Note: For those looking for a good book to read, check out this new novel Faction: With the Crusaders, which is the follow on of the writer’s first novel called Faction.
If you were alive a thousand years ago and decided you wanted to kill the local prince, it meant getting within reach of the prince. You would have to get close enough to stab him with a knife or poison his food. That meant getting past the guards and his retainers who were always with him. For anyone but those with regular access to the prince this was near impossible, which is why political assassinations were almost always a part of palace intrigue or a palace coup.
Ranged weapons changed this math a bit, but the bow was around a thousand years ago and was not a weapon for this type of activity. The reason is bows were primarily for hunting at close range or part of a system for war. The hunter would need to get close to his quarry as bows were not terribly accurate. In war, masses of archers operated a lot like a missile battery. They would fill the sky with arrows using volume to overcome the limited accuracy of the weapon.
The first real innovation in weapons that could be used for assassinations was the crossbow which arrived in the Middle Ages. We know the ancients had crossbows and used them in war, but they were not terribly accurate. The cost made them a weapon of war rather than a tool for private use. The crossbow disappeared from Europe for almost a thousand years, but then reappeared in the tenth century. Technology soon made them cheap and deadly accurate in the right hands.
This is why medieval leaders grew concerned with this weapon and tried to ban their private ownership in some cases. A weapon that a peasant could own and master that would allow him to strike the prince from a distance created a new problem for the ruling class of the time. A couple of angry peasants on the roof tops or even in the crowd could kill the prince. All of a sudden, having guards and a retinue was not enough, so the prince had to be more careful around the peasants.
Of course, we see the same thing happen with firearms. In the 18th century it was not a great weapon for assassinations. If you could get close enough you could kill the prince with a muzzle loader, but you would also be easy to spot. The first widely available firearms were not great for up close work. Pistols started to change this, and technology soon made it possible to conceal a deadly weapon on your person, thus making the assassin a real threat to authority.
Even though the problem was obvious, it took a while for rulers to figure out how to deal with firearms as political weapons. The same is true for things like roadside bombs and bombs delivered through the mail. A hundred years ago anarchists sent bombs to rich people through the mail. Of course, political actors were able to assassinate important people with the use of commonly available firearms. This is no longer an issue, as the ruling class has adapted to this threat.
This may be about to change. The use of FPV drones in the Ukraine war is doing to range weapons what war did for prior weapons. The FPV drone is a First Person Video drone that an operator uses to put an explosive on a target. The drone has a camera so the operator can look through that camera to guide the drone to the target where it explodes upon impact. Two years ago, these did not exist as a practical matter, but now the battlefield is littered with them.
The reason the skies are full of drones in Ukraine is they are cheap to produce and cheap to master. A team of two can become a highly effective weapon on the battlefield with a week of training on the drone. Training men to use million dollars tanks and artillery takes years. The drone is not a replacement for these weapon systems, but they are proving to be a cheap way to increase the combat effectiveness of troops that have the minimum amount of training.
A big part of the drone war is that the soldiers are learning to operate them and also repair them when needed. After the war, millions of men will go back to civilian life knowing how to make a cheap flying bomb they can guide to a target. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian men will come home angry at their politicians or the politicians of Europe about their conduct of the war. In other words, you do not have to be a genius to see the potential downstream consequences of the drone revolution.
For the last fifty years, the West has had to deal with terror attacks, which meant bombs, mass shootings and hijackings. Western elites had largely insulated themselves from assassination, so the only political violence was attacks on civilians. Now that is about to change as the terrorist can fly a bomb through the window of a rich person’s home or into the limousine of an important person. The math of political violence is about to change due to the drone.
History tells us that no one will notice this until a lunatic flies his homemade FPV drone into a government building. Then the security industrial complex will get the money to unriddle the problem. The battlefield will provide a lesson here as well because those soldiers using drones are working on defending against them. Reports suggest the Russians are way ahead on this, but it will not take long before the private sector in the West is working the problem of killer drones.
In the middle of the last century, it was still common to see politicians mixing it up with the people, but that no longer happens. Over time the threat of political violence, despite the rarity, has put the political class behind a wall. Drones will probably put them in a bunker, but it will also put the managerial elite in bunkers too. They will cease to be real people and instead be nothing more than images on our screens. The FPV drone cannot hunt what it cannot see in the wild.
It will also mean new rules to monitor the sale of components used to make drones, like we see with explosives and street drugs. You cannot go into a store and buy certain cold medicines without a note from the state. It will not be long before you must pass a background check to buy a drone. We may even see politicians try to ban assault drones on the grounds that they are weapons of war. It sounds ridiculous, but our rulers think this is a good ad, so nothing is too farfetched.
This thought experiment is a good reminder that war has downstream consequences that no one can foresee. Cheap crossbows were great for waging war, but lots of good crossbowmen in the crowd were not good for the king. The same proved true for other weapons of war. We are about to see the same thing with this war. In the fullness of time, it will be seen as an inflection point and maybe one that makes the economics of the Western ruling system unworkable.
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Folks, just did a search of all the posts. You are ALL wide of the mark.
Two words: Loitering. Munitions.
Controlled by AI.
That is your future.
More words or something: Cop Laser Cruiser. DaLaw.
Controlled by Sheriff AI. “It didn’t pull over and threatened to detonate, my drones WILL be safe.”
Cops aren’t smart enough to run and maintain this system. I smell a lucrative government contract. Stop fighting the system, get paid.
White hat >>> Black hat
I’ve been to some drone-focused conferences…for non-war means of course, but one point that was easy to see was that the barrier to entry was ridiculously low.
It went from being “new tech”, to the next year you had 100 new “drone companies”, which just meant some guy had a few free $K, an Amazon account, and the mind to (maybe?) create an LLC.
Extrapolating that out to more nefarious ends, yes, it will be very easy for relatively anyone with a 95+ IQ to cause havoc if so wanted.
I think you need to get outside the DJI ecosystem to be dangerous. The racers have the skills for sure. The long-distance fpv community has been basically play acting this for years. I better get my workshop set up before it gets stupid.
I was frequenting Jakarta in the early 2000s when there was a spate of bombings by returned mujahideen types and random guys who’d discovered Saudi satellite TV and the Internet.
Mostly backpack and vehicle-born bombs. It got to the point that arriving at the Jakarta Shangri-la hotel involved driving a zig-zag course through a maze of speed bumps and the piece de resistance was a heavy calibre tripod-mounted machine gun aimed directly along one of the alleys in the maze just in case the entering driver looked a little too fixated upon his pending 72 virgins. But no sniffer dogs for guest baggage because dogs are unclean. Go figure. Anyway I always asked for a room overlooking the pool and gardens out the back. Wasn’t taking chances on a front-facing room.
Another serviced apartment I stayed at had an alleyway running behind the gardens and pool. Motorcyclists zipped along it day and night. So they had put up grenade netting in case someone thought of chucking one over the wall.
All amateur night stuff cf. what we’ve all seen in the Telegram videos out of the present unpleasantness.
Done in by DJI is going to be the epitaph of many a man next time things heat up there. There’s going to be good money in drone netting and lightweight, easily-erected structures to support it.
Z raises some good points so I guess we will soon get feds using drones to stimulate a MAGA republican terror attack.
In the meantime I an a fan of drones in that they help level somewhat the War playing field. The Houthis have shown that cheap drones can wreck havoc with the Empire
Battlefield drones and countermeasures against them is going to be a fast-paced game. It reminds me of the IED threat in Iraq and how the complexity of IEDs and countermeasures increased almost weekly.
It was like the “Spy vs. Spy” comic in Mad Magazine. The Joint IED Defeat Organization (called “Jidao”) actually used that cartoon in their crest.
I always thought the obvious counteraction to the IED threat was to carry prisoners of war with you in vehicles when you traveled through at-risk areas, particularly if you had high-value targets under your supervision. At least that way if they took some of ours they also got some of theirs.
Reminiscent of Breaker Morant, where the Brits placed Boer PoWs in gondola cars in front of the locomotives as a way of reducing casualties from sabotage. The Calvinist Boers were understandably not keen on blowing up their own, but I can only wonder if a future enemy, like “Our Greatest Ally” just might see some of their own as expendable under the circumstances, though they might not refer to it as the Hannibal Option. Zhukov freely admitted that his forces frequently attacked through German minefields, trading, ahem, casualties for time. Was it HE who said something about quantity having a quality of its own? (nowadays, Putin has fewer men to risk but he has the advantage of allowing the Kiev Laundromat to squander Ukrainian lives).
Oops! I forgot to mention that the PoW/hostage tactic ended when Kitchener ordered (verbally) that Boer prisoners be summarily executed. Which might have continued until war’s end except for the inconvenient murder of a Lutheran pastor who got wind of the policy from an interaction with some doomed prisoners.
Always a good idea to get your history from movies.
Very reliable.
Also your ability to hear conversations involving a dead Kitchener and a dead pastor. Literally incredible.
Good idea that was often discussed in-county, but it violated about a dozen articles of the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC). Regardless of your or my opinion of LOAC, the policy makers stuck to it and willful violators got destroyed.
Also, I was doing offensive operations around the famous Abu Gharab prison in 03-04, and Haji (the bad guys) dropped mortar rounds on that place every night. Most of the prisoners lived in tents and were regularly blown away by their friends (to our great amusement). My point is that human shields don’t work on Haji.
That said, the few times my unit captured an HVT, I would appeal to their self interest (they had just passed up a “martyrdom” opportunity) and show them our upcoming route on a map and watched their reactions. I’m convinced this saved us from hitting a few IEDs. This bent some rules on operation security, but was not a LOAC violation.
It was a strange war. One and a half stars. Do not recommend.
Ha! Two USNS ships i operated with back in my 1970s EOD days used the white and black spy cartoons on their crests. The Harkness and Chauvenet. Underneath was the caption “We are NOT a spy ship”. They were of course.
Drones have had an incredible effect on Outdoor channels on YT. For example, non-controversial “Sidetrack Adventures” has shots that beat the old Huell Howser “California’s Gold” etc. stuff that ran on KCET for years. All because the guy has cheap drones and and a cheap HD camera on the drones and some cheap video editing software.
You have guys on YT (almost always guys) doing content that rivals and beats professional stuff. For example, Fortnine on YT does for motorcycles what Top Gear under Clarkson did for cars. Networks and studios are in competition not with each other but a zillion content creators on YT and increasingly, Rumble. A guy like Yammie Noob probably has more influence on his core audience of would-be Squids (sport bike enthusiasts) than anything on TV which is a Wine Karen / Gay ghetto. [South Park’s mocking of Harley Davidson riders did not come out of nowhere, those guys had been mocked by Squids for years on YT].
So its not just elite safety but elites commanding attention. No one pays attention to movies and TV anymore, particularly among White men. And there is a whole ecosystem that depends on Drones and WILL continue to use them (in remote areas) to get those killer shots that draw views and donations. Even if there are restrictions on drones there are people making a living off them who will indeed find work-arounds and stimulate a black market.
And as far as the panopticon goes, that depends on power. Zerohedge has an article up highlighting just from weather how vulnerable the nationwide grid has become under “green” nonsense. In my area of Orange County CA, there was a power outage in Irvine that lasted for three weeks as a substation was repaired. Cause? Fires created by shorts from a children’s birthday party balloon. A measure used on the “Better Call Saul” TV series by a character using it to short out surveillance camera’s power systems. There have been a series of attacks on power substations (poorly defended, too numerous to do otherwise) by criminals seeking to cut power to alarm systems. That’s as old as the first Die Hard movie in 1988.
The most likely users of drones for violence however are not “our guys” but Cartels seeking dominance over areas and pushing the State out: it is not out of the possibility for a Cartel for example to seize NYC or SF and just loot the place while the cops and military are ordered to stand down as power figures are threatened with Drones. Cartels and Cartel violence are not just going to stay over in Mexico via reverse-magic dirt. Both are already here in my opinion, in a neighborhood near you.
The cartels have to, or have already had to, establish business relationships with aino officials to keep the heat off. Lest their violence north of the border provoke some kind of military retaliation. That allegation of Katie Hobbs and Co. being on the take from the Sinaloa Cartel went down the memory hole real quick didn’t it. What I’m getting at is cartel activity north of the border will expand in proportion to how insulated they are by these relationships. They won’t act rashly in provoking aino’s “leaders,” they never have. It is always about the bottom line for them.
Ah but Cartels fracture. Katie Hobbs may have made “deals” with one faction, but there is always another. Mexico is not short of violent, ambitious men who would like to lead THEIR faction in looting.
This certainly has been the experience in Mexico where various factions square off and hold entire cities hostage until enough loot has been paid. The ease in which weapons and manpower can be accumulated in Mexico means any “deal” is temporary and can be revoked by new players entering. This is likely what happened in Israel with Hamas. The Israelis leaders thought they had a deal, and may well have had one, but other players negated that deal.
It would not shock me to learn that October 7 was the result of various other players essentially free-lancing to move up the ladder. That has always been a concern in fluid, ad-hoc organizations without rigid hierarchy that enforces strict rules in advancement.
Did anybody catch the recent story about the Central American aboriginals [the “Cartels”] transporting the fentanyl up to Montana [at least 1300 miles north of the border, and 1300 miles for the return trip back to Mexico, totalling at least 2600 miles per trip], in order to make addicts of all the North American aboriginals on the reservations?
The persistently inevitably eternally omnipotent power of Passive Aggression – its dissembling & duplicitousness & disingenuousness – its perfidy – is absolutely mesmerizing, and it manifests itself at all IQ levels; it seems to exist largely independent of intelligence.
It’s like watching a Wagnerian tragedy of Darwinism; maggots eating the flesh of a felled lion.
Passive Aggression cannot be stopped; it’s simply omnipotent.
Everywhere we [White Christians] look, we’re being attacked by some darwinian phenomenon or another – pederasty, miscegenation, j00d@ic bl00dthirst – how long until we start seeing overt cannibalism in North America, courtesy of Santa Muerte?!?!?
The Saxon better shed the naivetee of inner Hajnalia in an hurry, and instead start learning how to Hate.
Because this story of ours doesn’t have a happy ending for the losers.
We need to be on the winning team.
Darwinism will tolerate nothing less than total & absolute victory.
Always read that they outlawed the crossbow not because it was an assassin’s weapon but simply because the thing shot a bolt with incredible, armour-piercing force. The knights were not happy.
Well call me old fashioned but I prefer the elites being pulled down into an angry mob and flayed alive.
The last few years I have been feeling a lot of false nostalgia on this very point.
Yes, when I was just a wee spark, we didn’t have things like drones and digital cameras. No siree bob! When we wanted to marbleize some nabob or panjandrum, we had to sneak up on ’em on a cold, rainy, dark night, grab them by their spats, yank them out of their Duesenbergs, gouge out their eyes, rip out their throats, and yank off their gonads with our bare hands! And we LIKED it!
Whoops looks like I Offended, I am now being moderated.
I like your posts ray, so no offense intended, but you are paranoid. Moderation happens by the software from time to time. Keywords can often set it off. Don’t take it personally unless it’s stated otherwise.
I’d like to think anyone smart enough to construct and operate such a device in the US is also smart enough to know it wouldn’t affect the blob in the least…but would just hurry up along a police state.
A pie drone would be fun. Pie Guy throwing a pie in Bill Gates face was pretty funny.
The Pie Drone. Some people hate being mocked more than anything.
If he believes he can do it with impunity he might still give it a whirl. A la Uncle Ted
The pie is the slow-mo moment in Gates’s supervillain origin movie. He didn’t mind being dragged out of his goon cave to testify to congress, etc., but being made subject for the first and only time in his life to the judgment of some regular doofus—*that* made him decide to enslave and kill us all.
Hmmm, the possibilities …
Dropping blood-red paint balls on Vicky Nuland (easy target) or Hillary (“We came, we saw, he died”) Clinton (another large target) in the middle of a speech would provide some satisfying visual symbolism alright.
“History tells us that no one will notice this until a lunatic flies his homemade FPV drone into a government building.”
Shrub & Co. pulled it off with commercial aircraft and started a +20 year Holy War. Maybe the current psychopaths aim is to continue that with the aforementioned FPV.
In the middle of the last century, it was still common to see politicians mixing it up with the people, but that no longer happens.
I hear Assad does this on occasion. But he is fighting to protect his people rather than rape them.
Don’t give the Kagan Cult any ideas. I’m sure they will be thinking about this in regard to their nemisis, Orange Man.
Kind of casts 15 minute cities and billionaire bugout bunkers in a whole new light doesn’t it? As well as making “traditional” firearms obsolescent, so that it’s not such an imperative to “come and take them.”
The emerging techno apartheid would indeed function great in a white or east asian society. Tough break for the regime that there is no longer any such thing as the former.
Anyone else remember the super drone incident in Tucson back in 2021 when a mystery drone toyed with, then dusted a police helicopter during a night chase?
https://dronedj.com/2021/06/23/update-tucson-copter-cop-says-mysterious-sophisticated-super-drone-like-no-other/
My guess is that drone was sent by the cartels, or PLA special operators embedded with the cartels.
All kinds of weirdness…from back home a couple years ago.
https://archive.ph/GzRga
Of note in the area are the underground missile silos controlled out of Cheyenne, WY.
Silo hatches. Hinges. Thermite.
Wasn’t there was a “mystery drone” incident at Heathrow a few years back? The thing was large enough to be a concern and a whole lot of flights were messed up.
And the funniest part was the authorities were helpless. I can’t remember the details, but for some reason they couldn’t simply take it down with shotguns and the cops had no drones of their own (amazingly for the UK cops, those busy bodies).
Gatwick, rather than Heathrow, as I recall: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatwick_Airport_drone_incident.
But yes, they shut down the entire airport, and not without reason. Somewhere on the internet there’s slo-mo footage of a wing section coming apart in a test chamber after impact with a small commercial drone.
I work for a video security company that is investigating adding an anti-drone product line. We’ve discovered that the Feds have severe restrictions one who can fly a drone where. Essentially if you want to use one outside your own property, you’re supposed to get a drone operator’s license. Ostensibly that’s for reasons of air traffic safety, but I think you’ve hit upon the real reason for these restriction.
And, like gun laws, the lawless will ignore those laws.
yeah that sounds like declaring someplace a gun free zone
One can only hope…
Depends on the weight of the drone. Under 150g, no registration required. DJI has a few drones that weigh 149g.
Fun short sci-fi film on the topic.
https://rumble.com/v2nv6vg-sci-fi-short-film-slaughterbots-dust.html
I was in the Radio control aircraft Hobby for a few years when first person view became a thing. I could buy componentry for a scratch built fixed wing Radio control aircraft for about $50 and reuse it on several aircraft . Fpv was too expensive for my tastes, but nowadays it is pretty cheap. Z is correct in that all the component tree can be bought cheap enough. The government is doing its level best to run the hobby out of existence with increased regulation. Allegedly this was at the behest of commercial interests that want to use drones as delivery vehicles and all that nonsense. But I can see that this is probably something closer to their heart and Care abouts.
Richard the Lionheart was killed with a peasant’s crossbow shot. He was amused – until the bolt struck home.
The incident you refer to occurred during an assault on a castle Richard claimed in Normandy. And to his credit, Richard would not allow his men to take vengeance on the soldier who shot him as it happened in the course of a fair fight. Richard took responsibility for the assault, and for his own mortal wound. They don’t make many leaders like that any more.
Yeah, but then that mercenary leader had the kid flayed against Richard’s pardon. The mercenary leader lived a cool life, including serving the legendary Eleanor of Aquitaine.
“… no one will notice this until a lunatic flies his homemade FPV drone into a government building.”
Not quite true. I attended a conference on sensors in 2018 and all anyone talked about was the threat from drones exactly as discussed in this post. I know it was 2018 because the 10 millionth patent had just been awarded to Raytheon for a laser radar sensor; the inventor was present at the conference. The military-industrial complex was fully engaged in this problem. That’s not to say that there’s any effective work going on but they definitely noticed long before Ukraine started heating up.
You’re totally correct. See my comment above.
And who is Z calling a “lunatic”?
Is it possible that the “America as international shopping mall” phenomena was inevitable?
When I think of Americana I think of rockabilly music, cool cars and drag racing, drive-ins, route 66. Kind of like the stuff you’ll see in the inside of a famous Dave’s.
But is it possible that an identity like that actually leaves you defenseless against becoming an international shopping mall?
I’m gonna say everybody having cars, and a good road system to drive them on, was a necessary first step to being an international shopping mall. It’s not as if people in 3rd world countries don’t like stuff. They just don’t have such a convenient way to go get it, or for it to be brought to them.
“…retreat to a bunker.”
Good. We will have then successfully “frozen and isolated” our target. Hope they have a generator and a shitload of food in there, ’cause anyone coming in or out dies.
First some necessary and useful insight with respect to Ukraine.
Zelensky was elected on a platform of seeking peace with Russia and ending the slaughter of innocents in the Donbass. He betrayed those promises and became a pawn of Western neocons and Bandera loyalists. This led to war and the deaths of at least a half million average Ivans who were duped into fighting for a lost cause. They would likely all be alive today (not to mention all the associated wounded, displaced, and infrastructure destruction) if someone with a drone had targeted the root of the problem. One simple act to save a country from malicious manipulation leading to utter devastation.
Is that not more humane than bankrupting the West to fund the ongoing slaughter in Ukraine and Gaza? How can our politicians sleep at night with oceans of blood on their hands? How can we stand on the sidelines tacitly allowing this insanity while our country is invaded by mercenaries and vote fraud has become de facto legal? What alternative am I missing?
“our politicians”
They aren’t “ours.” They are The Help and whores for the ruling class.
Because survival is not our highest priority at the moment…It is still comfort and shekels and will.be until we are forced out of it…
With all due respect: how would killing little Z change anything?
He would be replaced overnight. With someone selected by the same masters.
It is similar to the fundamental US problem Zman has analyzed so many times: voting harder makes no difference. One carney grifter is simply replaced with another. Even if he new guy is not a grifter, he will soon be brought around to complying with “how things are done around here.”
Repetition until no one is fool enough to wear the hat anymore. Even better, emergent behavior will likely kick in at some point and the pathogens will flee the host rather than perish. That beach house in Miami purchased with embezzled US foreign aid will begin to look mighty tempting.
They’re way ahead of you. Civilian drones now have obligatory remote id and other surveillance features. These days you can just get an app for your smartphone that will detect all civilian drones flying anywhere close to you. The POTUS is always surrounded by an electronically enforced no-fly-zone.
In Ukraine they have specialists hacking drones to disable their safety features and only then they get used by the soldiers. An angry peasant can’t just buy a drone from the shop, strap explosives on it and fly it to the White House. The state already reduced the threat to a small set of people with special knowledge.
IMO the level of political violence is currently low because politicians are just replacable parts of the system now. There was a point in assassinating old European princes back when the death of a prince could actually influence policy or alliances. There would be no point at all in assassinating Joe Biden.
“IMO the level of political violence is currently low because politicians are just replacable parts of the system now.”
That’s a profound point. It also would indicate the would-be assassins know the politician is simply window dressing, which they very well may realize. Still, to maintain the charade people have to LARP as leaders and state thugs, and if they are fearful of a drone attack that might chill the desire to do so. I’m pretty sure you are right that Those Who Matter have no such fears personally although they need puppets and want to pay them as little as possible.
The Sopranos made a similar point in the early 00s when a couple made guys tried to collect protection from the local Starbucks franchise:
https://youtu.be/_Gsz7Gu6agA
Ha, spot on. I guess the bright spot is sociopaths probably are being replaced with rank idiots who still think they matter.
I was talking with someone the other day who knows a lot about this topic. He said it child’s play to get around the “security measures’ on over the counter drones. He pointed out that buying the pieces to make your own drone is terribly simple. That is where I think the trouble lies. It is not the availability of drones by the accessibility of the technology.
I think you make a good point about the futility of assassinating politicians. I think the political violence of the future will be targeted at managerial class players who can now live without security because no one cares enough to kill them. That is something we are seeing change globally. The Iranians killed a Lebanese business man recently, because he was a key piece of the US supply chain supplying Iranian opponents.
Good points…But historically, the bow was quite accurate in expert hands, with much greater range than the crossbow, as the English demonstrated repeatedly against the French….The Iceman, 7500 years ago, was killed by a bow shot at long range, so difficult that Italian Olympians could not duplicate it…
Likewise, while the muskets used by armies in the 18th century had very limited range of 50-75 yards, the Kentucky rifle was used to kill British General Simon Fraser at 300 yards by Daniel Morgan’s rifle corps…Napoleon lost at Waterloo in part because he couldn’t match a British rifle equipped unit…..
The answer to drones is massive jamming, already used in the Ukraine, which will only be feasible for valuable targets, and may well cause other problems…
and may well cause other problems
—
It must since the Russians do not deploy their jamming gear universally (radio communication difficulty?).
A small part of the Military Summary update for today was a report of a man-portable jamming system: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gzsOEwXu2AI
The problem with jamming is that it is broadcasting, therefore an easy target. There are ways to mitigate this, but it quickly turns into something like the old “Spy vs. Spy” comic.
Yeah, forget some showy killing of a politician. Something more akin Ireland’s “The Troubles” would be far more effective.
The managerial class has a glass jaw. They can give a punch, but they can’t take one.
That’s the thing about our foreign ruling elite and their managerial class. They have no deep base. They have law enforcement because they pay the bills and cops like having nice pensions. But there’s no loyalty there, nothing that holds them together like ethnicity or religion or even culture.
If local cops sensed that the local population wasn’t going to take being pushed around, well, that nice pension doesn’t mean much if you’re dead.
I doubt that things will ever reach that point, but if I was a member of the elite or the managerial class, that’s what I’d be worried about.
I can imagine things reaching that point pretty easily. Particularly where you sheriffs and smaller police forces. These guys tend to be part of the community. When there is a crack down and major violence, some of the victims could well be friends or family of cops. In cop brains the wheels begin to turn and questions of loyalty arise. And, as you wrote, survival vs the pension.
Just so. Rhetorical survey question for the DR:
Who would you rather see vaporized? :
A. Joe Biden
B. George Soros
Case closed.
Home-built drones can utilize a $10 Raspberry Pi for control interface and lots of open source software abounds which is denuded of security and spying features. This is not a serious impediment. Also, autonomous variants are capable of operating without remote interface and utilize image recognition or terminal homing methods which can defeat most ECM. And we haven’t even scratched the surface of outside-the-box creative thinking, which is the hallmark of those now despised nerdy white guys. Don’t fall for the despair propaganda. Drones are a real game-changer.
Good post.
I would only add that it is now possible to crank out good quality plastic parts in small quantities on several models of readily available 3D printers.
“There would be no point at all in assassinating Joe Biden.”
True, but assassinating Trump would, indeed, have a profound effect.
Sometimes I think that’s the only reason it hasn’t been done. Introduces too many unforeseeable variables, too much potential chaos
> be no point at all in assassinating Joe Biden
Exactly. Saddam Hussein was famously said to have employed body doubles, but that’s because Iraq was a small, poor country. In the prosperous West, we are able to afford an entire decoy political system.
I’ve been an RC aircraft hobbiest for a few years. Used to be 3D helicopters, but now just planes. I’m fascinated by drones, but not as a hobby. I just like flying proper aircraft. Anyhoo, every single part, servo, motor, transmitter, etc is available right now for cash, at hobby stores all over the world.
If you really want to be alarmed by this tech, spend some time on Youtube watching what the advid hobbiests are doing for fun. Swarming light shows, precision flight races (indoors and out), heavy lifting, speed (fancier rich-expert level stuff can have multiple turbine engines), etc. With FPV, no line of sight radio contact is required. As I usually answer when someone asks how far my plane can go, “A lot farther than I can see it.”
How fast are the jet remote controlled planes? They look cool as all hell.
I’ve only seen the fast RC power boats, but those are quite cool in their own right.
Some of the faster RC jets are hitting Mach 1. There’s no limitations in the physics of it–just a matter of scale and materials. Precision and tolerance for extremely high-energy performance has typically be a major limiting factor for small-scale models. But as tech develops and the smart people who build these things (many of them engineers themselves) get better, most limits are reduced. Add to this the huge shift in power to weight ratio…
Back in the early 70s my dad used to build and race gas-powered Jerobee RC cars. Those machines were so cool, and it took plenty of skill to “drive” them. Alas, it seems Jerobees haven’t been manufactured in quite some time, and the survivors appear to be pretty scarce.
Same goes for (forgive my wording, I’m no expert) “hacking” type gadgets. I stumbled on the Flipper Zero and boy is that a rabbit hole of widgets that seem like they could be way more “useful” than a a traditional weapon…
A few months ago, I watched a demonstration of a large drone that is used to spray ag chemicals, pesticides and herbicides. It was about the size of an office desk and had a 100 gallon tank. It can apply ag chemicals in a very precise manner.
A machine like this, in the wrong hands could do great damage in many ways. Drones are not just small machines that we are accustomed to.
Or, in the right hands, it could do great damage in many ways…
And I’m guessing the vast majority of these hobbyists are white guys, just as it was with Estes rockets back in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Good to know there are still some white guys with real mechanical know-how. Hopefully they’re not all septuagenarians and up.
Related:
Somehow an elaborate network of drone sensors that can track a gnat’s ass a kilometer away can be built in Ukraine:
https://www.twz.com/land/thousands-of-networked-microphones-are-tracking-drones-in-ukraine
Yet, nothing can be done about the US-Mexico border.
Seems totally legit.
There was a high school kid who developed drones to assist Emergency workers and to help remove bomb threats. He also developed drones that he proposed be used to police the border. He has a company. I can’t find it readily. He was a huge Trump/MAGA guy.
Of course you also have Palmer Luckey, inventor of the Oculus, starting Anduril after being cancelled by Facebook. He is positioning himself as the guy in modern warfare and privatization. You have the asian guy in New York also doing the same thing.
Eric Schmidt the psychopath is starting a kamikaze drone company and you have a huge number of players emerging.
Ex. https://www.dedrone.com/about/about-us
I know that one of the pets made an attorney in New York way back in ’17 or ’18 was proposing putting sensors on every firearm so they can be tracked and traced. The Claremont guys are talking about a digital bill of rights because apparently California is already making it so individuals cannot acquire certain building blocks for AI and robotics.
3D printing and drones and other robotics are a huge new area that has for some time had players moving about to establish dominion and leadership. I wonder if part of The Coof shutdown was preparing for a day where no manager has to see their employees in public. Given the extremely high levels of demoralization during that time with the riots, the gay and black worship and white shaming rammed down everyone’s throats it almost looks intentional. Can we treat these bozos however we want, even openly antagonize them based on their race and sex, and be remote and not face consequences?
That is another aspect of our world. Even non-managers but colleagues were doing things and saying things at opportune times on video that they would never say or do if they had to come to the office and look you in the face. Things are getting interesting.
The Schmidt article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahemerson/2024/01/23/eric-schmidts-secret-white-stork-project-aims-to-build-ai-combat-drones/?sh=7abfd0086f5a
RR-
There are huge opportunities i wlectronic warfare, but human STEM capital in the US is so degraded I question whether or not we could catch up with the Russians.
But, but…all those dot H1Bs!!!
Won’t work. The Fed’s are pretty hot on not allowing foreign nationals to work on defense grants. Indeed, just before I left the dept all hell broke loose when a prof in TN got 4 years for allowing foreign student workers access to his grant project. We had to move equipment, create secure networks and change room assignments. Such was the fear created.
Yes. But the potential opportunities also exist for our folk to rekindle the same ground that 17th – early 20th century Britain, France, Germany and America had for innovation.
Tinkerers and prodigies playing with little money in their garage inventing far more things of far higher impact than most of the last part of the 20th century. There is even innovation in distributed networks and cloud computing that is out of the hands and lower cost than the Big 3 cloud providers.
We just need to embrace the entrepreneurial spirit and ethos of our recent ancestors. I do think the regime is going to play wack-a-mole. Components will get smaller and cheaper and no matter what they do, available on the black market if need be. Ideally the dispossessed and outcast white man returns to an earlier time. Rather than a marginally useful Phd (at best), that many of the imported STEM guys have, we just pop up a large number of Palmer Luckey’s and the young white MAGA robotics guy in ever greater numbers.
There is a wide open area in 3D printing, robotics, AI … … that the system doesn’t necessarily have the ability to monopolize.
Thank you. We need more white pills. Europeans have traditionally been the most forward thinking of the human races. To constantly focus on the negative runs counter to our biology.
My local library, 30 miles north of Zee’s old lair has free how-to classes for 3d design and will rent printer time.
Drones really are a game changer. They have rendered the main battle tank obsolete, and soon, I believe, the aircraft carrier. Tactical surprise is now virtually impossible to achieve for any unit above company scale, maybe even platoon scale. We are basically back to WW1, where the advantage is on defense. The blitzkrieg era is officially over.
The first 15 minute cities will be Cloud enclaves, protected by ECM (that will also make them seem cool to Dirts). At this point, we’re just waiting for “Oswald”.
Aircraft carriers have been obsolete for a long time. The only reason they remain afloat is because we have not gone to war against an opponent possessing the means of sinking them. Hypersonic missiles have made surface vessels an anachronism.
I would not consider tanks or aircraft carriers obsolete because you can’t put a 120mm gun on a drone. That sort of destructive, relatively cheap (a 120 mm shell is much cheaper than a missile and even a drone, depending on what kind it is) firepower is essential to supporting infantry operations.
Drones are cheap and effective, but they aren’t going to be very effective against hardened targets like Ukraine has built for years using our tax dollars. Nothing kills a concrete bunker as effectively or cheaply like a 120mm shell.
Warfare is a series of measure-countermeasure. Tanks were checked initially by anti-tank guns and later anti-tank rockets. Then infantry accompanied them to root out the anti-tank teams. Later, the Israelis developed active countermeasures to defeat anti-tank rockets.
Then aircraft became a threat, especially helicopters. Small, propelled SAMs and antiaircraft guns designed to defeat pop-up attacks checked that threat.
There are countermeasures for drones such as microwaves and weapons-grade lasers that won’t require a lot of power and will zap drones by the score. The lasers have already been deployed on some of our ships for that purpose and it won’t be long before you see laser defense systems on tanks and armored fighting vehicles.
Aircraft carriers are mobile airbases that allow you to park a small air force off the shores of a country, launch strikes and leave. Even though they’re huge ships, they’re hard to find in the vast ocean. If you want to kill something, you have to be able to find it first.
Aircraft carriers and their escorts have dealt with swarm attacks before (WWII) and dealt with it effectively because of defense in depth (you have an outer ring of the combat air patrol, the next ring for long-range SAMs, the next for shorter range SAMs and then you have close-in weapons like our Phalanx).
Like a knife fight, the layered defenses can’t stop everything, but they’ll stop enough. Our carriers are transitioning to a partial UAV/ manned aircraft mix that will be stealthy, long-ranged and deadly to air, sea and land targets.
Let’s pray we never have to use them in a big war.
What’s changed the last year or so is AI. AI added to drones makes them much more lethal. When the operator spots a target the drone is directed downward toward the target. But then the operator usually loses radio contact the last few seconds because of obstructions on the ground. That’s when AI steps in and continues to the designated target. Without AI the drone might miss by a few meters. Anyway, that’s my current understanding.
Not only politicians will be at risk. Drones have already been spotted in restricted airspace around major airports. What happens when swarming software becomes widely available? An operator could take out a large airliner when most vulnerable at takeoff and landing. Just one more reason not to fly.
Have you ever seen the “fireworks” drone displays? Videos are all over the regular sites. That swarming software is already out there and currently being mastered.
I can’t help but feel that something significant is coming soon…
Remember the weird fleets of drones in the middle of many Colorado and Nebraska summer nights a few years back?
This was from five years ago so I’m sure we are way beyond that now…ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7mIX_0VK4g add the h again…
There already was an hilarious assassination attempt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Caracas_drone_attack#:~:text=On%204%20August%202018%2C%20two,Palacio%20de%20Justicia%20de%20Caracas.
A lot of those mad Ukrainian men are over here, too, already — especially the Banderists in Canada.
There will be myriad electronic jammers in public buildings in the future because of the emerging drone threat. For priority targets probably emp generators. Various computer controlled volley shooters and maybe shotguns will also be used. And the rules surrounding drones will be expanded. I think there will be minimum sizes for privately owned drones so you can’t fly a bumblebee sized charge into Bill Gates’ bedroom. Titanium screens in windows in the summer.
OTOH, in the future police will send a small drone in the future. This could turn the public space into something far more suffocating than it already is.
The battlefield will provide a lesson here as well because those soldiers using drones are working on defending against them.
Counter-UAS has been a priority in defense for years now, and the key buzzword is “swarm”. DoD is showering contractors such as my humble employer with boatloads of cash to adapt existing products to detect drone swarms and provide fire control for countermeasures.
But this only works on the battlefield or over open seas. A drone swarm that materializes over a crowd of people in a populated area cannot (yet) be countered without risking an unacceptable number of casualties. A massive Trump rally, for instance, or an outdoor festival would present an irresistable target for any bad actors able to scare up a hundred cheap drones and as many hand grenades to drop from on high.
Scary shite.
Biden to a mix of black males: ” what’s you doing these days”
Cringe factor: blew the scale
I couldn’t watch it
America owes a debt of graditude to Corn Pop for molding Biden into the exemplar of character that each and every US citizen can proudly call “my President”.
“Come on man! If you don’t vote for Biden, you ain’t black!”
And in fact are most likely a species of Lying Dog-Faced Pony Soldier.
Let’s be honest: I for one am going to miss Biden. He has provided endless amusement.
Still doesn’t top Hillary’s hilarious and infamous “Black preacher singing” when she was talking to that group of blacks. She did everything but eat watermelon and brandish a fried chicken drumstick at them.
Propaganda will still be the best defense the (((elite))) will have at keeping themselves safe from drones our anything else for that matter…. As long as they can keep people fearful and discouraged then they will continue to rule over us…ttps://youtu.be/SPyb1pV4VEw. add an h to the front of this…
“It will also mean new rules to monitor the sale of components used to make drones, like we see with explosives and street drugs. You cannot go into a store and buy certain cold medicines without a note from the state. It will not be long before you must pass a background check to buy a drone. We may even see politicians try to ban assault drones on the grounds that they are weapons of war.”
Drone operators fresh out of military service will concern them most particularly because it seems these are not difficult weapons to use. If you recall, starting with Obama and possibly W (although I don’t recall it then), TLA’s frequently claimed former service members posed grave terrorist threats. It doesn’t seem there ever was a case that involved them, but these people are stupid and hysterical and tell us what they fear most. And let’s face it: people sent to die in the hellholes of Iraq and Afghanistan would have plenty of good reasons to go kinetic.
The odds are the Clouds’ security details are working tirelessly to protect them against drones. The concern will continue even after safety precautions are developed because it might become more difficult to hire Help and Ho’s to serve as politicians and armed thugs and other praetorian guards. If you get down to it, this is the only reason they fear and want to ban guns and other rudimentary weapons–Shitavious and Juan and to the extent he still will work for them, Chad, demand higher pay when the danger is higher (if they take the jobs at all). Guns don’t kill Clouds, guns kill the Help and Ho’s who work for Clouds and drive up costs.
Along the same lines, and also because white people no longer will debase and degrade themselves with military service, it is highly like crash programs are underway for AI soldiers.
The present is weird enough, and whatever future is left only will be weirder.
Hilarious video of Biden serving the black guy and his boys take out fried chicken. I assume it is not aimed at blacks but good whites who desperately want to believe that situation is not a major outlier in the black family. That is an ad a Bush or Romney consultant would have cooked up. Frank Luntz has probably watched it 100 times already out of jealousy.
Sheesh. And elites wonder why stereotypes persist!
Yeah – & did they forget the watermelon? :<D
Now that they’ve saturated the advertising world with images of upstanding Negros and their coal burning wives, it seems like they’ve moved on to pushing the fairy tale of generational black families, headed by jovial, wise grandfathers. Not only is this at odds with all observable data, but notice that they’re fine with showing a partriarchal black family when they would be very reluctant to do the same with whites.
Man, that’s great.
Biden: “Your dad would take a bullet for you.”
Kid: “That’s my dad?”
Did Biden suggest that joggers are prone to gun violence? Gosh, that’s a dog whistle if I ever heard one.
The classic crossbow assassination was William Tell’s of Albrecht Gessler.
Will be interesting to see what kind of new comms tech the elite will start using to counteract the limitations of drone countermeasures for using anything modern.
I almost like the idea of a low-tech elite, used to centuries old amusements and solutions to doing things, ruling over a tech-obsessed lower class with all kinds of modern gizmos. Maybe there’s a story idea in there.
We’ve got multitudes of politicians at all levels who could be potential targets. But despite the zillions of firearms everywhere, the only ones seemingly at risk are us dirt people – and wildlife. I’ll believe it when I see it – some big name politico get bumped – and then the hammer will really drop. Society is too comfortable and too weak and surveillance is everywhere…
usNthem: The ubiquity of the surveillance state is what seems to make any future action – even against a low-level bureaucrat – almost impossible. Traffic cameras, private business security cameras, cell phone cameras. I wouldn’t know how to begin to calculate what vectors could possible avoid coverage and detection.
I’ve suggested, in the past, a two volume fiction tale which includes a grass-roots uprising against the state, where various private citizens begin killing irs agents or other federal/state/county bureaucrats who’ve made people’s lives hell (The Bonner Incident by Thomas A. Watson). Make the average Joe and Karen fear for their lives if they work for any government agency, and you don’t have to directly threaten the putative leaders.
But I don’t know that even that is possible today, with all the cameras and mikes. As I noted yesterday, there really is only the illusion of privacy these days. Unless one is skilled/trained and spends one’s life devoted to keeping off any lists anywhere, I don’t see how any White person could take any individual action today and get away with it.
Yet in the face of all that, all kinds of crime continues to go unpunished and maybe half of murders, if that, are ever punished
Yeah, but the majority of murders are black on black and nobody much cares. Further, most violent crime of all types are committed by blacks, much of which is punished by a relative slap on the wrist. If it were Whites largely representing the violent criminal class, overzealous prosecution would be the norm.
Maybe the surveillance isn’t as ubiquitous and effective as some make it out to be.
Ostei, I tend to believe the information gathering surveillance apparatus is highly effective at what it does, however, it requires humans to see and to act on the information it provides, without whom it is nothing. It is the humans that are the weak link.
I recall that video of the Russian conscript lying in a shallow trench/crater making the sign of the cross before a bomblet got dropped on him. Everyone thought it was so cool. That is until you or your kid is the one about to get yeeted into oblivion.
I’m sure one of the Left’s modern versions of John Brown, the fanatical abolitionist murderer and terrorist funded by the “Secret Six”, is cooking up some drone fun to unleash in the reboot of Harpers Ferry and the summer of 1859. Odds are it will be a troon, because Clown World.
My one thought was that elites better get used to not having any cell service as they’ll always have to be under some signal-jamming umbrella.
Happy Mardi Gras!
And a blessed Ash Wednesday to those who observe. But I have to say, given the state of our world, I’m not in the mood for further sacrifices.