Asymmetric Warfare, articles, ideas and more

In my view our Army should focus more on niche projects and technologies rather than waste money on second-hand junk that would be quickly depleted in any conflict and impossible to replace through internal production. Conventionally, no matter how many second hand planes and ships we buy, we will be entirely dependent on NATO for any effective support.
A large fleet of UCAVs and a good doctrine for their use, can be affordable in my view. It would only take will and dedication, since "commissions" would probably not be very juicy.
UCAVs should be integrated in teams also armed with ATGMs and MANPADs.

Well, until then, an interesting article:

Unmanned Mini-Helicopter Gets 'Weaponized'
http://www.defensereview.com/article846.html

Yes, hallelujah, YES!!!

As I stated in an earlier thread, I could build a fully combat-capable UCAV for the cost of a luxury car. And make it semi-stealthy to boot! All with a very minimal investment in R&D. The designs, materiel and hardware are all out there, and can be purchased "off-the-shelf".

As your Minister of Defense said earlier this year: Romania needs to specialize in Intelligence gathering and Mountain troops.

And while we are on the subject of UCAV, why not UCGV? (Unmanned Combat Ground Vehicles).

The problem with all this is in defining capability: In a low cost UCAV or UCGV, it is perfectly fine to use lesser capable systems in firepower/protection/mobility/C4I as long as they can be made to fit within an overall combat system, because you no longer have the concerns about crew protection + the vehicles are relatively cheap.

The cost of upgrading systems is not so great, either, as you are allowing other countries and companies to expend vast amounts of money developing new technologies, and then you are just buying it off the shelf. The great powers have such a lag time between tech. development to fielding that you will have equivalent technology at a lesser cost.

Hi 120mm,

I have "drawing board plans" for both UCAVs and UCGVs for Romania, but I am not a military specialist nor an engineer, so they wouldnt probably impress anyone from a practical raw data view, maybe only as concepts per se, needing further professional research and development. Hopefully after I get out of college I can spend more time on these small amateur projects.

I found this very interesting too:

slow-flying long duration high-altitude uninhabited aerial vehicle

It can loiter twice as high as a B-2 or B-52. Weaponising these flying wings with AAMs and making them smaller is worth a R&D effort, even if those actions lowers its ceiling capabilities. Putting swarms of these fellows in the air and cheaply leaving them to loiter could mean nightmares for enemy aircraft especially if done in layers and combined with good SAM systems on the ground.
But maybe I'm dreaming....

take care

Modern day aerial mines? I see no reason why someone couldn't do it. Currently, on the US/Mexican border, drug-runners are sending homebuilt UAVs with GPS autopilots packed with drugs across the border. They are programmed to land, where the drugs are removed, the airplane is fueled, and it is sent back to Mexico.

The aircraft are small and made of composite materials (which are extremely easy to work with) so they are somewhat stealthy. If drug-dealers can do it, why couldn't a nation-state do something similar for defense purposes?

I remember seeing a proposal a few years ago at a military communications conference for a tactical communications network using UAVs. Basically it put mobile phone relays on UAVs that loitered over the battlefield, with a few at higher altitudes that provided satellite uplinks for out-of-theater comms.

Obviously the whole network was encrypted and had other survivability features, and it wasn't suitable for all threat environments. But it still seemed useful. The nodes were cheap enough that losing a few was not a big crisis, and this made the overall network more robust.

There is a serious move among telecom companies to field very high altitude UAVs on a lighter-than-air chassis. We have solar powered lighter-than-air vehicles that can fly higher than weather patterns, which leads to incredible loiter times

Mini UAVs for convoy protection

http://www.spyplanes.com/movies.html#convoy50

How about modern day flying "watchtowers"?
I am sure they could place several high resolution cameras on a "slow-flying long duration high-altitude uninhabited aerial vehicle" to keep an eye on hundreds of sq km of roads in Irak. A lot of IED planters would end up caught or killed. A fleet of those babies could sweep the whole of Irak continuously.

I've heard of this too. What's the limiting factor on the loiter time? Some hardware failure?

What would you do with the imagery generated? Have buildings full of analysts looking at it? Some software to identify suspicious patterns of behavior, then have the analysts look at a much smaller set of images? Or just use it after the IED had gone off, so you could get a look at the guy who planted it?

It's easy to drown in too much data. And it eats network capacity to move it around.

I've heard of this too. What's the limiting factor on the loiter time? Some hardware failure?

Limiting factor on loiter time is solar cell degradation and direct aspiration of the helium into the atmosphere. Of course, the electric motors will need periodic service as well, but think of all the useful ozone they'd produce.

This post has been edited by 120mm on June 28, 2006 11:16 am

I was thinking more like video cameras, not photo cameras.

You would have the same management problems with video cameras. There needs to be some discriminator, but in that is a weakness that the enemy can exploit. You can't avoid it.

I say go simple and use electronic/magnetic anomaly stuff only, combined with human operators.

As 120mm noted, the issue applies to both. If you're going to catch people acting suspiciously, you need to define suspicious behavior, and that's going to be constant cat-and-mouse game, as well as an employment scheme for lots of analysts.

I honestly dont see the definition of suspicious behaviour and higher analyst employment to be an issue. Maybe it is technically impossible or nobody actually thought about it. I dont think the US values money more than the lives of the soldiers sent there.

I think Jeff S was speaking to "information flow management". If you run a video feed, without closely defining what, where, who you are looking for, you quickly accumulate more data than can be managed unless you have some way to screen data quickly and efficiently.

One key discriminator is electrical fields produced by vehicles and magnetic anomalies produced by large metal objects like armored vehicles.

I would solve some of the issue by pushing UCAVs down to the lowest possible levels, arm them to deal with immediate tactical problems, and allow the normal intel reporting chain to develop the data. The issue here is practice. If your system gets a good workout and often, it can be even more efficient than computer programs.