Tucson spy drone incident

Why not ? but vaporizing the drone in a hail of uranium depleted bullets, won't help finding who built and piloted it...
 
Archibald said:
Why not ? but vaporizing the drone in a hail of uranium depleted bullets, won't help finding who built and piloted it...
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Using machine guns to bring down drones is fine when the fired rounds will drop into enemy territory, but having 30mm depleted uranium round falling out of the sky onto the heads of your own citizens will tend to raise a bit of ire.

When used over allied territory, you've got to use weapons what won't cause too much collateral damage. Directed energy weapons or projectiles that will break apart into harmless tiny little bits. Fuzed rounds that blow apart into birdshot, or are made of tightly wrapped steel foil, or blow up into a big net... those wouldn't cause too much damage on the way down.
 
Again, this and the Navy UAP thread should be merged. This is a reoccurring intrusion into the airspace around military assets, both domestic and at sea.
 
Also, it flew 100 miles an hour into a headwind and escaped past 14k feet. It had endurance capabilities beyond that of the two law enforcement helicopters chasing it.
 
Orionblamblam said:
Archibald said:
Why not ? but vaporizing the drone in a hail of uranium depleted bullets, won't help finding who built and piloted it...
Click to expand...

Using machine guns to bring down drones is fine when the fired rounds will drop into enemy territory, but having 30mm depleted uranium round falling out of the sky onto the heads of your own citizens will tend to raise a bit of ire.

When used over allied territory, you've got to use weapons what won't cause too much collateral damage. Directed energy weapons or projectiles that will break apart into harmless tiny little bits. Fuzed rounds that blow apart into birdshot, or are made of tightly wrapped steel foil, or blow up into a big net... those wouldn't cause too much damage on the way down.
Click to expand...
The need is for low kinetic kill (a drone with a kill system that don't blast, frag, fry or nuke such target) that can be distributed among non-military/law enforcement teams.
Old stuff, same problem nearly a decade later...
I am sure that the guys trying to sell their stupid "catching" net are still out there bragging that they can sell you something for cheap.
Boring....

Active cooling technology should help in tracing who did this.
 
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Reminds me of the British studying the first, ever ABM system - against the V-2s devastating London. They tried to use AAA guns - only to find falling unexploded shells would do too much damage.
 
Archibald said:
Reminds me of the British studying the first, ever ABM system - against the V-2s devastating London. They tried to use AAA guns - only to find falling unexploded shells would do too much damage.
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David Niven called it 'Lethal confetti'

Chris
 
Given that Raytheon has one of their largest manufacturing sites just South of Tucson, that the US Army at Ft. Huachuca to the South is home to the Army's strategic communications command that does spook stuff all the time, that the Goldwater bombing range is to the West, that there is a Arizona National Guard aviation unit at Marana, it kind of follows that if the military wants to test drones southern Arizona is the place to do it...
 
Orionblamblam said:
Archibald said:
Why not ? but vaporizing the drone in a hail of uranium depleted bullets, won't help finding who built and piloted it...
Click to expand...

Using machine guns to bring down drones is fine when the fired rounds will drop into enemy territory, but having 30mm depleted uranium round falling out of the sky onto the heads of your own citizens will tend to raise a bit of ire.

When used over allied territory, you've got to use weapons what won't cause too much collateral damage. Directed energy weapons or projectiles that will break apart into harmless tiny little bits. Fuzed rounds that blow apart into birdshot, or are made of tightly wrapped steel foil, or blow up into a big net... those wouldn't cause too much damage on the way down.
Click to expand...
This is what happens when you let aircraft do unrestricted fire over populated areas...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Palmdalehttps://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/pollack0115battleofpalmdale.htmhttps://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-sep-11-me-then11-story.html
 
I had heard of it, but reading the details of it for the first time - OMG.

To think that drone was a Hellcat... and two F-89s thrice as fast and armed to the teeth were unable to blast it down.

And they did more damage than the drone itself.
 

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