Drone Improvements

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So, I've been incredibly unhappy with the way my country has been using drones over the years, indiscriminately and dishonestly, and illegally, as a technological pragmatist I see some potential for the things, if a few modifications were made.

Firstly, the payload. Currently, we seem to equip our drones with Hellfire missiles or something similar, guided high explosive weaponry that takes out not only the intended target, but anyone unfortunate enough to be in the general vicinity, which is problematic enough on its own, but even worse in light of our extremely blase attitude towards target identification. My solution is to replace the missiles with a large caliber guided kinetic projectile, i.e. a bullet, which has already been developed in .50 caliber for use in machineguns. This way, discrete individuals could be targeted, and collateral damage minimized, which is both morally better and more efficient, as it is less likely to inspire more hatred of us from the relatives of said collateral damage. Depending upon the altitude and attitude towards the target, a bullet might not even be needed, something akin to a laser guided lawn dart could be just as effective, and cheap too.

Secondly, integrated facial and pattern recognition, both for the obvious reasons, and for ones I'll get into in my next entry. This technology is another that makes me deeply uncomfortable, but is out there and not going away, and so may as well be adapted for good purposes, which again, I'll make clearer momentarily.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, is to switch the mission parameters from hunter/killer of terrorists to peacekeeping, in areas that would be impractical to cover through other means. The textbook example for me would be Africa and groups like Boko Haram, who could be run down in days by drones equipped with thermal gear to see them through cover, and the armament to engage them discretely. That's where the pattern recognition software would come in, spotting anomalous groupings, or specific patterns such as an armed convoy attacking a village, and drawing the attention of human operators, who could then illuminate the particular individuals and engage them while summoning conventional airborne troops.

None of this stuff is perfect mind you, and certainly subject to abuse, but it could also be a powerful tool fighting insurgencies that are traditionally difficult to engage with without inflicting significant civilian casualties, in a cost effective way, that doesn't require the troublesome deployment of ground troops, and that strikes at the morale of the targeted groups. Coming under sniper fire is widely considered to be the worst experience as a soldier, the most frightening, most demoralizing, etc, and a sniper in the sky that can strike at any time and place would be that much worse, not only weakening the resolve of those who experience it directly, but making the whole enterprise seem much less attractive, cutting off recruiting efforts.

Anyway, just a weird idea I've been thinking about off an on that I felt like putting out there.

What are you referring to, exactly?

Vinay Gupta on drone warfare

Drones are one of those difficult moral questions.

Like is reducing overall deaths of all the forces involve, more important than reducing the risks of some innocent people being killed? Then you have to consider issues of not knowing when a conflict going tot en, and if low intensity conflict, posing more of a danger to your state.

It is a difficult and complex problem that makes me uncomfortable too.

I'm not sure that fitting drone with 50 cal gun would solve more issue than causes. Are you talkign more like a larger shell?

I don't think even the biggest drone would withstand that kind of thing, and the weight issue would be great.

I also think the type of intelligence that leads to these strike is not always visual, it can be signals intelligence. They have visual on the building, but often the person is not a clear target.

On accuracy, these missiles are actually very accurate, becuase they are guided. Yes they cause a lot of damage.

Honestly, I'm surprised there haven't been any killings of drone pilots yet. They are, after all, a legitimate military target.

I still want a quadcopter armed with a (recoilless, I suppose) rifle. Mass produce them, cheaply, and use them for urban combat. We can afford to lose a few for every militant we take out, and if that allows us to discriminate between civilians and militants because we don't have to worry about being killed...

Though, drones are all well and good until someone jams the signals. Or fries the electronics. Could a chaff cannon cause enough interference? I'm not too worried about actual hacking, because it costs very little nowadays to use strong encryption (i.e. a one time pad). Well, as long as you have a random number generator available.

Chaff doesn't jam, it changes the signature of the object so a missile cannot lock on. Chaff is also a very fleeting thing, deployed when under attack.

They're developing smaller missiles for UAVs.

US intelligence is not always very reliable, drone warfare has been a net negative as it has aided recruitment for the enemy for more than it has damaged them. Sure we can kill specific targets but what use is that when 10 more take their place and the we lose the hearts and minds of the populace when we blow up some kindergarten or wedding? Drones should be restricted more to surveillance, an aid to those on the ground.

Jacoby, you sound like a modern version of Hanoi Hannah.

Vietnam is a good comparison to the War On Terror but I'm not sure that is the point you want to make here

Secret kill lists, the assassination without trial of US citizens, the general lack of transparency of the system, the fact that we kill a lot of innocent people for reasons best described as asinine; you know, the usual.

I think if people can collude that the Iraq War was a fuckup, why not Vietnam? The justification was even less.

The lesson of asymmetric warfare wasn't learned from Vietnam for one.

Even veterans do see any inconsistency in saying Iraq was a failure. Fro some reason there is a stigma of saying that for Vietnam in the US, as if you can't respect the veterans, and say that was a mistake.

I don't know about that, I think most people accept that Vietnam was a mistake now as we didn't win and it tore the country in half. We supported the Khmer Rouge regime(which the VPA would eventually overthrow) and were trading with Vietnam barely 10 years later. It was all for nothing.

Compared to what though?

I think a major objective to any action is to protect your countrymen more, there is an argument that the drone attack did do that more effectively in Afghanistan/Pakistan/Yemen than ground deployment did. For server years at least.

The problem is whilst the middle east and central Asia are toying between democracy, and the the general nerosis of century old problems.

I think it is easy to be and contrarian, and blame everything on the West. But the west didn't take military action in Syria. So these issue are quite capable of flaring up on their own.

Like I said before, tensions have to exist to be stirred up. Some responsibility has to be take by the countries themselves.

I'm actually thinking that since we're not talking an automatic weapon here, and since it would be vehicle mounted, you could basically use a bolt action rifle with a motor to cycle the weapon, built from titanium or another low weight high strength material, with a highly efficient muzzle brake mounted to reduce the recoil, possibly akin to a giant silencer to catch all the expanding gas and offset the recoil. I think the weight could be comparable to the current combat loadout, with the ability to take many more shots than with conventional missiles, and the recoil reduced to manageable levels, I mean I've shot a 13lb .50 BMG rifle from the shoulder without injuring myself, and it didn't have the kind of brake I'm envisioning.

Here's what I'm thinking it would shoot:

http://www.gizmag.com/darpa-sniper-bullet-change-path/32952/



That's why I'm proposing changing the usage, from H/K to peace keeping, as "signature strikes" are one of my major problems with the current deployment, and the ability to strike an individual rather than an area would be more useful in that capacity. I mean they could still use them for attacking targets of opportunity that have been ID'd using the facial recognition, I just think the indiscriminate payload that they're currently using is counter-productive.

I thought of something like that for a murder for hire story I wrote, though I was thinking something like a silenced .22 zipgun made of aluminum and aimed via camera, like a flying Welrod. I still think it would work, actually, it's one of those things where I'd love to see the police puzzling over the angle the bullet came from and trying to figure out how it was done.