For those who know....how detectable are drones? (Full Version)

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DWReese -> For those who know....how detectable are drones? (2/9/2018 6:40:34 AM)

I'd like some insight into drone usage.

I was wondering, how detectable are drones? Are they easily spotted by radar, or because they are small and probably made of fiberglass, or whatever, perhaps they are they much harder to hit.

The reason that I ask is in all of these recent movies where the US is hitting targets using drones, I was just wondering if they would ever be detected by the enemy, if the enemy would have access to radar?

How about in our game? Are they easily detected (like a plane), or are they much harder to spot?

Thanks in advance.

Doug



Dragon029 -> RE: For those who know....how detectable are drones? (2/9/2018 8:03:22 AM)

Typical UCAVs like Predators and Reapers are more or less just as detectable on radar as a manned aircraft like a Cessna 152, etc.

Small electric drones like hand launched RQ-11 Ravens are considerably smaller on radar and will be more like a bird in radar cross section.



Dysta -> RE: For those who know....how detectable are drones? (2/9/2018 9:24:25 AM)

And also the height: Triton and Global Hawk can fly so high that could bypass most of the non-L-band search radar's radius.



DWReese -> RE: For those who know....how detectable are drones? (2/9/2018 4:46:14 PM)

Are the drones that fly so high the ones that usually fire off missiles?
Do they usually fire from that height?
Would a drone operator usually keep his a/c close to the ground, or way high in the sky?
How visible are they to the naked eye?
How close would they have to be before a "normal" military radar would pick up a larger drone?
You mentioned non-L-Band radars, I assume that that is the majority of them. Can you give a few examples of L-Band radars, and tell me why they are so much better?

I know that this is a lot of info, but it will help me to understand drone combat. I believe that I am about a decade behind the rest of the world.

Thanks in advance.

Doug



Tailhook -> RE: For those who know....how detectable are drones? (2/9/2018 7:00:03 PM)

Are the drones that fly so high the ones that usually fire off missiles?
The ones he mentioned specifically (Global Hawk, Triton) are known as High Altitude Long Endurance, meaning they sit up high and soak up intel of all sorts. Generally speaking these are not the armed ones, at least as disclosed by any military power. The two examples he gave specifically are not armed.

Do they usually fire from that height?
Again those two don't fire anything, but depending on the weapon it's certainly possible to drop that high. It just depends on the guidance. A GPS guided bomb against a known fixed target with no restrictions will not have any problems. Where you run into issues is with the more precise strikes against like high value targets, where you need to keep a close eye on the target, make sure there aren't any civilians around, etc. This becomes a function of optics and sensitivity, but for a rough ballpark expect a 20-30,000' altitude, but as with pretty much anything military, "It depends"

Would a drone operator usually keep his a/c close to the ground, or way high in the sky?
You'd want it to be as high as possible without exceeding the capability of it's sensors. This keeps it harder to detect and allows it to get the most amount of relevant information possible. Also let's you see the "big picture". Drones aren't really meant for the low level, show of force, nap of the earth style flying jets can do. That said, a lot of the smaller observation drones (Raven, etc) can't go much higher than an RC plane because they're basically RC planes. They're also usually not the armed ones you see striking Al-Qaeda targets though.

How visible are they to the naked eye?
Not very. A Reaper isn't particularly big, and the big ones fly incredibly high up. They also aren't going to be right on top of the target thanks to powerful optics (and other things). You'd have to know exactly where to look and probably wouldn't know what it was anyway.

How close would they have to be before a "normal" military radar would pick up a larger drone?
You mentioned non-L-Band radars, I assume that that is the majority of them. Can you give a few examples of L-Band radars, and tell me why they are so much better?
I'm not really a radar expert so I can't be a ton of help here, but it just depends on the stealth characteristics of the drone. There are some really stealthy ones out there for sensitive targets, and then there are less stealthy ones. The answer to your question is probably, "not as far out as you can think, but still likely far enough". L-band radars are usually long range search radars. These are the ones where you can tell something is out there, but not very precisely.


The thing to know about a lot of the drone stuff you see in the news (that you hear about) is that they're in permissive environments, or there are agreements worked out with local governments. You wouldn't see Reaper drones flying into a heavily defended IADS because they'd just get slaughtered, but that's not what they're for.



DWReese -> RE: For those who know....how detectable are drones? (2/9/2018 7:17:04 PM)

Tailhook,

Thank you so much for the info.

Several of my assumptions were correct, but you also provided quite a bit of useful things that I did not know, especially concerning tactics, usage, and flight attitude and altitude.

One final question: In our game, if a radar detects a BOGEY, it can't usually detect the size or shape of the BOGEY. To the radar, the BOGEY could be an actual plane or even a TALD. Opposing forces often scramble jets to investigate and intercept BOGEYS so, since they don't know what the size of the BOGEY is, would they send jets to intercept a drone, as well? Or, does this fall back into the category of "drones should never be used in areas with IAD systems? (That would make sense.)

Thanks again. You are always a wealth of knowledge.

Doug



Grazyn -> RE: For those who know....how detectable are drones? (2/10/2018 10:26:43 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: DWReese

Tailhook,

Thank you so much for the info.

Several of my assumptions were correct, but you also provided quite a bit of useful things that I did not know, especially concerning tactics, usage, and flight attitude and altitude.

One final question: In our game, if a radar detects a BOGEY, it can't usually detect the size or shape of the BOGEY. To the radar, the BOGEY could be an actual plane or even a TALD. Opposing forces often scramble jets to investigate and intercept BOGEYS so, since they don't know what the size of the BOGEY is, would they send jets to intercept a drone, as well? Or, does this fall back into the category of "drones should never be used in areas with IAD systems? (That would make sense.)

Thanks again. You are always a wealth of knowledge.

Doug

I think today's news may answer your question

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/10/world/middleeast/israel-iran-syria.html

They sent a helicopter to intercept the drone




kevinkins -> RE: For those who know....how detectable are drones? (2/10/2018 12:22:03 PM)

quote:

Small electric drones like hand launched RQ-11 Ravens are considerably smaller on radar and will be more like a bird in radar cross section.


I read somewhere that the US Army is aiming to develop a detection system for those tiny bug-like drones that we hear about. It would be deployed below Company level. Will be interesting to see what they come up with.



tjhkkr -> RE: For those who know....how detectable are drones? (2/10/2018 2:19:59 PM)

Another fun conversation.

Would anyone know if the number of unmanned drones has surpassed the number of manned recon birds? I would suspect that they have, and by a large number.



DWReese -> RE: For those who know....how detectable are drones? (2/10/2018 7:26:06 PM)

I was wondering if anyone has bothered to create a small scenario involving the explicit use of drones as an offensive weapon. It might be kind of interesting to navigate around various defenses and find a location where an attack could occur against a convoy of trucks, or a terrorist camp or something. It might be kind of fun, and it may just provide some valuable insight into drone operations and functions.

Doug



rmunie0613 -> RE: For those who know....how detectable are drones? (2/10/2018 8:55:55 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: DWReese

Tailhook,

Thank you so much for the info.

Several of my assumptions were correct, but you also provided quite a bit of useful things that I did not know, especially concerning tactics, usage, and flight attitude and altitude.

One final question: In our game, if a radar detects a BOGEY, it can't usually detect the size or shape of the BOGEY. To the radar, the BOGEY could be an actual plane or even a TALD. Opposing forces often scramble jets to investigate and intercept BOGEYS so, since they don't know what the size of the BOGEY is, would they send jets to intercept a drone, as well? Or, does this fall back into the category of "drones should never be used in areas with IAD systems? (That would make sense.)

Thanks again. You are always a wealth of knowledge.

Doug



I have played around with these a lot in CMANO. Some of the UAVs are quite stealthy... for example the RQ-21A Blackjack Blk 2.. enemy aircraft send patrols out to visually identify, and they have to get to knife-fighting range to do so... the UAV is all passive ELINT, so nothing to emit to give its identity away... the Flankers in my test had to close all the way to 3nm to identify it, then shoot with short ranged weapons immediately at that point... to which I developed a cheat (sorry lol) and placed a Hornet on the deck at the edge of its own AMRAAM engagement window, put the UAV out as bait, and shot down the incoming Flankers as they came to identify it.[:D] All in good fun, but a real human on the other side probably would figure out after the first time, that the speck flying on radar so near to the enemy that just splashed a Su- must be a friend to that enemy or it would have been shot down as well.



Rory Noonan -> RE: For those who know....how detectable are drones? (2/10/2018 10:05:00 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: rmunie0613

quote:

ORIGINAL: DWReese

Tailhook,

Thank you so much for the info.

Several of my assumptions were correct, but you also provided quite a bit of useful things that I did not know, especially concerning tactics, usage, and flight attitude and altitude.

One final question: In our game, if a radar detects a BOGEY, it can't usually detect the size or shape of the BOGEY. To the radar, the BOGEY could be an actual plane or even a TALD. Opposing forces often scramble jets to investigate and intercept BOGEYS so, since they don't know what the size of the BOGEY is, would they send jets to intercept a drone, as well? Or, does this fall back into the category of "drones should never be used in areas with IAD systems? (That would make sense.)

Thanks again. You are always a wealth of knowledge.

Doug



I have played around with these a lot in CMANO. Some of the UAVs are quite stealthy... for example the RQ-21A Blackjack Blk 2.. enemy aircraft send patrols out to visually identify, and they have to get to knife-fighting range to do so... the UAV is all passive ELINT, so nothing to emit to give its identity away... the Flankers in my test had to close all the way to 3nm to identify it, then shoot with short ranged weapons immediately at that point... to which I developed a cheat (sorry lol) and placed a Hornet on the deck at the edge of its own AMRAAM engagement window, put the UAV out as bait, and shot down the incoming Flankers as they came to identify it.[:D] All in good fun, but a real human on the other side probably would figure out after the first time, that the speck flying on radar so near to the enemy that just splashed a Su- must be a friend to that enemy or it would have been shot down as well.


Sounds like a tactic more than a cheat!



rmunie0613 -> RE: For those who know....how detectable are drones? (2/11/2018 3:43:18 AM)

Haha..yes, a tactic...but I felt bad/gamey to use it more than twice lol.



Luckschaden -> RE: For those who know....how detectable are drones? (2/12/2018 10:24:55 AM)

quote:

How visible are they to the naked eye?
Not very. A Reaper isn't particularly big, and the big ones fly incredibly high up. They also aren't going to be right on top of the target thanks to powerful optics (and other things). You'd have to know exactly where to look and probably wouldn't know what it was anyway.

Although I have read that people in Pakistan, Iraq, etc. can often hear the drones circling overhead. As you say, this is in permissive environments and no one will shot them down anyway.



kevinkins -> RE: For those who know....how detectable are drones? (2/12/2018 1:10:44 PM)

quote:

to create a small scenario involving the explicit use of drones as an offensive weapon. It might be kind of interesting to navigate around various defenses and find a location where an attack could occur against a convoy of trucks, or a terrorist camp or something.


DWReese,I have something like that on my hard drive that I was planning to group up with two other small "byte" battles. The other two are not ready yet, but if you want to take a sneak peek PM me. It only uses 2 UAVs so it may not be what you are after however.



DWReese -> RE: For those who know....how detectable are drones? (2/12/2018 2:18:06 PM)

Kevin,

That is exactly what I am interested in. I much prefer smaller "battles" involving a very limited number of units.

I will send you a PM.

Thanks again.

Doug



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