Posted on 05/12/2018 6:35:46 PM PDT by mrsmith
During my time in Mosul as a member of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne Division, a remarkably accessible and affordable device arrived on the battlefield. As my battalion helped Iraqi forces retake the city, we encountered some of the first small drones employed in modern conflict... Two events abruptly altered the way Iraq’s most elite ground unit perceived these devices. The first was after the Counter-Terrorism Service escorted advisors from the 82nd Airborne Division to a meeting with an Iraqi Army unit in Mosul proper. During the return to their outpost, the convoy spotted an unidentified quad-copter overhead. Soon after, they faced inaccurate mortar fire from the city. Though the attack was ineffective, ISIL’s intentions were clear: to use small drones to supplement and coordinate its attacks.
The second event was more jarring. A few days after the attack on the convoy, Counter-Terrorism Service soldiers reported three rotary-wing drones hovering over a command vehicle. As the staff reported the initial information, the drones dropped munitions from altitude, killing and injuring several Iraqis. No longer could the Counter-Terrorism Service or its advisors ignore the threat posed by unmanned aerial systems. ... By observing troop movements from their aerial vantage points, ISIL fighters were able to quickly engage Iraqi forces. ISIL mortar teams, in direct communication with the unmanned aerial system operator, engaged the Iraqis’ static positions based on adjustments from the observing drone. VBIEDs drove into roadblocked Iraqi positions using the drone to navigate past obstacles. ISIL used drones to identify high-payoff targets like command vehicles, tanks, and bulldozers. The VBIED threat was less fatal than indirect fire, but the ingrained fear of VBIEDs and drones crippled the coalition’s momentum whenever a drone appeared or a VBIED detonated. ISIL would also employ the drone as armed intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, dropping makeshift 40mm grenades onto Iraqi positions. The fear of anything flying over Iraqi heads stunted momentum and forced valuable resources away from the advance on the ground.
Vehicle based IED. Could also be a suicide bomber in a loaded vehicle.
A very serious threat on the field of combat and as a terror weapon. We need to counter this threat. The military has countermeasures but it is only a matter of time when we see the era of drone terrorism.
DJI drones...
Cheap!
ISIL...really?
Who still uses the Obama/Brennan/MB approved acronym to describe these Sunni miscreants?
And, in the US itself (or any overseas base) a series of small drones will be used to destroy squadrons of USAF planes. Takes very little explosive mass to damage a wing or engine.
Their payload is so small I was surprised that drones could carry a ‘grenade’ and a mechanism for dropping it. I thought they were just good for ‘suicide’ attacks.
Learned a lot from the article. The game is on.
The one in the video had an aerial bomb. Probably improvised.
mortar?
One of the first commercial drones I read about said it could easily carry a 2 liter soda. That would be a fair amount of explosives.
Soon there will be specialized drone killer drones, the fighters in the drone air force.
An electromagnetic gun would fry any drone with just a zap at light speed, if we are to believe the EMD bomb fearmongers.
More realistically, directional signal jammers should be able to desactivate any drone.
I have anticipated the mass use in combat of drone swarms. While commercially available drones will quickly be rendered useless in the battlefield, electronic modification kits will quickly become available to retrofit them. Vulnerabilities to major militaries include the logistics train of fuel trucks and supply trucks that must follow the main army. Those are not going to be protected by drone defenses at the same level as the front line troops, but without them the front line troops can’t fight. What good are your Abrams tanks when they can’t get fuel? A devastating attack against an air base far from the front lines can be carried out by a man on motor scooter wearing a backpack with a drone in it.
It’s going to take a small company to develop and deploy effective solutions as the large military suppliers I worked for scoffed at small money and small projects. If it wasn’t big enough to be listed on the main corporate assets sheet, they weren’t concerned with it. Also, big companies, are, by design, very slow. The longer a project lasts, the more money they make. Drone projects are the sort that need to be turned around in near real time.
I’m thinking the only solution is to create signal jamming electronics.......
“ISIL”
It’s Islamic F*cking State! not ISIL.
They’re are already numerous private sector companies producing anti-drone systems:
http://www.dronedefense.systems
The problem is the development curve. For every defense there is a countermeasure that is usually easier to produce. We are fast approaching Skynet type technology to use a poor trope. The military swarms offer some pretty terrifying capabilities. In a few years, it will be like being thrown out naked in the Alaskan Bush to be killed by a million mosquitoes.
Everyone should check out this mockumentary:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fWzXjn5hHjs
It’s not real, but it’s already out of date from a tech standpoint.
Bumping the informative article.
BTW, on Iraq elections...
“Ayad Allawi, head of The National Coalition and Iraq’s Vice President, called for the establishment of an emergency provisional government ahead of the elections result being announced. He said in a statement: “We call for new elections, asking the current government to remain in power and ensure conditions are met for an election that reflects the aspirations and wants of our fellow citizens to be held”...
Kurdish opposition parties demand second vote amid fraud accusations. Gunfire erupted in Iraq’s Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya...”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/958674/Iraq-election-2018-results-live-updates-polls-news-parliamentary-elections-ISIS
Not looking good.
https://dronewars.net/2018/05/17/new-research-shows-rise-in-number-of-states-deploying-armed-drones/
More on armed drone proliferation.
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