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Does a consumer-grade 8K camera sensor detect a 20°C difference in a few pixels? Cameras have to aggressively fight against thermal noise. Visible light is much
by nine_k 1y ago
Does a consumer-grade 8K camera sensor detect a 20°C difference in a few pixels? Cameras have to aggressively fight against thermal noise. Visible light is much more energetic than IR; detecting a faint IR signal with a sensor which is about as hot as the object it's looking at is hard. You need to cool the sensor down; old military aircraft even carried a tank of liquid nitrogen for that.
I mean, yes, you can take a low-noise sensor, add cooling, add a telescope lens so that you'd see the shape more readily, put a bunch of these telescopes on a rotating platform to scan the sky, etc. This is doable, but the thread started with an idea that it's doable with consumer-grade ("cheap") tech. I doubt that.
While at it, even if we assume that stealth does not exist for fast and heavy aircraft, it seems to effectively exist for slow, lighter-weight drones. Ukrainian drones, built from ultralight aircraft like Aeroprakt A-20, somehow penetrate 700 miles into Russian territory to burn refineries. With a cruise speed of 70 mph (sic), it should take them 10 hours to fly this distance. Were they detected efficiently, that would be enough time to scramble an interceptor a hundred times. Apparently this does not happen.
- aeternum 1y agoHow many of those attacks were successful? Russia has fairly advanced radar that is quite capable of picking up a plane like that. I think the more likely explanation is that it was incorrectly deemed not a threat or a minor threat. 700 miles is far more than the standard range of the A-20 (210nm). Is it possible they launched it from well within Russia thereby making it much less likely to be considered a threat?
- joha4270 1y agoPossible, just like Russel's teapot. But there has been one very well published Ukrainian attack launched from Russian soil[1]. If Ukraine had could regularly smuggle several drone aircraft's and explosives into Russia and launch them, we would be seeing a lot of other effects. Such as attacks on weapon production sites deep into Russia[2]. But yes, a lot of those attacks are probably unsuccessful. With my qualifications as armchair general, I would be surprised if more than 10% of them was successful. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Spiderweb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Spiderweb [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yelabuga_drone_factory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yelabuga_drone_factory
- timcobb 1y agoI also don't think they'll target the Yelabuga drone factory with a drone when they could use that drone on something relatively small but high value (like an aircraft) or combustible (like a refinery), and are waiting for their heavy cruise missles to come online for targets like factories. You can't do much damage to a factory with a drone. We've seen Ukraine target industrial sites with drones, but it's not common.
- nine_k 1y agoThese attacks were so successful that Russia is having fuel shortages right now, and decreased its exports of oil products by about 10%. It is estimated that about 30% of Russia's refining capacity is disabled by now. (E.g. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czx020k4056o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czx020k4056o) So no, these are not isolated incidents, this is a big hole in air defense, and Russia used to produce some competent air defense systems. They are just not geared towards the drones, much like Patriot air defense systems are not either.
- aeternum 1y agoI agree the attacks were successful, I just don't agree they were successful because of lack of detection. You generally can't continually launch a even $1mil missiles at $100-$10k drones and expect to win. The problem is that most air defenses were designed in an age where the enemy aircraft were quite expensive so it wasn't so critical to optimize ordinance cost. That IMO is the primary challenge for all militaries now.
- nine_k 1y agoYou don't need a missile. Any fighter jet is equipped with a cannon; a bunch of 30mm fragmentation-action ammo would dispatch the drone. You don't need a jet; any decent piston-engine trainer plane can fly 4x as fast as the drone, just mount a machine gun on it. Hell, take a civilian helicopter, shoot through the open door. You have ten hours to dispatch it, given that you have detected it. But, since this is not being done routinely along the way, I conclude that detection fails. All reports about drones shot down mention that the drones were shot down nearby, likely by local air-defense teams near the target. These could as well detect the drone visually, or by the sound.