Someone Shot down a $200 Drone with a $3M Patriot Missile

Megalith

Megalith

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Halo announcer: Overkill! General Perkins, commander of the US Army Training and Doctrine Command, would have you know that he believes in electronic warfare and cyber measures as the preferred means to take down drones, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are others out there who are willing to take extreme measures in blowing them out of the sky, like using radar-guided missiles that cost millions of dollars.

We've heard about people shooting down drones buzzing over their property, but this takes things to a whole new level: A store-bought quadcopter drone has been shot down by a Patriot surface-to-air missile. "That quadcopter that cost 200 bucks from Amazon.com did not stand a chance against a Patriot," said Gen. David G. Perkins, commander of the US Army Training and Doctrine Command, in a speech posted to YouTube on Monday by the US Army and first reported by the BBC. The missile wasn't fired by the US, but by someone Perkins described as an ally "dealing with an adversary," suggesting it wasn't a test.
 
Talk about overkill...

I could have saved a lot of money by using my boomstick with salt shot.
 
Even having known they can do it... it still impresses me that a missile can hit such a tiny target.
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ally "dealing with an adversary,"

That means Israel.
 
midnightfrolic said:
This is why we can't have nice things. Because our money is being wasted on stuff like this.
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Not our money if you're American, as we have a general that is cautioning against such waste of resources, which is very refreshing as its usually been a taboo subject.

Economics matters in warfare, but quite often there is a disconnect between the temporary civilian government and the permanent military government, in which the latter become buddy-buddy with contacts in the private defense industry that wants the military to spend as much money as possible. That's how you sometimes end up in wars that don't even make sense, except that they represent billions of dollars of expenditure that will make some people very rich and very powerful.

For the first time in a long time, we have people at least TALKING about this from the top level against such waste, and negotiating better deals with the military industrial complex.
 
The cost of the drone is irrelevant if it's being used to give intel to an adversary who can kill people.
 
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DoubleTap said:
The cost of the drone is irrelevant if it's being used to give intel to an adversary who can kill people.
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Its not irrelevant. Even playing basic strategy games should tell you that.

If I can deploy a $200 unit, and it costs you $3,000,000 to destroy it, I am winning.

The general understands this, and is cautioning against such stupidity, and using more cost effective means of dealing with low-tech inexpensive threats, and rightfully chastises the idiocy of the commander in his or her decision making.

It'd be like burning your $200K house down in order to kill a spider you found in your pantry. You lose by "winning" that way.
 
Pyrrhic victory. I'd wager that this was done by an ally who's defense budget is propped up by us, they don't give a shit about the cost of the missile, we'll just give them another one. This is why Trump keeps talking about leaving NATO.
 
westrock2000 said:
America can shoot down mortar rounds with miniguns, because America. (y)

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Lol those things are anything but accurate but when you fire 1000 bullets a minute then it doesn't matter much.

I had a video of one fire during a night exercise, it was like a star destroyer shooting off 4 lasers at once.
 
Trimlock said:
Lol those things are anything but accurate but when you fire 1000 bullets a minute then it doesn't matter much.

I had a video of one fire during a night exercise, it was like a star destroyer shooting off 4 lasers at once.
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They don't look accurate at night because every 5th round is a tracer to help the operator. Tracers fire at a much slower velocity (hollow with incendiary element) than the actual rounds doing the damage, they also ricochet like crazy due to their tumble and velocity.


Murica
 
Ducman69 said:
Its not irrelevant. Even playing basic strategy games should tell you that.

If I can deploy a $200 unit, and it costs you $3,000,000 to destroy it, I am winning.

The general understands this, and is cautioning against such stupidity, and using more cost effective means of dealing with low-tech inexpensive threats, and rightfully chastises the idiocy of the commander in his or her decision making.

It'd be like burning your $200K house down in order to kill a spider you found in your pantry. You lose by "winning" that way.
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We could go back and forth with endless scenarios but my point is that it's not necessarily a $200 drone. Most of the time it probably is, but if you're under attack and that is their primary source of recon, it's no longer a $200 drone.

It's a mistake to look only at the material value instead of the value of the utility it provides.

If someone starts baiting all your $3M missiles with $200 drones as a form of economic warfare then you do something else.
 
We sometimes hear on the news that Israeli air force shot a small drone or home made uav.

It could be using patriot and even fighters .

Something to understand - allowing those aircrafts to enter Israeli airspace is a major security risk that could set a bad precedence.

Also, and this is important - missiles have expiration date and it's good practice for the troops.
 
T_A said:
Something to understand - allowing those aircrafts to enter Israeli airspace is a major security risk that could set a bad precedence.
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Israel is doing what's in the best interest of cats. They really really love cats.

 
I mean, how much does the typical mud hut in Afghanistan cost? Probably a higher value target taking out a $200 drone in this case.
 
westrock2000 said:
America can shoot down mortar rounds with miniguns, because America. (y)

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I remember being on a Navy Aegis equipped destroyer in 1998, were the word was relayed that those automatically targeting phalanx guns on the ship deck had to be turned off in port so they wouldn't target sea gulls.
 
Fifliffl said:
They don't look accurate at night because every 5th round is a tracer to help the operator. Tracers fire at a much slower velocity (hollow with incendiary element) than the actual rounds doing the damage, they also ricochet like crazy due to their tumble and velocity.


Murica
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I don't know if they use tracer rounds when those weapons are using radar to target. There's no manually targeting about the phalanx. They are designed to shoot down things incoming that humans can't possibly target. (Too fast)
 
jpm100 said:
Said the person who thinks we have an unlimited budget.
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My sense is that everyone who has taken issue with my post has essentially ignored the fact that it's conditional.

In this response, it's almost as if you're imagining that upon seeing a potential drone threat, someone fills out a purchase order for a $3M missile.

I don't think anyone has suggested that the way to safeguard the world against the very real threat of drone terrorism is to shoot them all down with $3M missiles.

My point is that it's not hard to conceive of a situation where it's easily justified.

Let's turn it around - if a $200 drone was carrying an IED or an aerosol weapon, would anyone say "what's a pound or two of HMX or a few ounces of nerve agent going to do to that stadium full of people?" Certainly nothing worth losing a $3M missile over...

If you have the capability to neutralize a threat, you take it - because while it's true that you can't endlessly fling $3M weapons against $200 or $2000 threats, if you knew a drone was a real threat and something terrible happened, nobody is going to care that you saved a $3M missile.
 
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