US troops are unprepared for small enemy drones in the Middle East.

A Marine launches a quadcopter drone. Task and Purpose/USMC.

American troops are unprepared for the threat of small enemy drones in the Middle East, according to a top Marine general. Task and Purpose. General Kenneth McKenzie, head of Centcom, said that the drones are a major threat. These are not the aircraft sized drones we usually think of, but smaller, off the shelf drones that cost as little as $1000 and can be easily modified to carry small explosives or surveillance equipment. American soldiers have come under attack by these drones, thought to be operated by ISIS, and Russia has taken heavy casualties from them in Syria. Their small size makes them very difficult to detect and destroy. 

My Comment:

I've said several times that these kinds of drone attacks are going to be more and more frequent. All you need is the cash to buy one and the technical know-how to rig up an explosive and you have a pretty effective way to drop bombs on your opponents. They won't be big bombs, probably the size of a hand grenade, but it's a very effective way to deliver ordinance. 

ISIS was the terror group that perfected this technique and they have used it to devastating effect. And it's one that can be easily adapted by almost anyone, and one that is fairly effective. I still remember seeing video of ISIS doing this and it was amazing how simple it was. Just a drone, a grenade and a contraption to drop it, and it's suddenly raining grenades. 

It's extremely hard to defend against these kinds of attacks as well. During the day the drones are hard to see and even harder to hit. Our higher tech anti-air weapons can't track something this small and even the Mark I eyeball has problems with it. And at night? Forget it, you won't see it coming. And you likely won't even know it was there until the explosive start dropping. 

So how could we defeat these things? I think it's either going to be electronic countermeasures or directed energy weapons. I am guessing a device could be made that jams the signals these drones use and that would stop these attacks cold. But that might also mean drowning out military signals that our troops need to communicate. It's not a perfect solution by a longshot but it's an option.

Further down the line we could have directed energy weapons to shoot these down. A laser or something similar could destroy these drones, if not directly, by jamming their signals just like the electric countermeasures. The problem there is you have to see it to hit it and these things are the size of birds. 

Of course, what scares me isn't that this technique could be used against US troops in the field, it's that terrorists could use these drones in terror attacks. It's fairly easy to pull off, low tech, and, most disturbingly, it seems like something you could get away with pretty fast if you wanted to launch the attack again and again. Just fly a drone over a crowded area, drop its payload, retrieve it and run, ready for the next attack. 

It makes me think that we will probably see restrictions on drone technology. Right now just about anyone can buy one of these drones and there doesn't appear to be any background checks or vetting going on. All it will take is for one terrorist to use these in a major attack and that will likely change...