RAF Shoot Down a Drone 14 December

[exdraken]

57 minutes ago, GMK said:

Okay, first *deliberate* & *combat* air to air missile kill?

Deliberately, yes.

In a war situation, yes.

Combat? No. The drone, at least I assume was not armed to fight the Typhoon back...

 

[Tim R-T-C]

21 minutes ago, exdraken said:

Deliberately, yes.

In a war situation, yes.

Combat? No. The drone, at least I assume was not armed to fight the Typhoon back...

 

 

One would suggest to be within 10-15 miles (as quoted in media reports) of a controlled enemy drone would put an aircraft into the combat theatre and at least exposed to ground fire.

 

Does lead to the concern that operators might use drones to lure aircraft in for an IR missile or cannon kill, exposing them to SAMs.

[Jabba]

6 hours ago, exdraken said:

and USN Hornets + RSAF Eagles as far as I know.

and do not forget the Iraqi Airforce MiG-25 that shot down a US Hornet

Plus an A-10 and a F-14 shot down some helicopters.

[Slater]

2 hours ago, junglierating said:

Hmm very good you volunteering? Better to knock out the opposition by stand off means as opposed to putting personal in direct line of fire....much safer all round....unless you are on the recieving end.What do you think 🤔 0

Makes zero difference to me. I'd rather stand off and fire a missile any time. Higher headquarters was the one that had a bit of heartburn over it.

[Macsporran]

19 hours ago, junglierating said:

I'm with our Italian friend🇮🇹 200k is peanuts and if it has saved lives in the process then it's cheap at half the price.

Some of you lot need to have a word with yourselves.😑

That is missing the point entirely.

 

If a very cheap drone, with no possible threat potential, were mounted with a suitably sophisticated transponder and sent near a viable target, the defending force would have no way of knowing whether it actually was a serious threat or not and may commit a £200k missile to take it out.

£200K may be peanuts but if we had to send 500 of them after 500 such 'ghost' drones (where no lives were at risk anyway) the 'peanuts' value grows enough to choke you.

[Alan P]

If you fancy a long read, this is a great academic paper about non-state actors' use of drones, and why we need to take them out by the most expedient means necessary, even at £200k a shot.

https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/96/4/955/5813533

[junglierating]

1 hour ago, Macsporran said:

That is missing the point entirely.

 

If a very cheap drone, with no possible threat potential, were mounted with a suitably sophisticated transponder and sent near a viable target, the defending force would have no way of knowing whether it actually was a serious threat or not and may commit a £200k missile to take it out.

£200K may be peanuts but if we had to send 500 of them after 500 such 'ghost' drones (where no lives were at risk anyway) the 'peanuts' value grows enough to choke you.

No its not ....if its carrying out recce then its got the potential do provide intel for something nasty ....are you an ex para? If you are I'd wager the crabs popping off 200k is well and truly worth it to prevent an unsolicited contact on terms not of your making.

Anyway nobody on here knows what the tactical picture is or ever will ....nuff said 😀

[Macsporran]

12 minutes ago, junglierating said:

No its not ....if its carrying out recce then its got the potential do provide intel for something nasty ....are you an ex para? If you are I'd wager the crabs popping off 200k is well and truly worth it to prevent an unsolicited contact on terms not of your making.

Anyway nobody on here knows what the tactical picture is or ever will ....nuff said 😀

 

You must have missed my specific words "with no possible threat potential," - ie NOT recce - just a low cost way of making us expend our arsenal and cause trouble - possibly accidental friendly fire for example. 

As you say - neither you nor I know these things for sure. we'll agree on that 🙂

[PLC1966]

2 hours ago, Macsporran said:

That is missing the point entirely.

 

If a very cheap drone, with no possible threat potential, were mounted with a suitably sophisticated transponder and sent near a viable target, the defending force would have no way of knowing whether it actually was a serious threat or not and may commit a £200k missile to take it out.

£200K may be peanuts but if we had to send 500 of them after 500 such 'ghost' drones (where no lives were at risk anyway) the 'peanuts' value grows enough to choke you.

No, you are missing the point entirely.

 

So you think ISIS are taking these things for a flyaround just for a jolly ?

 

If taking this drone out prevents intel being passed that could lead to a single life being lost, it is a missile well spent.

[Dogtail2]

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[exdraken]

This discussion totally misses the point....I think

200k£?

And?

Are you aware of how much a single patrol mission of 2 Typhoons over Syria costs? Without any weapons employment!

2   Typhoon, 3-5 hours flight time, tanker support, I tel support, pre-/post flight maintenance..

 

I guess the 200k£ are reached very fast... 

[Alan P]

The RAF took out an enemy drone. That's one less to worry about. Good shooting and good riddance.

[hairystick]

On 12/18/2021 at 4:16 AM, Slater said:

In the Iraq/Afghanistan unpleasantness, US forces have used obscenely expensive Javelin missiles to target individual snipers, so the will to use the weapons at hand is there (although such use brought some questions/concerns from higher authority, IIRC).

So using the battleship New Jersey and her 16" main guns to eliminate a sniper, would be acceptable?

Vietnam war period.

[Boman]

Anyone know the unit and aircraft serial for the shootdown? 

[JohnT]

9 hours ago, hairystick said:

So using the battleship New Jersey and her 16" main guns to eliminate a sniper, would be acceptable?

Vietnam war period.

Suppose you’d have to be there to make a fair evaluation. 
 

My late Dad was in RM Commandos and fought beside the US army at times during WW2. He did say a notable difference in approach was that if a sniper fired at you from the woods someone got the job of going in and finishing him one to one. The US either mortared or artillery call as first choice.   I think my Dad preferred the US approach from a very personal point of view. 
 

Waste cash not lives

45 minutes ago, Boman said:

Anyone know the unit and aircraft serial for the shootdown? 

 
Decal sheets on the way maybe?

[Slater]

13 hours ago, hairystick said:

So using the battleship New Jersey and her 16" main guns to eliminate a sniper, would be acceptable?

Vietnam war period.

Unknown, although a GBU-31 is apparently acceptable:

 

https://www.stripes.com/a-10-warthog-drops-2-000-pound-bunker-buster-on-isis-sniper-nest-in-raqqa-1.485322

[Giorgio N]

When I was in the army the procedure in case of contact with a sniper was to direct all available firepower on the approximate location. This meant the unit supporting MGs and mortars and, if available, artillery and tank fire. 

We weren't the only ones with extreme ideas: one of the tactics used by the Israeli army in those same years to deal with snipers in urban environment was to use M109s to fire at the building foundations.. take down the whole building and you don't have to try and understand which floor the target is...

Similarly "extreme" solutions have been used throughout history, there's a reason why the survival of a sniper depends on not being seen.

[Lord Riot]

18 hours ago, hairystick said:

So using the battleship New Jersey and her 16" main guns to eliminate a sniper, would be acceptable?

Vietnam war period.

I’d say so. Never willingly engage the enemy on equal or worse terms if you can help it. Better to use up a few shells or missiles than losing one of your mates. Let the bean counters worry about the cost after everyone is back safe.

 

Good shooting Typhoon pilot, and good riddance to anything connected with Isis.
 

[Giorgio N]

On 12/17/2021 at 8:08 PM, Tim R-T-C said:

 

One would suggest to be within 10-15 miles (as quoted in media reports) of a controlled enemy drone would put an aircraft into the combat theatre and at least exposed to ground fire.

 

Does lead to the concern that operators might use drones to lure aircraft in for an IR missile or cannon kill, exposing them to SAMs.

 

Depends on where the enemy drone is... in any case whatever action the fighter takes it will take into account the tactical situation. Not that the enemy needs a drone to lure an aircraft into an ambush, these things have been done since the dawn of air combat. Actually they have been done since humans started to fight each others...

Interestingly one of the first use of drones in combat was to "lure" SAM sites to acquire so to allow aircraft to better locate their radars.

 

 

 

 

On 12/18/2021 at 10:55 AM, Macsporran said:

That is missing the point entirely.

 

If a very cheap drone, with no possible threat potential, were mounted with a suitably sophisticated transponder and sent near a viable target, the defending force would have no way of knowing whether it actually was a serious threat or not and may commit a £200k missile to take it out.

£200K may be peanuts but if we had to send 500 of them after 500 such 'ghost' drones (where no lives were at risk anyway) the 'peanuts' value grows enough to choke you.

 

History is full of example where a combatant used numbers to force the opponent to bleed their economy, so such a situation is potentially possible. However there are a number of drawbacks to the idea.

For a starter an aircraft will never engage the very cheap "supermarket" drones, these are engaged with other means from land forces. There will never be a £150 Vs. £200k kind of war, for the reason that in order to constitute a threat requiring a missile a £150 drone is not sufficient for lack of range and load.

Then there's the matter of why should someone use "decoy" drones... decoys are as old as warfare but in general a decoy is something with a much lower cost than the real thing. With a drone the cost of adding a warload or some recce equipment is small relative to the carrier, at that point it is more convenient to "arm" all drones. This allows to use them in large numbers to saturate the enemy defenses or at least guarantee one of them achieves some result. It is not really something that only terrorist organisations do, it was part of the logic for the development of the ALCM missiles, weapons that really in principle are not much different from the kind of "suicide" drones used over Syria or Yemen.

Here however there's the problem for the terrorist organisations: what is the relative cost of a drone to them ? For cost I don't mean the actual purchase cost alone, I also mean how hard is it for them to acquire them and operate them. Is the loss of a single drone little more than a nuisance or is this something that can disrupt their operations ? How quickly can the drone be replaced ? Do they have internal production capability ? Do they need them to be smuggled across borders ? In the end it may well be that the loss of a drone is actually more "expensive" to IS than the cost of a missile for the RAF. Or may not be.

 

Regarding the use of drones, it may be worth mentioning that while this may have been a first for the RAF, Saudi aircraft have been intercepting armed drones for a while in the conflict over Yemen. This is a war that is seeing a massive use of drones from all sides involved, use that is watched carefully by all militaries.

Edited December 20, 2021 by Giorgio N

[Alan P]

On 12/19/2021 at 12:56 AM, hairystick said:

So using the battleship New Jersey and her 16" main guns to eliminate a sniper, would be acceptable?

Extreme example, but western forces have been replacing human risk with ever-increasing firepower since WW1. If the 'service' is available and can be tasked, might as well use it. An Iowa-class battleship could chuck 16-in shells at targets all day. The HC round was roughly equivalent to a 2,000lb bomb.

 

Since you mention it, bring back battleships. Technological advances in automation, sensor fusion, GPS-guided and rocket-assisted projectiles etc would make an armoured, stand-off, offensive, sea-based sensor/control platform a formidable asset these days.

[Giorgio N]

18 minutes ago, Alan P said:

 

Since you mention it, bring back battleships. Technological advances in automation, sensor fusion, GPS-guided and rocket-assisted projectiles etc would make an armoured, stand-off, offensive, sea-based sensor/control platform a formidable asset these days.

 

That woud be an interesting discussion, although would bring us off topic by several (nautical) miles. May be worth discussing it in the maritime section of the forum.

Section where I'd voice my disagreement, I believe that battleships would add too little to what's available today for a massive extra cost

[Alan P]

56 minutes ago, Giorgio N said:

Section where I'd voice my disagreement, I believe that battleships would add too little to what's available today for a massive extra cost

I hereby end the discussion by agreeing to disagree 👍

[Slater]

The US Navy's Zumwalt-class destroyers are armed with a pair of 155mm guns that are now essentially dead weight. They were supposed to fire the "Long Range Land Attack Projectile", but costs ballooned to the point where each round would have cost around $800,000. Too expensive even for the US Navy.