Excitement In The Straits Of Hormuz
Excitement In The Straits Of Hormuz
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
It would be temporary at best. It would also be regime suicide for Iran.
Even if they put up a good fight, the "closure" would cost them dearly. Not only would their military be reduced to below pointless, but economically it would completely destroy them. The regime would also not be allowed to survive such as move as well. If we did not take them out, the neighbours would.
These guys really have no idea that they are playing with fire. It is very sad. They just do not understand what they are signing up for. Very similar to other self-deluded clowns that have met bad ends.
Too bad these types have to get so many folks killed before they get themselves done in. Inevitable.
Even if they put up a good fight, the "closure" would cost them dearly. Not only would their military be reduced to below pointless, but economically it would completely destroy them. The regime would also not be allowed to survive such as move as well. If we did not take them out, the neighbours would.
These guys really have no idea that they are playing with fire. It is very sad. They just do not understand what they are signing up for. Very similar to other self-deluded clowns that have met bad ends.
Too bad these types have to get so many folks killed before they get themselves done in. Inevitable.
My guess is that their economy is failing and they need a distraction. The same reason more or less for WW2 in Europe.ladajo wrote:It would be temporary at best. It would also be regime suicide for Iran.
Even if they put up a good fight, the "closure" would cost them dearly. Not only would their military be reduced to below pointless, but economically it would completely destroy them. The regime would also not be allowed to survive such as move as well. If we did not take them out, the neighbours would.
These guys really have no idea that they are playing with fire. It is very sad. They just do not understand what they are signing up for. Very similar to other self-deluded clowns that have met bad ends.
Too bad these types have to get so many folks killed before they get themselves done in. Inevitable.
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/200 ... tlook.html
The guy who wrote it (an oil geologist) says their oil production will collapse in the 2010 to 2015 time frame.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
It doesn't even have to collapse for them to fail. One of the reasons Imadinnerjacket got rid of subsidies was the oil revenue issue. They spend too much, not too mention steal too much from themselves. Greed is running rampant amongst the power players there.
I agree that the infrastructure maintenance has been lacking for a while for Iran, however, they are not yet ready to go four paws up in oil production.
The Achilles Heel for them is refinement. They got none. In a fight, it would be a safe bet that one of the first things to go will be what limited refining they have. Once that is smoked, they must rely on external actors for refinement, or they will just stop as a developed nation.
Sad but true.
I remember your article from before. It is a risk, but it is not yet in stone. But they are certainly strolling idiotically down the path. A having sanctions on dual use tech is certainly not helping either.
Oh well. The slow spiral death of Iran is not so fun to watch. I really do hope they pull out of the dive some how. A terrible waste of human lives.
Ironically Polywell would/will only hasten the collapse. They have no other viable means of GNP than oil. Them and a few other countries are facing significant issues if the energy revolution takes flight. More than likely some sort of war out of it, if not internal, then a desperate grab at straws with the neighbours.
I agree that the infrastructure maintenance has been lacking for a while for Iran, however, they are not yet ready to go four paws up in oil production.
The Achilles Heel for them is refinement. They got none. In a fight, it would be a safe bet that one of the first things to go will be what limited refining they have. Once that is smoked, they must rely on external actors for refinement, or they will just stop as a developed nation.
Sad but true.
I remember your article from before. It is a risk, but it is not yet in stone. But they are certainly strolling idiotically down the path. A having sanctions on dual use tech is certainly not helping either.
Oh well. The slow spiral death of Iran is not so fun to watch. I really do hope they pull out of the dive some how. A terrible waste of human lives.
Ironically Polywell would/will only hasten the collapse. They have no other viable means of GNP than oil. Them and a few other countries are facing significant issues if the energy revolution takes flight. More than likely some sort of war out of it, if not internal, then a desperate grab at straws with the neighbours.
Not too significant. After all small jet engines are not too hard to come by. Nor is making a small airframe too hard. Control is fairly easy - the model aircraft people are doing it.mvanwink5 wrote:How significant is the drone capture? Is it captured state of the art stealth technology? Load it with a nuclear device and fly it to Tel Aviv type disaster?
Best regards
So why aren't the Iranians doing it?
BTW the control of such a device is not easy unless you know the codes that encrypt the control. So they would have to develop their own control system.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Simon
If it was commanded to land and it did, why would one not think it could not be controllable in other regards. Further, why would one think the controls are not intact, which would leave them available to be copied? (I realize control of that particular drone is very difficult and is the reason flying wing stealth craft took so long to be put into service). I distrust encryption as a safeguard and would have expected a mission impossible type meltdown of the critical circuitry, but worry that that failed to happen.
There has been a lot of silence about this other than Cheney (and Rick Perry during the Dec 10 debate) saying the drone should have been destroyed.
I am not being argumentative here. I am just ignorant and know it. I was hoping for some comments on built in technology safeguards.
Moreover, how did the Iranians know the craft was flying, and then to know how to bring it down. Then, all the CIA agents supposedly being outed. Sounds like a complete security breakdown in process, do i need meds here or is there something serious in the making?
Thanks and best regards
If it was commanded to land and it did, why would one not think it could not be controllable in other regards. Further, why would one think the controls are not intact, which would leave them available to be copied? (I realize control of that particular drone is very difficult and is the reason flying wing stealth craft took so long to be put into service). I distrust encryption as a safeguard and would have expected a mission impossible type meltdown of the critical circuitry, but worry that that failed to happen.
There has been a lot of silence about this other than Cheney (and Rick Perry during the Dec 10 debate) saying the drone should have been destroyed.
I am not being argumentative here. I am just ignorant and know it. I was hoping for some comments on built in technology safeguards.
Moreover, how did the Iranians know the craft was flying, and then to know how to bring it down. Then, all the CIA agents supposedly being outed. Sounds like a complete security breakdown in process, do i need meds here or is there something serious in the making?
Thanks and best regards
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.
I would not put too much into the rhetoric that you hear from the Iranians. They are going to milk this as an Information Operations item as much as possible. They will say all sorts of stuff.mvanwink5 wrote:Simon
If it was commanded to land and it did, why would one not think it could not be controllable in other regards. Further, why would one think the controls are not intact, which would leave them available to be copied? (I realize control of that particular drone is very difficult and is the reason flying wing stealth craft took so long to be put into service). I distrust encryption as a safeguard and would have expected a mission impossible type meltdown of the critical circuitry, but worry that that failed to happen.
There has been a lot of silence about this other than Cheney (and Rick Perry during the Dec 10 debate) saying the drone should have been destroyed.
I am not being argumentative here. I am just ignorant and know it. I was hoping for some comments on built in technology safeguards.
Moreover, how did the Iranians know the craft was flying, and then to know how to bring it down. Then, all the CIA agents supposedly being outed. Sounds like a complete security breakdown in process, do i need meds here or is there something serious in the making?
Thanks and best regards
As for the drone itself. Of course there is some value to having it in ones mitts. However, having the ability to know what you have is another. One man's egg beater is another man's gardening tool.
In this case, the drone itself may provide them some insights on stealth tech, but nothing earth shattering. As far as ISR stuff, maybe some ideas, but anything very cool is going to be nigh impossible to reverse engineer for them.
The most useful thing they can do with it is sell access to the Russians and Chinese, and demand shared product from the exploitation. Which, I imagine they have already done. The other issue the Iranians face, is that while they may well tell what a part does and how it does it, it is well within reality that they do not have the ability to make it themselves.
I think the best answer we have is to drop a a sanitized weapons package on the building it is in and be done with it. Iran has random unexplained explosions all the time these last ten years. What will they do? Close Hormuz over it? Not likely.
The longer we wait to act, the more pointless it becomes. It was dumb of us to not smear it as soon as we located it. Regardless of technology exposure risk, which somebody high in the chain felt was less important than the risk of a strike on it.
Warfare is about being fast and effective. If we had gone in right up front, reduced it, and left. There is a good chance that Iran would not have known anything other than later finding a scorch mark on the ground. Oh well.
The best guess I've heard (news report yesterday, nothing classified) is that some dufus left the software set to a default mode one would use in R&D flights: if something goes wrong, autoland as gently as possible. What should have been done is change it to: kill all classified data and then make like a lawn dart.
My guess is they got no classified data.
IIRC, Iran already has its own UAVs, and has for a few years. That said, it also means they have at least a few tech-savvy people who can learn something useful from a captured stealth UAV. And I can also say from direct experience, Iranians are not stupid. OTOH, one uses UAVs because of the risk of capture ... better a machine than a human pilot. That's the sort of risk they were built to take. Whatever it was looking for was probably worth that risk. Consider that we are in the process of pulling out of Iraq, with a very distinct worry that Iran is going to attempt to fill that void.
Consolation: now they have to worry about how many of these things are flying over them and they have no idea they are there.
Could they put a weapon on a UAV? Probably, but it is unlikely they could deliver anything as bad as they could with a used minivan. Even if they have nukes, it is doubtful they are light and compact enough for your average UAV. Once you get to larger craft, as long as you don't value human life, it is not necessary that the aircraft be unmanned. UAVs are mostly for spying.
My guess is they got no classified data.
IIRC, Iran already has its own UAVs, and has for a few years. That said, it also means they have at least a few tech-savvy people who can learn something useful from a captured stealth UAV. And I can also say from direct experience, Iranians are not stupid. OTOH, one uses UAVs because of the risk of capture ... better a machine than a human pilot. That's the sort of risk they were built to take. Whatever it was looking for was probably worth that risk. Consider that we are in the process of pulling out of Iraq, with a very distinct worry that Iran is going to attempt to fill that void.
Consolation: now they have to worry about how many of these things are flying over them and they have no idea they are there.
Could they put a weapon on a UAV? Probably, but it is unlikely they could deliver anything as bad as they could with a used minivan. Even if they have nukes, it is doubtful they are light and compact enough for your average UAV. Once you get to larger craft, as long as you don't value human life, it is not necessary that the aircraft be unmanned. UAVs are mostly for spying.
Last edited by Tom Ligon on Tue Dec 13, 2011 6:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The drones have several safeguards preventing the control of the drone (IE: remote wipe). If the Iranian's were to try anything, it'd likely be a jam of the control signal by way of a strong transmitter. This would feed garbage data to the drone and "potentially" bring it down, but I find this highly unlikely. Normally I'd say this was impossible, but since for some unknown reason about a year ago they realized the camera picture from the drones was transmitting via UHF/VHF and could be watched from a TV with rabbit ears essentially.
These birds are driven from above when on mission. They use a satellite link. It can be jammed, but would be very hard to pre-empt. You would have to get inbetween, or use a really strong directed tracking transmitter, and have the encryption and codes. Not likely. And certain to be noticed.ScottL wrote:The drones have several safeguards preventing the control of the drone (IE: remote wipe). If the Iranian's were to try anything, it'd likely be a jam of the control signal by way of a strong transmitter. This would feed garbage data to the drone and "potentially" bring it down, but I find this highly unlikely. Normally I'd say this was impossible, but since for some unknown reason about a year ago they realized the camera picture from the drones was transmitting via UHF/VHF and could be watched from a TV with rabbit ears essentially.
I am sure the Iranians will learn something from having it. But, I am also thinking they will not learn everything it offers. I would also say again that some of the learning will be externally assisted. No matter how you look at it, unless we drop a thermobaric on it, it is a Christmas Gift, no matter how you look at it. Maybe they will look at it and realize that they are playing with folks that are leaps and bounds ahead of them in hardware, and that will make them think twice on some levels.
I wonder what they are thinking now that they have opened it and not found any vacuum tubes?
If I were them, I'd be thinking "how can I replicate this effectively?" It's not as though they're cavemen given a cellphone, but it should open their eyes a bit. They won't learn anything new about flying or manuevering, but they might learn the composition of the paint and/or the sophistication of some control mechanisms. It's definitely an early xmas for them, I agree.
Sure, but I haven't seen any flying wing designs from Iran yet. Takes a certain level of sophistication in flight control for that. This may well help them. And the German's proved in WWII that flying wings are inherantly less observable.ScottL wrote:If I were them, I'd be thinking "how can I replicate this effectively?" It's not as though they're cavemen given a cellphone, but it should open their eyes a bit. They won't learn anything new about flying or manuevering, but they might learn the composition of the paint and/or the sophistication of some control mechanisms. It's definitely an early xmas for them, I agree.
http://www.century-of-flight.net/new%20 ... 0frame.htm