If your goal isn't to effect change, what's the fucking point in any of that? They're not using any of that heavy gear to give you a hard time in Iraq and Syria, it won't achieve anything. It's dick waving at that point, and I'm sure China will continue to have some cheap drones to sell them.
Let me clarify. Air attacks are not likely to cause a country to change its course in and of themselves ("Do X or we will continue to bomb Y."), but they are capable of forcing a country to change by their ability to remove the ability of said country to continue on its present course. Destroying the factory that makes the WizzBang SRBM has the practical effect of limiting the number of WizzBangs that can be deployed going forward, no matter how many WizzBangs countries want....
Thing is, that's a practical application against higher tech weaponry, but that's not how Iran, or indeed Russia or China approach weapons development, because they know that's exactly what you'd try.
They just churn out a lot of cheap shit, quickly, from simple dispersed facilities. Same way those same Whizzbang SRBMs can be produced in a hole in occupied Gaza.
They’re still conscript armies that demand lots of cheap and simple. Better is relative; it’s still several generations behind NATO cutting edge, and China are masters of mass producing cheap simple shite.
I mean a 3 year old can fly a drone nowadays. And every farmer has one in their barn to map out where to dump their fertiliser thanks to GPS automation, I fly one myself to map regrowth after wildfires. It’s not a huge leap to turn that tech and guidance into an effective cruise missile.
And yet the Iranians can still pick out buildings 100 miles away with their ballistics because they can work out the trajectory with a smartphone app.
Tech has improved generally and of course they’re going to exploit that. It doesn’t mean it’s anything like on par with NATO, or ever will be.
As long as those counties don’t have purely volunteer armies, in which they aim to retain highly trained individuals, it would be counter productive for them to pursue the same high tech solutions typical of NATO.
As I said, China is moving away from quantity over quality.
Most NATO armies had conscription, and Israel still does. You can have high tech and conscripts, it just doesnt work as well as a professional military.
A simple RF jammer would render your civilian drone useless.
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PSA: Being a volunteer is no excuse to make a shite job of it.
Stronger than the controller, which depends on range. After that it depends on the autopilot and GPS/GLONASS or whatever system it’s using. You can jam that too, but how do you know it’s not plugged into your own?
By the time those things become useful to you, it’s too late.
And any kind of jamming is putting a big big target on your head that’s very easy to pick out.
Last edited by Jessicka; 2020-01-09 at 12:12 AM.
Any length of time is going to give you away to a ballistic follow up, and if you’re jamming with any kind of LOS system or process you’re already too late anyway.
The drones used in Yemen and against Saudi oil facilities already showed these things aren’t easy to pick up on for more sophisticated systems.
Every radio operator within 100 miles knows you’re there, they can triangulate immediately to the nanometer. Hell they probably have automated systems now that do that for you.
You have two scenarios.
1. Drone is in autopilot going to a place to Suicide, drop a payload, take pictures, or wait for an active pilot to jump in. This you need to jam the guidance GPS if you want to throw it off, but it’ll just get lost (at worst) until you stop jamming then it will find itself and find it’s way back to where it was told to go. It should still be able to work out where it is based on flight speed, altitude and heading in any case. It’s not expecting orders and probably won’t take them, if you can find whatever frequency and encryption key you need to try. It won’t be transmitting anything for you to find out.
2. Recon/HK drone with an active pilot. This you can jam because it’s likely in constant communication with its pilot. You need to see it coming one way or another. Depending on the strength of your jammer, you’re probably too late, or in harms way when you start. Or you just got lucky. Drone will revert to autopilot and fly to a pre-determined ‘safe’ holding area after a certain period of lost comms. Meanwhile you’ve just told everyone within 100 miles “I have an RF jammer” and made yourself the next target for next time someone wants to fly a drone there and bait you out accordingly.
The principals aren’t complex, but the execution needs a lot more behind it. If it was ever straightforward against any kind of drone, militarily it’d be dead end technology.
And yes; LOS does work both ways. You do get an opportunity to shoot at it. Except they’re small and fast, and far from trivial things to take down.
Last edited by Jessicka; 2020-01-09 at 01:17 AM.