New methods of sneaky attacking

[agoodwinsmith]

I am talking about things I have no business talking about because I do not make a study of military methods and tactics, so I will have that wide-eyed complete lack of understanding of the basics.  But I can't stop thinking about it, so I need to write about it to work through the obsessive dwelling.

The reason I think the detonation of pagers and walkie-talkies happened so close together is because they are one trick pony methods.  No one will be able to do that again.  Anybody getting anything new is going to take the items apart and clean out novelty additions.  Second hand items, too.  People will probably be going back in shipments, too.

Drones were a game changer in Ukraine, very exciting and successful - I wish our main media had spent more time celebrating that - although, the apathy probably lead to undervaluing by opponents.  Now, if I were getting any new bits, I would be checking them for additions.  Certainly these aren't going to be used simultaneously, but many drones get sent simultaneously to many sets of troups, so using the drones to shock with wounds and supply chain betrayal might be desirable enough.

I have wondered whether those sending bombs into areas protected by extreme anti-bomb coverage might not start including some drones with poison payloads.  Exploding them in the air just spreads the foul agent further.

I am boggled by the information that both Ukraine and Russia have been using drones with long electrical cords (a number of kilometers, apparently).  The advantage is that no one can eavesdrop on the missing wireless commands.  This seems super impractical - but I guess it only has to work once or twice for the surprise factor to instill fear in the enemy.

If one is going to stash explosives in random items, I suppose a logical choice would be the replacement transformers and whatnot for electrical station repairs.  Even if there's nothing there, if the items have been handled in a way that it is possible something has been stashed, then it slows down repairs while people check.

Well.  I still don't know what to think.  It seems like we've entered a new season in sneaky fighting.

Comments

[sabotabby]

I don't know how you'd be able to tell. Apparently you can overload a lithium battery in any device.

I keep my tech as long as possible for many reasons, but this is another good one.

[agoodwinsmith]

Yes. I did just view an analysis of how the pagers were compromised, and it was explosives plus little metal balls to behave as more shrapnel:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/9/18/how-did-hezbollah-get-the-pagers-that-exploded-in-lebanon

Considering a report I just watched on Canadian TV news, one can cause pandemonium by just replacing a battery with one not meant for the device.

Yesbut/nobut: my phone was new 2016, and I have been very luddite how I use it and what I load on it, and still the various stakeholders keep forcing various updates. Apparently a code was sent to the pagers prior to explosion. I don't have explosives or little metal spheres, but there is other shattery stuff that would scare me pretty thoroughly. I can see sending a code generally into the population generating a lot of fear. One oopsie, y'know?

[sabotabby]

Yep. This is an act of terror, and everyone should be rightfully concerned.

[armiphlage]

Poison payloads counts as chemical warfare, which violates a lot of treaties and opens up another can of worms.

Electric wires or fiber optics to control drones is interesting, as it creates another risk. Long thin wires draped across roadways will catch bicyclists by the neck and decapitate them, or will catch in the blades of low-flying helicopters. Military vehicles often have a vertically-mounted blade on front to prevent this issue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_catcher
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_strike_protection_system

In aerospace manufacturing, we have contaminated supply chains due to counterfeit parts. The $0.10 bolt that holds an IKEA chair together might look identical to the $100 bolt that holds a plane's wings on. So we spend a fortune with paperwork and X-ray analysis of parts to confirm things are genuine before using them. Deliberately inspiring mistrust in supply chains definitely would cause a huge amount of delays and cost.

[agoodwinsmith]

Considering that some of the well-protected actors are skirting very close, possibly crossing, the borders of the rules already, I suspect eventually someone won't care. It's also something an independent actor could do without permission or knowledge.

That is interesting about the bolt problem. Every step of that chain needs to be in the control of actors who can be found easily. Which means there are lots of areas open to meddling. So disheartening/exhausting.

The wires thing still makes me doubtful - it's just not practical enough. Maybe in a city where the drone flies high between buildings, or maybe out in an open field - but even so. Two drones dragging wires will snag each other up pretty uselessly.

[armiphlage]

For the wires, the trick is to do the same as wire-guided torpedoes or wire-guided missiles: you have a reel of wire on the drone rotating and expelling wire at the exact same speed as the object. The drone isn't pulling the wire through the air, it's dropping wire behind it to drift gently down to the ground. There's no tension on the wire, and no forces acting on it other than gravity and air resistance. If two drones cross paths, you'll just have two wires lying across each other on the ground.

[jessie_c]

Wire guidance has been a thing for years. Naval torpedoes have been wire guided since the '70s, as have TOW (Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire guided) missiles. TOW missiles are usually pretty short-ranged though.

The wires are extremely light (fine gauge) because you can't fly something trailing a huge, heavy electrical cord. They shouldn't be heavy enough to cause decapitations, etc. It's more like going through a thick spider web.

[agoodwinsmith]

Okay. I am oddly more tolerant of floating wires in water even though I still think practicality has been sacrificed. Also, both above and below water, the lines lead back to the initiator, which must be some small risk. So, I think the goal has to be really important.