- cross-posted to:
- europe@feddit.org
- cross-posted to:
- europe@feddit.org
The incident follows a string of recent drone incursions in NATO airspace.
The French navy opened fire at drones that were detected over a highly-sensitive military site harboring French nuclear submarines, according to newswire Agence France-Presse.
Five drones were detected Thursday night over the submarine base of Île Longue, in Brittany, western France, a strategic military site home to ballistic missile submarines, the AFP reported, citing the the French_gendarmerie_, which is part of the military. The submarines harbored at the base carry nuclear weapons and are a key part of France’s nuclear deterrent.
French navy troops in charge of protecting the base opened fire, the report said. It was unclear whether the drones were shot down.
Most of the countries in the western world have spent so long not really being at risk of being at war that we really have no idea how to react to potentially actually being at war. We are so incredibly unprepared in such incredibly profound ways. Imagine being in a war and not having anti-air defenses around your most important strategic nuclear sites and having to rely on troops shooting at incoming aircraft with what I suspect were simply their service weapons, and almost certainly not even dedicated anti-drone weapons. Yes, drones are sort of new, that’s not really an excuse. New things will happen during a war. You have to be able to react quickly to defend your critical assets at a moment’s notice. The fact that we’re still not doing that properly is a perfect demonstration of how far behind the curve we really are.
I hope this changes soon with the sprawling investments being directed towards defense budgets, but I remain unconvinced, will it just result in more hyper-capable, hyper-expensive techno-wonderweapons? It’s the cheap, good-enough, high-supply things that are currently threatening us, and both history and the present seem to tell us it’s usually the cheap, good enough, high-supply things that both win wars and enable effective defense. Spending money seems like it would imply seriousness, but I don’t think we’re actually taking this seriously enough, yet. When you really get serious about war and defense you need to be asking the real questions about what it’s going to take to win, not just throwing money at the problem.
Maybe I’m wrong, maybe they’re just sandbagging and waiting for the right moment to reveal our true defensive preparations, but I know a lot of people in various western militaries, and I honestly don’t think so at all, and neither do they. If we are more prepared than we look, it’s a pretty goddamn well-kept secret.
A few frustrated notes from Estonia. Not first hand information, but visiting Ukrainian soldiers noted at a militrary exercise: “why don’t you have appropriate amounts of drones? if they attack you, they’ll drone you to death”.
One part of the answer honestly seems to be “we’re dimwits, but trying already” and the other part seems to be “we don’t want to buy the current generation of sports drones, and sincerely hope that the next generation of dedicated war drones [which a random person can fly with 15 minutes of training] will be ready really soon”. ¹
A few meta-notes about the note: the local defense ministry holds various development competitions. So poorly that if I was involved, I would hide my face and cry into a pillow. Yes, companies do participate and develop drones. Local companies make pretty nice drones, some quadcopters, some medium range surveillance aircraft, some combustion powered strike drones, but the ministry does poor work and is visibly overwhelmed. In recognition of them, I must say that recently their announcements have been emphasizing low cost, fast production and potential of mass production. Of course, they’re also procuring “old weapons” (artillery, strike and antiship missiles, air defense guns, etc).
Not a small part of the nonsense that’s going on is how funds may be granted for development. Current EU rules state that for a project to qualify for aid, relevant work may not be started. That’s crazy. Companies don’t request state aid to accelerate development because they looked at the blue sky and thought “this is where we’ll run short of power and will ask the state”. They discover it first hand, at at that point, they are no longer eligible for aid. It’s a joke.
Regardless of this joke of a system, a few local companies have new air defense systems ready and hitting targets.
Frankenburg Technologies - they worked 2 years on a micromissile (micro = 2 kg and 60 cm) and now it has a 50% hit rate. They hope for 90% and more range. The bad news: it costs more than a new electric car. About as much as a Shahed strike drone. It should cost less than a Shahed, but doesn’t.
DefSecIntel - they worked 2 years on an interceptor drone, developed a multispectral telescope system and joined forces with some Lithuanian company that knows radars. The combined system allegedly works (I have not seen proof, but I trust they would not lie), has an undisclosed hit rate, and the interceptor costs about 5000 €. Alas, an attack done it can intecept now costs about 1000 €. The cheapest Russian strike drone costs 300 €. Things are not supposed to be this way.
I’m an anarchist but I’m also involved in the defense industry a little bit. I’ve tried, in the things that I participate in, to the extent that I can, to f***ing speed things up and propose really cheap solutions, but people… uh… they live in the clouds.
As for the local military… well, we don’t have strategic nuclear weapons here, just ordinary artillery and a few HIMARS-es here and there. They do seem to guard their bases because a few drones have been forced to land and their operators have been detained for questioning.
As for buying things from abroad, unfortunately I have to curse. Local idots have decided to buy so many things from a particular genocidal Middle Eastern country that I’m ashamed. The systems, if they arrive, will likely work, but we’ll be paying through the nose and have a dependency on the good will of a wanted war criminal. If the war criminal doesn’t approve export contracts, we’ll cry a river. I hope things are much better in France.
¹ My own personal perspective: I hope to be supplying some, to Ukrainians first, others can get in the queue. But my time is fragmented, consumed by old customers and random projects. If I could single-mindedly focus on the system I develop, maybe it would be hitting targets. Also, I’m forced to do test flights almost illegally. Doing them legally would invoke overwhelming aviation bureaucracy. So I go the the back woods where nobody gives a damn, fly as I please below a reasonable limit of 90 meters and try to collect all the fiber. If a local farmer catches me, I’m ready to apologize, prove that I reel fiber back in, and offer money for walking on crops. Others are unlikely to even notice, as a fiber drone system has no radio emissions.
We are underprepared in the west for sure. But that’s probably all right. One of the big points from WW1 was that large standing millitaries meant they needed to be used. Armies beget war as much as any other factor. This is why NATO is so important. The collective force of it means that we don’t need to be as prepared. Which has seen unprecedented levels of peace in the west since its inception