Every Country Will Have Armed Drones Within Ten Years
defenseone.com
defenseone.com
Fact is, the US was a late adopter to more modern drones, or UAVs, having fallen behind countries like Israel and South Africa who had developed propeller-driven surveillance UAVs and used them operationally in combat from the late 1970s.
Both gained much experience in the use of drones to evade surface to air missiles and developed stealth prototypes, including the South African Flowchart, and began early work on weaponising them. As a result, both Israel and South Africa were early exporters of drones, selling to dozens of countries and remaining major sellers. When the US needed to acquire tactical UAVs in the 1980s, it acquired Israeli Tadira Mastiffs. It wasn't until nearly a decade later that the first Predator flew, in 1994.
Both the above countries have armed drones for sale, though refuse to publicise their sales. So even if the US were to scale back its drone research massively, it would not do anything to slow down this pace of development elsewhere, which has only increased with more countries and companies building drones and their subsystems.
It was only in 2001 that trials were first carried out to arm Predators with Hellfire missiles. Not because they were more effective weapons platforms than manned aircraft, but because the idea was to shorten the time needed between spotting a target on the UAV's cameras and hitting it with a bomb or missile.
As such, most countries don't actually need armed drones. They're slower and more vulnerable than manned combat aircraft, are not designed to dash to target areas quickly and are typically more expensive to operate than aircraft like the Embraer Super Tucano or Aerosud AHRLAC because they need more ground equipment and a ground control station. The market for surveillance drones, especially those that can provide some level of persistent surveillance, is huge and growing bigger. The number of countries specifically requesting armed drones, however, remains low.
Where do you get that from?
Some quotes from the article:
Virtually every country on Earth will be able to build or
acquire drones capable of firing missiles within the next ten
years. Armed aerial drones will be used for targeted killings,
terrorism and the government suppression of civil
unrest. What’s worse, say experts, it’s too late for the United
States to do anything about it.
“Once countries like China start exporting these, they’re going
to be everywhere really quickly. Within the next 10 years,
every country will have these,” Noel Sharkey, a robotics and
artificial intelligence professor from the University of
Sheffield, told Defense One.
Singer cautions that while the U.S. may be trying to wean
itself off of armed UAV technology, many more countries are
quickly becoming hooked.
So, what option does that leave U.S. policy makers wanting to
govern the spread of this technology? Virtually none, say
experts. “You’re too late,” said Sharkey, matter-of-factly.
Less impressed, Sharkey said the U.S. still has time to
rethink its drone future. “Don’t go to the next step.
Don’t make them fully autonomous. That will proliferate
just as quickly and then you are really going to be sunk.”
The rest of the article is ok, particularly the quotes attributed to Singer (an excellent writer on the subject), Sam Brennan and Mary Commings and the maps showing which countries are using or developing armed and unarmed UAVs. I just feel it's let down by the editorial slant and US-centric focus.
At that time I was the technical rep for Snap-on Equipment, and I was called by TRW outside of Ft Huachuca. They needed equipment that could diagnose the computer system used in a drone, but the engine was a Moto Guzzi from Italy, and it had fuel injection on it that had been supplied by the Israelis. The fuel injection system had been stripped of all the diagnostic capability for some reason, so TRW was having a hard time diagnosing the system. I sold them a Simutech, which was this big octupus of wires that let you tap into all the PCM signals at once.
This is an extraordinary comment to make, when they have used drones more than anyone.
FFS drones are basicly RC planes not Nukes
Ahem. It's a bit of a stretch to call Reapers and Predators RC planes. Not to mentioned UAV spacecraft[1, 2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37
[2] http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/unmanned-air-force-space-plane-l...
[1] EDIT: I suppose, really, all of them are custom and not COTS, yet. I meant one-off, low production UAVs with a specific application in mind. Their design standards are far lower (because of cost) and have no real maintenance plan (again, because of cost). They just need cameras in the sky in a specific area, and sending another aircraft (like Predator) out may not be feasible (cost, time, risk).
'The USA has been igniting and fuelling this arms race with ever greater use and weaponization of drones, but now the process is self-sustaining. Even if the USA should cease developments of its drone program and start decommissioning the crafts, that in itself would not stop drone armament, since several other actors would in all probability continue developments on programs that are now already in full action'
As an aside, if you were right: Unpalatable as the sentiment may be, there is still something to the notion that the USA does have a lot of influence over major parts of the world. I think we can all generally agree that as a nation they do have an unusual degree of possibilities to set examples and fashions, and I like it much better when the administration feels like championing human rights or restrictions on certain kinds of particularly nasty weapons than when it's bent on exporting new justifications for steps towards totalitarianism or more cost-effective ways to slaughter people.
So if people in general indeed seem to think that the USA has both possibility and some kind of obligation to do things like try to curtail a rise in drone warfare, I actually feel kind of pleased at that. To the extent that it's real, I think it's welcome, and to the extent that it's conceit, maybe it's at least a constructive one.
Many (smaller) countries realized long ago that if they would end up at war with a much larger neighbour, their own military power would be of no use, and gave up on maintaining and building self-sufficient military machines.
Instead, they focus on a certain aspect of military operations, and develop and maintain that segment of their armies in order to make a somewhat meaningful contribution to a certain alliance, hoping that alliance will help them should they ever need it.
Others gave up on having armed forces at all.
Presumably, you wouldn't want to risk b), which means for every instance of a) you'd presumably end up committing resources to counter it, if the odds of b) are "high enough", where "high enough" could easily be 1% chance of a bomb or less if the 1% case is sufficiently lethal.
You could see a hidden defending force "swarming" an invader with toys with the odd highly lethal weapon in the mix very cheaply to slow an advance...
A "flock" of light unarmed vehicles surrounding with one or more armed vehicles that drop in and out of the flock to do their thing would likely be extremely difficult to deal with.
“Once countries like China start exporting these, they’re going to be everywhere really quickly. Within the next 10 years, every country will have these,” Noel Sharkey
How about you change "China" to "USA" - Basically the same right? What's so wrong about China having drones that he singles them out?
US armed both Iraq and the Taliban in the 80s.
Thus, you're more likely to see China manufacturing and exporting drones to whomever wants to buy than the US.
Again, control of the high-ground is key.
With regard to PRECIPITOUS HEIGHTS, if you are
beforehand with your adversary, you should occupy
the raised and sunny spots, and there wait for him
to come up.How hard would it be for an individual to mount an RPG or Liberator firearm payload on a sub $1k drone that can be piloted 20km?
I also expect drone regulations to increase considerably once attacks from such low-end drones start appearing.
However, you could probably take an off-the-shelf large R/C plane or helicopter and put a small explosive payload in it, then crash it into somewhere. Even that would be hard to do for under $1K, and range would be limited.
The IRA experimented with this decades ago and gave up and lest be honest the average al Qaeda terrorist cell would find using human suicide bombers much easier to use.
Leonardo da Vinci experimented with flight many centuries ago. He gave up.
Which came first, the widespread availability of drones or the Good Friday Agreement?
How do you get a 'human suicide bomber' in to some place like Number 10 Downing Street? You don't. You don't even use a drone. You use a mortar bomb:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downing_Street_mortar_attack
Where are these 'al-qaeda' terror cells of yours? The ones that see their lives as having no more value than that of a housefly's? Did I miss out on the Kool Aid?
The IRA did experiment with RC planes as an attack vector they decided that it was not worth the effort - Car bombs and improvised mortars where a better weapon more bang for the buck
Why exactly do you think my comment was silly?
Have you been to Afghanistan? Ever met a genuine terrorist? You seem to make assumptions as if you know how these terrorist people think.
Earlier you were talking about those fictional 'al-qaeda' fellows, not to be confused with those genuine 'Taliban' (the word means 'students'). There is a difference, that is why we have these different labels and words for things, it helps us to explain what we mean. You can't just use any old words interchangeably and spell things wrongly.
Regarding your digressions...
I have been watching the news and, from what I can remember, these 'Taliban' of yours have been attacking paid up military folk and the mercenary civilian contractors sent there on some bounty hunt to support a military operation. The general idea is that, wherever you live, you attack an uninvited occupying army, it does not matter where they are from, how trans-gendered they are, whether they call themselves 'SAS' or whatever. If there are soldiers in silly little uniforms occupying your country then they are fair game to the likes of 'the talliban' (your spelling).
If I remember, the 'Coalition of the Willing', of which I guess you support wholeheartedly from the comfort of your armchair, bombed the Red Cross food depot, not once, but twice. They have also bombed plenty of wedding parties. I think you will find these are 'soft targets'.
All considered, I think it is about time you got off your armchair and went to see a bit of the real world.
actually I do know the difference between the different factions in Afghanistan 055 Brigade al Qaeda and the locally recruited fighters.
And forgive me if the spell checker I used doesn't have you preferred spellings.
Remote control planes have been around for decades - you grandfather probably had one made of things like balsa. I am sure that those Irish people were not so retarded that they did not see the possibilities of putting some Semtex in one and flying into Balmoral or somewhere. A little switch on the nose, no timing device needed. It is all imaginable. Yet, we mustn't let our imaginations get the better of ourselves. There is a distinction between reality, propaganda and imaginations of an over-active mind. This Brigade 55 of yours, met anyone in it?
My point was that the PIRA one of the most effective terrorist organisations in recent times did look at model planes/drones and discarded then as not an effective weapon/tactic.
Brigade 55 are of course the circa 2000 foreign fighters imported into Afghanistan and used as a cadre.
but as you seem to be so well informed you should know that.
300m however with a live video stream and GPS navigation programming is available under $1k even on Amazon:
I'm fairly confident I could put together an aircraft that could travel 20km with a 3km payload and self-destruct at the destination for less than $1k.
Something like:
http://www.steadidrone.eu/octocopter-ei8ht/
Would be a better candidate. Perhaps a small drone could drop an activated payload, but I would forget about launching anything off of them, as that would likely blow the drone out of the sky due to the thrust generated by the payload's propellant.
Its way past technology outpacing our ability to react. The brave new world is here, with such wonders in it.
Quadrotors are cool, but severely limited in the range, time aloft, and payload categories.
Add to that identifying a target visually and tracking. A plane could hit a fixed target but if its moving, a model plane could have an awful time matching speed and direction.
Probably.
Yes, it would be best for only the US to have this technology, as they would surely only use it for good..