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I would like to see a mini quad copter take the recoil of a 1 g "shaped charge" (aka bullet). EDIT: ok, i found a clip of (a fairly big) drone firing a gun and

I would like to see a mini quad copter take the recoil of a 1 g "shaped charge" (aka bullet). EDIT: ok, i found a clip of (a fairly big) drone firing a gun and it looks... not stable: https://youtu.be/FI--wFfipvA https://youtu.be/FI--wFfipvA still, pretty worrisome.

sushisource 7y ago
If you actually watch the original video the drones aren't intended to survive.
- delinka 7y ago
  OK, drones are cheap. How about that projectile firing apparatus?
  - nyolfen 7y ago
    shaped charges are made of a metal cylinder with explosives inside and a concave copper cone on one end. insurgents can and do manufacture them. the explosives and detonation rigging are the only part that has a meaningful cost, and if you're talking about one gram of explosive that isn't much.
GhettoMaestro 7y ago
I don't think you technically need to absorb the recoil. Check out the EFP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosively_formed_penetrator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosively_formed_penetrator EFPs were what turned out Humvees to swiss-cheese in Iraq before we switched over the MRAPs.
- subroutine 7y ago
  Ah this is what I wanted to know. If you ignite a shaped projectile with nothing to push on but air, will it go "An EFP 20 cm (8 inches) in diameter threw a 3 kg (7 lbs) copper slug at Mach 6, or 2,000 meters per second. (A .50-caliber bullet, among the most devastating projectiles on the battlefield, weighs less than two ounces and has a muzzle velocity of 900 meters per second.) — Rick Atkinson, The Washington Post"
kevingadd 7y ago
They're disposable. They don't need to take anything.
- subroutine 7y ago
  Get a... "very, very small quadcopter, one inch in diameter that can carry a one-or two-gram shaped charge,” ...and fire a bullet from it, and let me know what goes farther, the bullet or the quad.
- chongli 7y ago
  And shaped charges are entirely besides the point. They could instead carry a small auto-injector (like an EpiPen) containing a few mg of ricin [1]. It'd be like getting stung by an insect. Within days the symptoms would start to appear. If this happened to even a few hundred people, let alone thousands, then hospitals would be completely overwhelmed and people would be dying everywhere. It would cause a mass panic. Injection with ricin was how Georgi Markov was assassinated [2]. It was shocking to say the least. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricin [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_umbrella https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_umbrella
  - subroutine 7y ago
    A few hundred is within the scope of what people are doing with conventional explosives. The article is talking about the ability to target millions of people. I just don't believe we will see a day when tiny drones with epipens pose a greater threat than guns.
    - chongli 7y ago
      What sets it apart from conventional explosives is that it's decentralized. A single attacker can distribute these things all over a city. This makes it much more difficult to mitigate the threat, let alone apprehend the attacker.
      - ineedasername 7y ago
nostrademons 7y ago
Shaped charges are not bullets. They're bits of specially-molded explosives, such that the blast energy of the explosive forms the charge into a jet of molten metal. They don't rely on any kinetic energy at all to penetrate, and can be delivered by sticking a small candle-sized (the little ones, like you might see at a fancy dinner) device onto the targeted surface. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_charge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_charge
- subroutine 7y ago
  What you said directly contradicts the wiki article you linked... "Contrary to a widespread misconception (possibly resulting from the acronym HEAT) the shaped charge does not depend in any way on heating or melting for its effectiveness; that is, the jet from a shaped charge does not melt its way through armor, as its effect is purely kinetic in nature"
  - nostrademons 7y ago
    No, it doesn't contradict it. What I mean by "doesn't require any kinetic energy to penetrate" is that the explosive doesn't need to be moving at all to penetrate. For example, you can stick a shape charge directly underneath a parked tank, detonate it, and it will blow up the tank. (This is exactly what a landmine or IED does.) You could also just drop it by parachute from a drone (this is a cluster bomb). What the Wikipedia article is saying is that the explosive forms its own projectile out of the molten metal casing, which is expelled at high velocity from the explosive and then penetrates through kinetic energy. It's a matter of where the energy for penetration comes from: what both Wikipedia and I are saying is that it comes from the explosive charge itself, not the velocity of the projectile, and hence there's no need for recoil when fired from a drone.
    - subroutine 7y ago
      Yes, now that you've completely changed what you said, from... They don't rely on any kinetic energy at all to penetrate to... "which is expelled at high velocity from the explosive and then penetrates through kinetic energy" I agee. But these projectiles only work under 2 conditions. (1) They have something very solid behind them, like the ground, or a metal gun, or (2) they are hurling toward the object at great speed. And if the drones are simply going to be kamikaze diving from 1000 feet above, almost anything you attach to it will cause significant damage. However that'd be a pretty low-precision maneuver, and sort of defeats the purpose of all those weeks spent training to perform image recognition.

sushisource 7y ago

If you actually watch the original video the drones aren't intended to survive.

delinka 7y ago
OK, drones are cheap. How about that projectile firing apparatus?
- nyolfen 7y ago
  shaped charges are made of a metal cylinder with explosives inside and a concave copper cone on one end. insurgents can and do manufacture them. the explosives and detonation rigging are the only part that has a meaningful cost, and if you're talking about one gram of explosive that isn't much.

GhettoMaestro 7y ago

I don't think you technically need to absorb the recoil. Check out the EFP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosively_formed_penetrator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosively_formed_penetrator EFPs were what turned out Humvees to swiss-cheese in Iraq before we switched over the MRAPs.

subroutine 7y ago
Ah this is what I wanted to know. If you ignite a shaped projectile with nothing to push on but air, will it go "An EFP 20 cm (8 inches) in diameter threw a 3 kg (7 lbs) copper slug at Mach 6, or 2,000 meters per second. (A .50-caliber bullet, among the most devastating projectiles on the battlefield, weighs less than two ounces and has a muzzle velocity of 900 meters per second.) — Rick Atkinson, The Washington Post"

kevingadd 7y ago

They're disposable. They don't need to take anything.

subroutine 7y ago
Get a... "very, very small quadcopter, one inch in diameter that can carry a one-or two-gram shaped charge,” ...and fire a bullet from it, and let me know what goes farther, the bullet or the quad.
chongli 7y ago
And shaped charges are entirely besides the point. They could instead carry a small auto-injector (like an EpiPen) containing a few mg of ricin [1]. It'd be like getting stung by an insect. Within days the symptoms would start to appear. If this happened to even a few hundred people, let alone thousands, then hospitals would be completely overwhelmed and people would be dying everywhere. It would cause a mass panic. Injection with ricin was how Georgi Markov was assassinated [2]. It was shocking to say the least. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricin [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_umbrella https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_umbrella
- subroutine 7y ago
  A few hundred is within the scope of what people are doing with conventional explosives. The article is talking about the ability to target millions of people. I just don't believe we will see a day when tiny drones with epipens pose a greater threat than guns.
  - chongli 7y ago
    What sets it apart from conventional explosives is that it's decentralized. A single attacker can distribute these things all over a city. This makes it much more difficult to mitigate the threat, let alone apprehend the attacker.
    - ineedasername 7y ago

nostrademons 7y ago

Shaped charges are not bullets. They're bits of specially-molded explosives, such that the blast energy of the explosive forms the charge into a jet of molten metal. They don't rely on any kinetic energy at all to penetrate, and can be delivered by sticking a small candle-sized (the little ones, like you might see at a fancy dinner) device onto the targeted surface. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_charge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_charge

subroutine 7y ago
What you said directly contradicts the wiki article you linked... "Contrary to a widespread misconception (possibly resulting from the acronym HEAT) the shaped charge does not depend in any way on heating or melting for its effectiveness; that is, the jet from a shaped charge does not melt its way through armor, as its effect is purely kinetic in nature"
- nostrademons 7y ago
  No, it doesn't contradict it. What I mean by "doesn't require any kinetic energy to penetrate" is that the explosive doesn't need to be moving at all to penetrate. For example, you can stick a shape charge directly underneath a parked tank, detonate it, and it will blow up the tank. (This is exactly what a landmine or IED does.) You could also just drop it by parachute from a drone (this is a cluster bomb). What the Wikipedia article is saying is that the explosive forms its own projectile out of the molten metal casing, which is expelled at high velocity from the explosive and then penetrates through kinetic energy. It's a matter of where the energy for penetration comes from: what both Wikipedia and I are saying is that it comes from the explosive charge itself, not the velocity of the projectile, and hence there's no need for recoil when fired from a drone.
  - subroutine 7y ago
    Yes, now that you've completely changed what you said, from... They don't rely on any kinetic energy at all to penetrate to... "which is expelled at high velocity from the explosive and then penetrates through kinetic energy" I agee. But these projectiles only work under 2 conditions. (1) They have something very solid behind them, like the ground, or a metal gun, or (2) they are hurling toward the object at great speed. And if the drones are simply going to be kamikaze diving from 1000 feet above, almost anything you attach to it will cause significant damage. However that'd be a pretty low-precision maneuver, and sort of defeats the purpose of all those weeks spent training to perform image recognition.