New Marine Corps weapon that just destroyed an Iranian drone revealed

> One of the early questions about UAVs was what impact they would have on the implications of force. I think we've got an answer: drones are fair game since they don't have anybody in them.

I see no real problems with this.

> we would regularly have an Iranian P-3 fly very close to us even after repeated warnings. Same thing with Russian Bears. We'd usually sent up an F/A-18 or two to "escort" the visitor and would never think of shooting them down unless fired upon. Yet, if a drone gets within 1000 yards, down it goes.

This raises the interesting question of whether armies will start sending manned planes out specifically because those are much harder to shoot down. In the post-drone world, that's more provocative than it was before.

I think part of it has to do with "loss of life" and the value both sides place on that.

So what happens when one side thinks an aircraft is a drone and shoots it down.

Rhetorical question of course, I just don't like the thought of getting into a war accidentally.

Military communications infrastructure and weapons emplacements have always been fair game, I think it makes perfect sense that the same rules would apply when those structures are flying instead of sitting on the ground.

Honestly, i find this development kind of reassuring. Whether a target has a person in it or not should be the most important criteria for whether or not attacking it is an act of war. If we applied the rules for aircraft to drones it would seem to imply that the miltaries valued "being an aircraft" over "containing a person"

Undeclared permanent war.

When you lower the transaction costs of something, demand usually increases.

In this case Iran denies that it lost a drone so it couldn't be an act of war. You have to admit to getting shot before retaliating.

Also, we have seen multiple manned aircraft shot down during the Syrian civil war from multiple countries, and so far neither Syria, Russia, nor Turkey are at war with each other. It would seem that what determines an act of war heavily depends on whether the victimized country wants to go to war in the first place.

Iran wants to speak aggressively, but they do not actually want to fight the US. They have seen neighboring Iraq get steamrolled multiple times by the US Army and are currently sandwiched between thousands of US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and most other countries in the region would be more than willing to allow the US to set up logistics paths through their countries. They are in a horrible position to fight the US.

Edit so I don't create another comment: One of the reasons (but not the only one) why it is more appropriate to shoot down a drone instead of a manned aircraft is that a drone is easily turned into a kamikaze attack. Manned aircraft are much less likely to turn a hull run (flying close to a ship) into an attack, and are mostly for intel collection. Manned aircraft typically need to get their tapes back to base before analysis can start, and most pilots won't willingly kill themselves. While it kind of sucks to let the enemy snap pictures of everything on the deck of your ship (and record radar frequencies and waveforms), you aren't in any real danger and probably isn't worth killing them. Most drones could radio back its intel and then fly right into the side of the ship before the crew can react. Because of this, ships need to keep drones further away, and if the drone doesn't respond to radio calls they really have no option but to down it.

Also, if this was just a jamming incident, there was not a munitions cost/expended to take out the target. I'm sure that brings the decision to eliminate the target that much easier.

The soviet union shot a U-2 spy plane in 1960 [1]. It didn't start a war then. Iran Air Flight 655 [2] was shot down by the US in 1988, and it didn't start a war either. Albeit US thought they were targeting a military aircraft, but either way they were not targeting a drone. You can find hundreds of such incidents that didn't result in a war.

So I don't think the rules of war are evolving all that much. But I agree that there seem to be a sort of consensus that shooting down drones is less serious than downing manned aircrafts.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_U-2_incident

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

The obvious question is when we make a mistake in identifying something as uncrewed and there are people on it and we shoot it down, will we use that as an excuse and claim those were never supposed to have people on them? We already shot down an Iranian airliner by accident in a busy crowded Persian Gulf. I think more shooting down of other country's aircraft is not a good next step.

Better link:

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29063/marine-anti-dron...

I assure you the print edition is no better.

This is why having control of the airspace in a given theater is so valuable.

and its totally ok to fly drones over domestic private property with or without surveillance equipment, and any countermeasure is considered to be an attack or interference with an FAA sanctioned aircraft, although i think that line is blurred a bit now.

looking at the rig in the article i see what looks like a microwave array, with a lack of shielding for the biologicals mounted in the seats. no matter how directed the RF energy there are side lobes and a back lobe, a simple porch window screen[metallic] and an earth ground will keep the operators safe. I have a feeling the photo in the article is a showtotype,and there are tweeks to the final production that address issues and are not "top secret" but are just not expostulated for the layperson.

Life is not fair, war is not fair, international politics is not fair.

Yes, it's hypocritical for the US to do it. But you know what, the only way to get them to stop is force them to stop with military force. And, quite honestly, there is no military in the world that even comes close to the US.

Also I'd rather the US control the airspace and flying drones wherever they want than some other country controlling the airspace and flying drones over the US.

Or planes that fly at Mach 3.

The US does not fly drones within 1000 yards of a foreign vessel.

It's quite possible the designers were avid Halo players in their formative years.

I was thinking it looks like a slightly modified John Deere Gator Utility Vehicle [0] that had an RF system placed on top of it...

[0] https://www.deere.com/en/gator-utility-vehicles/full-size-cr...

Have you taken a dive into radio ECM and ECCM? I highly recommend it, it is fascinating, and is highly complex. Modern ECM is much more involved than "shoot high amplitude noise on all frequencies from a particular direction" and even the declassified stuff is clever. It's a cat and mouse game much like internet exploits. Makes questions like the ones you pose seem only surface-deep.