Drone swarms that harassed navy ships demystified in new docs | Hacker News Reader

Drone swarms that harassed navy ships demystified in new docs

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78 pointsnradov67 comments

So basically drone surveillance by foreign powers monitoring our exercises as those exercises expose our fighting mode of operation.

Or drone surveillance by US forces, subtly signaling our capabilities in a way that doesn’t expose our drones to enemy attack.

Much less likely. It's possible, but a very unlikely explanation.

The ones off the coast of California seem to be people just flying drones around. If they're showing a red light, a green light, and a white light, they're not hiding. The Navy doesn't seem to be too bothered by ones that obey the Rules of the Road. For one of the ones that didn't, they spotted an "unidentified pleasure craft" nearby with unregistered marine radio MMSI ID 003669184. They were warned off. The slides don't state if the unidentified pleasure craft was later identified, but it probably was.

I expected at least an explanation why they didn't routinely shoot (some of) them down.

Speculating they have a gentlemens' agreement where China doesn't waste American drones either.

You can't just shoot someone else's drone down because it's a bit iffy.

If it's doing flybys over your naval ship - why not?

Multiple reasons. Number one, you avoid an international incident if you can help it.

Number two, and far more importantly, the whole point of these drones is surveillance and intelligence gathering, ostensibly. Why would the Navy respond to their presence by showing the human observers aboard the cargo vessel precisely how we shoot down a drone?

1. In the State of Nevada, around Area 51, there are signs reading: "Use of deadly force authorized". I'm not aware of anyone who has ever been killed by trespassing into Area 51, but the government has given itself that option and made it public. I don't see why a similar policy couldn't be enacted regarding unauthorized drone flybys of military ships.

2. If the theory that these drones are the work of an adversarial nation state is correct, then shooting down the drones would not provoke an ostensible reaction from said government. China (or whoever is behind them) telling the world that the US "illegally" destroyed their drones would blow the cover on these mysterious drone incidents and legitimize the destruction of every other drone observed displaying the same behavior in the future.

3. Other countries, and you know which countries I'm talking about (China, Russia, Iran, North Korea) have no qualms about provoking international incidents. Shooting down suspicious drones near US waters would be returning the favor. Iran destroyed a US Navy drone in the Persian Gulf a few years ago.

"People sleep soundly at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would do us harm."

these ships were not in nevada

US government will tax you in Nevada. Haven't yet seen them tax you on the high seas.

Actually, why doesn't the US Government just put up "No Entry" signs in Xinjiang? Could probably prevent oppression.

US income tax applies to your income worldwide as long as you're a citizen. There's tax equalization treaties with some other countries, but not on the sea.

They should just pass a law to tax everyone on the sea. Imagine how much money they could make. Just like foreigners in Nevada have to pay tax.

What happens in Nevada is a domestic matter. Other countries don't care about it, and the US government can plausibly claim it has a legal basis for its actions.

There are no such things as "unauthorized" flybys in international waters. There are no laws or international customs against approaching foreign warships, as long as that does not endanger the ship. How the warship chooses to respond is a matter of foreign policy and best left to civilians.

Escalation often leads to further escalation. There is a similar situation in the South China Sea, where China claims sovereignty over some areas. The US disagrees and frequently patrols the area. If the US shoots down a Chinese drone in international waters, China may consider that shooting at an American plane or a warship there would be a proportional response. That could turn very bad very quickly. Unless the US deliberately wants to escalate, it may be a better policy to ignore Chinese provocations with drones.

Killing someone, in exchange for shooting down a robot, would be an escalation not a proportionate response.

You are looking at this from the American perspective, when you should look at it from the Chinese perspective.

Killing someone who is trying to invade territory you claim sovereignty over is a justified response. China does not do that at the moment, and not because they don't think it would be justified but because they don't think it would be a smart move. If the US starts shooting at your assets in situations they consider justified, a proportional response would be shooting at their assets in situations you consider justified.

Due to different perspectives, a proportional response may turn into escalation.

A similar situation is developing in Ukraine. Russia is seriously considering annexing the territory it has managed to conquer. If Ukraine later gains the upper hand and tries to take lost territory back, it would be invading Russia from the Russian perspective. That, according to their doctrine, would allow a nuclear response, which might be enough to deter Ukraine.

The USS Cole would like a word with you.

Nowadays the boat would be remote-controlled instead of martyr-controlled.

I don't know naval law but I'm trying to apply your first point to a drone flying over a restricted airspace like an embassy. It's not you starting an incident when you shoot the drone down. You can choose not to respond to the provocation of course, but I'd imagine you'd want the drone down for security reasons. It can potentially carry a warhead or biological weapon.

You don't need to use your best know-how to shoot the drone down. Good occasion to practice less-preferred methods.

I am pretty sure the Chinese embassy shooting down a usa drone in USA territory or elsewhere (or vis versa) would constitute an international incident.

Shooting down a circling UAV with a missile, sure. But the equivalent here is sending a micro drone to go hover outside the windows. I think most people would agree that's pretty brazen provocation, a shotgun is a totally proportional response.

Call the local police and let them catch it or use some peaceful fishing net? Can't have people fireing at the sky in cities ...

There's precedent in some sections of the United States that down in a drone with a shotgun is legal. But it is not national president, and as far as I'm aware it hasn't been tried in a densely populated area.

I completely agree that in general, discharging a firearm in an urban environment would probably constitute far more risk than the drone.

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but it sounds like according to the FAA flying a drone over a Navy ship is only restricted if you're below 1000 feet: https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-establishes-restrictions-dr...

...which some were.

If your own intelligence gaterhing is so bad that you can't tell if a drone is armed or not, then you look really dumb when you shoot down unarmed drones because "scared". Almost as bad as when inept militaries shoot down passenger planes.

What if foreign power's soldiers board your ship? Acting like nothing's happening to not look "scared"?

I don't see how a possibly military vehicle entering space just over your military vehicle is much different than military personnel boarding your craft.

Detain humans, shoot drones down.

>What if foreign power's soldiers board your ship? Acting like nothing's happening to not look "scared"?

Where does this comparison even come from? If these soldiers were not invited onboard, then it is clearly an act of aggression and some might say casus belli.

Flying drones over another sovereign's naval vessel in international water is nothing like boarding that same vessel with sailors. To even attempt to rationalize that as the same is just some sort of Simone Biles level of mental gymnastics I am incapable of comprehending.

As we've seen from Ukraine, even small drones can be used for military reasons or even be carrying explosives to be dropped.

Sure, and if that happened between two non-aggressor nations in international waters, it would change the calculus for everyone involved.

But it hasn't happened and it would make the Americans look profoundly trigger happy to first strike on a simple observation drone that's privately owned.

> Almost as bad as when inept militaries shoot down passenger planes.

Not even in the same realm I don’t think. Unfortunately there are examples.

If we’re going to bring passenger planes into this: post 9/11 Air Force doctrine must surely be to shoot down any passenger aircraft that is flying towards a military target with the radio off.

> I'd imagine you'd want the drone down for security reasons. It can potentially carry a warhead or biological weapon.

Embassies tend to be in cities. Are you going to shoot a drone down over someone else's city because it's sniffing around your embassy? Where are the bits going to land?

How many diplomats would you like to have sent home in disgrace, assuming your host country doesn't just vapourise the lot?

Embassies are different. In a non-hostile country, the expectation is that the host country will deal with the matter. A drone sniffing around an embassy building is absolutely going to be treated as a CT threat by the host authorities.

A ship at sea, naval or otherwise, is traveling in the commons and we are all legally allowed to look at it and record what we see.

Hovering above is not the same as just looking.

Why can't I hover above a ship while staring at it and recording what I see?

Hover over two times, drop a bomb the third.

Though in this case, it's not hovering over, it's politely observing from a distance (8,000 yards?)

What’s the difference between a drone and a guided missile? Is it because the drone can be shot down easily that we know it couldn’t possibly be threatening us? That’s fine until a drone drops 50g of suspicious powder across the deck.

Seriously? A missile is a weapon.

Should I, paddling by in my kayak, be torpedoed by the Navy because I could be concealing a weapon?

The stakes are completely different for manned vehicles vs a DJI parrot loaded with anthrax.

The cost to you — a hypothetical attacker — is now “your life” instead of “$5000”, and the cost to the defending vessel is now “we killed someone :(“ instead of “sorry about your drone no we aren’t replacing it now piss off”.

I suspect if you looked like a Google image search for “fundamentalist suicide bomber”, you might find yourself being asked some anxious questions / shot at.

a flyby 8000 yards away

The report says that the ships were not equipped with C-UAS systems.

They almost certainly have shotguns on board.

I think that's going to depend on distance and safety. Process and politics play a role too. I don't know if it's established if that would be considered an attack or not. Safe to say a bit of observation and caution was going on.

Some of the interactions were 3000+ yards away

And some were immediately overhead.

Shooting a few of those down would encourage staying further off.

This will be an ever increasing scenario. I'm surprised that we are not putting priority into developing technologies to disrupt drone systems.

And if there is some kind of non-aggression agreement, then some amount of subtlety and plausible deniability must be developed in addition to the direct disruption tools.

It cannot be too hard to blind a device with RF or light or sound.

How is the DRAKE system mentioned several times in the article not a technology to disrupt drone systems?

It's literally an RF jammer!

One needs to read the article to know this though.

So useless against an autonomous drone?

You mean military grade drones that cost tens of thousands of dollars?

Many hobbyist drones are flying Linux computers [1], so it's not a stretch that an autonomous drone could be constructed.

[1] https://youtu.be/5CzURm7OpAA

There is heavy investment into anti-drone weapons and defense systems. Directed energy weapons in particular are quite effective against small drones.

It absolutely is a priority. Here's the most recent report for Congress: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22048520/department-o...

There are a large number of different programs with varying capabilities.

If it exists, it's better for our enemies and public that it is not known. Being underestimated is an advantage in battle.

Being underestimated increases the probability that the enemy will miscalculate and decide to wage war against you, which leads to a lose-lose scenario. This has happened many, many times in the past. It is best to project strength (to deter) while not giving away information that can be used against you.

> In congressional testimony, defense officials explained that "the triangular appearance is a result of light passing through the night vision goggles, and then being recorded by an SLR camera."

Can someone explain physics behind this? Drones are apparently quad copter shape?

Reads like disclosure of UAP phenomena.

> Domestically, drone swarms have been an issue for nuclear reactor facilities and critical industrial infrastructure.

A lot of these reports were during the cold war. We didn't have drone tech at the time. This phenomena is known within UFO community as instances of alien's snooping around our nuclear capabilities.

Occasionally I'd laugh and move on but Occam's Razor would shave this down to... we had the tech and kept it quiet

I was a skeptic as well initially but when you really look into it, the details are suggestive of something bizarre.

https://youtu.be/l4EXL7jgqns

Okay to be honest I was steelmanning because I totally buy it. There's too much folklore. I don't know what it's called in academic journals but there's a certain 'purse' and 'pinecone' [or hops] that seems to be omnipresent in all ancient civilizations that have left art for us.. the Annunaki Purse, maybe? Graham Hancock speaks of it. More realistically the incredible stories from Bob Lazar and Co. Is compelling to say the very least.

I'm almost certain that this is the work of China. If that is true, China is sending intelligence operatives aboard innocent looking cargo ships and fishing boats, across the Pacific Ocean all the way to the West Coast. They deploy drone swarms to observe Navy ships, evaluate crew responses, and collect electronic intelligence about the ships' sensors.

Honestly, it may not even be that elaborate. China intelligence could just be putting bounties out for information on American Navy worship operations and leaving it up to the cargo captains to buy their own drones and get creative about using them.

And from China's point of view, this is almost certainly tit for tat. As far as they're concerned, the US has allowed one of its private corporations to deploy a space surveillance network. Using drones to observe individual Navy vessels is small potatoes relative to what China assumes the American intelligence edifice can gather from Starlink.

I wonder if we'll learn someday the NSO or some other TLA has actually bought some mass/volume/electric load/network access on each Starlink. It's such an obvious thing to do and it'd be so easy to hide.

And then you have the v2 Starlink coming which are much more massive (nearly 4x) than v1.

Maybe you're too young to know about how the Russians used fishing trawlers as spy platforms:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=russian+fishing+trawler+spying+on+...

Or too old to know about Russian dolphins:

https://www.google.com/search?q=russia+dolphins

While the US just maintains several fleets of ships just outside of Chinese waters. Oh, they probably does all the things you listed too.

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