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 Orlanth wrote:
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.

Yes, and you know what minimizes political disruption? Getting caught before you can launch your attack. NBC weapons, to the extent that they're even possible to build, carry a much higher risk of getting identified and stopped before you can get all of the rare (and questionably legal) ingredients. Good luck making a dirty bomb when buying the radioactive material immediately gets you on a watch list. Simple bombs are much easier to build without getting caught, and mass shootings can be done with essentially zero chance of failure. If you want to have a movie plot and try to out-clever yourself you build a dirty bomb. If you want to maximize disruption head over to the local walmart, buy an AR-15, and start shooting.

I don't think WalMart sells AR platform rifles anymore.

https://www.techtimes.com/articles/79767/20150827/walmart-stops-sale-of-ar-15-and-other-high-powered-rifles-yes-theres-a-big-but.htm

Looks like they haven't for about 4 years.

They really don't.

Walmart mostly sells cheap guns, cause no one who wants a good gun goes shoping for one at Walmart. In my experience most of Walmart's fire arms sales are late night ammunition runs by people going hunting in the morning and forgot to be sure they have bullets XD

Ok, yes, the nitpicking is technically correct. Feel free to replace "walmart" with whatever other cheap low-quality gun store you want, the point remains: getting a gun and shooting into a crowd is easier, less likely to be stopped by police, and will kill more people than some movie plot dirty bomb or chemical spray drone or whatever.

Sure, but we're talking about drones. Also, acquiring a firearm is more difficult than a simple commercial drone. If we're going down the easiest route, it's actually easier to switch to the European method of driving a vehicle into a crowd. Far easier than using a firearm.

This thread is about drone applications and what mayhem you can cause with them.

 Peregrine wrote:
Ok, yes, the nitpicking is technically correct. Feel free to replace "walmart" with whatever other cheap low-quality gun store you want, the point remains: getting a gun and shooting into a crowd is easier, less likely to be stopped by police, and will kill more people than some movie plot dirty bomb or chemical spray drone or whatever.

No, it is not 'technically correct'. Your premise was someone could buy an AR and then shoot up the store they just bought it in. Every gun store I've been in which sells AR type rifles has armed staff and you wouldn't be able to load magazines for your new AR without being stopped.

If your premise is just "It is easier to shoot up crowds than to kill with xxxxx" you may be correct, but then the cheap political shots at 'buying an AR at Walmart and then shoot the place up' are unwarranted because it is pretty difficult to shoot up a place where you just bought an AR.

 CptJake wrote:
No, it is not 'technically correct'. Your premise was someone could buy an AR and then shoot up the store they just bought it in. Every gun store I've been in which sells AR type rifles has armed staff and you wouldn't be able to load magazines for your new AR without being stopped.

No. His premise is to buy some guns and shoot up a big crowd. Nothing was said about shooting up the store the guns were bought in.

Which as far as premises go is about simple and full proof as you can get. There's a reason most terrorist attacks are simple in scope. The kind of nut whose going to go out and just start killing people isn't interested in getting away with it most of the time, and doesn't particularly care about going unnoticed. Being noticed and causing a panic are the entire point.

Terrorists who engage in complex mind games and long term plans are the stuff of spy movies and the dreams of the disturbed. 9/11 was an blindly unusual attack in that regard (and even that plan was ultimately not very complex). Compare it to guys just grabbing trucks and driving them into crowds or actually just buying a gun and going somewhere to shoot at a big crowd. The later two have happened 3-4 times a year for the past couple years.

And truth be told it's easier to buy a few 12 gauges with buck shot rounds and sweep a crowd with a few friends. As far as maximizing casualties, a well placed spread shot will take on average 3 people down with 1 shot, and that's not counting anyone who is simply wounded and can get a butt-smash to the head series while they scream in agony.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
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.

Yes, and you know what minimizes political disruption? Getting caught before you can launch your attack. NBC weapons, to the extent that they're even possible to build, carry a much higher risk of getting identified and stopped before you can get all of the rare (and questionably legal) ingredients. Good luck making a dirty bomb when buying the radioactive material immediately gets you on a watch list. Simple bombs are much easier to build without getting caught, and mass shootings can be done with essentially zero chance of failure. If you want to have a movie plot and try to out-clever yourself you build a dirty bomb. If you want to maximize disruption head over to the local walmart, buy an AR-15, and start shooting.

Not relevant to the point. History tells us how revolutions and terror campaigns work with guns and bombs.
We are discussing primarily using drones, with emphasis on NBC weapons, and if drones are not ideal for weaponising NBC materials, what is.

Also you cant go to Walmart and get NBC materials, you have to source them other ways. However it is vain to assume that terror groups aren't looking for them, we know otherwise.

However you are wrong about dirty bombs, you dont buy the materials you collect them, and that can be done creatively and off radar. Case in point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn

We are fortunate this guy had no malicious agenda, he certainly had enough materials to poison a lot of people. If he can collect it others can.

There are other sources I remember a story about medical radiologicals dumped in a skip, this was in a Central American country* with lax enforcement, local children broke open the discarded the equipment and found 'tins' filled with 'glow paint', which they found fun for a short while...... A tragic case with a sad ending. Again these were children not terrorists, but the incident proves how casually some organisations view disposed radiologicals, a caselessness that can be exploited.
The tins contained radiological sources used for x-ray machines, which were not properly disposed of when the hospital disposed of the x-ray machines. This highlights another possibility for off grid sourcing, X-ray machines are pretty common, held in low security and are nothing like a government bunker technology people assume radiologicals always are, yet contain enough radiologicals to poison a large number of people if distributed by the correct weapon system. Might that be a drone, car exhaust or otherwise.

You don't need to go to a secret lab or a Russian silo to get nuclear materials, you don't need to do anything that get on any watch list. There are other ways. If a teenager can collect nuclear materials at home, and if kids can break open a discarded x-ray machine in a developing world country with inadequate disposal assurance, a moderately funded terrorist certainly can get some.

As for chemicals and biologicals. It possibly wouldn't take a lot to go to West Africa about now and get a sample of Ebola from a village clinic. The latest Ebola outbreak is underreported, widespread and in a low security environment with poor infrastructure. Easy in easy out, just send someone who can pretend to be (or even is) a doctor. Once you have Ebola you can set up a lab to grow it and look to weaponise it with few more tools than a common school chemistry set. As you are just growing it, not trying to cure it, you dont need much more than petri dishes and elementary lab equipment, plus gloves and masks. Drip it onto meat, put it in sandwiches and feed them to the homeless. Major outbreak. Not suitable for drones, but a material I can see being used by an intelligent if only modestly funded or connected terror cell. these are more dangerous IMHO as there is no need for a big money trail to get to follow. All you really need is a way past border security and casual funding.

Chemical weapons are even easier, you can get some very nasty toxins out of common household materials. Some sickos have been known to extract these and inject them into soft drink cans and place them in vending machine trays. It happened quite a bit in Japan, but also in the US. It doesnt require any great terrorist infrastructure and indeed in the known cases in Japan and the US very few vending machine poisoners were ever caught.

You have this preconception that you need a Blofeld style lab and legions of henchmen with expensive and easily traced materials. This is far from the truth. Sure no terror org is likely be be able to build The Bomb any time soon. But there are plenty of nasty things they can make that would classify as BNBC weaponry and it wont take as much effort as you think.

Are guns and bombs move effective? Guns require LOS and bombs have impact but we are used to them, a radiological weapon even if not very effective in terms of immediate casualties will have a much greater political impact. Whether this is helpful to any terror orgs cause is debatable, but soundness of mind or not necessarily a prerequisite for terror.

*sorry, cant remember where or when.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also place this here a video about where we might be headed if current technology continues as projected:

 Orlanth wrote:


As for chemicals and biologicals. It possibly wouldn't take a lot to go to West Africa about now and get a sample of Ebola from a village clinic. The latest Ebola outbreak is underreported, widespread and in a low security environment with poor infrastructure. Easy in easy out, just send someone who can pretend to be (or even is) a doctor. Once you have Ebola you can set up a lab to grow it and look to weaponise it with few more tools than a common school chemistry set. As you are just growing it, not trying to cure it, you dont need much more than petri dishes and elementary lab equipment, plus gloves and masks. Drip it onto meat, put it in sandwiches and feed them to the homeless. Major outbreak. Not suitable for drones, but a material I can see being used by an intelligent if only modestly funded or connected terror cell. these are more dangerous IMHO as there is no need for a big money trail to get to follow. All you really need is a way past border security and casual funding.

Chemical weapons are even easier, you can get some very nasty toxins out of common household materials. Some sickos have been known to extract these and inject them into soft drink cans and place them in vending machine trays. It happened quite a bit in Japan, but also in the US. It doesnt require any great terrorist infrastructure and indeed in the known cases in Japan and the US very few vending machine poisoners were ever caught.

You have this preconception that you need a Blofeld style lab and legions of henchmen with expensive and easily traced materials. This is far from the truth. Sure no terror org is likely be be able to build The Bomb any time soon. But there are plenty of nasty things they can make that would classify as BNBC weaponry and it wont take as much effort as you think.

Toxics* toxins are chemicals produced specifically by living organisms.

https://www.fpri.org/article/2014/10/weaponizing-ebola/

I don't think we ll be seeing weaponized ebola anytime soon.

I think the most viable bio agent is probably botulism, which you can cultivate in rotten meat, but even then your claim that you could stabilise, weaponise, then create a means of dispersal for a bio agent with 'a school chemistry kit' are a little bit over exaggerated.

Chemical attacks are, of the three, most likely to be used by terrorists. They already have, Chlorine bombs etc. There was also a planned attack on the London tube using 2 chemicals to form a basic binary blood agent, but this was aparantly called off by Al qaeda High command. The problem with the these, is that generally, the chemicals released are gaseous, non persistent, and disperse easily. You can defeat them simply by positioning yourself upwind of dispersal. An average chlorine canister popped in the open will disperse to safe levels within 5-10 minutes dependant on wind conditions.

Persistent nerve agents are your gold standard, but again, are incredibly difficult to weaponise and disperse.

Look at the novichok attack. Aparantly, 5-10 times more potent than VX, yet failed to kill its intended target.

My theory is that the agent was wiped on the targets door handle, but was washed off by rain or something, which affected the potency when Mr skripal touched the handle. The woman who used the perfume bottle got the full dose and died as a result.

Nice thoughtful reply.

Unlike bombs an NBC attack doesn't need to be successful in terms of number of casualties. Take the instances of poisoned vending machines, this caused wider scale reaction for very few casualties, a shooter causes immediate concern but nothing more. There might be ancilliary affects like gun control marches but that is a different dynamic.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

Toxics* toxins are chemicals produced specifically by living organisms.
https://www.fpri.org/article/2014/10/weaponizing-ebola/
I don't think we ll be seeing weaponized ebola anytime soon.
I think the most viable bio agent is probably botulism, which you can cultivate in rotten meat, but even then your claim that you could stabilise, weaponise, then create a means of dispersal for a bio agent with 'a school chemistry kit' are a little bit over exaggerated.

As for ebola, it's not so much weaponising it as merely transfering infection. The petri dishes are there to keep the cultures alive until they can be spread by crude means to vulnerable people. It's nothing like a Novichok attack, far far cruder. People have messed with disease spreading this way since ancient times. Give a cow a plague, fire cow from catapult over city walls. It was effective psychological brutalisation then, why not now. It is very unlikely an amateur group could cause more than a low level localised outbreak, but Ebola in a major western city would cause a horrible panic, the press run the story and imaginations do the rest.
The nastiest thing with infectious agents is that you don't need to spread them directly to people, you can inject animals instead. A human disease might not carry well in animals, but a pet cat that was given an injection of ebola infected blood cant tell anyone, so working on the fringe over an extended period is possible, and who knows what could happen when the cat gets home. The horror is in the attempt, it might not transfer well at all, but if ebola gets into the local food chain this will eventually trigger somewhere and the panic begins.
I dont know who would benefit from initialising this type of attack, lone nutcases and doomsday cults possibly.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

Chemical attacks are, of the three, most likely to be used by terrorists. They already have, Chlorine bombs etc. There was also a planned attack on the London tube using 2 chemicals to form a basic binary blood agent, but this was aparantly called off by Al qaeda High command. The problem with the these, is that generally, the chemicals released are gaseous, non persistent, and disperse easily. You can defeat them simply by positioning yourself upwind of dispersal. An average chlorine canister popped in the open will disperse to safe levels within 5-10 minutes dependant on wind conditions.

Agreed and evidenced. Look at the Tokyo bombing attack. Sarin is nasty stuff but casualties were light. However it was also the way the Japanese handled this and the inherent order in Japan. Had this happened in the US the different culture would have produced a far wider panic, similar casualties, but much longer term effects.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

Persistent nerve agents are your gold standard, but again, are incredibly difficult to weaponise and disperse.

The trouble with chemicals is that they are inherently nasty to work with, and they dont grow themselves. You can handle most biologicals with no more than gloves, and if you cant then it's ready for exposure anyway. All you then need is a sealed suit or culture box, you can make your own with enough tape and plastic. A culture of an airbourne plague is the right sort of thing to slop onto a drone straight from the culture dish and low fly over a packed railway station or concert in the park. The hard part here is getting hold of an airbourne plague. Anthrax is the go to plague for aerosol but its not something terrorists could realistically get hold of.
I think overall that a low key, low tech approach is better for biologicals, inject rats, pets and pigeons, or put contaminated blood in precooked spiced meat dependent on the dynamics of the contaminant.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

Look at the novichok attack. Aparantly, 5-10 times more potent than VX, yet failed to kill its intended target.
My theory is that the agent was wiped on the targets door handle, but was washed off by rain or something, which affected the potency when Mr Skripal touched the handle. The woman who used the perfume bottle got the full dose and died as a result.

I think that is a fairly sound theory. Did it rain that day?

I'm not sure. My other guess, if rain didn't wash it away, is that he didn't touch the exterior handle itself when leaving the house, and thus didn't receive a fatal dose. You know some doors close without needing the handle pulled? And maybe he just got a bit from around the lock or something.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I don't think we ll be seeing weaponized ebola anytime soon.

I think the most viable bio agent is probably botulism, which you can cultivate in rotten meat, but even then your claim that you could stabilise, weaponise, then create a means of dispersal for a bio agent with 'a school chemistry kit' are a little bit over exaggerated.

Chemical attacks are, of the three, most likely to be used by terrorists.

And even then they could get almost the same reaction just by making people believe they're about to be exposed to something. Witness the jokers who send totally inoffensive white powder to politicians etc and still manage to halt whole post offices for hours while the police call in every conceivable three-letter agency which call more experts just in order to determine that it's not Anthrax, just some flour or other white dust. Terrorists don't need nukes, disease or chemicals to do damage. They can simply play on fear to cause massive disruptions, which ofc aren't totally baseless - if there's a suspected attempt to expose the public to NBC materials and the authorities do nothing it's even worse than if they investigate a possible attack and declare it harmless! What if it's a real attack and the authorities allow people to be exposed because the officer in charge thought it wasn't worth investigating? There would be demonstrations and possibly a vote of no confidence for the government!

Of course, it has happened already - it was only good fortune and poor execution that the attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995 was not more damaging - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway_sarin_attack

It's only a question of when there will be another major terrorist attack with nuclear, biological, chemical, or radiological components. It's not simple, but it's a terrorist's wet dream, and it will come to pass at some point.

Yeah the aum attack is something I find interesting and really need to read more on. The fact they went to the lengths of synthesising sarin (aswell as VX nerve agent amongst others) is pretty insane. I believe they actually owned land in a remote psrt of Australia where they conducted testing of their weapons.. Crazy.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Yeah the aum attack is something I find interesting and really need to read more on. The fact they went to the lengths of synthesising sarin (aswell as VX nerve agent amongst others) is pretty insane. I believe they actually owned land in a remote psrt of Australia where they conducted testing of their weapons.. Crazy.

However it also was an Organisation that had alot of funds and conections into the state.

I think that ABC weaponry generally comes to often with a pricetag most Organisations can't pay and if it does not come with a pricetag hefty enough to disuade then with a Know-how requirement not easily enough filled.

One thing we keep coming back to is why do people perform terrorist attacks and what sort of attacks make sense.

I'm sure that real experts have their matrixes and lists and systems of classifying terrorist groups but from just off the cuff thinking about it I came up with 3 broad types of terrorist campaigns.

1-Mass casualties: This is the basic madman attack, people looking to kill as many people as they can with no specific, achievable goal. Columbine and some of the ISIS-affiliated attacks are good examples. For me the real vulnerability here would be something like the planned Heathrow action, only not as nice... Imagine small drones kamikazing into jet engines.

2-Short, limited campaigns - These are the hijackers, the kidnappers, the folks with a list of demands and a credible ability to threaten a target. "Let our leader out of jail or the hostages get it." They have a limited, achievable goal and use threat of force to do it. This can be very effective for targeting businesses. Exxon doesn't stand on principle, they'll happily talk to terrorists if it means their pipeline can operate peacefully. Extinction Rebellion with their limited goal of preventing a 3rd runway at Heathrow is a perfect example. They're not out to kill, just to disrupt and threaten and changing Heathrow's expansion plans might seem a small price.

3-Long term campaign: Some organizations are not insane, they have real goals and see terrorism as a tool that is 'rational' (I'm using the word in the political science sense, meaning efficient and effective towards achieving their goal). The Real IRA and the PLO would be examples, over time they wore down their foes and got something of a negotiated victory. They might at times use mass casualty attacks or short term attacks as a tool but their goal is wear down their foe, not to kill them all. For them the advantage of drones is that they are disposable and can get (almost) anywhere. They don't need fanatics willing to die, they can, oh, fly drones with incendiaries into the windows of buildings or to attack crowds until their enemies are willing to talk (whether or not they admit it).

And this is what scares me. Organizations and even individuals now have access to remote controlled flying machines that require almost no logistics. If rebels in Yemen can acquire drones capable of hitting airports inside Saudi, what might the KKK or MS13, or the Real IRA, ISIS-affiliates, or [insert organization here] be able to get?

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I'm not sure. My other guess, if rain didn't wash it away, is that he didn't touch the exterior handle itself when leaving the house, and thus didn't receive a fatal dose. You know some doors close without needing the handle pulled? And maybe he just got a bit from around the lock or something.

I don't know they layout of the door, but you can open many front doors with a hand on the key and the other holding the shopping bag.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
One thing we keep coming back to is why do people perform terrorist attacks and what sort of attacks make sense.

I'm sure that real experts have their matrixes and lists and systems of classifying terrorist groups but from just off the cuff thinking about it I came up with 3 broad types of terrorist campaigns.

1-Mass casualties: This is the basic madman attack, people looking to kill as many people as they can with no specific, achievable goal. Columbine and some of the ISIS-affiliated attacks are good examples. For me the real vulnerability here would be something like the planned Heathrow action, only not as nice... Imagine small drones kamikazing into jet engines.

2-Short, limited campaigns - These are the hijackers, the kidnappers, the folks with a list of demands and a credible ability to threaten a target. "Let our leader out of jail or the hostages get it." They have a limited, achievable goal and use threat of force to do it. This can be very effective for targeting businesses. Exxon doesn't stand on principle, they'll happily talk to terrorists if it means their pipeline can operate peacefully. Extinction Rebellion with their limited goal of preventing a 3rd runway at Heathrow is a perfect example. They're not out to kill, just to disrupt and threaten and changing Heathrow's expansion plans might seem a small price.

3-Long term campaign: Some organizations are not insane, they have real goals and see terrorism as a tool that is 'rational' (I'm using the word in the political science sense, meaning efficient and effective towards achieving their goal). The Real IRA and the PLO would be examples, over time they wore down their foes and got something of a negotiated victory. They might at times use mass casualty attacks or short term attacks as a tool but their goal is wear down their foe, not to kill them all. For them the advantage of drones is that they are disposable and can get (almost) anywhere. They don't need fanatics willing to die, they can, oh, fly drones with incendiaries into the windows of buildings or to attack crowds until their enemies are willing to talk (whether or not they admit it).

And this is what scares me. Organizations and even individuals now have access to remote controlled flying machines that require almost no logistics. If rebels in Yemen can acquire drones capable of hitting airports inside Saudi, what might the KKK or MS13, or the Real IRA, ISIS-affiliates, or [insert organization here] be able to get?

Any new technology will be utilised by those with malicious intent. There was once a time when countermeasures could be taken.. I believe in the 1980s the government bought out a company making personal parking timers as they were a godsend for the IRA and were being used in all their time initiated devices. But in this modern global age I can't see that sort of thing ever happening again.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
The Real IRA and the PLO would be examples, over time they wore down their foes and got something of a negotiated victory.

A bit O/T but I think you might be thinking of the Provisional IRA who negotiated the Good Friday Agreement rather than the Real IRA which were a splinter group from disaffected members of the Provisionals who broke away in the late 1990s. Unless you're referring to the the original IRA of the Easter 1916 uprising which the Provos themselves split from in the 1960s but who are usually referred to as either the IRA or occasionally to differentiate them as the Official IRA.

 simonr1978 wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
The Real IRA and the PLO would be examples, over time they wore down their foes and got something of a negotiated victory.

A bit O/T but I think you might be thinking of the Provisional IRA who negotiated the Good Friday Agreement rather than the Real IRA which were a splinter group from disaffected members of the Provisionals who broke away in the late 1990s. Unless you're referring to the the original IRA of the Easter 1916 uprising which the Provos themselves split from in the 1960s but who are usually referred to as either the IRA or occasionally to differentiate them as the Official IRA.

thanks, it's been an age or two so I may be misremembering.

The Provisional IRA didn't negotiate the Good Friday Peace agreement but accepted the negotiated agreement of the UK and Irish governments under very heavy pressure from Dublin and Washington.
The Provisional IRA was given a portion of the credit for this as part of the arrangement.

 Orlanth wrote:
The Provisional IRA didn't negotiate the Good Friday Peace agreement but accepted the negotiated agreement of the UK and Irish governments under very heavy pressure from Dublin and Washington.
The Provisional IRA was given a portion of the credit for this as part of the arrangement.

The Provisional IRA was the paramilitary wing of Sinn Féin, which was the governing party of Ireland during the negotiations.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
The Provisional IRA didn't negotiate the Good Friday Peace agreement but accepted the negotiated agreement of the UK and Irish governments under very heavy pressure from Dublin and Washington.
The Provisional IRA was given a portion of the credit for this as part of the arrangement.

The Provisional IRA was the paramilitary wing of Sinn Féin, which was the governing party of Ireland during the negotiations.

Fine Gael was the governing party during the peace process from 94-97 followed by Fianna Fáil at the time of the Good Friday Agreement.

 Orlanth wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
The Provisional IRA didn't negotiate the Good Friday Peace agreement but accepted the negotiated agreement of the UK and Irish governments under very heavy pressure from Dublin and Washington.
The Provisional IRA was given a portion of the credit for this as part of the arrangement.

The Provisional IRA was the paramilitary wing of Sinn Féin, which was the governing party of Ireland during the negotiations.

Fine Gael was the governing party during the peace process from 94-97 followed by Fianna Fáil at the time of the Good Friday Agreement.

Ah, you're right. Still, Sinn Fein was a part of the negotiations. In fact it was the removal of Sinn Fein by Major under pressure from the DUP that ended the 1997 ceasefire. When Blair got in and wasn't reliant on the DUP for votes, SInn Fein came back and the agreement was reached.