[HN Gopher] U.S. Failed to Stop Drone Attack Because of Identifi...
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       U.S. Failed to Stop Drone Attack Because of Identification Mixup
        
       Author : mfiguiere
       Score  : 30 points
       Date   : 2024-01-29 16:23 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
        
       | exabrial wrote:
       | Yikes. More than likely this was intentional planning by the
       | attacker.
        
         | abracadaniel wrote:
         | Also implies a certain level of sophistication, since it was
         | able to track the drone. It seems unlikely to have been radar,
         | but perhaps an ability to follow radio signal?
        
           | bozhark wrote:
           | Visual?
        
         | petee wrote:
         | I would think that considering everything going on in the
         | region that they probably have many drones in constant
         | operation, simply making a coincidence more likely.
         | 
         | Edit: But I don't think they've released nearly enough
         | information for us to make a good guess; for example, knowing
         | the flight trajectories is important, did this drone shadow the
         | US one, or were they just in the same area?
        
         | tibbydudeza wrote:
         | IRGC advisors no doubt.
        
       | krunck wrote:
       | https://archive.is/c1T9I
        
       | bethekind wrote:
       | Seems to be an attack vector that they weren't prepared and/or
       | trained sufficiently for.
       | 
       | I imagine that if you see it come in slightly BEFORE the expected
       | drone, you'd be confused. Which one is the real McCoy, especially
       | if they have the same signature on the radar. You don't want to
       | shoot down the wrong one.
        
         | mmh0000 wrote:
         | > You don't want to shoot down the wrong one.
         | 
         | This is the great thing about drones. If you're not 100%
         | certain it's friendly, there's no actual harm in shooting it
         | down other than a small* hit to the budget. And I suspect going
         | forward, that'll be a new military policy. If unsure, bring it
         | down.
         | 
         | * Small in relative terms to the military's budget. Not so
         | small to me, and an average, working-class pawn.
        
           | Arrath wrote:
           | There's also the concern of collateral damage: falling
           | debris/shrapnel from the interception, if CIWS/CRAM were used
           | you have all those rounds returning to the ground _somewhere_
           | downrange, UXO if using proximity rounds and they don 't self
           | destruct properly, and so on.
        
       | tibbydudeza wrote:
       | It won't surprise me of the drone was an Iranian copy of the
       | RQ-170 Sentinel. Same radar signature and the I guess the base
       | air defense system (Gepard afaik) said a friendly inbound.
        
         | master_crab wrote:
         | If it's the standard defense they have used since the Iraq war,
         | it's a variant of the Phalanx system used on AEGIS ships
         | (CIWS). Not a Gepard.
        
       | willcipriano wrote:
       | "Hoist with his own petard"
        
       | jerlam wrote:
       | I'm surprised that drones; the ones that return to base, not the
       | suicide ones; don't have any kind of IFF. Maybe the next
       | generation will since the US won't be the only ones with them,
       | and their adversaries will be fielding similar if not outright
       | copies of US designs.
        
       | genman wrote:
       | The true cause for this attack success was US failure to mitigate
       | security risk from Iran already 20 years ago when there was a
       | good change for it. Current US administration has unfortunately
       | made the situation even worse.
        
         | expazl wrote:
         | Despite the odd angle used throughout all the western media
         | propaganda. It was an Iraqi group not Iranian group. The
         | constant push to frame this as "USA vs. Iran" by calling it an
         | Iran-backed group, instead of an Iraqi group, or be specific
         | and state that it was "Islamic Resistance in Iraq" is just
         | befuddling. It's like if the media was covering the current
         | crisis in Palestine/Israel, while never mentioning Israel and
         | instead writing headlines like "USA-backed group bombs hospital
         | in Gaza".
         | 
         | As for why this Iraqi group is able to attack USA, it's likely
         | much more to do with the 13 year old failed US Invasion of Iraq
         | than anything to do with Iran. But It feels like USA is
         | embarrassed enough about that whole thing that they have
         | decided to just ignore that Iraq exists and instead consider
         | this to be an attack all along the Jordan-Iran border, which
         | for anyone geographically interested is just as long as the
         | border between USA and France.
        
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       (page generated 2024-01-29 23:01 UTC)