5 ms·

Ukrainians intercept advanced Russian kamikaze drone with unique design

29 points by dredmorbius 3y ago

red-iron-pine 3y ago
old news, they've been talking about the fibre-optic drones for a little while now. essentially a very advanced, larger wire-guided SACLOS missile, a la Konkurs, MILAN, or TOW. EW and jamming are so good that this is probably a must. radio controllers will get triangulated and hit, often quickly these days, and sight-picture could be heavily degraded (or straight blocked) by EW, so direct fibre makes pretty good sense.
hyperman1 3y ago
I wonder why this happens: Details about the drone's specific deployment on the front remain undisclosed by the Ukrainians. I'd expect to publish all details of your enemy's weapons would be good for your side. Dump the software on the internet and let everyone search for weaknesses. Dump the hardware in full detail, and let everyone search for countermeasures. Reset every design advantage Russia has. What are they going to do, sue Ukraine for copyright infringement?
- bdjsiqoocwk 3y ago
  > I'd expect to publish all details of your enemy's weapons would be good for your side Wrong, telling your enemy what you know about them tells them about you.
- petertodd 3y ago
  Revealing what you know about enemy drones can also reveal to the enemy the capabilities of your own surveillance. For example, imagine that the enemy was using drones for surveillance flights over your territory. You might not want to publicly reveal data that you reveal which flights you have detected, or where you detected them, because that reveals info on your own anti-drone surveillance capabilities. Secondly, you might want to steer discussion of countermeasures towards groups operating in secret, to try to make sure that advances are not immediately discovered by the enemy. For example, if a new enemy drone uses a particular type of radio protocol that has a security exploit, you'd rather that security exploit be found out about and discussed in secret. Because you only get a limited opportunity to actually use that exploit in battle before it's patched. Better that the enemy has no idea you found the exploit for as long as possible, rather than them being able to just follow the work of third-party groups analyzing your drones. Obviously there's tradeoffs to both approaches. But doing things in secret makes a lot of sense.
  - scyzoryk_xyz 3y ago
    Reminded of that Neal Stephenson Cryptonomicon but where after cracking the enigma the allies play a whole game of pretend so their adversaries don’t notice that their communications have been compromised. That’s ww2 - can’t imagine how much more complex and layered this shit would be. You don’t want them to know that you know that they know that you know etc.
Tarq0n 3y ago
> Notably, the latest Russian drone innovations have come to light thanks to the capture of a drone fitted with a 6.2-mile-long fibre optic cable aimed at enhancing communication between the drone and its pilot. 6 miles? I'm struggling to understand how this wouldn't become a problem dragging over the ground or tangled. Is there a winch on the operator side keeping it suspended?
- petertodd 3y ago
  The cable is deployed off a spool on the drone. Once it leaves the drone, it just falls down to the ground with little further movement; there's no dragging. There's a lot of wire-guided missiles that use the same idea: a spool of cable on the back of the missile that pays out as the missile moves forward, leaving a long, thin, wire all the way back to the launch point. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BGM-71_TOW https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BGM-71_TOW
  - KyleBerezin 3y ago
    A better example is the Israeli Spike-LR, which uses fiber optic cables instead of copper. it has 4km of cable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spike_(missile)#Spike-LR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spike_(missile)#Spike-LR
  - dredmorbius 3y ago
    I'd known about TOW missiles, one of a larger class of wire-guided missiles and other munitions (torpedos may also be wire-guided, as with the Spearfish: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spearfish_torpedo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spearfish_torpedo>). Most WG missiles seem to have effective ranges of about 3,000m. The Spearfish has a range of 54 km, though I don't know if that's under wire guidance (it can also operate autonomously). So the Russian's drone has about twice the range of other WG missiles. Fibre optics also mean a far higher data-rate is possible, perhaps enabling direct video streaming as well as targeting / control information. Fibre might also be lighter than copper cable.
    - petertodd 3y ago

29 points by dredmorbius 3y ago

old news, they've been talking about the fibre-optic drones for a little while now. essentially a very advanced, larger wire-guided SACLOS missile, a la Konkurs, MILAN, or TOW. EW and jamming are so good that this is probably a must. radio controllers will get triangulated and hit, often quickly these days, and sight-picture could be heavily degraded (or straight blocked) by EW, so direct fibre makes pretty good sense.

hyperman1 3y ago

I wonder why this happens: Details about the drone's specific deployment on the front remain undisclosed by the Ukrainians. I'd expect to publish all details of your enemy's weapons would be good for your side. Dump the software on the internet and let everyone search for weaknesses. Dump the hardware in full detail, and let everyone search for countermeasures. Reset every design advantage Russia has. What are they going to do, sue Ukraine for copyright infringement?

bdjsiqoocwk 3y ago
> I'd expect to publish all details of your enemy's weapons would be good for your side Wrong, telling your enemy what you know about them tells them about you.
petertodd 3y ago
Revealing what you know about enemy drones can also reveal to the enemy the capabilities of your own surveillance. For example, imagine that the enemy was using drones for surveillance flights over your territory. You might not want to publicly reveal data that you reveal which flights you have detected, or where you detected them, because that reveals info on your own anti-drone surveillance capabilities. Secondly, you might want to steer discussion of countermeasures towards groups operating in secret, to try to make sure that advances are not immediately discovered by the enemy. For example, if a new enemy drone uses a particular type of radio protocol that has a security exploit, you'd rather that security exploit be found out about and discussed in secret. Because you only get a limited opportunity to actually use that exploit in battle before it's patched. Better that the enemy has no idea you found the exploit for as long as possible, rather than them being able to just follow the work of third-party groups analyzing your drones. Obviously there's tradeoffs to both approaches. But doing things in secret makes a lot of sense.
- scyzoryk_xyz 3y ago
  Reminded of that Neal Stephenson Cryptonomicon but where after cracking the enigma the allies play a whole game of pretend so their adversaries don’t notice that their communications have been compromised. That’s ww2 - can’t imagine how much more complex and layered this shit would be. You don’t want them to know that you know that they know that you know etc.

Tarq0n 3y ago

> Notably, the latest Russian drone innovations have come to light thanks to the capture of a drone fitted with a 6.2-mile-long fibre optic cable aimed at enhancing communication between the drone and its pilot. 6 miles? I'm struggling to understand how this wouldn't become a problem dragging over the ground or tangled. Is there a winch on the operator side keeping it suspended?

petertodd 3y ago
The cable is deployed off a spool on the drone. Once it leaves the drone, it just falls down to the ground with little further movement; there's no dragging. There's a lot of wire-guided missiles that use the same idea: a spool of cable on the back of the missile that pays out as the missile moves forward, leaving a long, thin, wire all the way back to the launch point. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BGM-71_TOW https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BGM-71_TOW
- KyleBerezin 3y ago
  A better example is the Israeli Spike-LR, which uses fiber optic cables instead of copper. it has 4km of cable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spike_(missile)#Spike-LR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spike_(missile)#Spike-LR
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  I'd known about TOW missiles, one of a larger class of wire-guided missiles and other munitions (torpedos may also be wire-guided, as with the Spearfish: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spearfish_torpedo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spearfish_torpedo>). Most WG missiles seem to have effective ranges of about 3,000m. The Spearfish has a range of 54 km, though I don't know if that's under wire guidance (it can also operate autonomously). So the Russian's drone has about twice the range of other WG missiles. Fibre optics also mean a far higher data-rate is possible, perhaps enabling direct video streaming as well as targeting / control information. Fibre might also be lighter than copper cable.
  - petertodd 3y ago