Monday, December 23, 2019

These Aren't The Droids You're Looking For


No points for guessing the life expectancy of that spiffy Honda generator in
combat once the range is hot in both directions. These things are going
to be worse in combat than Combat Barbies are, with a notably shorter
operational life expectancy. Well done, combat jedi drone masterminds.

















In today's post, John Wilder (whose blog should be your regular go-to, every time he posts, just because, unless you've already found too many blogs that are smart, funny, and true, all at the same time) links to and talks about the fapulations of some folks who think Droney the Drone will be the new shizznit when it comes to warfare.

We disagree with those self-serving Military Industrial Complex self-pleasuring prognostications.

Just a wee bit.

To wit:

Those simulations have a 400% chance of selling worthless drone systems to the idiots at the Pentagon.

In combat, they’d be mostly horseshi…, er, rose fertilizer.

Aerial drones are great at detecting people. In a barren desert. Or above the Arctic Circle.
In triple canopy jungle, bayou swamp, or northern hardwood forest, their detection capabilities are less than that of a good bassett hound. And they’re not particularly difficult to kill, defeat, or degrade. Starting with shooting the operator.

If 40 Afghan jihadis had stormed the relatively pussified base defenses in Tonopah NV one day, and rampaged through the drone trailers, killing everyone in sight and blowing up the control trailers, drone warfare in A-stan would have ground to a screeching halt, stayed that way for months, and the Air Farce would have started a crash program to steal Army Rangers by the tens of thousands as base defense cops in 30 states of the U.S.

That’s asymmetrical warfare.

In Phase Two, the jihadis would target military dependents off-base in the community, at schools, malls, etc.

So how you gonna harden the entire country, simultaneously, everywhere, against that?

You’re not.
Game. Set. Match.

Land drones?

1) If the supporting troops are close enough to give cover fire, they’re close enough to receive cover fire.
Hint: the guy with the big control box in his hands gets the first sniper volley. Game Over.

2) Those little Fun Sized mini-tanks are cute. So, what’s their industrial fire rating against a wine bottle full of 87 octane and dish soap?
[Bonus Extra Credit Question:
How about when I drop that little Easter Egg from one of my COTS drones?
Or use a soda can full of home-made thermite, at $2@?
You gonna deploy Sopwith Camel drones for air cover??]

3) Drive one over.
I’ll have a couple of guys throw a wet quilt over its sensor mast as it passes by; now it’s blind.
[Paintballs work pretty well too. Just saying.]
Then anyone with ten seconds of .mil experience will run up on the blinded droid, and twist the ammo belt. Now the gun is out of action.
Then we lever it on its side, or shove a pipe bomb into the treads; now it’s mobility killed.
 Then we pop smoke, or otherwise hide what we’re doing from its controllers.
Finally, we pull the pins on the pintle, and carry off that MG, and the can of ammo.
Now I have a machinegun. Ho ho ho.


Then we firebomb it anyways, because we can.
And it cost me a $20 quilt, and $1 worth of unleaded. To kill your $15K tanklet, and steal a functional MG.

Which I’ll happily use on your side when the smoke clears.
Including the operators, the other tanklets, and those aerial drones.

How long before I bankrupt a division for the money I have in my wallet, right now?
And if your live troops are close enough to support it, we’ll take them out too.
If they’re not, they can watch us carry their MG back, and set it up to return fire.

Heads I win, tails you lose.


Use them here?

Okay, let’s play that game.
What’s the defensive capability of any police station you can name?
When I storm it with those same 40 guys, kill everyone there, steal everything I can use, and burn what I can’t, how many more police are you going to need to protect the station house, and every other one you have, 24/7/365?

Who’s going to defend the police when I shoot them off duty getting a burger?

Who’s going to defend their families when they get killed and kidnapped while Officer Friendly is out oppressing the peasants?
(You think their women and children will be off limits if mine aren’t? Sh’yeah, you should live so long. The peasantry will make wind chimes out of those kids’ skulls, for sport, by Week Two. Bet money on it. Tape recordings of their families’ dying screams will be broadcast by PA at the police station daily. Videos of their torture that would make an Apache blush will go viral. So when you have zero cops at work by Week Three, who’s going to stop me from doing the same thing to their masters holding the leash?)

How you gonna gas the MRAPs when folks blow up the fuel tankers?

What are your jack-booted thugs gonna eat when the train and highway bridges into town burn down and blow up, and the goods stop rolling?

What happens when the power lines to every police station and Thug Central keep getting cut, and the transformers shot up every night? You got bicycle-powered generators for those radios?

The Enemy ALWAYS Gets A Vote.

Unlike in canned simulations, 140 guys aren't going to sit obligingly like stunned bunnies and wait while your 20 guys with BATTLEBOTS! walk remorsely up on them and hose them down, while your SKYDRONES! have unanswered mastery of the air. And that same enemy isn't going to helpfully wear red coats and march in straight lines on open fields. They're going to hide, slide, and glide in the same outfits as innocent bystanders, until they blow up in your faces.

Pop Quiz: a) Which side has drones now, and
b) which side is slinking out of Iraq, Syria, and A-stan with its tail between its legs, because it simply cannot win against people who refuse to roll over and die?
Does Vietnam ring a bell? Beuller? Beuller?? Ferris Beuller...?


c) Everyone who figures rednecks, hillbillies, and sketchy neighborhood city-folk from the U.S. of 1B Guns and 2Trillion Rounds of Ammo, are going to be easier meat and bigger pushovers than illiterate fourth-grade dropout goatherders with rusted bolt-action rifles, signify by setting yourself on fire.

I'll wait, while those industrial military wannabe Sun Tzu geniusii answer those questions.

Tell us how many divisions the Nazis needed to garrison unarmed populations, and then tell us what the numbers would be against a population that bought more guns than the U.S., Russian, Chinese, and NATO armies have, combined, in just last year alone, and every year since they've kept stats?

If I’m a betting man, I like the odds in favor of Team Partisan.

And inside a month, we’ll be using Team Oppression’s drones against them.
Bigly.

If there are any of them left alive to fight.

In a fight in this country between the people (even an infinitesimally small fraction of them) and The Man, we run out of government minions to kill in about two volleys, on Monday.

Forget III-percenters.
This is going to be the Great Three Shot War.

Why three shots?”
Because after three shots apiece, we were all out of bad guys.


QED

36 comments:

Anonymous said...

Likely one of your best ever.

Holy shit.

:-)

ca

Old NFO said...

Can we say Christopher Dorner? I knew you could... :-)

Fred ∆ said...

Thanks for the battle tips bossmang.

Anonymous said...

I guess many of us are into the "almost enough" ammo status, then. Just took delivery of a shipment.
But...
How about good stout hemp line? Yeah I know there will always be field-expedients but if we're really gonna run the guvmint repair machine, we might want to hew to traditition .
Boat Guy

Robin Datta said...

Praise the Lord & pass the ammunition!

Anonymous said...

...and a Merry Christmas to you too Aesop. Outstanding essay as usual.

Nemo

LSWCHP said...

Your best work ever.

Merry Christmas from Australia mate.

Wyomarine said...

Hey Aesop, I'm very impressed. This is definitely your best one yet. Keep up the good work, you're an excellent teacher for the pogues. Maybe they'll start taking this seriously now.
SemperFi, 0321

Fred ∆ said...

And Bismarck The Herrwing might want to think twice about endangering Virginia's womenz:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kigsFjdJrJI

Anonymous said...


THIS is why i come here.

fantastic stuff

Anonymous said...

Right on the money. I figure a few flaming bottles thrown through windows of LEOs homes would send the appropriate message, should the need ever arise. They do love to park those easy to identify vehicles right out front. I don't think they'd be on team shitbag for long, anyways. Problem is, most everyone above them is completely divorced from reality. And they think we're just blowing hot air about all of this. Dynamite, meet idiot with a match.

Anonymous said...

Making my lists...checking them twice...gonna write down all those naughty to ice.

Wyomarine said...

Having known a few of that class, they live in their own bubble. They all hang out together, recreate together and compare their newest tattoos and UA clothes. And haven't a clue they are working for the enemy. Just like the military, their bubble separates them from reality.
I really believe they think they're adored by the masses, because the masses are copsuckers and not reality based whatsoever. They protect us from the terrorists, the bad guys, never realizing they trample the Constitution and the heart of the American people every minute, while serving their evil masters for a retirement check.

Anonymous said...

Fuck yeah brother! That’s the god stuff!

Anonymous said...

One of my favorite lines from literature describes these times...."
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn , The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

ChuckInBama said...

Out-FUCKING-standing !!!

John Wilder said...

Well said. And after the reaction in Virginia? Likely accurate.

Jonathan H said...

I like your input on this. I'm a skeptic of the utility of unmanned systems compared to many. The military is finding that they take MORE people to run than an equivalent manned system.

Stopping those unmanned land vehicles is even easier than you realize - the military's obsession with safety means that most of them have at least one 9and often several) big red 'emergency stop' button(s) that shut the whole system down. Hit it and the machine is a brick until the button is released and the system rebooted.

It is interesting to look at what the Brits are doing with their nuclear sub fleet and missile base - due to security concerns all dependents live on base and rarely leave; unlike in the US, they are defensible.

Skip said...

Your best yet! Thank you for the brain chow.

Wendy (KekistanTrans) said...

Unfortunately, most likely "they" don't think anyone on our side - other than a few disorganized and incompetent individuals and small groups - will really put up an actual fight involving shooting it out with those determined to enforce their will on the people with the backing of the state behind them.

Unfortunately, I feel they are likely to proceed as if that was the case, and one day who is really right is going to be put to the test.

Also in my opinion, in addition to all the talk about all the guns and ammo in private hands (of which those totals also include the personal assets owned by those who would take the guns and ammo away from our side) there needs to be some serious consideration given to long-term sustainability - water, food, medical supplies, self generated electrical power, etc.

Can't eat ammo, and can only hunt locally so much until all the wild game in your area runs out (although one upside might be that out of control wild hog population in places like Texas and Alabama may finally get taken care of for good if things go on long enough - we certainly did a number on the buffalo herds back in the day when given a good reason to do so).

Another thought - "They" may decide to pick a geographical area to try imposing their rule on by sealing off the selected area so nothing or nobody gets in or out. Sort of like a modern day "siege of Vicksburg".

That is what I think might happen if things get serious (I am no one special however, I am just thinking what might happen).

Also, seriously, would a bunch of people on our side - even though individually they may own a respectable collection of firearms and ammo along with personal field and survival gear - really leave the security and comfort of their own homes and families and jobs to show up somewhere to actually fight - knowing the consequences of losing is being killed or in prison in a SuperMax facility for the rest of their life - without knowing for sure how many others will actually be there that show up. And even if they do show up ready and determined upon arrival suddenly somehow combine together into small effective fighting units to be able to take on an organized well funded attempt to put down an area wide 2nd Amendment rebellion.

I don't mean to disparage anything anyone else says, I am just mentioning some things I think might need to be considered and asking some questions I have personally... And I am more than a bit depressed about all of this stuff going on...

Anonymous said...

I've read this several times now and it motivates me to spend money on things. To store things. To build things to store things. Then of course there is ammo...

McChuck said...

Wendy -Yes, we will fight. Yes, some of us will travel to fight. When the dance starts, there will be no sidelines to sit on.

Remember - We don't have to fight all the cops. We don't have to fight the military, either. The real enemy is the idiot politicians who give them their orders. They have to sleep somewhere. And so do their families.

CPB said...

Hell yeah, but know this, unless we do this and I mean SOON. These COMMUNISTS WILL CONTINUE to believe they can, have the "right" to lord over us. And if they wake up and realize WE WILL DO THIS, they will hide again in the shadows and continue chipping away till those of us that are willing to fight are dead of old age... So plan accordingly.

Schaff said...

They can't win because many are mercenaries. They do it for full dental and a lucrative pension. We fight for principle and homeland. The desperate, hardened foe always wins in the end.

I can only imagine the incredible OT bills that are accrued when this thing finally kicks off. I remember that Dorner cost them a ton of unexpected costs in round-the-clock time.

Allen said...

I think I tore something laughing so hard. At least the generator has a great camo paint job and is strapped down to the fare the well. It's an attractive, well secured boat anchor. I was wondering who gets the job to low crawl forward schlepping the ammo to reload that baby when the operator is finished with his mad minute. Maybe another drone? Meet the Snuffy1000.

Anonymous said...

Drones and AI can and most likely will be the deciding factor in the next WW. To ignore this fact puts us in the same position Poland was in when they met the advancing Nazi tanks while on horseback. I do think it would be easy to misunderstand drones and assume that they are super expensive and super susceptible to enemy fire and that is why they will fail and be useless in battle. Yes there are some drones like that. Now imagine a cheap tiny drone that can do only one thing and that is to search out and kill a single enemy soldier. Then imagine that China or Russia sends millions of these into battle. Or a small single purpose drone that simply hunts down and explodes ships, any ship it finds. And that the drone is used all over the world on day one minute one of WW 3 while the Russian or Chinese ships are all in port. Apply that same logic to drones designed to take down aircraft or land vehicles etc. In reality the problem of accurately understanding the possibilities drones bring to battle are only limited by your imagination and if you lack imagination you will correspondingly lack understanding of the potential threat.

BigCountryExpat said...

Experiences with Drones (Ground based): I supported a few EOD Units in 2004 when the whole "I.E.D." thing started to get really wound up... The EOD Kids initially didn't have a lot of 'drones' per se... they did al LOT of field improv stuff (usually the best way to do it IMO)... the -few- EOD Robots they had were insanely heavy, cumbersome and sl-o-o-o-ow. They needed a lot of support, were pretty fragile and the result?

A couple of the guys went to the Souk and bought a bunch of 1/32 Scale chineaseum remote control toy cars... usually the monster truck variety with big, fat tires that could handle the shitty terrain. They'd just up n'slap n' strap a block of C-4 or equivalent on it, and run it to the I.E.D. and >kablammo< no more issue.

The brass of course shit themselves over it... "Could be jammed!" "Not proven!" "Unsafe!" and a whole litany of why they COULDN'T do it...

Needless to say they DID b/c the shit DID work. Within a few months/year? maybe if memory serves me, the Dycorpcacikbrgeneraldynamics INC models started showing up... at $15-50 K a shot. and most of them were down for maintenance or parts more than half the time. Whereas the Chineaseum Models were all of $50 bux a throw, and they EOD guys had gotten with some commo dudes who had worked on tweaking the remotes to keep them from being hacked.

Well stated on the weakenesses of the bigger killdozer drones Aesop. Good intel.

Robin Datta said...

Science fiction today, science fact tomorrow?

lineman said...

Exactly right Brother why waste good ammo when a public hanging will have the others tripping over each other to get the hell out of Dodge...

Aesop said...

@Anonymous 9:23AM

You were saying?
https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2019/12/fundamentals-not-magic.html

lineman said...

That should motivate you not to wait until they start coming for you to start banding together with others so they never want to even think about coming for you...Do you really think Commie Ralph or his sycophants would even think of proposing bills like that if there was unified militia that stood in the way of that...But people being people want to wait until bills like this come about before they get off their asses and do something about it...

Jack said...

Just finished a book on a German general. The Panzer Graf. Detailed the invasion of Poland. Interesting foot note. Polish Cavalry never went up against tanks. Skirmishes with German infantry, but no tanks.

Ward Dorrity said...

Our erstwhile betters would do well to remember the fate of the Ceausescus.

AL Tru said...

the EMP God will take care of Skynet

Borepatch said...

This was the post I was thinking about.

Aesop said...

@BP, The follow-up, plus comments by Anonymous, are a comedy masterpiece.