A Country Just Used a Patriot Missile to Take Down a $200 Drone

Futurism ^ | Mar. 18, 2017 | Dom Galeon and Kristin Houser

[TigerLikesRooster]

A Country Just Used a Patriot Missile to Take Down a $200 Drone

by Dom Galeon and Kristin Houser

Serious Overkill

In a rather unusual show of force, a U.S. ally shot down a small quadcopter drone using a Patriot missile, according to Gen. David Perkins, speaking at the Association of the United States Army’s Global Force symposium. And it wasn’t a drill. “We have a very close ally of ours that was dealing with an adversary using small quadcopter [unmanned aircraft systems],” Perkins said. “They shot it down with a Patriot missile.”

A Patriot is a surface-to-air missile (SAM) that can strike long-range targets at all altitudes. Capable of reaching speeds in excess of Mach 2, Patriots are produced by U.S. defense contractors Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, and each one costs around $3 million. Meanwhile, a typical quadcopter drone can travel 80 km/h (50 mph) tops and can be bought on Amazon for about $200.

[Covenantor]

Gee, all those M-79 flechette and #4 buckshot rounds were a no-no?

;>)

In a humorous vein there is or was the

Rockeye Insect and Weed Munitions Company , LLC in Hanford CA....people truly serious about taking it to a new level.

[CurlyDave]

A few rounds from a .50 cal would have had the same effect for just a few lousy dollars.

If you can hit a small drone with a .50 cal you are right...

If the country in question buys the Patriot Missiles from us, this is a 100% good thing. If we give the missiles to them, it is a big deal. No more free ammo for you.

[DiogenesLamp]

If the country in question buys the Patriot Missiles from us, this is a 100% good thing. If we give the missiles to them, it is a big deal. No more free ammo for you.

22 messages in and I still haven't seen any identification of the "country in question."

Who was this stupid?

[Ozark Tom]

Lockheed to deliver a 60 kW laser weapon to the U.S. Army in April.

http://www.janes.com/article/68745/us-army-to-trial-60-kw-laser-for-vehicle-mounted-air-defence

http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=2447

[lavaroise]

Quick. Call the cops to jail that Eagle. A police registered drone in the hands of a perverted private citizen is an important tool of our government oppression.

[JoeFromSidney]

It's often argued that the weapon used against a target should cost less than the target. I used to have a Russian Military Operations Research manual (it was lost when the river overflowed into my basement). The manual described this argument as a "capitalist fallacy." I don't know that there's anything capitalist about it, but it is a fallacy.

It should be obvious that the proper comparison is between the cost of the weapon used against the target, and the cost that the target will impose on you if you don't destroy it. That is, the cost of destroying a target should be less than the cost of not destroying it.

The story gives us no information on what the cost of not destroying that quadcopter would have been. Was it locating a critical installation that would be destroyed by artillery if found? Or did it in some way endanger a critical/expensive target of some kind? We don't know. All we know is the relative cost of the quadcopter and the missile used to destroy it.

Now clearly you can go broke using expensive weapons to destroy cheap and plentiful targets. The cost of your defensive weapon ultimately does matter. All that means is that you'd better find some other way of protecting your critical/expensive targets, so that they're not vulnerable to cheap and plentiful weapons. A more effective approach might be to cut off the supply, or destroy the source, of the cheap and plentiful weapons used against you.

My point is that it's not sufficient to look only at the comparative cost of your weapon and the enemy's target that you're defending against. You also have to look at the cost of not defending against it.

[ExNewsExSpook]

That’s the real take-away from this episode. Yeah, it may be overkill to take out a $200 drone with a multi-million dollar missile, but I’d like to know what the radar cross section of that quad copter is. Propellers increase your RCS, but even when that is factored in, it’s still a very size target.

Making it more impressive: target tracking radars (and the missiles that rely on them for guidance) have velocity gates; below a certain speed, the target simply can’t be seen. Looks like the Israelis (and Raytheon) have done some modifications with Patriot to engage very small, slow-moving targets—one heck of an engineering feat.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Saudi and UAE have been using Patriot Missiles to shoot down missiles launched by Yemen's Houthi rebels. So maybe one of them?

US-Made Patriot Missiles Shoot Down Houthi Rockets

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Tracking still appears to be a problem. How fast can it slew and how does it track the target?

[marron]

I watched a special the other night... In Mosul, the baddies were stalking and trying to assassinate an Iraqi general using cheap drones armed with hand grenades. He had to be careful about exposing himself, they were looking for him.

And of course, the drones are relaying video of troop movements and locations. So the important thing isn’t the cost of the drone, but the cost of the target, or the value of the information they are surveilling.

[dasboot]

My solution: sky-nets hanging from geosynchronousely orbiting satellites.!!

Oh...wait: birds get tangled and die. D’OH!

[TigerLikesRooster]

Enemies can launch many of these drones repeatedly to a high-value target, which are all countered by powerful but costly interceptors. Eventually, interceptors will run out first, or they have to devise other ways to deal with the problem.

[eyedigress]

EMT devices will be used soon. They will stop a motor.

[TigerLikesRooster]

What I was saying is that enemies should not be allowed to wage a low cost attrition warfare. We do not want to get into a situation in which they launch one cheap drone after another to some real high-value targets in order to delete high-tech interceptors. As you said, other means of effectively dealing with them should be explored. Waging a war with dwindling supplies is no fun.

[PLMerite]

"A Country Just Used a Patriot Missile to Take Down a $200 Drone "

I bet the look on the drone pilot's face was priceless, though!

[Big Red Badger]

That’s Funny right There!