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>These drones won't be carrying bullets. They'll be carrying tiny payloads of VX nerve agent to be "effective detterent."

Seriously? I don't know how this comment is at the top of my list. I have never seen a citation more needed. A single bullet fired at close range from one of these drones would be much more effective than dropping some nerve agent. If you can aim effectively and have 20 of these - only one of which needs to get within 10 feet then the target is much more surely dead than an LD50 nerve bomb. If you are going to do that and not give a crap about collateral then just fire a missile from the plane or a big drone. Mini drones are much more likely to be used for recon than attack.

What's really more important than size of the drones is quantity. How do you stop a plane? You shoot it down. How do you stop 100 planes? You shoot them down, but it's a lot harder. How do you stop 100,000 drones, who are deliberately doing things to make them hard to shoot down all at once? Just about the only two answers are A: with another 100,000 drones of your own shooting back or B: a very, very big EMP, or a lot of EMPs of significant power. Both of these have problems of their own.

There are other problems; for instance, you need a delivery platform because small drones can't carry enough energy to transport themselves long distances. Always the real world interferes with the dream (nightmare or otherwise). But what you potentially end up with is another phase transition in warfare, such as occurred in the industrial era, where there were militaries that were industrial, and there were the militaries that would have saved a lot of time and lives if they just surrendered immediately, because they never stood a chance.

>how do you stop 100,000 drones

Another 100,000 drones carrying rare earth magnets on strings :D

> How do you stop 100,000 drones, who are deliberately doing things to make them hard to shoot down all at once?

this is where those laser systems come into play. US Navy has already deployed some and Israel has Iron Beam.

The laser systems definitely have the potential to be a significant component of that phase transition. Goodness help the current-gen military on the receiving end of both the drone army and the lasers.

And let me say again, I'm not utopian or starry-eyed about these systems. Lasers have their own problems, too. But the sum total of all the techs currently coming down the pike are dripping with potential, and one need not study much history to notice that multiple such phase changes have happened before so it's not like it's a far-out idea.

Or with shotguns/nets. Drones are light weight and vulnerable, so you need to move to weapons that do a small amount of damage over a broad area.

A micro-drone the size of a bullet or smaller can't fire one. I agree recon makes vastly more sense, but we pay scientists to be Dr. Strangelove, so if there's a way to arm them, I've got faith in the Pentagon/DARPA to come through with something.

> If you thought political opposition was dangerous now, imagine the ease of a State aiming a single drone at an a singularly unpopular voice leading the the crowd. Holy shit--that person just dropped dead on the stage! What happened? Drone.

If the evil, cackling villains running the US government (did you vote for the ruling party last election, by the way? Are you planning on voting to re-elect the same party this November?) are willing to have a drone float down out of the sky and spray a political opposition figure with nerve gas in front of a thousand people, why wouldn't they be willing to just have some thugs kick in their door in the middle of the night?

I don't know what's worse about this attitude, the paranoia or the inconsistency. The only reason the government hasn't given in completely to its evil impulses is because they're waiting to develop and deploy some fancy bleeding-edge cyberpunk technology that's going to be less effective, less cheap, and less deniable than a couple of dudes with lead pipes... that viewpoint baffles me.

> imagine the ease of a State aiming a single drone at an a singularly unpopular voice leading the the crowd. Holy shit--that person just dropped dead on the stage! What happened? Drone.

They didn't need a drone to kill a political opponent.

Plus you'd see this 1-foot wide conspicuous object hovering in front of them, since you can't project a toxic gas in a targeted way from afar.

You don't need swarms to release vaporized agents. Just one low flying crop duster. That's the whole point of gas, it spreads everywhere so that you don't need to target.

HN has gone off the deep end with defense articles. Can't wait for the next headline to just say IT'S HAPPENING.

Not all drones 'hover', or are quad-copters. Most drone-swarms have been demonstrated using drones that fly like airplanes. 20 years ago when I started building RC planes, the smallest RC planes were about 6 inches wide. Many people are working on drones today that are insect-sized.

A mosquito-sized drone carrying a neurotoxin certainly would be used to carry out assassinations, crowd control, etc... And certainly would be a scary prospect.

Again, if the government is willing to use a mosquito drone full of neurotoxin to assassinate someone, why wouldn't they be willing to just send a man round with a pistol? The problem (in this example) is a government willing to assassinate political opponents, not that they have access to some fancy cyberpunk way of carrying out the hit.

Certainly makes it easier.

Is there any reason an EMP/large radio scrambling gun [1] would not be effective against a large swarm of drones?

[1] http://www.gizmag.com/anti-uav-defense-system-radio-beam-dro...

Or a shoulder mounted cannon that fires a net http://www.engadget.com/2016/03/03/the-skywall-100-is-a-net-...

I believe that an EMP is impractical due to the crazy power draw. Non-nuclear EMPs are typically explosively pumped and have a very short range. Jammers (which is what the radio gun is) could work, but are civilian-illegal.

The Russians apparently used electronic warfare (maybe not EMP in particular) very effectively against the Ukrainians. One U.S. officer described the Russians' capabilties as "eye watering".

If these things become commonplace I could see a second amendment challenge against the illegality of counter-drone weapons.

The second amendment is being gutted every day. Along with most the rest of the amendments.

Off topic, but what are you talking about? Heller, which is when the supreme court first noticed an individual right in the 2nd amendment in over 200 years, was decided in 2008.

Since that is currently the high-water mark in 2nd amendment rights on the pro-side, I assume you can point us to reversals since then, apparently occurring on a daily basis?

Please, share your sources with the group.

Well said drones might not need real time radio communication or they could communicate optically. GPS denied navigation is something missiles have had for a while so jamming GPS is out. The small size also means that less current will be induced.

That being said, it would probably be better to use lasers to burn them out of the sky. It probably doesn't take much energy to damage their wings.

What about shotguns with birdshot?

Spread drones out about a half meter or more apart.

Given all the sensor capable drones, it would be interesting to see a project with hovering drones that could react to being shot at effectively, but I gues their reaction times would be much slower than The velocity of the shot.

Aim an EMP beam at the enemy's anti-drone EMP's... then unleash hell.

> Since the LD50 is 10 mg, "legally" _any_ country could stockpile 100g of VX (the amount they can produce annually without reporting to the OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) and maintain a swarm of death-drones 10,000-strong.

If I wanted to assassinate someone with poison, I'd use a higher dose than the LD50.

Also the concentration goes down with the cube of the distance from where it's released into the air, so if a drone is carrying 10mg it's very unlikely to be able to harm even a single person. Unless it fires a dart or something like that.

But if you were paying attention he was talking about being able to stockpile chemicals without having to tell anyone.

Well, a charitable reading would try to deduce SOME topical relevance to the article being discussed, which is probably how your parent arrived at the conclusion that perhaps the comment had something to do with micro-drones.

But no, you're right, when you pay attention, it's mostly a totally off-topic rant on chemical weapons.

There you go, you're denying the enemy a sporting chance. :/

>the amount they can produce annually without reporting to the OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons)

I'm probably ok with saying I'm not producing whether I am or not...

You and most governments on Earth. During the Cold War, reporting agreements were only as good as their verifiability. Drones, fighting bots, and their weapons aren't controllable once the World knows how to make them. 3D printing prototypes, comparing software tries via the Internet as any other OSS project and we have great "hobbyist micro-RC planes".

> "Since the LD50 is 10 mg, "legally" _any_ country could stockpile 100g of VX (the amount they can produce annually without reporting to the OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) and maintain a swarm of death-drones 10,000-strong."

What are you going to do, fly the drone down the guy's throat?

Actually, that's worth considering. Micro-drones are inherently disposable anyway. If you're using a 3-4 mm drone, you don't care that the opposition knows it was a drone; they're tiny, not invisible, and not a secret. If a dozen drones all tried for the mouth (or the drone is a skin-penetrating dart), one is sure to get through. Until we all have counter-drone tech.

If the drone is going to get up close and personal with the target, there are any number of toxins and venoms that would be more practical than nerve gas.

And I expect the researchers will consider each and every one. Which deadly weapon they settle on is less important than that micro-drones can be weaponized.

>"Or perhaps... under a giant lexan rotunda."

Or just make sure to do it on a windy day?

Or string up a lot of nets ... assuming small drones of course.

Take. Your. Meds.