The US military struck Iran again after an Iranian drone’s lucky midair strike.
  • CubitOom@infosec.pubEnglish
    5 hours

    We are in another middle east quagmire, harming civilians, and committing war crimes under the orders of a Republican child rapist felon – maybe by chance

    • Tetsuo@jlai.luEnglish
      3 hours

      It’s very unlikely the drone hit the Apache on purpose. Why ? Because these drones are not guided remotely by an operator once they are launched. They are akin to cruise missiles. There is experimentation in Russia for drones with anti-air missiles but that’s very much an exception.

      So the most likely scenarios are :

      • The Apache tried to down the drone and either collided or was hit by debris of the drone.
      • The Apache was very unlucky and got hit by the drone cruising to its programmed destination.

      Either way, it is very unlikely the Iranian drone was remotely guided to hit the Apache.

      Furthermore this was in the middle of the night making it difficult for an Apache to avoid collision. They were using NVG to navigate at that time of the day in this region. Also the pilots managed to ditch in the Detroit of Ormuz without getting very injured, since there isn’t an ejection seat on Apache that means their helicopter was not heavily damaged by the drone hit. If the military payload had really exploded on hit, the Apache would have been much more damaged and would be unlikely to protect the pilots and let them ditch in the sea and escape.

      The rescue mission was done by an unmanned sea drone which indicates that the US army wasn’t confident in sending airplanes or other helicopters to the rescue zone. So it is possible that there was risks for Iranian anti-air to shoot down an air rescue mission.

      So no, it’s most likely not cope. If you look on the shaheed drone specs, it is not designed to destroy aircraft and are akin to “dumb and slow cruise missiles”.

      I’m no expert in weaponry but if anyone is interested I based this comment on this video :

      https://youtu.be/LdWiFQ7Djqw

      (Only in french as far as i can tell, sorry)

      It’s from Ate Chuet, a retired french army jet pilot that did missions in this area and has experience shooting down shaheed drones.

      • cabillaud@lemmy.worldEnglish
        23 minutes

        What if it happened somewhere Iranians could guess there could be US helicopters around and they sent dozens of drones? After all those helicopters fly at somehow predictable altitudes.

        • Tetsuo@jlai.luEnglish
          2 hours

          This is the fog of war. Nothing is certain, all I can tell is what people with experience on that kind of mission and weaponry think is likely or unlikely.

          At the very least, it seems a purposeful hit by the Iranian drone is one of the least likely scenarios according to publicly available informations.

    • Wildmimic@anarchist.nexusEnglish
      6 hours

      Was it a confirmed direct hit? Might have been that the Apache was on drone defense duty and the Shahed shrapnel after interception got an lucky/unlucky hit - that’s actually much more likely than succeeding in hitting an Apache with an Shahed on purpose. Shaheds are pretty bad at hitting fast moving targets - they mainly get preprogrammed paths to follow. There are remote control variants in Russia to enable live tracking of faster targets, but even then an Apache has a huge maneuverability advantage, and Shaheds are slow in comparison to most anti-air missiles.

    • acosmichippo@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5 hours

      With drones everywhere an accident is going to happen once in a while. Pilots can make mistakes, equipment fails, or sometimes shit just happens. It’s not that crazy.

      • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        5 hours

        A drone hitting a helicopter by chance is so astronomically unlikely its not even worth considering. If it was there then it was trying to hit the helicopter. Its not like a road where there is a shared path, its the fucking air where there are practically infinite paths for a drone to take.

        • acosmichippo@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4 hours

          You’re making it sound like they are in completely arbitrary positions around the region, but if they are both in the vicinity of targets, like the helicopter is meant to defend, and the drone is meant to attack, then the chances go up significantly.

  • XLE@piefed.socialEnglish
    6 hours

    “Military helicopter intercepted Iranian drone”

  • credo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6 hours

    The math works out in the Drones’ favor I think. $25M/$35K -> a 1:714 ratio of helicopters to drones, on a dollar-to-dollar basis. So… I’d say “by probability” instead.

    • rynn@piefed.socialEnglish
      5 hours

      This is the primary reason the us military budget should go from 1.5 trillion to 0.5 trillion. If we shifted to drone dominance the cost would go way down, we’d have a stronger military, and we could use that extra trillion to pay down debt, fund more healthcare, share profits with US citizens, the list of possible amazing things is huge.

      Will we do this? Maybe eventually but not while we have big strong dumbass in charge.

      • belochka@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2 hours

        If it took Russia so long with far smaller military budget, for USA it would take an existential war, so abundance of funds is sort of a defense social contract. Things cost 5x what they could, but they get designed, produced, procured, maintained and combined into a system.

        Unless there’s some political struggle where the old military industry supports one side and the other needs a new military.

      • Maeve@kbin.earth
        4 hours

        Will we do this? Maybe eventually but not while we have big strong dumbass billionaire business titans in charge.

      • MalReynolds@slrpnk.netEnglish
        4 hours

        World needs less weapons, not more, cheaper ones (making human life even cheaper). Find a better list (healthcare is fine, like civilized countries have). Maybe some soft power helping others, oh, wait, mad king…

    • Photonic@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3 hours

      “There is no way” is a pretty bold statement, especially when the official reports indicate that it was in fact a shahed drone that hit it.

      Sensors can fail, humans can fail, equipment can malfunction. It is very possible that the drone made it past the helicopter’s defensive systems.

      Whether or not it was an accident or a deliberate attack is open for debate.

    • GardenGeek@europe.pubEnglish
      5 hours

      The Apache could also possibly have been downed by Israel to sabotage the ‘peace talks’.

        • partofthevoice@lemmy.zipEnglish
          1 hour

          How do you make sensors so good? Are you sensing air pressure disturbance, high frequency sound, electromagnetic radiation, … ?

          I only ask because I wonder if something like a basic mounted, no internal-targeting, missile would be detected. E.g., if all routing is determined before fire, pre-loaded, and the final payload flies without emitting a signature.

          At a cost difference of 1:700, I think you can afford to miss a few shots.

          • bitteroldcoot@piefed.socialEnglish
            1 hour

            The drone engine is hot and traveling at subsonic speeds. Mostly it’s just the right radar and the right thermal sensors connected to the right software.

            A lot of modern platforms have networked capabilities so it’s not just a helicopter and a drone. Everything in the air and ground and at sea tend to work together.

            Well, it supposed to work together… I’ve been retire for about a decade. I’m sure they have moved on since i stopped paying attention.