Three Americans killed, 'many' wounded in drone attack by Iran-backed militia in Jordan, Biden says
apnews.com
President Joe Biden says three American service members were killed and “many” were wounded in a drone strike in Jordan.
  • SwitchyWitchyandBitchy [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    37·
    5 months ago

    I wonder if Iran and Russia are using this situation to test out their drone tech and develop tactics and doctrine against actual American soldiers and bases. At the moment, Russia and Ukraine are the only countries that have drone warfare experience in a high intensity near peer war.

      • SwitchyWitchyandBitchy [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
        17·
        5 months ago

        Russia and the US (via Ukraine) are in a drone arms race which largely consist of making more sophisticated jammers and detectors vs more jamming resistant and harder to detect drones. And based on this article it’s not a race the US is winning.

        That stealth drone project looks cool and if that’s a capstone project from 2017, detecting them through means other than detecting their radio signals will be very difficult. Though they used an extremely weak radar (60mW) and a very high frequency one (40GHz) so they did very much set themselves up for success. The fact that they lowered detection range from 100m with a baseball to like 20m is still impressive for an (undergrad?) university project.

        Edit: sorry for the paywalled article. I read it earlier this year and didn’t realize the reader view was disabled now. Trying to see if I can find a way around it for this post.

        Update: Here ya go!

        • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          10·
          5 months ago

          Yeah stealth aircraft are more vulnerable to lower frequency radars, it’s how the F-117 was shot down over Serbia. However that does usually reduce the rage of your radar, which is the opposite of what you want with regards to early warning radars.

          I think honestly to get a proper shot of detecting the radio signals of the drones and potentially jamming them at source, or even launching missiles at the source, you’d need some kind of electronic warfare aircraft. That is an asset that Ukraine does not have and will not be getting anytime soon. I can’t see the US giving Ukraine some old EA-6Bs with updated EW capabilities or anything like that. Jamming the drones by placing jammers near or around potential targets is not going to cut it long term. You need some form of signals intelligence. Ukraine’s military realise this, even in the article you posted.

          We also need more access to electronic intelligence from our allies, including data from assets that collect signals intelligence, and expanded production lines for our anti-drone EW systems within Ukraine and abroad,” he wrote in The Economist.