What about Asian countries? African Countries? Does the EU have better drone detection? Does the EU overreact due to the current tension levels within the EU?
the whole article reads like a FUD-laced sales pitch for gathering public support for an expensive anti-drone tech. There's even a whole section talking about how it will be a 'financially controversial question'. The article starts with fearmongering around the drones not having explosives 'yet'.
Maybe there are normal or slightly elevated levels of drone incursion due to idiots with access to cheap drones. Maybe the drone-wall vendor working with their partners within the EU saw an opportunity to exploit fear to gather support
edit: I tried to get data for the EU similar to what the FAA produces. I failed. Chatgpt says there "maybe" reason to believe in a recent spike in sightings. I am maybe overly cautious about trusting that a spike is indeed happening and it has hostile intent. I am reminded of the mass delusion in New Jersey of the 'drone sightings' that ended up being nothing interesting.
I would not rule out China out either. Let’s not forget some of their recent state backed exploits as well as the “weather” balloon that flew over America.
One thing that is particularly annoying: the lack of communication from the governments/police about the status of the investigation, or lack thereof.
Side question: How likely are autonomous reconnaissance drones today?
I'd expect them to be impervious to traditional jamming.
I could imagine a pair of drones, a few km apart, communicating by laser line-of-sight, where the reconnaissance one acquires data, send it to the nearby drone, that one would use it to confirm data and do something else with it (aka, spotter and actor).
I am quite sure that these "mysterious drones" which the western services "cannot identify" is yet another "false flag" as you like to call them, to justify investing hindreds of billions (maybe also these stolen from Russia) into a future war against Russia which the west is feverishly preparing. Territory, natural resources, this is what it is about. Always is, always has been.
That's why I don't understand why there isn't a more aggressive response to flying drones illegally near airports. IMO they should just be shot down.
Actually some years they were very proudly showing birds of prey that they had trained to do just that. Whatever happened to that?
After 9/11 there was a huge worldwide shift in e.g. airplane security due to the threat of terrorism, but now there's drones out there they can fly into planes or that can drop bombs they're doing... what? Mentioning it in the news?
Not a bad overview of the situation! Worth it for some of the questions about what is actually efficient and not just technically effective. Especially at this scale.
> "The aggressor", he concludes, "will observe, adjust, repeat – until they get through".
it's just security, digital or not. sun tzu's art of war is timeless and widely applicable (including outside of the military or even security domains) for a reason.
I dunno if calling them "mysterious" is really helpful in this case. Just shoot them down if they get close, that should be the response in a wartime scenario too. Plus, given it's in civilian areas, they can use the expensive laser defense systems to do that.
The mysteriousness is the main point of the article. These drones aren’t identifiable. Across dozens of incursions this year alone, no one has taken any drone down or identified where they’re launching from or returning to in spite of all the advanced NATO satellite imagery and aerial surveillance that can identify individual people on the ground.
I still haven’t seen any specifics on the type of drones spotted at those airports. Is the other side just sending random people with cheap FPV drones? Or are they flying Shaheds around airports? I could take my 6” FPV drone and go buzz the tower at a nearby international airport, if I wanted. It costs less than 500€ for the entire kit and with ELRS and high power analog VTx you can do it from kilometers away and run before they catch you. Obviously it’s illegal as fuck.
It's thought that it's Russian illegal agents doing this. A lot of them locals recruited online. Really cheap ops done by really cheap people, using cheap and deniable gear.
I heard it’s a mix. Suggestible local people on Telegram are coaxed to launch civilian stuff at a time and place. This clouds the sensor data of the true launches.
I don’t know if we’ve seen Shahads since 10 September, but note that Shahads can be ship-launched as well.
It is not Russia's aggression "against the west", it is your aggression against Russia, and in general against Russians, since the west organized the Kiev's coup at 2014 (renember the Odessa May 2014 pogrom at the Unions House against people opposing to "Maidan", for which none, or almost none, got punished, or the murders by ucranian services at Mariupol, of which most of the westerners did not hear at all). Ucrainian war is just the logical outcome, were it not for your built-in dishonesty and hypocrisy which make it seem as a spontaneous aggression against a peaceful neighbour.
(I am not saying this is the whole story. But the main part of it, yes.)
I was there for that, ended up getting the eurostart instead, still can't believe that it was basically all for nothing and we still have no information about it really.
Have they been conclusively spotted? With evidence? Sorry I only skimmed the article. Until there is, I’m going to keep believing it’s some sort of mass delusion like UFO sightings. Not because I think some sort of drone attack is particularly unlikely, but because these sorts of mass delusions are evidently very common - like happened in New Jersey.
9 September is probably where you want to start. Intentional swarm of military drones into NATO. Shahads shot down, no question about a Russian plan to test reactions along the perimeter.
Since then, coordinated launches of screens of smaller civilian drones. I don’t think we’ll get hard numbers, but I’ve heard that NATO is more interested in ground-detection of GPS and satellite uplink jamming.
So the question now is: how are some civilians coordinating within NATO countries, and how are they getting drones that can jam?
Don't they show up on radar? I have no reason to doubt the detection of drones around airports and other infrastructure, especially given they already have enforced drone bans and therefore have installations specifically designed to detect and track drones.
If we see a war between Russia and the EU, we're going to have to deal with them learning from Israel and using the same idea of decentralised drone hubs attacking military and civilian targets across the entire continent. We're woefully underprepared to deal with something like this. Western Europe still thinks that if a war breaks out, it'll be tanks and soldiers going into the Baltic states, and we'll crush them with our advanced arsenal. It'll be more like when Russia took eastern Ukraine. A hard push, then months of digging in as they proceed to genocide the Baltics, gaslight the West into thinking it'd be easier and safer to just hand over the Baltics without a big fight and wage asymmetric warfare across Europe and severely hamper any military response by hitting the logistic chains at every point.
The EU military leaders are watching Ukraine closely (as is any other competent military leader anywhere in the world) and trying to figure out how they will handle this problems. The EU is also talking to Ukraine military leaders and brainstorming solutions that Ukraine is trying in real time (not all military leaders are, but a lot of countries outside of the EU are). The EU is also designing new weapons/systems with the current situation in mind, it is likely that these (whatever they are - this is classified but I can say it with confidence anyway because it is so obvious there is no way they are not doing something) will be ready before Russia attacks.
> Western Europe still thinks that if a war breaks out, it'll be tanks and soldiers going into the Baltic states, and we'll crush them with our advanced arsenal.
Drones are not for conquering, but destruction. We see this in Ukraine now, where Drones are not making the whole war, but are just one gear of the machinery. And Western leaders know this, they are preparing Drones, but refitting the western machinery takes time. Probably one reason why they seem busy to bind Russia in Ukraine.
Do you really think after years of crushing defeats in battle and sanctions, that they have the money or soldiers to fight the EU? If they did, they would have taken over Ukraine by now.
Now if China gets involved? It's a different story.
I mean of course drones would be a massive problem for western forces as they have never faced that kind of threat at scale.
But at the same time the Russian army has suffered dramatic attrition in Ukraine, especially in anti-air capabilities which used to be USSR's specialty and which western analyst feared it would allow the Russians to perform wide anti access on the Baltic's while they would quickly take over the Suvalki corridor and the whole Baltic states soon after.
With limited maneuvering capability left to quickly overwhelm local land armies and a significantly diminished air defense asset, I think the Russians would just lose the sky very quickly and then be unable to supply their ground forces.
And I really don't think Putin wants to lose a quick conventional war and end up with just the nuclear deterrence as his only card so I'm not too worried about him attacking EU directly. (But then again it made little sense to attack Ukraine in the first place yet he did it no matter what, so who knows…)
(Had the Ukrainian army collapsed and the 2022 campaign gone as planned by the Russian command, then the prospects would have been extremely grim for the Baltic states and the European Union as a whole. We Europeans collectively owe a lot to the Ukrainians).
If you make a bold claim like that I hope you have the sources to back it up. News outlets spreading misinformation is a criminal act; it was in the UK's 2003 Communications Act [0] and has been updated in the 2023 Online Safety Act [1], with some people already having been convicted [2] for spreading misinformation.
skc|3 months ago
1) Russian sabre-rattling
2) NATO countries running "secret" drills in public in anticipation of 1)
The UFO community is of course running with a third option that doesn't warrant any seriousness.
tarsinge|3 months ago
fusslo|3 months ago
Maybe I just didn't read the article well enough.
In the USA we get over 100 drone sightings near airports per month. ( https://www.faa.gov/uas/resources/public_records/uas_sightin...? ) ( we are certainly 'NATO aligned', but it's the easiest source of drone incursion records I could find )
What about Asian countries? African Countries? Does the EU have better drone detection? Does the EU overreact due to the current tension levels within the EU?
the whole article reads like a FUD-laced sales pitch for gathering public support for an expensive anti-drone tech. There's even a whole section talking about how it will be a 'financially controversial question'. The article starts with fearmongering around the drones not having explosives 'yet'.
Maybe there are normal or slightly elevated levels of drone incursion due to idiots with access to cheap drones. Maybe the drone-wall vendor working with their partners within the EU saw an opportunity to exploit fear to gather support
edit: I tried to get data for the EU similar to what the FAA produces. I failed. Chatgpt says there "maybe" reason to believe in a recent spike in sightings. I am maybe overly cautious about trusting that a spike is indeed happening and it has hostile intent. I am reminded of the mass delusion in New Jersey of the 'drone sightings' that ended up being nothing interesting.
infecto|3 months ago
rapsey|3 months ago
jiehong|3 months ago
Side question: How likely are autonomous reconnaissance drones today?
I'd expect them to be impervious to traditional jamming.
I could imagine a pair of drones, a few km apart, communicating by laser line-of-sight, where the reconnaissance one acquires data, send it to the nearby drone, that one would use it to confirm data and do something else with it (aka, spotter and actor).
rapsey|3 months ago
Because they are doing it to stir up public hysteria.
justsomejew|3 months ago
randomNumber7|3 months ago
Cthulhu_|3 months ago
Actually some years they were very proudly showing birds of prey that they had trained to do just that. Whatever happened to that?
After 9/11 there was a huge worldwide shift in e.g. airplane security due to the threat of terrorism, but now there's drones out there they can fly into planes or that can drop bombs they're doing... what? Mentioning it in the news?
boriskourt|3 months ago
> "The aggressor", he concludes, "will observe, adjust, repeat – until they get through".
Reminds me a lot of digital sec.
baq|3 months ago
Cthulhu_|3 months ago
AnimalMuppet|3 months ago
an0malous|3 months ago
Toutouxc|3 months ago
ACCount37|3 months ago
It's thought that it's Russian illegal agents doing this. A lot of them locals recruited online. Really cheap ops done by really cheap people, using cheap and deniable gear.
sigwinch|3 months ago
I don’t know if we’ve seen Shahads since 10 September, but note that Shahads can be ship-launched as well.
justsomejew|3 months ago
(I am not saying this is the whole story. But the main part of it, yes.)
__alexs|3 months ago
Every news report I read about this stuff has at best /r/ufos level of uselessly vague photography.
zipy124|3 months ago
unknown|3 months ago
[deleted]
mastax|3 months ago
sigwinch|3 months ago
Since then, coordinated launches of screens of smaller civilian drones. I don’t think we’ll get hard numbers, but I’ve heard that NATO is more interested in ground-detection of GPS and satellite uplink jamming.
So the question now is: how are some civilians coordinating within NATO countries, and how are they getting drones that can jam?
Cthulhu_|3 months ago
unknown|3 months ago
[deleted]
modzu|3 months ago
mikkupikku|3 months ago
Yokolos|3 months ago
bluGill|3 months ago
slightwinder|3 months ago
Drones are not for conquering, but destruction. We see this in Ukraine now, where Drones are not making the whole war, but are just one gear of the machinery. And Western leaders know this, they are preparing Drones, but refitting the western machinery takes time. Probably one reason why they seem busy to bind Russia in Ukraine.
billy99k|3 months ago
Now if China gets involved? It's a different story.
littlestymaar|3 months ago
I mean of course drones would be a massive problem for western forces as they have never faced that kind of threat at scale.
But at the same time the Russian army has suffered dramatic attrition in Ukraine, especially in anti-air capabilities which used to be USSR's specialty and which western analyst feared it would allow the Russians to perform wide anti access on the Baltic's while they would quickly take over the Suvalki corridor and the whole Baltic states soon after.
With limited maneuvering capability left to quickly overwhelm local land armies and a significantly diminished air defense asset, I think the Russians would just lose the sky very quickly and then be unable to supply their ground forces.
And I really don't think Putin wants to lose a quick conventional war and end up with just the nuclear deterrence as his only card so I'm not too worried about him attacking EU directly. (But then again it made little sense to attack Ukraine in the first place yet he did it no matter what, so who knows…)
(Had the Ukrainian army collapsed and the 2022 campaign gone as planned by the Russian command, then the prospects would have been extremely grim for the Baltic states and the European Union as a whole. We Europeans collectively owe a lot to the Ukrainians).
mavhc|3 months ago
[deleted]
anonym29|3 months ago
billy99k|3 months ago
thatgerhard|3 months ago
[deleted]
sigwinch|3 months ago
Cthulhu_|3 months ago
[0] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/21/section/127
[1] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/section/179
[2] https://www.derbyshire.police.uk/news/derbyshire/news/news/s...
monooso|3 months ago