The average life expectancy for a Russian soldier in Ukraine is between 20-30 minutes, CIA director John Ratcliffe said. Speaking at a defense summit in Pennsylvania, he attributed the deadly conditions for Vladimir Putin’s forces to Ukraine’s combat drones equipped with AI. “What I would say is, our intelligence is consistent with some of the open-source reporting you may have seen in Ukraine,” Ratcliffe said. “So the average life expectancy of a Russian recruit, right now, arriving on the battlefield in Ukraine, is estimated to be between 20 and 30 minutes.” “And that’s because AI-powered drones have gotten to be such specialized, low-cost killing machines. And it’s why we’re now four and a half years into that conflict,” Ratcliffe added. Ukraine said this month that Russia has lost about 1.4 million soldiers since the beginning of its full-scale invasion, with over 1,000 of the Kremlin’s troops killed or wounded almost every day. In May, Ukraine’s defense ministry said it was killing roughly 200 Russian soldiers for every kilometer of territory that Moscow claimed.
It’s a lot easier to sight a drone one a clear day when a vip is giving a speech then it is to sight a drone 24/7 during active conflict.
It’s a lot easier to jam a single drone that a nobody can buy then it is to jam a swam of drones you need a defense budget to buy.
You can spot anti-drone personal carrying HERF(high energy radio frequency) guns at major public events nowadays if you know what to look for. The simplest concept just throws enough RF static in the air to make the drone loose connection to the operator.
Will that stop offline drones with its own sensing, though?
Yes, I know the definition for that is “missile,” but I think we’re getting close to the point where one could reprogram an off-the-shelf machine vision enabled drone to do this, and cover it in foil or something.
Low power herf won’t stop autonomous drones, but high powered one are microwave beams. The fines traces of semiconductors act as antennas and fry if enough amperage is drawn in.
I don’t know when off the shelf equipment will be able to do what you’re describing. Your best bet is when someone’s at a podium so there’s landmarks to reference. Face identification will still be difficult at range. At a certain point, vips will be giving their speeches in glass boxes, like the pipemobile.
I’m thinking of “action drones” that can follow around their users on skis or whatever. To film them from the air.
This is already a consumer product. Some have telephoto lenses (though face identification still wouldn’t be reliable, no).
Machine vision on a cheap ASIC is capable of doing this, too.
I’m not saying the whole package is there, but all the pieces are, so it’s not that far away. And I’m thinking one could cover a drone in metal foil to mitigate against microwave devices.
Maybe, but those are following a target. Not picking one out of a crowd. Indiscriminate weapons would be easy, but signalling one target out is a different story.
Fiber optic drones are the norm now in the Ukraine war, no?
I haven’t been keeping up, but they probably use all kinds. The drones that attacked the oil refineries where probably using visual sighting navigation where their systems spot landmarks or road and river crossing. No need for remote control or satellite navigation that could get jammed.
Fiberoptic is good for short range, but that’s not something that a consumer could get off the shelf.
Not sure how accurate but it was an interesting read that tour comment lead me to.
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/fiber-optics-drones-have-emerged-as-critical-kit-for-both-russia-and-ukraine/
If you’re attempting to assassinate someone, you don’t want a physical trail going straight back to your location.
I think fiber optics would only see niche applications, when done by either a lunatic or a professional agent aware they’d sacrifice themselves for the target.
But if you’re at the point of having professional agents, willing to sacrifice themselves. It’s more likely you’d sneak a drone onto a civilian vehicle like a truck, with a preprogrammed path able to scan for a specific face (or a handful of them) which acts offline once it sets off
I think (mighty me with 0 drone or RF experience) that it would be possible to combine the fiber optic with radio, by having a control relay be physically attached with fiber optics, but then you control that relay with RF. If your fiber optics range is sufficient, then RF jamming won’t be an issue
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that does not mean the connection to the operator is happening through a fiber optic cable. I also doubt it doesn’t have electrically conductive traces anywhere. what is the cpu and memory is made of?
Here’s one following Trump around.
Yeah fiberoptic is definitely going to be used in an assassination attempt of someone publically in the near future it would seem.
But would that be off the shelf type stuff?
Fibre optic is old tech. now they have drones that will match your vehicle/face/enemy vehicle and blow you up without needing any comms at all. the instructions are programmed in before flight. the tech is advancing fast.
Not that many public figures are gonna have future weapon dude at their side though.
Not that many public figures are interesting enough to target. Honestly, I’m surprised how there were no attempts on conservatives during the Bush II years by the Taliban. Judging by how easy it was for the nutjob to go after Paul Pelosi, most of these people are very easy targets.