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 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

The main check on drone attacks will be explosives. Easy to find in a warzone, a bit harder in a country at peace. The stuff you can make/get might blow up a room or even a car, but if you're looking to take down a bridge you need something higher grade and a lot of it.

But yeah. Dropping some small grenades on the NY Marathon... that might be very easy.

How about a small bioweapon in a glass bottle. Shoot it down the effect is just the same. Explosives is the least of our problems.

The problem is the bioweapon not the drone. If terrorists had bioweapons they can recruit a suicide fanatic to spread it. Or drive around while spraying it from car exhausts.

 Orlanth wrote:
The problem is the bioweapon not the drone. If terrorists had bioweapons they can recruit a suicide fanatic to spread it. Or drive around while spraying it from car exhausts.

Plus while most states are willing to support or quietly back bomber a etc if terror team nations. How many have given out those weapons. Very very very few.

A WMD if caught, especially being there very rare. Controlled and such. If yiur caught its basicly license for someone to hammer you harder than Cadia on a bad day.

And no ones gonna defend the people who gave terrorists WMD.

The Us policey was changed by Oboma, any WMD attack by a date could trigger a nuclear response, but merely downgraded slightkh to massive convental assault instead.

That's still facing down the US pissed, with B52 and carrier battle groups looming. Others have Nato, EU and Former soviet allies to call upon.

 loki old fart wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

The main check on drone attacks will be explosives. Easy to find in a warzone, a bit harder in a country at peace. The stuff you can make/get might blow up a room or even a car, but if you're looking to take down a bridge you need something higher grade and a lot of it.

But yeah. Dropping some small grenades on the NY Marathon... that might be very easy.

How about a small bioweapon in a glass bottle. Shoot it down the effect is just the same. Explosives is the least of our problems.

Bioweapon? Someone's been watching too much resident evil. The chances of Biological agents being used for an attack is ridiculously rare, be that conventional or improvised, mainly because agents that are effective (anthrax, botulism etc) are very hard to weaponise and handle. A chemical agent attack is much more likely, eg aum shinrikyo sarin attack. IT chlorine/blood agent devices etc.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

 loki old fart wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

The main check on drone attacks will be explosives. Easy to find in a warzone, a bit harder in a country at peace. The stuff you can make/get might blow up a room or even a car, but if you're looking to take down a bridge you need something higher grade and a lot of it.

But yeah. Dropping some small grenades on the NY Marathon... that might be very easy.

How about a small bioweapon in a glass bottle. Shoot it down the effect is just the same. Explosives is the least of our problems.

Bioweapon? Someone's been watching too much resident evil. The chances of Biological agents being used for an attack is ridiculously rare, be that conventional or improvised, mainly because agents that are effective (anthrax, botulism etc) are very hard to weaponise and handle. A chemical agent attack is much more likely, eg aum shinrikyo sarin attack. IT chlorine/blood agent devices etc.

Mix the wrong cleaners in the bathroom and you can get chlorine gas. While not a effective weapon persay it just shows how more prevalent a chemical attack could be over a biloligical one.

Don't forget that a terror attack is not about the casualties but about the fear. Dropping say AIDS-infected blood or a radioactive materials on a train station (or a dozen train stations) might not kill anyone, but it would be scary.

A dozen drones dropping pipe bombs would shut down a city for days or weeks.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Don't forget that a terror attack is not about the casualties but about the fear. Dropping say AIDS-infected blood or a radioactive materials on a train station (or a dozen train stations) might not kill anyone, but it would be scary.

A dozen drones dropping pipe bombs would shut down a city for days or weeks.

AIDS indeed is scary but that fear can be assauged.

In reality if aids infected blood was ingested it would not harm you, so long as the transfer was not immediate. The AIDS virus dies very quickly outside the human body, 30 seconds IIRC. The only time its problematic is if the blood itself goes through immediate preservation, such as a blood donor bag.
You could lick AIDS tainted bloodstains off the station platform losing no more than your forfeit in sanity. Though you might get Hepatitis, which is more transmutable than HIV.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Don't forget that a terror attack is not about the casualties but about the fear. Dropping say AIDS-infected blood or a radioactive materials on a train station (or a dozen train stations) might not kill anyone, but it would be scary.

A dozen drones dropping pipe bombs would shut down a city for days or weeks.

AIDS indeed is scary but that fear can be assauged.

In reality if aids infected blood was ingested it would not harm you, so long as the transfer was not immediate. The AIDS virus dies very quickly outside the human body, 30 seconds IIRC. The only time its problematic is if the blood itself goes through immediate preservation, such as a blood donor bag.
You could lick AIDS tainted bloodstains off the station platform losing no more than your forfeit in sanity. Though you might get Hepatitis, which is more transmutable than HIV.

Biological isn't they way imo, way to difficult to reliably aquire and handle safely, no better would be chlorine, or other stuff, probably an Aerosole like mustard Gas?
Acids, etc.
Easier to handle, fear guaranteed.

Eh, as Kid_Kyoto states though, it's not so much based on the effectiveness.

While diseased blood may not be harmful, it doesn't matter if it is or not. Idiots on YouTube and Facebook will "say" that it is - and that'll get parroted and the cycle will continue as it does with all the bs and misinformation you regularly see spewed online. Terrorist organizations aren't stupid. They're aware that hyperbolic fear-mongers online are an agent they can use.

Stupidity can be a excellent tool in the arsenal. They know full well they can aim at the lowest common denominator. The fear and the stupidity can carry a large load for Terrorists. While the average brain-washed peon may be stupid, the smarter, wealthier, more powerful entities behind (often state-sponsored) terrorism are not dumb. They're calculating and smart. Even in general law enforcement, there's a common saying "We only catch the dumb ones".

Again, as mentioned earlier - if you have one actual successful chemical attack (even with limited fatalities), and then you mirror that attack with a dozen more which are placebo attacks (literally spraying Clorox cleaner or something else smelly/offensive) you can instill the same panic, and mayhem. Tying up resources, making the news, making people more fearful that they're vulnerable. You only need to prove what you can do once, and then you can cash in the fear of you doing it again.

Even now, without a precedent if anyone in this thread was walking down a major avenue in a metropolitan center and a drone zipped overhead, spraying out a vapor or liquid....what would we all assume/do? I'd absolutely assume the worst.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
A dozen drones dropping pipe bombs would shut down a city for days or weeks.

My understanding is a drone without a pipe bomb can shut down an airport for a week. Or possibly not a drone, but a garbage bag. Or possibly nothing.

The hysteria of a chemical or biological attack would certainly be effective, being as the majority of the population don't have that expert knowledge about how ineffective most of them actually are. The apocalyptic images of people running around in rubber suits and masks is enough to cause fear in most.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
The hysteria of a chemical or biological attack would certainly be effective, being as the majority of the population don't have that expert knowledge about how ineffective most of them actually are. The apocalyptic images of people running around in rubber suits and masks is enough to cause fear in most.

Yep, how many times have large government buildings been cleared out because of envelopes with powder in them (which often end up being washing detergent, etc.).

 Elbows wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
The hysteria of a chemical or biological attack would certainly be effective, being as the majority of the population don't have that expert knowledge about how ineffective most of them actually are. The apocalyptic images of people running around in rubber suits and masks is enough to cause fear in most.

Yep, how many times have large government buildings been cleared out because of envelopes with powder in them (which often end up being washing detergent, etc.).

Agh but that's the modern view. And safest, admitly.
Anything is a threat until its confirmed not.

I work for local govement and our post room has huge how to see if its a bomb poster etc. Times have changed alot.

And rightly so really. If nothing else it gives us a trip out ha.

A 'dirty bomb' is a lot more likely than a bioweapon, and much more manageable and deadly than almost anything else that could be made into a bomb, short of an actual nuke.

Even a normally harmless amount of explosives could be combined with a small amount of radioactive material to injure, and possibly kill, thousands. You wouldn't even need weapons grade nuclear material to do it. Anything thats radioactive will do. A small pipe bomb surrounded by a good amount of radium could spread poisonous particles across a huge city if it was simply detonated in midair. And Radium is a lot easier to get than Uranium.

Frankly, its only down to a bit of luck that nobody has actually done this yet.

 Grey Templar wrote:
A 'dirty bomb' is a lot more likely than a bioweapon, and much more manageable and deadly than almost anything else that could be made into a bomb, short of an actual nuke.

Even a normally harmless amount of explosives could be combined with a small amount of radioactive material to injure, and possibly kill, thousands. You wouldn't even need weapons grade nuclear material to do it. Anything thats radioactive will do. A small pipe bomb surrounded by a good amount of radium could spread poisonous particles across a huge city if it was simply detonated in midair. And Radium is a lot easier to get than Uranium.

Frankly, its only down to a bit of luck that nobody has actually done this yet.

This is not true at all. If the bomb is dispersing its radioactive material across a wide enough area to cover anything that isn't already killed by the explosion then you're talking about tiny particles and extremely low radiation levels. You aren't worrying about the radiation from the banana you ate for breakfast, so why worry about the radiation from the tiny particle of radium dust that might briefly sit on your skin? The threat of a dirty bomb is 100% from exploiting public ignorance about radiation risks and hoping to cause a panic.

Or they realized the same thing the Department of Energy realized; that dirty bombs are actually a really bad way of killing people. The psychological effect would hit harder than the bomb itself, if only because the typical person knows jack all about radiation exposure. Compare that Chernobyl was one of the world's largest nuclear disasters, and the deaths attributed to it are debated to be between 30 and 50. 70,000 people lived within the area of effect. Practicaly all of them who weren't already old at the time are still alive and doing just fine 30 years later. You can also compare Three Mile Island if you like, where no deaths have been definitively attributed to it and the debate revolves around a small handful of cancer cases and whether or not the accident caused them (of which the general opinion is probably not).

Dirty bombs are a boogeyman for Hollywood fiction. No one's bothered to make one because anyone who knows how to make bombs could just make a bigger conventional explosive instead of going through the trouble of getting even a small amount of radioactive material.

That's....a curious way to look at Chernobyl...

 Elbows wrote:
That's....a curious way to look at Chernobyl...

It is isn't it? People are pathologically afraid of radiation, but obviously, most of us know nothing about it... which actually isn't that curious. We naturally fear what we don't understand, especially when the popular image paints dreary pictures of mass death. And yet, the reality is that a reactor can leak enough radioactivity that it will passively irradiate all of Europe, yet the deaths attributed to the exposure less than a percentage point of a percentage point of the immediate local population. The link I give even spends most of its time not talking about how people will die, but rather how the irradiation of even a small area could cause public panic and disruption to an area (which are the actual danger's of a dirty bomb, not a massive death toll to radiation exposure).

 Peregrine wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
A 'dirty bomb' is a lot more likely than a bioweapon, and much more manageable and deadly than almost anything else that could be made into a bomb, short of an actual nuke.

Even a normally harmless amount of explosives could be combined with a small amount of radioactive material to injure, and possibly kill, thousands. You wouldn't even need weapons grade nuclear material to do it. Anything thats radioactive will do. A small pipe bomb surrounded by a good amount of radium could spread poisonous particles across a huge city if it was simply detonated in midair. And Radium is a lot easier to get than Uranium.

Frankly, its only down to a bit of luck that nobody has actually done this yet.

This is not true at all. If the bomb is dispersing its radioactive material across a wide enough area to cover anything that isn't already killed by the explosion then you're talking about tiny particles and extremely low radiation levels. You aren't worrying about the radiation from the banana you ate for breakfast, so why worry about the radiation from the tiny particle of radium dust that might briefly sit on your skin? The threat of a dirty bomb is 100% from exploiting public ignorance about radiation risks and hoping to cause a panic.

Sure, a single bomb won't kill, or even threaten, everybody in New York City, but it could easily sicken a few thousand people that were unfortunate to be in, say, Times Square when it went off due to them inhaling the particles. I'm aware that Radiation danger is often highly overblown, but its not something to treat trivially either. And frankly, anybody who could build 1 dirty bomb could probably build and simultaneously deploy several.

 warhead01 wrote:
I don't know about drones and am wondering why there isn't an electronic countermeasure to them is the same way as there is to IED's with things like the DUKE system, or what ever the current equipment is called.
I read an article recently about Putin being protected by a "bubble" that messes with GPS.

Dude, OPSEC. Christ, I hope for our sake we're discussing obsolete systems.

Yeah dirty bombs effects are likely to be negligible.. You'd need a lot of material, and would most likely have to be state sponsored. The simple fact is in terms of death tolls you're unlikely to beat an attack using a well made IED containing a high explosive, detonated in a crowded area. CBRN attacks have more of a psychological impact but are generally much less effective.

A dirty bomb would also be a good area denial weapon, and have associated economic costs for the decontamination process. What if that 'small pipe bomb surrounded by a good amount of radium' were set off above the floor of the NY Stock exchange?

 LordofHats wrote:
Or they realized the same thing the Department of Energy realized; that dirty bombs are actually a really bad way of killing people. The psychological effect would hit harder than the bomb itself, if only because the typical person knows jack all about radiation exposure. Compare that Chernobyl was one of the world's largest nuclear disasters, and the deaths attributed to it are debated to be between 30 and 50. 70,000 people lived within the area of effect. Practicaly all of them who weren't already old at the time are still alive and doing just fine 30 years later. You can also compare Three Mile Island if you like, where no deaths have been definitively attributed to it and the debate revolves around a small handful of cancer cases and whether or not the accident caused them (of which the general opinion is probably not).

Dirty bombs are a boogeyman for Hollywood fiction. No one's bothered to make one because anyone who knows how to make bombs could just make a bigger conventional explosive instead of going through the trouble of getting even a small amount of radioactive material.

Yeah, if you want to kill people through radiation exposure then you film The Conqueror downwind from a nuclear weapon testing site.

 CptJake wrote:
A dirty bomb would also be a good area denial weapon, and have associated economic costs for the decontamination process. What if that 'small pipe bomb surrounded by a good amount of radium' were set off above the floor of the NY Stock exchange?

What if any kind of bomb were set off above the floor of the NY Stock exchange? Radium isn't so toxic that it's going to irradiate anywhere for very long (you can safely handle radium with a face mask, some plastic gloves, and a good air circulation system). It's only really dangerous if you ingest it/breathing in its gaseous reaction to nitrogen, and casual contact is otherwise no more radioactive than the screen your reading this on. Basically you wouldn't want to take a nap in the building for a little while and that's really why these weapons are impractical and why no ones probably bothered to make one.

You could achieve all the same effects from a conventional device without the extra hassle.

As Hats said, the time to cleanup after the Radium bomb would probably be the same as for a conventional explosive.

The majority of the stuff is already going to be damaged by the blast and disposed of. It's just that now the people carrying it are wearing hazmat suits.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Sure, a single bomb won't kill, or even threaten, everybody in New York City, but it could easily sicken a few thousand people that were unfortunate to be in, say, Times Square when it went off due to them inhaling the particles. I'm aware that Radiation danger is often highly overblown, but its not something to treat trivially either. And frankly, anybody who could build 1 dirty bomb could probably build and simultaneously deploy several.

There would probably be more deaths from the panic it causes as people try to get away at any cost. And panic is what terrorists like to cause - make people doubt their government can keep them safe. They could save themself the bother of stealing radioactive materials and just make the claim in their statement and still get a lot of effect.

Not Online!!! wrote:


Biological isn't they way imo, way to difficult to reliably aquire and handle safely, no better would be chlorine, or other stuff, probably an Aerosole like mustard Gas?
Acids, etc.
Easier to handle, fear guaranteed.

Biological and chemical weapons could be injected into food products then placed on supermarket shelves. This requires care with needles.
Radiologicals are best emitted via car exhausts for low level area spread, fairly good targeting too. This requires 'martyrs'.

Were I a homicidal a-head giving orders to homicidal mooks this is how I would do it.
I would encourage drones in my community but not use drones with any payload, it would result in an instant ban on drones which means less low level activism that draws resources away from real terrorists.

 Orlanth wrote:
Were I a homicidal a-head giving orders to homicidal mooks this is how I would do it.

I'd just have them go to walmart, buy some AR-15s, and open fire on the biggest crowds they can find. More deaths, less chance of getting caught in the preparation stages.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
Were I a homicidal a-head giving orders to homicidal mooks this is how I would do it.

I'd just have them go to walmart, buy some AR-15s, and open fire on the biggest crowds they can find. More deaths, less chance of getting caught in the preparation stages.

The exercise is about using NBC tools for maximum political disruption.
Tactically you are best with a terrorist bombing campaign, and leave even spree shootings to fringe assets too unsubtle or headstrong to be of better use.