How to Fight: Part VII: Militia Drones

[MBR 224]

3 minutes ago, Todd A. Slee said:

       Also, since their are devices to block a cell phone signal, can the signal between a drone and it's remote control unit be blocked?

Yes it is possible due to what is known as the capture effect, which causes a receiver to lock onto the strongest signal it can receive allowing someone else to take control of the drone, it is also possible to brute force a drone into going out of control by hitting it with a very strong signal that prevents the operator from controlling it.  Lost control equals lost drone.  

[Todd A. Slee 1,465]

I lost the post I was going to quote, but mentioning helicopters, you can get plans to build all sorts of miniature choppers, planes and gyrocopters. Unless the FAA has revised the rules, you don't need a license to fly them if they remain within certain criteria, mainly weight I think. (Observing a lot of drivers on the road, having unlicensed aircraft operators is a scary thought, lol).

[Todd A. Slee 1,465]

2 hours ago, MBR said:

Yes it is possible due to what is known as the capture effect, which causes a receiver to lock onto the strongest signal it can receive allowing someone else to take control of the drone, it is also possible to brute force a drone into going out of control by hitting it with a very strong signal that prevents the operator from controlling it.  Lost control equals lost drone.  

     That'd be a hoot, the enemy gains control of your drone and receives the payload, surveillance capability or intel data.

[MBR 224]

21 minutes ago, Todd A. Slee said:

     That'd be a hoot, the enemy gains control of your drone and receives the payload, surveillance capability or intel data.

That could be done with either system, sort of, if you knew the control frequency and control encoding one could land the drone, the other, the other if you had an idea of what the control link was utilizing, which can be determined with a spectrum analyzer could be used to jam the drones receiver causing it to go out of control and either crash or get tree'ed, now there are some drones that the jamming method will not work, they have in their flight controllers a fail safe known as return to home (RTH), if the drone determines the link is not longer receivable, it will fly back to where it was launched from.

 

DJI has that feature built in to the drone, and it does work to a degree, on RTH the drone go's to something like 40' and using it's GPS fly's back to where it thinks it was launched from then it descends to the ground level it thinks it was launch from.

 

I have had it work most of the time, but sometimes it would descend and hover a couple of feet off the ground because it thinks it is on the ground, a towel tossed over the top of it brings it down safely. 

 

And I have read stories of people who have lost drones on RTH because the drone lacking RADAR would hit something like a building or tower, which isn't good for the drone or the operators wallet.     

    

[Rascaldees 174]

5 hours ago, Todd A. Slee said:

     I don't know if it's relevant to this explicitly, but six or eight years ago, a computer security specialist of thirty years told me that a 13 digit password with upper, lower, numbers and symbols, can be cracked using rainbow tables.

     Also, since their are devices to block a cell phone signal, can the signal between a drone and it's remote control unit be blocked?

Undoubtedly. There's also armor that can stop a .50 caliber bullet which can be worn by infantry. Should we stop using bullets?

[MBR 224]

47 minutes ago, Rascaldees said:

Undoubtedly. There's also armor that can stop a .50 caliber bullet which can be worn by infantry. Should we stop using bullets?

Um, your point is?

[dragonghost 38]

5 hours ago, Todd A. Slee said:

I lost the post I was going to quote, but mentioning helicopters, you can get plans to build all sorts of miniature choppers, planes and gyrocopters. Unless the FAA has revised the rules, you don't need a license to fly them if they remain within certain criteria, mainly weight I think. (Observing a lot of drivers on the road, having unlicensed aircraft operators is a scary thought, lol).

Yep like the single seat Mosquito helicopter.  The ultralight variant doesn't require any licensing.

[JinxGenii 13]

On 5/31/2020 at 11:57 AM, Rascaldees said:

Drones are without a doubt exceptionally useful tools. Even now drones are becoming more and more common in the civilian world as they are used for photography and exploration and in some cases even fire suppression. We will avoid the political topic of drones as that is now the purposes of the discussion here. 

 

A drone can be useful to a militia member for a variety of reasons from recon to surveillance. It limits the exposure of troops during recon and also keeps allies safe behind friendly lines. They cannot be used for attacking remote locations unfortunately due to their fragility as well as their inability to carry heavy loads nor stay stabilized during flight after firing rounds. They may be used for minor resupply missions as well as used in missions to carry messages. 

 

Do keep in mind, in many of these situations, it is very possible a drone could be intercepted or shot down. Therefore we will discuss ways to utilize drones as well as to mitigate these potential interceptions. 

 

 

Recon: 

 

A drone is useful for recon because it does not allow your enemy to know where your forces are unless they are already very close when you launch the drone. These drones can be had for approximately four hundred dollars at the writing of this topic. While it is a serious investment it also means that your foes cannot see where your troops are during recon; meaning you can recon multiple sides of a compound or area and attack from any direction you see fit rather than only being able to recon from one side. 

 

Drones, however, are not quiet and most of them cannot fly exceptionally high in the civilian market. Drones are best used from a distance to obscure their noise. Likewise, if there is already a lot of noise in the area due to generators or due to vehicles or any other noise sources it will help to allow your drone to get closer. Many drones have exceptional imaging software and cameras so taking pictures from a distance shouldn't be too much of a hassle. 

 

 

Surveillance: 

 

Much like recon a drone is useful for surveillance of an area because of your enemy's inability to track it down to the source. While triangulating the source of a drone's signal is possible in an area where there are constantly dozens of signals being transmitted it is possible to mask that signature. Please do keep in mind no plan survives full contact with an enemy and these tactics will need to be developed by others with more expertise than myself. Nevertheless; having an effectively anonymous platform viewing an area much like a mobile camera can mean the different between an early warning and an ambush on a location. In a situation where triangulation of a signal is not possible (such as a SHTF scenario and we are WROL) these drones become agents of chaos on an unparalleled scale. 

 

 

Fire Suppression: 

 

Most militia fleeing to the woods never consider the danger that comes with living there; such as wild fires. There is a reason most of the US in the Great Plains is not settled. Detecting wild fires early can lead to an evacuation being unnecessary. Likewise if the fire is already out of control it can mean that evacuations can be had earlier than usual to avoid loss of life, property and to limit the amount of damage. Wild fires are not like typical fires; digging fire lanes will NOT stop them as wild fires are known to 'jump' these lanes by flinging hot ashes well beyond where most typical fire lanes can cover. 

 

 

Emergency Resupply: 

 

Larger, more expensive, drones can even carry packages which means that a militia group radioing for help because they're running out of ammunition does not have to wait solely for a truck to reach them. Drones can fly above tree lines and carry these packages at speeds similar to most motor vehicles. Likewise these drones can be used to drop a few hundred rounds to a group. This is not a means to fully resupply the group but when coupled with larger resupply packages can stave off a loss of ammo, food, water until a proper supply mission can be had. Additionally, via the use of dozens of drones, it could entirely replace resupply convoys although a militia with that many drones likely does not need to even worry about resupply. 

 

 

Unit Harassment: 

 

The primary problem of an enemy unit retreating is that they are either fleeing to a more fortified position or can simply outrun your forces. A drone helps to mitigate the latter problem AND helps to inform the chasing unit of the former problem by following the fleeing unit from a safe distance. Drones are small and hard to hit from extreme ranges; meaning your enemy will likely expend great amounts of munitions trying to take one down if they even know it's there. If militia coordinate together then the groups can swap messages and place ambushes along the road for units that are already fleeing combat who will be exhausted, without many supplies and additionally fleeing with broken morale. 

 

 

 

I'll see you all in part eight. 

Anyone making purpose built equipment around here?

[dragonghost 38]

Something to think about with drones is that there is a whole world of tech out there beyond the DJI stuff that most people think of when they think of "drone".  There was a segment of the r/c hobby doing long range FPV long before any regulations came along.    The FPVLab forums are a treasure trove of information on doing long range FPV.  It looks like the creator of the forum has moved on to ultralights and built a minimax.  Some of these guys have done long range fpv flights 60km+ out and back, there used to be some great videos on Youtube that are probably still there.  Some of the planes can carry decent payloads but its a tradeoff between range vs payload, or how much of the payload you use for batteries basically.  I put a couple videos below, the one is a flight 134km out.  These electric planes are basically silent and once you are at altitude nobody will know you are there.

 

I used to be into it and had a quadcopter setup I built and programmed myself and a plane setup with head tracking and goggles.  You put the goggles on and it is like you are sitting in the pilots seat of a real plane, and when you move your head around the camera moves so you can look around.  Special antennas and receivers with direction tracking etc.  You can get special low light and IR cameras for flying at night, I had one on my quadcopter along with a HUD overlay board so you have OSD instrumentation on the video feed like an F-16 heads up display.  At the time I had to custom program the boards to get them all to work together but nowadays you can buy this stuff off the shelf.

 

On the other end of the spectrum, with rich benefactors, there was an article in Recoil magazine last issue about these Chinese Wing Loong drones being used in Libya at $1 million each, carries 8 hellfire knockoffs.

 

 

 

 

[Rascaldees 174]

55 minutes ago, MBR said:

Um, your point is?

My point is mostly directed at the naysayers. There will alwayd be SOMETHING that defeats something.  

 

The point of ANY equipment is not to make that equipment invulnerable and make it your trump card but instead to make it reliable enough that it can do a job.

[Rascaldees 174]

2 hours ago, JinxGenii said:

Anyone making purpose built equipment around here?

Such as?

[JinxGenii 13]

1 minute ago, Rascaldees said:

Such as?

Purpose built drones(not the censored and trackable commercially available ones), long range comms setups, Google maps interfaces... Pilot training(all modes)? Purpose built stuff.

[Rascaldees 174]

1 minute ago, JinxGenii said:

Purpose built drones(not the censored and trackable commercially available ones), long range comms setups, Google maps interfaces... Pilot training(all modes)? Purpose built stuff.

I'm sure if you look you can find someone. 

[JinxGenii 13]

9 hours ago, MBR said:

Yes it is possible due to what is known as the capture effect, which causes a receiver to lock onto the strongest signal it can receive allowing someone else to take control of the drone, it is also possible to brute force a drone into going out of control by hitting it with a very strong signal that prevents the operator from controlling it.  Lost control equals lost drone.  

Lost signal does not mean lost drone.. There are ways to circumvent these things. It's all about the programming.

 

[JinxGenii 13]

3 minutes ago, Rascaldees said:

I'm sure if you look you can find someone. 

Was just wondering if anyone was interested. I do purpose built stuff and training out here at UTPAP.. Self destruct is also an option, Lithium Polymers are great firestarters. 😉

[Rascaldees 174]

6 minutes ago, JinxGenii said:

Was just wondering if anyone was interested. I do purpose built stuff and training out here at UTPAP.. Self destruct is also an option, Lithium Polymers are great firestarters. 😉

Good to hear. Militias everywhere need to stop living in the dark ages and start modernizing. 

[JinxGenii 13]

The playing field needs leveling. One of the reasons I'm here. 😉

[dragonghost 38]

This is my favorite fpv plane/drone channel on youtube, he's in Colorado and has a really nice Skyhunter setup and some great videos:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuMRKRaYjg6T6bAPuVs6Gbw

 

This Skyhunter video is pretty good demonstration:

 

I had a Bixler 2 setup but the Skywalker X8 was an airframe I always wanted to get and do a build with, this guy took it up to over 5k meters altitude:

Its a huge flying wing that is extremely stable and efficient and can carry a big payload for an FPV plane.

[MBR 224]

12 hours ago, dragonghost said:

This is my favorite fpv plane/drone channel on youtube, he's in Colorado and has a really nice Skyhunter setup and some great videos:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuMRKRaYjg6T6bAPuVs6Gbw

 

This Skyhunter video is pretty good demonstration:

 

I had a Bixler 2 setup but the Skywalker X8 was an airframe I always wanted to get and do a build with, this guy took it up to over 5k meters altitude:

Its a huge flying wing that is extremely stable and efficient and can carry a big payload for an FPV plane.

Loots like he is a little over 400 AGL.

[MBR 224]

16 hours ago, JinxGenii said:

Lost signal does not mean lost drone.. There are ways to circumvent these things. It's all about the programming.

 

As I stated if RTH is programmed the drone might make it back home, but not always.

[MBR 224]

18 hours ago, Rascaldees said:

My point is mostly directed at the naysayers. There will alwayd be SOMETHING that defeats something.  

 

The point of ANY equipment is not to make that equipment invulnerable and make it your trump card but instead to make it reliable enough that it can do a job.

What it cannot if plowed into the ground or stuck in a tree.

[Rascaldees 174]

1 minute ago, MBR said:

What it cannot if plowed into the ground or stuck in a tree.

Rephrase. I don't understand what you mean. 

[MBR 224]

3 minutes ago, Rascaldees said:

Rephrase. I don't understand what you mean. 

A drone can be as reliable as you can make it but if someone grounds it or plows it into a group of trees all the reliability is for not.

 

Serous reliability must include the communications link as well, and very few drone builders understand how to do that.

[Rascaldees 174]

1 hour ago, MBR said:

A drone can be as reliable as you can make it but if someone grounds it or plows it into a group of trees all the reliability is for not.

 

Serous reliability must include the communications link as well, and very few drone builders understand how to do that.

Granted. But it doesn't render the drone a moot point. A gun can jam if someone puts mud in the barrel, doesn't maintain it or just bad luck. The barrel could explode in your face and maim or even kill you when you fire it and the ammunition can misfire.

 

The chance of failure should not automatically mean we don't use a piece of equipment. 

[MBR 224]

3 minutes ago, Rascaldees said:

The chance of failure should not automatically mean we don't use a piece of equipment. 

Who ever said anyone should?