If you think scattering mines all over Cambodia was a bad idea, what do you think of the US Navy countering Iran’s threat to mine the Gulf of Arabia by deploying robotic Kamikaze mines?
“The Sea Fox submersibles, manufactured by German firm Atlas Electronik, come equipped with a TV camera and sonar and are deployed from minesweepers or helicopters. Once in the water they can be controlled via a fiber optic link and are designed to locate mines and explode them using a shaped charge that was originally designed to destroy tanks.”
see US deploys robot submarine armada against Iranian mines • The Register.
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It is hard to figure just what you are on about here, Mr. Pogson. Are you fearing that the anti-mine measures are powered with Windows 8 or earlier? Surely you cannot be in favor of having tankers sunk in the Arabian Gulf rather than removing mines that may have been placed there?
Clarence Moon wrote, “Are you fearing that the anti-mine measures are powered with Windows 8″.
The things are apparently remotely controlled so they should be safe, but if anything goes wrong it could go wrong in the worst possible way and seek and destroy ships… They are definitely an interesting idea but I don’t understand why they are designed to self-destruct. Would it not be more efficient for them to be armed with a torpedo or something that acts from a distance so they could kill a mine and be re-used? TFA states they use a shaped charge. It would be just as effective in a disposable torpedo. Surely that would cost much less than $100K per kill. Perhaps it’s that the water is murky and the mines large so targeting from any distance is difficult but if the RPV can get close enough to hit the mine, could it not plant a beacon and release a homing torpedo from a distance, say 100m? Perhaps mass-production will permit costs to fall dramatically. After all a Lexus costs less than $100K and is much more complex. I expect the Iranians have a lot of mines.
Robert Pogson not exactly. Issue is a lot more complex than you think.
The fiber optical line that is used to control it. Mostly likely will go by by when the shockwave hits it.
“deployed from minesweepers or helicopters.”
Hmm fiber hanging out of helicopter sound really safe.
Shape charge on a floating robot no longer in control is basically a mine in its own right. So you would think it would have to include a self destruct feature in case of broken control line.
http://seaperch.mit.edu/ Was the first thing that came to my mind. Scale this thing up use normal PVC and other normal junk. Its has to be a disposable weapon have a competition to built it as cheap as able. 100 000 is a little expensive to dispose of one mine. Serous-ally for mines on beaches that are unstable Australian mil have used odd things like large toy hovercraft to carry a block of c4 up to mine to trigger it to go off. X one toy hovercraft is better than X one solider. Yes a 1000 dollar toy by by to clear a mine would be a better option.
Yes because you can also bet it will get fowled as well. As a diver I would prefer not to have to go unbind a live shape charge or anywhere near a sea mine.
Robert Pogson old unstable mines plant a beacon would be enough you would not need a shape charge. The process of touching it would be by by unit and mine.
Yes the other thing is you could forget the shape charge if it could get up some ramming speed.
homing torpedo has the same problem it miss fires and it becomes a mine in it own right.
Ideal is to prevent the mines from being deployed in the first place. Australia Mil has use of land based mine fields as no longer required replaced with auto guns. We need the sea equal. Auto guns are a lot simpler to clear up after a battle than a mine field.
Really how long before we move from mines to robot subs that true hunt and kill. So it not kinda bad luck that you found a mine but that the mind found you.
Would it not be more efficient…
I think that you have to study this from the mine sweeper captain’s point of view. They are likely to put safety at a premium and such standoff capability is likely to be considered well worth their cost.
Clarence Moon the problem is for every anti-weapon a new weapon gets made to counter it.
Counter to robot land based mine field clearing is Auto cannons based off metal-storm tech. Since you cannot get close enough to them to clear then and they are repeat firing.
So 100 000 on this clearance device how long until the mines evolve to a worst nightmare true ship hunts.
Dumbo. First you show that you do not understand the term “marine”. Now you follow up by showing that you do not understand much about sea mines or the task of locating one that has been put in service.
“Auto cannons based off metal-storm tech”? lol.
Clarence Moon
““Auto cannons based off metal-storm tech”? lol.”
Australian Area Denial Weapon System(ADWS)is the formal name of it by the way. Is metal-storm tech on auto turrets. These turret pack 40mm or larger shells so are officially cannons. These are deployed by Australian Mil instead of laying mine fields. Fun part is they are also able to to active weapon defence. You fire a weapon at them they fire back at what you fired neutralising it add a few extras to finish you.
Faster and far more nasty. ADWS items are able to auto target and exterminate anything that enters its start firing zone. Note start firing the stop firing area is larger so you retreat away from where it started firing and it will keep on firing because you were in the start zone at some point in history.
I do understand sea mines. Compared to Area Denial Weapon System sea mines are a joke for there operation and worse the mines mostly fail to hit there targets. Also sea mines have a big bad habit of getting lost and sinking your own boats.
There is work to make proper sea based ADWS systems. The sea mines iran has is the old tech.
Sea based ADWS will make items like Sea Fox obsolete as a clearance method. Why something like a Sea Fox will not be able to make a path threw.
Same problem as land based ADWS to clear. You can only clear a land base ADWS when you can either drop a really huge bomb or it runs out of ammo. Land base ADWS use there weapons as counter measures to other weapons.
The newer Australian land based ADWS are tracked robots and mobile. So they can change there configuration and even retreat sections back to be rearmed. So to replicate this is robotic subs moving as the replacement to the Sea mine system able to change configuration and repair from any clearance attempt even go after source of clearance.
“the task of locating one that has been put in service.” Sea mines are fair simpler to deal with they don’t work as a unit to take you out. ADWS systems have group intelligence. Yes finding a sea mine is hard at times but they are simple compared to a ADWS system. In a ADWS system you destroy one the others will attempt to destroy what destroyed the one. So making ADWS systems simpler to remove on one hand but a major pain in the ass on another. Since attempting to clear them they will resist.
A sea mine found solo is unlikely to call in anti-air. Where with ADWS system clearing one you better expect you will get anti-air and other backup incoming. A mine is like a solo ant not much of a problem. ADWS system is like a swarm of ants each one alone might able to handle but as a collective you could be one dead sucker.
Clarence Moon yes when we have sea based ADWS you might as well write the idea of Sea Fox off. Because an ADWS can decide to avoid interacting with targets as well. So avoid Sea Fox neutralise its controller. Sea mines cannot decide to actively avoid contact.
Current day Australian land based ADWS systems can be used to clear a normal land based mine field by either brute force or by using scouting robots to locates the mines then have the ADWS blow the mine location to kingdom come. Manual clearance is normally used to avoid doing as much property damage.
I see no reason why a sea based ADWS could not achieve the same thing against sea mines. Basically sea based ADWS equals sea mines being worthless. In fact sea you normally have less of a property problem.
Deploying a land based mine field against someone with good land based ADWS tech means you mostly wasted your time deploying the mine field. Since the ADWS tech can be used to clear the Mine field Clarence Moonand used to prevent you from being able to replace the destroyed mines. Same will happen to sea mines.
The other thing is ADWS can protect itself from the same methods that you use with an ADWS to clear a mine field. ADWS holding a location comes how good your supply lines are to the ADWS location. Who ever has the better supply lines in a ADWS vs ADWS will win.
Clarence Moon do you understand now why I am laughing at spending 100 000 on one use tech to clear sea mines. And why I see sea mines as a historic item of time gone by. Its like going to war with a non riffled gun and the other side has snipers.
Resources spent on building a fully functional sea based ADWS would have sorted out the problem.
Clarence Moon you do want to be able to throw a mountain of against adws systems to cause them to burn up ammo. Of course the junk has to be lethal enough that the adws has to count it.
Little remote control car with bomb on back driving across adws zone to a gun location kinda has to be counted. Might be a 20 dollars bit of junk causing causing the adws to expend ammo.
So something like a http://seaperch.mit.edu/ sub that is nasty enough that the adws has to deal with it but basically worthless otherwise will be a good future tool against what the battle field is going to look like.
100 000 dollar you cannot use as chaff to screw up your enemys systems. 500 dollars maybe. So you want something for less than 500 dollars that can do the same job or at least with the look of possibility of doing the same job so it has to be counted.
Its bit like world war II lot of Australian pilots were captured shot in legs because they were wearing a sheep skin jackets that looked like bullet proof vests. They stayed alive because the looked to be wearing a bullet proof vest. Not that they were wearing bullet proof vests.
Also for adws you want it to look civilian so the operator might delay pulling the trigger. Sea Fox really does not look civilian. Would not sound civilian in the water either.
oiaohm wrote, “Is metal-storm tech on auto turrets. These turret pack 40mm or larger shells so are officially cannons. These are deployed by Australian Mil instead of laying mine fields”
Militaries have been working on such technology for ages: machine-guns, artillery, aerial bombs all have been used to destroy, confine or divert the enemy. In WWII, my father was an anti-aircraft gunner. The Germans were low on aircraft so their gun was often used as a heavy machine-gun with explosive bullets. Even with their tiny rate of fire by modern standards they could punish any cluster/line of German forces. This was in the days before personal body-armour was widely used so the splinters from their 20mm shells were effective over a wide area and hiding in a forest was little protection as the shells would burst overhead. It was like an instant mobile minefield against personnel and light vehicles that could be deployed from miles away. My father’s last major action during WWII was to shred German forces defending the Rhine River. They fired their weapons continuously during operation “Pepperpot”, pausing only to change overheated barrels, for three days as rapidly as they could across the river, shredding German defenders. Truckloads of ammunition was fired into a band along the river and the Germans managed only to fire a few shells and bombs back. The Germans could barely stick their heads up let alone do anything against the wall of steel. As a result the crossing of the Rhine was almost routine instead of being an easily defensible line.
more at http://www.trueloyals.com/page0/files/ten.html
Robert Pogson its speed of response. Metal storm systems can target flying RPG and destory them while they are airborne.
Its also the fact that the ADWS don’t need humans there they can just sit waiting for anything to trip there sensors. So effectively be a mine field without laying a mine field and without all the headaches of mine field clean up. Also provides some advantages for enemy entrapment.
Next the how good they are at targeting. There is no such thing as plate armor thick enough. Multi turrent can focus there fire quickly. So even the most heavily armoured USA tanks are scrap metal against an ADWS.
Yes the basic ideas of ADWS come from World War II.
Yes operation pepperpot end of world war II shows how effective ADWS could be. Ok not as ammo effective as Auto turrent that can do a firing solution in under 1/20 of a second. That is how long a person has to fire at the turrent before the turrent will be dropping a round on them if it sees them. Now if it don’t its about 1/20 of a second before its dropping a shell on the firing location.
Pepperpot was a constantly active fire ADWS. Expensive to run but highly effective just the same. In fact Pepperpot proved that ADWS idea was more effective than mine field. Forces cannot simply get around the automatic weapon fire. Where they can battle into a mine field clearing it as they go.
Yes ADWS firing locations can be miles away from the area they are preventing movement in. So causing lag between anything trying to hit the ADWS system to shut it down so giving the ADWS means to counter any form of missile attack even counter some shell solutions.
40mm shell size was choose for 1 reason. Does not matter the body armor you have on. The shock wave from the 40mm shell will kill you without question.
So machines are the only hope you have of getting past the ADWS.
aerial bombs too slow too large of windows and basically shot-able out the sky by ADWS systems.
old artillery too long to achieve firing solution to make effective adws without burning lots of ammo.
machine-guns same problem as artillery.
Metalstorm weapons can fire faster than any existing machine-gun. They need to for the ADWS role.
Yes end of world war II told us mine fields were not really required if you could fire either enough or fast enough. It just taken this long to get the tech to switch across to ADWS. Land ADWS is done and dusted.
Sea ADWS is coming along quite well in research. Air still really iffy if that can ever be done fully. Air mines also were really iffy and mostly did not work.
Robert Pogson basically mil has been working on the tech for ages and yes they now have land based working. Next most likely will be sea based. After that it fairly much by by mine field as any idea of defence.
One day we might get to the point that the ADWS solutions are that big that no one is game to turn them on.
Australian Area Denial Weapon System(ADWS)
Leave it to the Diggers to re-invent the Maginot Line! They could have used something like that in WWI, but it was obsolete by WWII due to the invention of the airplane and mechanized infantry. The urban/jungle/desert guerrilla sort of warfare today could not benefit from such a thing, of course, and it is not likely that the public would support using such a thing to protect against immigrants sneaking into the US over unguarded borders.
A questionable solution to a non-existent problem, nothing more.
Maginot Line is only defensive and non mobile. ADWS systems are mobile and can be used offensive this is force multiplied effect. Yes you can push attacker backwards with ADWS. 2 soldiers with an ADWS is a major headache they have no problem trapping an area alone.
Mechanized infantry is big scrap metal against ADWS systems. Mostly because there is no such thing as enough armour to hold against ADWS system assult.
ADWS are used as traps for Mechanised infantry hide the firing system when the are in range let lose hell.
Remember for the metal of 1 tank you can make at least 20 ADWS mobile weapon platforms. Each able to exterminate a tank. This is force multiplied. Also due to each unit being smaller they can hide simpler.
Remember they are smaller and stronger than a human.
ADWS is more guerrilla trap compatible. ADWS traps makes improvised explosive traps look like a simple crude joke. Since a simple explosive trap cannot exterminate a complete set of vehicles in one combined strike.
jungle/desert combat suites ADWS. Mostly due to low human populations. ADWS in fact work quite well in jungle conditions.
There are ADWS systems that can operate Urban. Currently only a last resort option. Why targeting time is short in Urban and only way ADWS can operate effectively in Urban is exterminate all targets without waiting for operator intervention to clear firing solutions. Auto lock fire no question. ADWS close quarters you don’t want to have to use it that way until targeting AI improves. Too many civilians risk being dead. Yes ADWS tracks have no problem with stairs or progressing threw a building clearing all targets inside it as long as you want all targets in there dead.
Really compared to the current USA mine fields on the boarder the ADWS units could be nicer. ADWS don’t have to be loaded with human killing rounds. They can be loaded with glue rounds used at a particular range then explosive used if the immigrates get past that.
Also ADWS ends the idea of sneaking past them.
Remember ADWS items can contain mixed classes of weapons and use a huge mixed bag of assault options.
Maginot Line has the same problem as mines the are not able to alter there configuration to counter what attacker is doing.
Airplane is a minor annoyance to a Land based ADWS. Mostly because most weapons Airplanes can carry are not a threat to ADWS systems. Threat is Mother of Bombs, Father of Booms and Nukes. The big boor chain guns of aircraft require the aircraft to get low enough that ADWS can destroy it.
Fuel bombs that will kill soldiers don’t kill ADWS since they don’t breath or suffer from shock-wave pain.
One of the really strange usages tested with ADWS has been fire fighting. Firing fire control foam shells.
ADWS tech does not just apply to the battle field.
Clarence Moon USA is in fact working on airborne ADWS where robot aircraft can neutralise airborne threats.
Land + AIR ADWS working in combination would be one hell of a bugger to try to get past.
AIR ADWS against ground targets don’t work that well. Since ground targets can go into buildings an other items to hide from the ADWS. Land base ADWS can search those.
Yes first ADWS were done non mobile current versions are fully mobile Clarence Moon.
Basically Land based ADWS has all the advantages of Mechanized infantry without the human risk and you get more attacking force for the same money. Also reduces amount of food and other supplies you need on the front lines. So allow you to fill your supply trucks more with weapons for the assaults.
For a country like Australia where are solider population is limited ADWS is important.
operation “Pepperpot” as robert quoted used World War II is how ADWS systems operate. Pepperpot was done using mechanized infantry and field guns.
So Clarence Moon bull crap as normal claiming it an expired method by World War II. ADWS is basically upgraded of Pepperpot you stick you head up ADWS plays wack a mole with you. So preventing you from moving.
Yes you are right Maginot Line world war I was upgraded to what was used in Pepperpot in world war II. Pepperpot was using mobile firing locations to prevent simple neutralisation and allow the cover to move forwards with soliders. Finally this gets replaces with ADWS to be ammo effective and smaller to it can like climb up the stairs of a building and use the top of building as a firing location to control an area.
ADWS land is more urban compatible than Mechanized infantry. So an ADWS land firing at you does not have to be on the ground floor it could be waiting inside for you to attempt to search a building as a trap. Problem is kill a solider and move to a different trap location in the building.
This is the problem with land based ADWS it moves into to urban and air power is worthless to weed it out. Sending Mechanised infantry in forget it they have the force to destroy that. Your only options will be 1) level the city and hope you hit them and damage them 2) have a ADWS of your own to face off with it. Why not sending in soldiers after a ADWS have faster reflex and can be cloaked from being seen threw walls but can see your soldiers threw walls. How cloaked non active so cooled off completely just waiting for something to walk its way.
Did not not cross you mind Clarence Moon that ADWS mobile platforms fit where a human does and can move through buildings without major problems other than have to break way threw doorways unless soldiers have helped them by opening door for them. There is work to allow them to open doors without help.
Basically ADWS can set up a Maginot Line quickly in urban also pull it down just as quickly. In fact trying to come after an ADWS if you are not careful will walk you self into a location where the ADWS has you fully out gunned and covered. So costing you a full unit when the other side was only using 2 soldiers.