with a multi-drone operating system enabling an operator to control “dozens of human-guided semi-autonomous drones simultaneously.”

That might seem like a lot of money for a radio-controlled model aircraft

Tuesday, February 20th, 2024

Swarm Troopers by David Hambling”Like mammals evolving beneath the feet of lumbering dinosaurs,“ David Hambling notes (in Swarm Troopers), “a very different type of drone has been proliferating close to the ground”:

These are little craft that do not compete with the lofty lords of the air. And while the big drones are in decline, their miniature cousins have been preparing to inherit the earth.

[…]

As of 2015 the Pentagon has around ten thousand drones, and nine thousand of them are small, hand-launched craft made by AeroVironment Inc of California

[…]

It may look like a toy aircraft with a four-foot wingspan, but it puts air power in the hands of the foot soldier.

[…]

Big drones compete with the manned aircraft that they resemble, but for once, looking like a toy may be an advantage.

[…]

Raven’s built-in GPS meant it could fly a mission via a series of programmed waypoints with no human intervention, so it could take pictures of a building or installation even if it was out of radio range. Endurance was tripled to an hour, and a new modular design meant changing sensors (say, switching between day cameras and infrared night vision) was a matter of “plug and play”.

[…]

Unlike the Predator, which requires pilot’s qualifications to fly, Raven operation can be learned in about three days.

[…]

The controller comes with a shrouded “viewing hood” to make the screen easier to see in bright sunlight — an echo of the black cloth that the TDR-1 operators covered themselves with in WWII.

The ground control unit can run training software, known as the Visualization and Mission Planning Integrated Rehearsal Environment or VAMPIRE. With VAMPIRE, an operator can practice flying virtual missions without needing to launch anything; it is like playing a handheld video game. An enhanced version can download sensor feeds from actual missions; this add-on is known as the Bidirectional Advanced Trainer (yes, that’s VAMPIRE BAT).

[…]

The video feed was originally recorded on a consumer eight-millimetre video recorder, a Sony Handycam, which allowed the user to freeze-frame or look back through the flight; it is now recorded digitally. The other piece of hardware is a ruggedized laptop, a Panasonic Toughbook computer. This provides a moving map display via Army software called FalconView.

[…]

In 2012 a complete system with two ground control stations, three RQ-11B air vehicles, plus all the sensors, spares, and carry cases, can cost the US military $100-$200,000. A single air vehicle on its own costs around $34,000. It is the sensor package, especially the thermal imaging, that pushes the price up.

To civilians that might seem like a lot of money for a radio-controlled model aircraft, but it needs to be put in context. In the conflict in Afghanistan, soldiers have on occasion used shoulder-launched Javelin anti-tank missiles costing $70,000 against individual insurgents behind cover. The mine-resistant MRAP armored trucks, hastily purchased to give protection against IEDs, cost about $600,000.

[…]

It’s certainly a low-cost option compared to $14 million for a Reaper. The Reaper also costs about $4,000 an hour to fly, so one ten-hour flight costs as much as a Raven. The F-22 Raptor costs $50,000 an hour to fly, the F-35 over $30,000, making Reaper cheap by Air Force standards.

Cheap drones were clearly a thing nine years ago, but super-cheap FPV quadcopters with 40-mm grenades or RPG warheads were still in the future.

Dispersing energy on impact rather than shattering

Friday, February 16th, 2024

The Army has officially started fielding its newest combat helmet, the Next-Generation Integrated Head Protection System:

According to service officials, the NG-IHPS will provide soldiers with “increased ballistic and fragmentation protection” in a 40% lighter package compared to the earlier Integrated Head Protection System, which was first fielded in 2018 to replace the Advanced Combat Helmet and Enhanced Combat Helmet.

The first NG-IHPS units were fielded to around 2,000 soldiers assigned to the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, on Monday, the service said.

[…]

Speaking to Army Times, Head Protection Team lead engineer Alex de Groot attributed enhanced protection of the NG-IHPS to the use of lightweight polyethylene instead of rigid and inflexible Kevlar material in the helmet’s construction, with the former dispersing energy on impact rather than shattering like the latter.

Garand Thumb took a look:

Rather than developing smaller, smarter weapons, the Air Force decided it wanted a bigger aircraft

Tuesday, February 13th, 2024

Swarm Troopers by David HamblingThe Hellfire is not an ideal fit for the Predator, David Hambling notes (in Swarm Troopers), which struggles to carry two of them:

Rather than developing smaller, smarter weapons, the Air Force decided it wanted a bigger aircraft. General Atomics anticipated this and the company funded development of “Predator B.”

[…]

When it went into service in Afghanistan in 2007, the Predator B was renamed the “MQ-9B Hunter-Killer” or “Reaper.”

[…]

It is four times as heavy; the turboprop engine is six times as powerful and doubles to speed to around 200 mph.

[….]

A Reaper can carry fourteen Hellfire missiles, or four missiles and a pair of laser-guided 500-pound bombs.

[…]

The flyaway price for Reaper is around $14 million for the basic model, or $20 million with all the trimmings, compared to $4 million for a Predator.

[…]

So instead of a cheap, ultra-long endurance, expendable drone, the Reaper resembles a manned aircraft. Predator operator Matt Martin describes the Reaper as “a longer-duration, lightly-armed (and much less survivable) version of the F-16.” Without the duration and price advantages, the Reaper comes perilously close to being in competition with the manned jets. As we have seen, this is often a fatal situation for a drone in the Air Force.

It will not be feasible to match China fighter for fighter and missile for missile

Thursday, February 8th, 2024

During a July 2023 wargame, the Mitchell Institute tasked experienced operators, technologists, and engineers from the Air Force and defense industry to assess how a mix of uncrewed CCA (collaborative combat aircraft) and crewed combat aircraft could achieve air superiority over a peer aggressor (China):

One of the most important insights is the potential to use CCA as lead forces to help disrupt and suppress China’s advanced integrated air defense system (IADS), improve the lethality and survivability of the Air Force’s counterair forces, and magnify the service’s capacity to project combat mass into highly contested battlespaces. Experts agreed it will not be feasible to match China fighter for fighter and missile for missile in today’s battlespace, given the Air Force’s fighter force is now less than half the size it was in 1991. Accordingly, all three wargame teams proposed CONOPS that initially used CCA at scale to disrupt China’s IADS and level the playing field against the PLAAF.

[…]

All three wargame teams also chose to use a mix of CCA variants designed as airborne sensors, decoys, jammers, or weapon launchers to disrupt and stimulate the PLA’s IADS, locate its critical nodes, and begin to attrit threats to support crewed aircraft operations. Dispersing these functions across a mix of CCA would improve the Air Force’s operational resiliency and increase the number of airborne targets an adversary’s forces must attack. By design, lower-cost CCA may lack the mission systems and full functionalities of 5th generation fighters. However, an adversary has no reliable way of differentiating between how CCA are equipped and must address them all as threats. The key is understanding that CCA — in the same way remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) sensor-shooters pioneered a new way of conducting precision strikes — will be more than intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) information gatherers.

Another insight is that CCA could increase the Air Force’s capacity to generate lethal mass for counterair operations. Appropriately equipped CCA can perform as force multipliers that increase the number of sensors and weapons the Air Force can project into contested battlespaces. CCA could also extend the sensor and weapon ranges of stealthy crewed aircraft they team with, increasing their lethality and survivability. This will require designing CCA with enough survivability to ensure they can reach their air-to-air weapons launch points in contested environments. Using CCA to reduce attrition of Air Force fighters and their crews would also have a major force multiplying effect over the course of a campaign — a key consideration given that DOD-mandated force cuts over the last 30 years caused the Air Force to divest its combat attrition reserves.

[…]

CCA could multiply the Air Force’s diminished combat inventory in another way: by enabling some of its non-stealthy combat aircraft to engage in the fight for air superiority in highly contested environments. For instance, notional CCA designs available to Mitchell Institute’s wargame experts included a long-range, air-launched design that carried two air-to-air weapons or four 250-pound class Small Diameter Bombs (SDBs). The experts used 4th generation F-15EXs and B-52 bombers operating outside the range of China’s IADS to launch these counterair CCA into contested area

Experts participating in Mitchell’s wargame also preferred to use a mix of lower-cost CCA they classified as expendable systems and more capable, moderate-cost CCA that can be recovered and regenerated for additional sorties or attritted if mission needs require in highly contested battlespaces. Experts chose to use expendable CCA in significant numbers during the first few days of their campaigns as airborne decoys, jammers, active emitters, and other ways that risked their loss in highly contested environments. And since these notional CCA could be ground-launched by rockets without the need to use runways, wargame experts chose to pre-position them at dispersed locations in the Philippines and Ryukyu Islands to improve the resiliency of the Air Force’s combat sortie generation operations. As their campaigns progressed, experts shifted toward using a larger number of moderate-cost recoverable/attritable CCA that carried larger payloads of weapons and could return to their forward operating locations to regenerate for additional sorties.

Finally, wargame experts suggested there is a need to develop concepts for operating CCA with other uncrewed aerial vehicles for counterair missions rather than solely using them as adjuncts for crewed aircraft. Of note, operating CCA in this way would require providing them with more advanced autonomy and other technologies that add to their cost.

More missiles have been fired at known SIM cards than at recognized individuals

Tuesday, February 6th, 2024

Swarm Troopers by David HamblingInsurgents may be tracked and targeted by their mobile phones, David Hambling notes (in Swarm Troopers):

It has been suggested that more missiles have been fired at known SIM cards than at recognized individuals. In recent years agents in the field have marked targets for drone strikes with miniature radio beacons. A mobile phone left under a seat can perform the same function. The Taliban in Afghanistan have executed alleged spies who left electronic devices concealed in empty cigarette packets. Taliban commanders now know to leave their vehicles guarded at all times to prevent tracking devices from being attached.

[…]

Other types of tagging are passive. One approach is to shower the target with a fine dust of “quantum dots”, tiny specks of semiconducting crystal. These are invisible to the naked eye but can be detected from long range with the aid of an infrared laser illuminator. Different batches of dots can be given specific codes, so a tagged individual or vehicle can be identified days later from long range.

Other tagging technologies include dyes and inks visible only through special viewers. One DARPA document even suggested that an additive could be introduced to the target’s shampoo so they could be identified and tracked. It is not clear whether this idea was ever developed.

Hellfire does not tidily disintegrate the target as in a video game

Tuesday, January 30th, 2024

Swarm Troopers by David HamblingCofer Black, head of the CIA’s counterterrorist Center, requested that the Predator be armed, David Hambling reports (in Swarm Troopers), and USAF General John Jumper requested a demonstration of a Predator that could “find a target, then eliminate it”:

Hellfire was chosen because it was a proven, mature missile with many years of successful service. In fact, mature is something of an understatement: Hellfire was positively middle-aged, dating back to the Nixon administration in 1974.

[…]

Hellfire has laser guidance, so the target needs to be marked with a laser designator right up until the missile hits. It is highly accurate, usually hitting within half a meter of the aim point, but it can take a while to arrive. Hellfire is faster than the speed of sound, but fired from a range of six miles, it still takes about twenty seconds to reach the target.

[…]

Hellfire is uncomfortably large to hang off a Predator but small compared to anything else available in the inventory. At the time, the Air Force’s smallest guided bomb was five hundred pounds.

[…]

The other challenge when firing a Hellfire from a Predator is the unavoidable two-second time lag caused by satellite communications. This means the laser spot effectively takes two seconds to move, so the Predator can only engage a stationary target in this mode. To hit a moving target, the operator uses targeting software to lock on to a moving vehicle; the software keeps the laser spot in place, an indirect way of engaging the target with its own risks if the system fails.

[…]

Hellfire does not tidily disintegrate the target as in a video game but leaves recognizable bodies and body parts around ground zero.

[…]

If fired in a straight line, Hellfire’s supersonic speed means the target will not hear it coming.

[…]

Hellfire may be precise, but it is not surgical. The twenty-pound high-explosive warhead can cause major “collateral damage,” killing innocent bystanders or building occupants when the target is a single terrorist.

Worse, the long time of flight means there is the risk of somebody wandering into the target area after the missile has been launched.

“Hellfire” supposedly comes from heliborne laser, fire-and-forget missile.

DJI might deplore the military use of its drones, but its new FlyCart 30 delivery drones looks perfect for delivering ordnance on target

Saturday, January 27th, 2024

DJI, based in Shenzhen, China, dominate the consumer drone industry, David Hambling notes, with an estimated 70%+ of the global market:

In particular their Mavic range of affordable drones which fold up small enough to fit in a cargo pocket are outstanding platforms for rock-steady aerial videos or swooping shots of scenery. Mavics also make great battlefield scouts, and both sides in the conflict have used the drones heavily for reconnaissance and intelligence gathering, spotting hidden targets from miles away.

Small drones also multiply the effectiveness of artillery: by precisely directing rounds on target, drones make artillery five to ten times as effective. Everything from 155mm howitzers to 30mm automatic grenade launches now uses drone guidance, and they assist tanks to score indirect-fire kills from long range in a way that was previously impossible.

And of course, small drones are used as bombers. 3D printed bombing rigs arm small quadcopters with one or two grenades (typically Russian VOG-17 or American M433 “Golden eggs”) to drop into foxholes or trenches, or through hatches to destroy abandoned vehicles.

DJI deplores the military use of their drones. The company banned sales of their products in both Ukraine and Russia in April 2022 and has issued several strongly-worded statements, but these have been ignored.

But in Ukraine, ‘Mavik’ is now a generic term for any small drone, just as ‘Hoover’ and ‘Fridge’ were applied to any product of a certain type. In October 2023, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal claimed his country bought 60% of the Mavic drones produced,DJI immediately denied this claim, and it does seem unlikely as DJI produce millions of drones and Ukraine’s purchases are likely to be in the hundreds of thousands, but it gives an idea of how significant they are.

DJI might deplore the military use of its drones, but its new FlyCart 30 delivery drones looks perfect for delivering ordnance on target:

With eight rotors on four arms, the FlyCart30 can haul up to 30 kilos/66 pounds a distance of ten miles, or carry lesser payloads greater distances. The control range is given as 13 miles, but extra features allow one-button transfer to a second operator.

Top speed is 45 mph, and the drone can fly in winds of up to 27 mph.

A mass of safety features include automatic radar and visual obstacle avoidance day or night, and a parachute which deploys if the engines fail, so the drone will always make a soft landing.

For deliveries, the FlyCart30 can carry a 70-liter cargo pod – a container the size of a suitcase – or, if there is no landing site, it can lower a payload on a winch while the drone hovers 60 feet above.

Like the Mavics, FlyCart30 folds up for easy transport. No international price has been announced, but last year the drone was advertised in China for just $17,000.

[…]

Ukraine’s heavy drones have recently taken on a new role as minelayers. Their engineers have developed a special fuse so a mine can be dropped from the air and only arm itself after it has handed. The drones can lay mines on roads or tracks from several miles away. They can also repair gaps in minefield where Russian engineers have started to clear a path.

[…]

The larger capacity also opens up the possibility of new types of attack drone. Several developers have already come up with stabilised weapon mounts for drones, such as the Baduga rifle system which comes with a high-powered rifle with 60 rounds. It can reliably hit a human-sized target with one shot from 200 meters. The Baduga system complete with a rifle and ammo weights less than 20 pounds.

In 2021, Nammo test-fired their M72 anti-armor rocket from a heavy drone. M72s weigh about eight pounds each, so FlyCart could carry a whole rack of them, benefitting from being able to attack the thin top armor.

The FlyCart could also act as a drone carrier, a mothership for multiple FPV attack drones. Both Ukraine and Russia have experimented with this concept, but an affordable heavy lift platform would make it far more feasible.

The imagery appeared to be highly addictive

Tuesday, January 16th, 2024

Swarm Troopers by David HamblingBy 2001, David Hambling notes (in Swarm Troopers), the Predator had, in the words of the Air Force, “become the commander’s real-time eye in the sky, providing real-time streaming video back to the command post”:

The imagery appeared to be highly addictive, leading to it being called “Predator crack” because it seemed that commanders right up to the White House could never get enough of it.

[…]

On the other hand, intelligence analysts were accustomed to imagery in the form of black-and-white still photographs, not color video. Initially their approach was to take stills from the video feed and print them out.

[…]

The plane can be broken down and stored in a shipping container known as a “coffin” and flown around the world on a transport aircraft. In theatre, it needs a five-thousand foot runway and a dedicated ground support team. Once it is rolled onto the runway, the drone is piloted by a local crew who get it into the air and on its way. Then it is handed over via satellite link–it has its own special twenty-foot dish and dedicated satellite systems–to a remote team. From then on the Predator is flown from Creech Air Force Base, forty minutes outside Las Vegas.

Unmanned aircraft like Predator have major support requirements, but each flight provides twenty-four hours of continuous surveillance on station with cameras, infrared, and radar sensors. By using the drones in relays, the Air Force can maintain a permanent presence over an area, known as a “combat air patrol,” “CAP” or “orbit.” Each CAP requires at least three drones. In 2010 there were fifty Predator/Reaper CAPs; by 2013 the number was up to sixty-five, with plans to replace all the Predators with Reapers by 2016.

[…]

The plane may keep going for twenty-four hours, but that requires several shifts of pilots, with replacements for those that are sick or otherwise not available.

[…]

One study suggested that ten pilots were needed for each predator CAP to keep operations going 24/7. These days less than half of drone pilots qualified on other aircraft first. Pure drone pilots may have some advantages; reports suggests that pilots have to unlearn some of their skills before they can fly the Predator effectively, as they may have become reliant on feeling the tilt of the aircraft or the change in note of the engine to tell how it was flying.

[…]

One of the biggest differences from other aircraft is the time lag of a few seconds (latency) due to the satellite communications.

[…]

The real business end of the Predator is a “sensor ball” eighteen inches in diameter. This is the AN/ AAS-52 Multi-Spectral Targeting System (3), which has a stabilized gimbal mount with two axes of rotation, keeping the cameras pointed in exactly the same direction regardless of the motion of the drone. It has normal visible-light cameras for daytime use and image-intensified night cameras, as well as infrared imaging, along with software that combines the inputs from different cameras into a single image. It features various levels of zoom, from a forty-five degree wide-angle view down to an ultra-narrow 0.2-degree view. This is equal to a x200 zoom range. On a standard 35mm camera, the equivalent lenses at the extreme ends would be a 50mm wide-angle lens and a 12,000mm telephoto.

[…]

The sensor ball also contains a laser illuminator, like an invisible searchlight indicating targets for friendly forces, a laser designator for the Hellfire missile, and a laser rangefinder to determine the exact location of the target.

Even in pitch darkness–or in the rain, which was a problem previously–the Predator can pick out objects on the ground with great accuracy. This is thanks to a radar system called Lynx developed in 1998 by Sandia National Laboratories (4) to overcome the limitations of cameras. Existing radar was too large for the Predator at some four hundred pounds. In a major feat of miniaturization, the necessary electronics were crammed into a package weighing just a hundred and twenty pounds which generates an image resembling a black and white video with an impressive level of detail.

From fifteen miles away, Lynx produces images in which features four inches across can be distinguished. It also has some other clever tricks. A process called coherent change detection shows the difference between the current scene and one recorded previously. This is accurate enough to pick up the disturbance left by a bomb buried under the road surface.

[…]

The Predator can also carry various electronic warfare packages that allow it to detect, locate, and intercept radio signals. The simplest of these was a radio receiver bought from Radio Shack; the most advanced are highly classified and cost millions. These could, for example, pick up walkie-talkie or cell phone transmissions and pinpoint the users. Predators can reportedly track individual cell phones when they are on by their SIM cards.

Their arms and legs get sheared off clean, as if God himself lowered a big rotary saw

Monday, January 15th, 2024

I haven’t heard any complaints about dense inert metal explosives recently:

A DIME weapon consists of a carbon fiber casing filled with a mixture of explosive and very dense microshrapnel, consisting of very small particles (1–2 mm) or powder of a heavy metal. To date, tungsten alloy (heavy metal tungsten alloy, or HMTA) composed of tungsten and other metals such as cobalt and nickel or iron has been the preferred material for the dense microshrapnel or powder.

[…’

The HMTA powder acts like micro-shrapnel which is very lethal at close range (about 4 m or 13 ft), but loses momentum very quickly due to air resistance, coming to a halt within approximately 40 times the diameter of the charge. This increases the probability of killing people within a few meters of the explosion while reducing the probability of causing death and injuries or damage farther away. Survivors close to the lethal zone may still have their limbs amputated by the HMTA microshrapnel, which can slice through soft tissue and bone.

[…]

In July and August 2006, doctors in the Gaza Strip reported unusual wounds caused by Israel Defense Forces attacks against Palestinians, claiming that they were from previously unknown weapons. A lab analysis of the metals found in the victims’ bodies was reportedly “compatible with the hypothesis” that DIME weapons were involved. Israel denied possessing or using such weapons, and an Israeli military expert said that the wounds were consistent with ordinary explosives.

Gary Brecher, the War Nerd, reported on their use against Hamas a few years ago:

There’ve been reports out of Gaza that when the Israelis blast one of these Hamas guys outside a coffee house or his home, there’ve been weird injuries to the people standing next to the target — their arms and legs get sheared off clean, as if God himself lowered a big rotary saw over him and lifted him up into the sky like a core sample from an oil rig, along with the odd arm or leg of other people who happened to be inside the magic 4 meters. The wounds have supposedly stopped clean at that point, cauterized by the blast.

Naturally, such precise munitions are considered a crime against humanity — because tungsten powder can cause cancer.