asymetric warfare

(Richard Bell) wrote:

:I do not know about anti-ship missiles, or anti-aircraft missiles, but an
:anti-vehicle (except tank) missile that combines a portable TV, a
en sized camera, two diode laser TXRX sets, an RC aircraft on steroids, and
:a six mile spool of optical fibre should be possible. While hardly a threat
:to tanks, if they were all available in Iraq, coalition casualties might have
:unpalatable numbers. The users lofts it over the hard cover that he is hiding
:behind and uses its camera to find a target and then dives the missile into
:it. Probably only a few thousand dollars worth of parts.

And you don't think after the first time that folks would start to
notice them and follow the cable back?

--
"Nekubi o kaite was ikenai"
["It does not do to slit the throat of a sleeping man."]
-- Admiral Yamamoto

pervect wrote:

:Processors and computing power are getting cheaper every year - and
:there are a lot of US weapons with military GPS around - so it's
:conceivable to me that someone could obtain one of these weapons and
:reverse-engineer the GPS system on them.

Which does them absolutely no good at all.

:If there is no sort of "auxiliary code input" to the weapon (i.e. some
:sort of activation code that has to be input) the reverse engineered
:weapons would work just as well as the US weapons, so the US would
:have to make the choice of whether it was better for everyone to have
accurate) GPS or nobody to have GPS.
:
:Without knowing for sure, I would personally expect that current
:weapons would have some sort of auxiliary code, and that this code
:would have to be entered as part of the target programming process
which is quite long according to news reports, though it's getting
:shorter).

They aren't 'auxiliary codes' at all. Military GPS data streams are
encrypted. You need keys to use them. Without keys you get nothing.
This is why copying a GPS weapon exactly does you no good.

:Assuming (as I suspect) that "auxiliary code input" to the weapon is
:required, things get more complicated. Basically the question is how
:long it would take for the enemy to figure out what the auxiliary code
:was to activate their weapons.

Longer than the key is good for. They change frequently, you see.

:Pessimistically assuming that the current military GPS system does get
:compromised, and that the code breaking process could be done in
:minutes, the US is of course free to build a better one with more
:modern (and longer) codes. Of course, retrofitting existing weapons
:to use the new GPS system might be a bit involved. OTOH, it could be
:as simple as pulling out a modular "black box", and replacing it with
:a new improved one.

Well, if you assume the enemy has magical powers (which is essentially
what you're doing above), then I suppose anything is possible. Just
by the way, even your "black box" replacement above isn't simple.
Examine the replacement of PPS-SM by SAASM, for example.

You know, if you want to keep speculating, you might want to learn a
bit of something about the GPS system before you continue. See
http://gps.losangeles.af.mil/user/pr...curity/hae.htm for a
very brief synopsis on GPS security.

--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
-- Charles Pinckney

ess (phil hunt) wrote:

:On Thu, 18 Dec 2003 05:26:01 GMT, Kevin Brooks wrote:
:
: I think there are two issues here. The first is when the sensor is
: attached to the weapon, as it is in a sensor in a missile. Here,
: there is no sensor/shooter cycle, unless you choose to have a human
: involved in the decision to fire.
:
:That is way beyond even our capabilities. You are talking autonomous combat
:systems.
:
:Yes. The progrsamming for this isn't particularly hard, once you've
:written software that can identify a vehicle (or other target) in a
icture. It's just a matter of aiming the missile towards the
:target.

This is rather like saying that nuclear weapons aren't hard, once
you've invented a nuclear weapon. If you really find this easy, do I
have a career for you!

:Weapons like this were in existance 20 years ago, for example the
:Exocet anti-ship missile.

Exocet does nothing at all like what you describe above. It flies
inertial with an active radar homing head. Yes, we've had that sort
of thing for quite some time. It works very well when it comes to
finding big radar reflectors like ships among all that flat water.
ATR systems (which is something different than what radar guided
weapons do) is a much tougher problem.

:I'm not bsure what problems you envisage
:with doing this; perhaps you could elaborate?

I could, but then I'd have to kill you....

:because you can't just fire them "in that direction, more or less", and hit
:anything--you have to have a pretty narrow determination of where the target
:is right at the time the weapon arrives.
:
:What you could do is have the missile, if it doesn't find a target
:to hang around in the area looking for one. (The British ALARM
:missile does this literally :-)).

ALARM is an ARM. Again, this is a much easier problem than ATR.

:Now if you want to send a flock of
:CM's out and about to go on a hunter-killer mission, you have some real
:problems to confront, like: (a) How do you prevent fratricide or targeting
:of the local version of the Sanford garbage truck (remember that not every
:enemy is going to be able to discount collateral damage like the insurgents
:we are no facing in Iraq do)?
:
:You can't prevent fratricide all the time, and most countries would
:have a higher tolerance from losses caused by friendly fire than
:most western countries do. The missile would know (at least
:approximately - within a few km) were it is, and therefore whether
:it is over land occupied by its own side.
:
iscriminating between military and civilian vehicles is a lot
:harder, I agree.

Discriminating vehicles from ground clutter is a lot harder, period.

:(b) Are you going to send it in low, where it
:MIGHT have a chance at surviving, but its field of view is extremely
:limited, so it is that much more likely to not find any target to hit, but
:which also requires oodles of (very accurate, and likely unavailable to most
:potential foes) digital topographic data to be uploaded and a complex
:navigation system)
:
:The topographic data would probably be available if the missile is
:flying over the territory of its own country.

You might want to look at the accuracy of DTED and how much data you
would have to load to your missile.

:Otherwise, there are other methods of nagivation: dead reckoning,

Requires good IMUs. Even then, your accuracy is going to degrade
rapidly over time as you fly about.

:celestial,

Harder to do for a missile, wouldn't you say? The only weapons I'm
aware of that even attempt this are ICBM warhead busses.

:a LORAN-like system could be set up.

And immediately put off the air by a strike from your opponent. It's
also not particularly accurate when compared to what you need for a
PGM.

:or up high where the view is better,
:
:It's possible that a mission might require some of the flight to be
:at high level and some at low level. I imagine the missiles could
:be programmed for a mission by sticking a computer with an Ethernet
:cable into a slot on the missile.

You imagine a lot of things. That's about as far as most of them
could go in the real world.

--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
-- Charles Pinckney

ess (phil hunt) wrote:

:On Thu, 18 Dec 2003 05:26:01 GMT, Kevin Brooks wrote:
:
:or up high where the view is better, but also where it
:becomes easy meat for the layers of Patriots and Avengers fielded by the
:resident duckhunters, along with any covering Aegis controlled Standards in
:the littoral zone, and the ubiquitous F-15/F-22 CAP?
:
:These missiles might cost abpout $500,000 each whereas the LCCM
:might cost $10,000 each.

And what percentage of your Elbonian national economy is that $10k?
How much infrastructure to produce it?

:Furthermore none of these missile systems
:are perfectly accurate, thus if many missiles are sent, some
:would get through.

Assuming any are accurate enough to actually make the target.

:Also, if a missile is small (imagine there are several models) it
:might be hard for radar to pick it out, or it might have a radar
:return the same size as a bird's.

Hogwash. Now you're to multiple models of stealthy weapons. Not
something Elbonia is going to produce.

:and, (c) Development of
:a reliable, compact, onboard sensor suite that provides enough resolution to
:find likely targets,
:
:You can buy good resolution digital cameras in any good camera shop.

Now look through the viewfinder and move the camera rapidly from side
to side. Not suitable for this application.

:and a darned intelligent software package to handle
:target discrimination (from background clutter, earlier posited garbage
:truck, etc.),
:
:There are plenty of people outside the USA who can program computers.

And how many of them are specialists in ATR and imagery?

: and can also recognize an entire range of potential targets
:and select the one you would want hit from amongst all of them. Sorry, but I
:don't see ANY potential foes we might face in your near term overcoming one,
:much less all, of those hurdles, and I am sure I have missed a few more.
:
:My understanding is the laws of physics work the same for people in
:all countries.

Yes, they do. That's your problem. You have no conception of how
hard the problem you're handwaving away is.

: The second is when the sensor is in one place, and the shooter
: somewhere else; in those situations, what problems have the USA
: encountered, and how have they gone about solving them?
:
:Then you have to have a good secure datalink, and as it stands now the only
:folks that are likely to have those during the near-term are us and our good
:friends.
:
:Encryption technology is well-known and software to implement it can
:be downloaded from the net. Any competent programmer should be able
:to implement this.

Now look for something that can encrypt a video stream in a secure and
jam-proof fashion and decrypt it on the other end fast enough to
essentially have zero control lag. Solving this, however, is much
more likely than solving the ATR and sensor problems you wave away
above.

:The best currently fielded US system of this nature is the SLAM-ER,
:with ATA--think of an extended range Harpoon with an ability to send its
:sensor images back to either a launch aircraft or another suitable platform,
:and which responds to that platform's commands to acheive retargeting or to
:allow more discriminative targeting. IIRC the new Tactical Tomahawk will
:also offer an inflight retargeting capability. You will note that the
:current trend in the US, which is the undeniable leader ins such
:capabilities, is to retain the man-in-the-loop at present, and that will not
:significantly change during the period you have set forth, so I seriously
:doubt Underwhatsistan is going to be able to do any better.
:
:The only modern technology necessary to make these missiles possible
:is computing (both hardware and software). Computing technology is
:available to any medium sized nation, and merely asserting that the
:USA must be the most advanced is exactly the sort of hubristic
:attitude that would help a medium-sized power at war with them.

I'll tell this to the folks on the SLAM-ER team next time I'm in St
Louis. I'm sure they'll find your contentions about how easy this is
to do about as funny as I do.

: Then one wonders why those very same nations usually end up trying to buy
: the products produced by those "slow-moving, bloated" western defense
: contractors.
:
: Because they are more technologically advanced. Some technologies,
: for example high performance jet engines, require a large industrial
: base to make. The sort of technologies I'm talking about are ones
: that can potentially be produced a lot more cheaply, for example by
: adapting mass-produced (but nevertheless highly sophisticated)
: consumer products. Any medium-sized power should be able to produce
: embedded computer control systems.
:
:If it was that easy, others would be doing so already--they are not.
:
:This is a reasonable argument. Hiowever, people are developing
:cruise missiles: According to
:http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/article.cfm?Id=1212
:"There are currently 161 operational UAV programs in 50 countries"

You might want to look at what some of them are.

:There are probably also a number of secret programs, or programs to
:add better sensors/computers to existing UAVs/missiles.

No doubt. But they're not producing things that your average tribe
member is going to churn out in a mud hut, either.

:Sorm Shadow/Scalp are already enjoying export success because the
:rest of the world can't do a better job on their own--the only way they get
:any capability like what you refer to is by buying from those western
:industries you rather prematurely wrote off.
:
:This is true for now. How long will it be? I predict that within 10
:years, many countries will be producing missiles with roughly the
:same capabilities as Storm Shadow, but at much less cost.

I predict you're probably wrong.

You know, if it was as easy as you seem to think, my life would
certainly be a lot easier.

--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
-- Charles Pinckney

ess (phil hunt) wrote:

:On Thu, 18 Dec 2003 17:55:13 GMT, Dionysios Pilarinos wrote:
:
:The question really is if it is possible to integrate different sensors (TV,
:IR) on such vehicles, if you can accurately identify targets (based on some
:signature characteristics or library), and how effective it could be (at not
:killing your own or being easily defeated by the enemy).
:
:This is mostly a software problem. There are programmers in all
:middle-ranking countries. All of the ones I listed (in my other
ost) have plenty of programmers.

No. It is mostly an image processing problem. Having lots of
'programmers' won't help you.

:Good questions for the side employing them. If you are indeed talking about
:a "massive" use of such weapons, I think that the Patriots (and other
:anti-aircraft systems) would be quickly (and quite expensively) overwhelmed.
:Overwhelming, confusing, and otherwise countering the sensor might be a
:better approach.
:
:Countering sensors on the cruise missile might be difficult. Lasers
:might work.

Of course it might be difficult. You've created magic weapons.

:If you are talking about a "massive" deployment of such inexpensive weapons,
:you might not need to concern yourself with those that "miss". Depending on
:the cost of the vehicles, the total number acquired, and the budget
:allocated, the user might be satisfied with a success rate well below 100%.
:
:If they can be mass-produced for $10,000 each, then a $1 bn
rocurement -- and the sort of countries we're talking about
:typically sign bigger weapons contracts than that -- would buy
:100,000 missiles.

I think you need to go look at this again. Hell, why not assume they
cost $1 each and can be made by kindergardeners?

--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
-- Charles Pinckney

ess (phil hunt) wrote:

:Swarm co-ordination is a software problem. To solve it, you need a
:few clever postgrad students, properly managed.

You owe me a keyboard.

--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
-- Charles Pinckney

In ,
Peter Stickney radiated into the WorldWideWait:
In article ,
"John" writes:
"phil hunt" wrote in

What would be sensible strategies/weapons for a middle-ranking
country to employ if it thought it is likely to be involved in a
war against the USA or other Western countries, say in the next 10
years?

To deal with the US Army...
Use SUVs with anti-tank rockets and a millimetric radar mounted on
the back. In iraq US gunners opened fire at 5miles. Since the
rounds travel at a mile/second, this would give an SUV 5 seconds
to dudge, which would be simple with guidence from the radar.
Meanwhile the top-attack missiles tear through the thin turret
roofs. Buy a few otto-76mm armed tanks with dual use surface/air
to deal with incomming aircraft/missiles/bombs/helicopters and to
rip enemy soldiers to pieces.

5 seconds to dodge... Dodge where, exqctly? In what direction? How
much? To be at the least effective, you're going to have to somehow
get 1 vehicle's size distance away from where you were. Since SUV's
don't move a 1 mile/second...
Oh, and what if the Rascally Americans don't open fire at 5 miles
Becasue there's in a city, or there's intervening terrain, or you're
not a visible target, and engave at a shorter distance? (Which is
what happens. Even 500m (1500') is long range when you're not
shooting at, say, Iraqi tanks in the open desert. In that case,
they wouldn't be engaging SUV-type things with Main Gun rounds.
('cause it would go through the SUV, and the SUV behind the SUV,
and the Tree behing the SUV behing the SUV, and the School behind
the tree - you get the idea) They'd use either the .50 cal MG on
the turret top, or teh .30 cal co-ax. (Don't discount the Coax.
It's got a dedicated gunner with a telescopic sight, a laser
rangefinder, and is mounted on a 65-ton tripod. In that case, you
don't have 1 round to dodge, but several dozen.

As for the top-attack missile - when is it going to be fired? Who's
going to guide it? How are they going to maintian guidance for the
20-60 seconds it will take to reach its target while riding in a
moving/evading/exploding SUV?

To deal with the US Air Force...
Buy old airliners and fit with reloadable missile launchers and
modern AA radar, counter measures, and refueling probe. Take old
fighter designs, and hang them fully fueled and armed from
ballons. That'll multiply thier endurance by a factor of ten at
least. Fit search-radar in envelope and have them patrol your
boarder. Network them together and you'll have an end to surprise
US attacks.

I'd pay good money to see an F-104/Mirage II/MiG-21 launched from a
balloon.If you could make that one work, Ringling Brothers would
give you a contract But Quick. As for refrobbing old airliners as
long-endurance Patrol Fighter AWACS - well, first, they're easy to
detect, and therefore, neutralize. You can either shoot them down,
or go around them. Being airliners, their ability to move
crossrange will be poor. They'll also need improved airbases, and,
as you mention, tankers. WHen the bases disappear, so does your
Air Defence. (It's always struck me as amusing how many folks seem
to think that all you need to improve aircraft range is a probe.
You also need tankers. Lats of tankers. Lots of big tankers.
Consider that in 1982, the RAF used its entire tanker force to get
one Vulcan from Ascention Island to Port Stanley. (Victors, in
this case - Not a lot of tankers, and not a lot of transfer fuel.
The same mission could have been flown, by the U.Ss. with 3
aircraft - 1 B-52, and 2 KC-135s. The U.S. tanker fleet alone
outnumbers most other nations entire Air Forces.

To deal with the US Navy...
Buy old torpedos and fit to larch home made rockets (see X-prize
entries) with 50-100 mile range. Get the rockets to dump the
torpedos within a few miles of a nimitz carrier groups and you're
garanteed to blow up something *really* expensive!

A _lot_ harder than you think. And the launches will be detected. A
Numitz at flank speed would be a significant distance from the
inital impact area before the Super ASROC you've described gets
there. At which point, the torp, if it survives the impact intact
(not a trivial thing), is goig to have a hard time finding a
profitable target. In the meantime, you've now 1: Revealed your
intentions in an unambiguous manner, and 2: Nicely marked all of
your launching sites. making it damned hard to clain that it wasn't
your doing. Teh end effect, even if you do hit a ship, would be an
awful lot like kicking a nest of Africanized Bees.

Alternatively buy the following:
1 million RPG-7s
5 million RPG-7 rounds
10 million AK-74s
1 billion bullets
Distribute evenly through out your population, train them, set up a
Swiss-style monitoring system, and let the Americans invade. Then
blow up everything of value they own the second they let their
guard down. They'll leave in a few months and you can go back to
normal.


In order to do that, you have to have a population that thinks the
country you're leading is worth fighting for. But then, countries
that its citizens thing are worth fighting for tend not to be high
profile targets to the U.S.

Alternatively fly a few airliners into american nuclear power
stations. The aftermath of multiple chernobles will destroy
America as an effective strategic power.

Well, the onlu problem with _that_ one is that Chyernoble, bas as
it was, didn't depopulate large stretches of the Ukraine or Russia.
U.S. racotrs have far superior containment, and, in fact, are
required to be designed such that they can shrug off a direct hit
from a large airliner.

You are the illegitemate son of Robert S. Macnamara, and I claim my
5.00!

I support Peter's claim to the Fiver.
John's cutesy-pie combat methods were interesting, slightly, but
suited to a 1930's Boys' Book of How to Have a War.
Peter did a fine job of dismissing them all.
And I especially agree with the last one - countries where all the
citizens are heavily armed are not countries like Iraq, where people
the ruler doesn't like get fed alive into shredding machines. So they
aren't the kind of country we'd be needing to invade.

"Pete" wrote:

:
:"phil hunt" wrote
:
: I imagine the missiles could
: be programmed for a mission by sticking a computer with an Ethernet
: cable into a slot on the missile.
:
:Here ya go. Code to this explanation, and you're all set.
:
:http://www.techblvd.com/Rvideo/Guidance.wav
:
:Easy.

What's really spooky is that this isn't all that bad a description of
how ProNav works. :-)

--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
-- Charles Pinckney

In article ,
ess (phil hunt) writes:
On Thu, 18 Dec 2003 22:17:34 GMT, Derek Lyons wrote:
(phil hunt) wrote:
The problems listed above are information-processing problems, that
is, software problems. Does it really require billions of dollars to
solve these problems? I say no: a few small groups of really
competent programms can be many times more productive than how
software is traditionally written.

The issue isn't programmers Phil. The issue the massive amounts of
R&D to develop the information needed to specify the sensor that the
programmers will process the output of.

The sensors needed are visual and IR imaging. It doesn't require a
massive R&D program to determine that, or to decide which
combinations of number of pixels and widths of field of view are
appropriate.

It doess, however, require a massive R&D program to be able to
identify the target in the image - if you're lucky enough to have the
target in the Foeld of View of the sensor in the first place.
Recognizing the shape of, say, a vehicle, from an arbitrary distance
and aspect angle, even without the complications of camouflage, smoke,
or decoys, is far more difficulet than you are imagining.
You aren't even beginnig to consider th promlems involved with, say,
telling an Armored Personnel Carrier from a Dumpster, or an Atesian
Well Drilling Rig from a missile TEL.

The issue is the massive
amount of R&D needed to develop the algorithms the programmers will
implement to analyze the output of the sensor.

Do you know anything about programming? If you did, you'd know that
developing algorithms is what programmers do.

Oddly enough - I do. In fact, I've done developmnet work on Image
recognition for about 15 years out of a 25 year career as a Programmer
and Project Manager, much of it for just the purpose you describe.
Derek has far more of an understanding of the problem than you do.
It's actually easier to do what seem to be very difficult things -
like taking an image of a car's license plate as it travels on a
highway /2 mile away, than it is to identify the vehicle itself.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

Fred J. McCall wrote:

:celestial,

Harder to do for a missile, wouldn't you say? The only weapons I'm
aware of that even attempt this are ICBM warhead busses.

Used to be popular for cruise missiles in the 50's and early 60's, but
the units were pretty good sized. I have no idea if anyone is
actually working on them today.

D.
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