Drones and UAVs in T2K

[Legbreaker]

Would drones be in use in a parallel/alternate world such as T2k?
Possibly.
Would they have seen widespread use?
Very doubtful given the technical limitations of the mid 90's.
Would many/any have survived nearly half a decade of warfare without adequate replacement parts, servicing, fuel/battery replacements, etc, etc, etc?
Almost certainly not.

UAVs/drones typically operate at relatively low altitudes (except for the big hellfire carrying ones of course, but they're more like unmanned aircraft). Given those fairly low altitudes, it's almost a certainty they're going to attract small arms fire, or even get caught in explosions (grenades, mortars, etc) for the more tactical level ones.

The larger ones operating at higher altitudes are sure to be targets for SAMS, AAA guns and other aircraft too, and to my knowledge, generally lack the ability to effectively fight back (yes, I know some have defensive systems which is why I said "effectively").

So, to make things really simple, there's no need to include them in a normal T2k game EXCEPT on very rare occasions as a macguffin or in the hands of the opposition. Their frequency of appearance should be about the same as just about any other type of aircraft and for more or less the exact same reasons.

[Olefin]

Sorry Leg but drones will be around and not as rare as you think - if you can build ultralights you can build drones - and there will be a hell of a lot of junked airplanes and other places for parts for drones - hell just find a good model airplane shop and you have parts you can use to build a drone - they may be lower tech but they will be around.

[Fallenkezef]

Drones where recce platforms in the late 90's right? When where the first armed UAVs deployed?

[Olefin]

I suspect any that would be armed would be more like kamikazes than launching platforms - especially later in the war when they got more jury rigged for replacement parts

[Vespers War]

Originally Posted by Fallenkezef

Drones where recce platforms in the late 90's right? When where the first armed UAVs deployed?

Iran used armed UAVs in the Iran-Iraq War, so no later than that.

[Olefin]

It comes down to what kind of drone you are talking about - we arent talking about Predators here controlled remotely from hundreds of miles away - you can also make a drone using simple radio control technology that you can find at any model rocket/airplane store. Its not as capable for sure - but it can be done. And I agree - a fully functional pre-war or early war drone would be rare by mid-2000 except possibly in places like France or Japan (V1 Japan at least) that avoided being part of the war.

I am an aeronautical engineer - it can be and could be done guys. But they would be jury rigs and a lot less capable than the high tech drones you are probably thinking of. Best comparison would be they would be like Wojo Mines and Mortars compared to what was being made pre-war.

[Raellus]

I don't think it would be too difficult to build a simple UAV c.2000, but while it's one thing to construct a functional flying platform, it's entirely another to effectively militarize it. To give it recce/surveillance/spotting capability, you'd need to include live video feeds, imaging devices, and/or recording devices, etc.). Those sorts of electronics would be harder to find in the later years of the Twilight War than small engines and RC equipment, I would imagine. Without a proper bird's-eye view, it would be very difficult to turn an ad hoc drone into a weapons platform. You'd need LOS to target it effectively, and if you can see the target, it can probably see you too.

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Raellus

I don't think it would be too difficult to build a simple UAV c.2000, but while it's one thing to construct a functional flying platform, it's entirely another to effectively militarize it. To give it recce/surveillance/spotting capability, you'd need to include live video feeds, imaging devices, and/or recording devices, etc.). Those sorts of electronics would be harder to find in the later years of the Twilight War than small engines and RC equipment, I would imagine. Without a proper bird's-eye view, it would be very difficult to turn an ad hoc drone into a weapons platform. You'd need LOS to target it effectively, and if you can see the target, it can probably see you too.

Keep in mind I am not talking about a weapons platform (unless you want to put an explosive on it and make it a kamikaze - thats easy to do) - I am talking about a simple drone with a video system or camera that you can trigger remotely and then retreive and get back the information by having it fly home. And there was a lot of home video equipment available in that in that time frame - again we are talking about jury rigs here vs fully functional military eqiupment.

Also keep in mind that the tech to make a functional cruise missile has been around since the 1940's - i.e. the V1. And they didnt need a lot of high tech to make it a very deadly weapon. Not an accurate one - i.e. they aimed it a London and a lot of them missed - but if you even have 1940's level tech still working you can make one.

Originally Posted by Raellus

I don't think it would be too difficult to build a simple UAV c.2000, but while it's one thing to construct a functional flying platform, it's entirely another to effectively militarize it. To give it recce/surveillance/spotting capability, you'd need to include live video feeds, imaging devices, and/or recording devices, etc.). Those sorts of electronics would be harder to find in the later years of the Twilight War than small engines and RC equipment, I would imagine. Without a proper bird's-eye view, it would be very difficult to turn an ad hoc drone into a weapons platform. You'd need LOS to target it effectively, and if you can see the target, it can probably see you too.

As an IT professional, I'd like to circle back around to this:

As Rae said, getting the motors, servos, etc. for a small drone wouldn't be as hard as getting the other electronics in 2000. The RC hobby has been around a long time. But getting a usable video signal off an RC platform in this era, without very specialized and proprietary equipment would be difficult.

The commercial drones you see in use now are all built upon a platform of open protocols, codecs, and software that have evolved since the late 90's.

802.11 WiFi standard was released in 1997 and clarified in 99, but widespread adoption of 802.11 networks only occurred after the release of 802.11b in mid-99 to 2000.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11_(legacy_mode)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11b-1999

So without an open signal standard and products that use that standard, you would need to roll your own video transmission system. I'm a Ham and I can tell you it's possible, but it's not a compact system, again, especially in the mid-90's timeline.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_television

Now we are starting to need two skill sets: RC modeling and HAM radio Amateur TV expertise to kludge something that might be useful.

Most of your digital optics in the 90's were using CCDs and not CMOS and were still relatively bulky.

https://global.canon/en/c-museum/history/story08.html

Compact Storage/MMC cards came on to the scene in 95/97, so IMHO, that's your best option for video for a home-made drone at this point - drone goes up with video running the whole time, circles the target area, returns, then you pop the card, run it into a laptop (5.3 to 9 lbs back then), and watch the 12.1-inch SVGA TFT color LCD in 800x600 to see the drone video. Delayed video intel at best. But much easier than getting a video signal off the drone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MultiMediaCard

Military drones in this period, like the RQ-2A are using C-Band Line-Of-Sight microwave datalinks to transmit their data.

https://airandspace.si.edu/collectio...m_A20000794000

https://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fmi3-04-155.pdf

https://fas.org/irp/program/collect/pioneer.htm

LOS Microwave means there's a microwave ground station, pointing a microwave dish at the UAV for the entire flight (or it's running over a UHF backup link with degraded video signal quality).

https://fas.org/irp/program/collect/avover1.jpg

So in summary, I think military UAV platforms are the only viable system for real-time intel in the 2000 timeline. Home-made UAVs will be hampered by the inability to transmit video in real time, and so could be useful for strategic (that cantonment is planting corn this year), but not tactical intelligence (here come 2 Gun Trucks!).

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Olefin

Sorry Leg but drones will be around and not as rare as you think - if you can build ultralights you can build drones - and there will be a hell of a lot of junked airplanes and other places for parts for drones - hell just find a good model airplane shop and you have parts you can use to build a drone - they may be lower tech but they will be around.

That's your opinion and you're entitled to it.
However, drones require electronics to run them, radio receivers and transmitters, and all sorts of other electrically powered actuators, whereas an ultralight, with it's pilot sitting right there in the vehicle, avoids the need for all those near impossible to find, let alone produce, components.

If drones were so easy to produce in the later stages of the war, why aren't cruise missiles and other guided munitions more common then? Your argument does not stand up to scrutiny.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

That's your opinion and you're entitled to it.
However, drones require electronics to run them, radio receivers and transmitters, and all sorts of other electrically powered actuators, whereas an ultralight, with it's pilot sitting right there in the vehicle, avoids the need for all those near impossible to find, let alone produce, components.

Yes, drones are essentially fly-by-wire aircraft tech plus RC gear. Running a drone stored in perfect condition with all the required gear? You just need the setup and maintenance know-how and hopefully a competent operator. Keeping one running with some amount of available compatible spares? Not too hard, again particularly if you have personnel with the right skills sets. Trying to keep one operating with makeshift components? Bloody difficult by 2000 I reckon. Any unit with multiple drones would very quickly be cannibalising some to provide parts for a small number of best-condition drones.

Any suggestion that operational military drones would be anything other than very rare by 2000 is kind of farcical. But a great hook for an adventure, due to that rarity.

[Legbreaker]

I believe these direct quotes from 1st and 2nd ed are very relevant to this topic:

Attachment 4501

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[bash]

If drones are all destroyed by magic T2K EMPs then so is everything else electronic. No vehicle built after the 70s is going to be functional because those magic EMPs have fused every ECM in all engines. The only rocket launchers that work are blank ignited types. There's no working NVG anywhere.

So either the Heavy Weapons and Vehicle guides are pointless or the magic EMP isn't quite so powerful as it's described. This doesn't means drones or other high tech gear has to be common but the EMP as described in the books is vastly overstated.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by bash

If drones are all destroyed by magic T2K EMPs then so is everything else electronic.

You did actually read the section I posted right?

[Raellus]

I tend to agree that drones/UAVs would be quite rare c. 2000.

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

UAVs/drones typically operate at relatively low altitudes (except for the big hellfire carrying ones of course, but they're more like unmanned aircraft). Given those fairly low altitudes, it's almost a certainty they're going to attract small arms fire, or even get caught in explosions (grenades, mortars, etc) for the more tactical level ones.

I don't know about this. There's tons of footage out there of small drones loitering over OPFOR positions at relatively low altitude. Apparently, small, moving aerial targets are extremely difficult to hit with small arms fire. As a result, modern armies are developing all sorts of anti-drone weaponry, from lasers to microwave transmitters, to try to combat small drones.

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

The larger ones operating at higher altitudes are sure to be targets for SAMS, AAA guns and other aircraft too, and to my knowledge, generally lack the ability to effectively fight back (yes, I know some have defensive systems which is why I said "effectively").

True, the air over central Europe during the Twilight War would be fraught with dangers. I think tactical implementation is key here. If drones are used selectively, they might survive longer than one might think. Is a SAM crew going to risk painting itself for lurking Wild Weasels in order to target a lone drone (especially given the established tactic of using drones as decoys to unmask AA networks)?

That said, if SAMs and AAA don't get them, time likely will. As you pointed out, drone/UAV electronic components and power systems will likely fail without proper maintenance and/or the availability of spares, so non-combat attrition is almost inevitable.

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

So, to make things really simple, there's no need to include them in a normal T2k game EXCEPT on very rare occasions as a macguffin or in the hands of the opposition. Their frequency of appearance should be about the same as just about any other type of aircraft and for more or less the exact same reasons.

Agreed. The appearance of a drone in a campaign c.2000 should, IMHO, should be a really unique, special event.

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[pansarskott]

Overview of UAVS from the 50's up to present day https://sites.google.com/site/uavuni/1990s-onwards (but the "peanut" is missing https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/row/cl-327.htm)