h a l f b a k e r yAsk your doctor if the Halfbakery is right for you.
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Pretty simple concept, when radar sees a jet coming in
uninvited, about 500 drones form a dome about 200
yards
radius around a ship sailing legally in international
waters.
Each drone holds about 5 pounds of explosives and
fragmentation material that WILL blow up if you run into
it.
These
drones would be clearly marked with very
bright flashing lights. They would also be designed to
have a very large radar cross section.
Send a message to idiots that want to play chicken with
heavily armed warships. "You want to fly through a cloud
of
aerial mines to prove you're a big man? Fine, knock
yourself
out. Literally."
As an afterthought, have them swirling around like a
tornado for effect and to make them impossible to
avoid.
A list of some of the big names for doctorremulac3
http://tvtropes.org...php/Main/BulletHell
Warning! TV Tropes link - may cost you half a day. [Loris, May 03 2016]
On drone swarms.
http://www.wired.co...arms-change-warfare
[MaxwellBuchanan, May 03 2016]
Orbiting Particle Shield
http://tvtropes.org...itingParticleShield
(Again, TV Tropes, exercise caution...) [Loris, May 03 2016]
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[+] Considering the amount of sh*t a pilot is going to get in for scratching the paint on the billion dollar birdy, explosives probably aren't necessary: just make them out of steel, instead of plastic. |
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This is a bit "I didn't do anything - he walked into my fist!" |
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// make them out of steel // |
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Titanium ... unless you know of some special new lightweight steel ... ? |
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The marine environment is notoriously harsh ... and if nothing else, the wind is going to be quite a challenge. |
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I think there's about a million shoot-em-ups inspired by this
premise. |
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Such as? You don't need to list all one million. A half a
million or so will suffice. |
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I always figured that if you're about to be buzzed, it would
be an auspicious time to launch a bunch of weather
balloons trailing their instrument packages on long wire
tethers. You know, purely for peaceful research purposes. |
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So then the goal is to fly at high speed very close to this
dome of drones, throwing them around in the turbulence
and hopefully causing some to run into each other. |
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Have them change course at random causing such a
maneuver to be extremely dangerous. |
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Weather permitting of course. Depending on the class of ship, drones might have a hard time keeping up with the ship. Also, these drones would need to be fueled to last at least an hour in the air and/or able to be retrieved, refueled and relaunched quickly. I will assume the quadracopter-style drones are what you imply for use. It might be better to have multiple scan-eagle type drones, but smaller. More able to keep up with the ship, and able to stay flying for longer periods of time. If any of you have been through a flyby, it's an awesome experience from friendly forces (probably not so from not-exactly-friendly forces). |
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All solvable problems but if I were emperor I'd
simply
tell aggressor nations that any aircraft approaching
any of my ships in what might be construed as an
attack profile will be shot down. |
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I like the idea of releasing weather balloons. Lots
and lots of weather balloons with real heavy
equipment. Gotta check the
weather eh? |
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"Weather report for today: expect thunderous
explosions followed by heavy rain of aggressor
aircraft parts." |
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If possible, program your drones to recognize and home in on
jet engine inlets. An engine will continue to run after
ingesting a drone but the regular pilot chewing-outs and
repeated costs for compressor stage overhauls will quickly
curb these expensive stunts. |
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//Such as? You don't need to list all one million. A half a million or so will suffice.// |
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Fortunately I don't have to do the work myself; found a list on the interwebs.
(Warning - it's a TV Tropes page. If you read the article you'll probably open a couple of links as tabs, then read them and open some more, and then 6 hours will pass before you manage to get the memetic chain reaction under control.) |
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I like the weather balloon idea very much. Especially if festive. Maybe each balloon could be a component of a picture. Something patriotic, like a big Uncle Sam or a pinup girl. They could roll them down in bad weather. These balloons should be full of hydrogen, I think, since that could be generated from seawater. |
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It might be tricky to construct representational art when the pixels (balloons) are capable of some degree of movement relative to one another. |
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I clicked the link and saw something about dodging
bullets. |
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As far as me spending hours to find this idea among
all this nerd fest movie/video game stuff, It's your
assertion, I'll have to leave it up to you to do the
research. |
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//As far as me spending hours to find this idea among all this nerd fest movie/video game stuff, It's your assertion, you do the research. If there's something showing a swarm of robots flying around an object to be protected, provide the link. You can't just say "I saw a movie where things were moving once." and proclaim the idea's been done.// |
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Pretty much every shoot 'em up since ever[1] has had a boss or three with whirling junk of one type or another - I really don't think that's a claim I have to justify too hard.
The warning there was on it being a link to TV tropes, which is a site notorious for being a productivity tar-pit. I'm /not/ asking you to spend the time doing that, I'm saying - be careful. If you scroll down that page, though, you'll find a long list of examples towards the bottom.
On reflection I realise that the bullet hell concept (which was the first link) is not exactly the same as your proposal (although there is considerable overlap), but please understand that /I'm/ at serious risk of getting sucked in to that black hole! Nevertheless, I have found a better link ("Orbiting particle shield"); I'm debating whether to remove the first one. |
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I hope you appreciate that I'm not saying your idea is 'baked' in real life, or not a good one. I think it's cool if technology has advanced to the point where doing that sort of thing is feasible. |
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[1] Ok, a slight exaggeration, but not by much. And there are games which *arn't* shmups (and movies, etc) which include orbiting shields, so it averages out. |
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Incidentally, has there been an issue with planes buzzing ships recently? Because while I can see the advantage in that protection, I'm not sure it's a serious concern, vs for example missiles.
There's a film, "Battle : Los Angeles" where an alien ship uses orbiting drones for protection against missiles, but I'm not convinced it would work too well in practice. |
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The simple counter-measure would be to jam the radio
control signal for the drones and watch them fall out of
the sky, onto the ship they're supposed to be
protecting. |
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/a boss or three with whirling junk / |
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Also a fine music video scheme. |
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I suspect that this configuration of drones, designed to
reflect RADAR, would essentially blind the ship's own
RADAR, that the drones would not be able to prevent
aircraft firing anti ship missiles from over the horizon
and that the drones would be unlikely to occupy the same
space at the same time as a 3000 mph missile. But lets
not allow fundamental flaws to dampen our enthusiasm
for aerial mines. |
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Now, if they were much further out, carefully designed
with effective flak charges and spaced to provide no
gaps... could work. |
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; //The simple counter-measure would be to jam
the radio control signal for the drones and watch
them fall out of the sky, onto the ship they're
supposed to be protecting.// |
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Which is a active attack upon the ship. Response?
Lock ground to air missiles and destroy the
attacking aircraft. |
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So if you want to get a buzz by making some
defensive drones fall out of the sky prepare to die.
(although not possible since the drones would be
programmed to fly autonomously in a way to not
endanger the ship should they lose contact with
it.) |
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//I suspect that this configuration of drones,
designed to reflect RADAR, would essentially blind
the ship's own RADAR// |
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The object of the drones having a high radar
profile wouldn't be to obscure the ship from
aircraft, (and vice-versa) but to make it obvious to
the harassing aircraft that the swarm was there
and to be avoided. You could fine tune them so you
could peer through them and still see a pretty easy
radar target like an aircraft a thousand yards out
or so, but yea, that would need to be considered. |
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//Now, if they were much further out, carefully
designed with effective flak charges and spaced to
provide no gaps... could work.// |
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You could also make these active in that you put
up a wall in front of any incoming aircraft within
the declared defensive "no fly zone". |
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This would be a halfway between passive defense,
a simple, in place wall and shooting a missile at
the incoming plane. Although reacting in an
aggressive manner to any incoming plane, it would
be no danger to any plane not violating the
declared no fly perimeter. |
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Clearly though in my opinion, drone swarms,
however you use them is the next major step in
defense technology. Biggest one since the nuke in
my opinion. It has yet to be realized, but a million
smart robots be they aerial (the easiest approach)
or ground running can't be stopped by anything
other than a similar sized swarm of defensive
drones. |
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These will be "semi-smart" (not sure if anybody's
used that term yet, but it's a good one) where you
say "Kill that house full of ISIS guys" and they do
the rest on their own, report back saying "Ok,
they're all dead, who's next?" and on to the next
one. As for who is and isn't an ISIS guy? Does he
have a gun? Yes. Then he's an ISIS guy. Attack. |
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For moral purposes though, I would propose a
"human at the kill decision switch at all times" rule
where say you have 10,000 drones controlled by
100 soldiers, the drone locks a target and sends
the information in video / picture form to the next
available soldier who's monitoring via virtual
reality goggles or video screen. The target is
highlighted and the soldier is given a "Kill / Don't
Kill" switch which he pushes as appropriate. |
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Of course this wouldn't be necessary for targets
seen to be actively firing at the drones which
would be attacked automatically. |
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// drone swarms, however you use them is the next major step in defense technology.// |
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I suspect that drone swarms are more likely to be used offensively, particularly at sea.
So you have big honking ships like aircraft carriers in the middle of the sea, meaning no cover and representing an easily designated target. They're defended by effectively serial weapons designed to take out attackers one by one. How many would you need to saturate these defenses?
I will assume that the long range defences are not particularly useful, and relatively expensive, being missile, or plane based. So that leaves the close in weapons systems - Phalanx, goalkeeper and similar. These essentially shoot large bullets, and their magazines seem to run to one or two thousand rounds, but they are set up for rapid fire, and expend many rounds to ensure a kill. Small, cheap drones presumably won't be travelling at mach 3, but they may be able to move quite erratically, and dodge several bullets at distance. Even if running out of ammo wern't a problem, if enough drones arrive at once it may be hard for the defences to take them all down. |
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Now you could argue that the CAP (planes flying a defensive formation) would be able to take down the delivery vehicle, because small cheap drones can't fly more than, say, 200 km. Maybe that's true - but that does mean you absolutely positively have to keep that area clear of all shipping, and you can't go anywhere near land.
You could also argue that small cheap drones couldn't carry the payload to sink, or even badly damage a carrier. Which I will also concede - but an aircraft carrier relies heavily on being able to regularly put planes in the air, and take them down again. So the obvious role for the drone swarm is to soften up the ship for the main attack - to foul the deck, get ammo expended, and maybe get lucky hits on the control island. |
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Well, you'd use the appropriate and simplest tool
for the job. An aircraft carrier is best taken out
with a volley of cruse missiles overloading their
phalanx defensive guns. |
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Drone swarms would do what tanks were supposed
to do but never really did. Break through lines of
entrenched soldiers each armed with a single
amiable weapon. Tanks are an incredibly bad idea.
They bundle a few people together and put them
out in the open so they're easier to target and kill.
You just need to use an explosive that's several
pounds instead of a bunch of well placed bullets
that you'd use if you were killing the soldiers
individually. If you're attacking somebody without
anti tank weapons that's one thing, but it's not
1940. 1 properly armed man vs 1 tank = one dead
tank. And tanks vs aircraft? That was obsolete as
soon as it started in WW2, and that's against
aircraft with dumb bombs and automatic cannon.
Now they're got 1 shot 1 kill technology. |
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Scrap the tank and put the money into drone
swarms. |
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// An aircraft carrier is best taken out with a volley of cruse missiles overloading their phalanx defensive guns. // |
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An aircraft carrier is best taken out with a single badly-debugged C++ method. |
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//I very much approve of the idea of a single
amiable weapon. Does it have a disarming smile?// |
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I like that mistype. More interesting, think I'll
leave
it. |
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//An aircraft carrier is best taken out with a
single badly-debugged C++ method.// |
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Well, the best way is a nuke. Nukes solve all
conflict issues pretty effectively. Problem is the
whole "Both sides die" thing. |
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//Titanium// I was going for kinetic energy. Ti's pretty light and, since they don't have to stay in the air that long, fuel consumption isn't that much of an issue. |
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// awesome experience from friendly forces (probably not so from not-exactly-friendly forces). // |
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That would be U.S. forces, then, reknowned wherever their alles duck and cover, for scattering their stores like grass seed on spotting anything resembling a target. |
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Their only saving grace is their extraordinary innaccuracy, reducing the probability of a hit to rather less than that determined by random chance. |
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//Nukes solve all conflict issues pretty effectively. Problem
is the whole "Both sides die" thing.// |
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If you get blown up by your own nuke then I think you're
holding it wrong. |
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They're generally marked "This End Towards Enemy", but then if you're reading the label it's probably not a good time to let it off. |
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Ah yes, the Davy Crockett. |
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I always hear tales of the rooski boys playing these close encounter games, but never of the 'murrakins engaging in such shenaigans. I find it hard to believe that a bunch of bored sailors could avoid such behavior. Isn't this a tradition or something? |
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Not sure of the utility of this idea against buzzing jets. |
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10. If the jet is a threat, shoot it |
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20. If not, ask them to come around again for a closer buzz |
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A drone swarm just admits that you're concerned about all these rowdy shenanigans, but still leaves control of the situation in the hands of the jet. |
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^ requires an IF - THEN - ELSE clause. Also, ? type mismatch error, ? syntax error, etc. |
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Gotta admit, I like your idea. |
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By the way, what ever happened to flack? There's an idea.
Put up an old fashioned flak barrage creating a dazzling
fireworks display on the side of the ship where the planes
are approaching. |
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A couple thoughts;
// Ah yes, the Davy Crockett. // Common misconception. The range of the M28 & M29, being 2 and 4km respectively, was well beyond the lethal range of the sub-kiloton warhead. Yet the myth that it was a suicide weapon remains... Possibly because other versions of the W54/Mk54 warhead were configured for higher yield I suppose. |
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You could easily put radar corner-reflectors on your drones, and because they're drones, program them to always point the retroreflectors outwards, or even better, aim them at an approaching enemy. Zero interference with outgoing radar, maximum interference for incoming signals. |
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// An engine will continue to run after ingesting a drone but // I wonder if that would hold true if you salted the drone chassis with some tool steel or ceramic elements? Surely you could kill even a military turbine with suitable materials. |
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And I've always thought the best way to kill a carrier was with a VA-111 Shkval nuclear supercavitating torpedo. |
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You know, back in the day they just strung cables from
balloons that floated around the ship. |
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I still like the fair warning and shoot to kill plan though. |
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Balloons aren't terribly hard to destroy I find. |
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The problem with the idea is that it solves a problem that was only a problem 75 years ago when an aerial attack on a naval ship meant flying directly over it. |
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That's just not the case anymore. |
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Also, the problem with rock-paper-scissors military strategies is that they fail to realise how quickly the enemy will react. The real path to victory is to react faster than the enemy. |
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//Balloons aren't terribly hard to destroy I find.// |
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So if you were a Russian pilot you'd just start shooting at
the
balloons? You do understand that your next step would be
to get blown out of the sky right? |
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I think there's been some confusion about what this is
about. It's not about defending a ship against aerial
attack, that's already been accomplished. You shoot
down the attacker. This is about
passively making high speed close in overflights of ships
more dangerous. |
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//This is about passively making high speed close in
overflights of ships more dangerous// |
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Small, near-invisible drones stretching even-less visible
abrasive-coated kevlar tethers? |
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/Small, near-invisible drones stretching even-less visible abrasive-coated kevlar tethers?/ |
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I think you have described 8th's cosplay garb. |
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No, I'd probably destroy them remotely, with some kind of
areal percussive weapon if I were to have some reason to
engage with the ship. Maybe something with some style,
like some beefed-up Chinese firework mortars for zing. |
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