DIY cruise missile thwarted

Sounds like it is a blessing that I am 1/4 mile from cell phone coverage. Kinda bad since my rollover is going dump but htat is grand theft to me.

Can't wait for real comm - pictures messages and all... :-)

Martin

Oops, I got it wrong.

I must have read that somewhere, and remembereed a garbled version of it.

There's no reason why UAVs have to have pulsejets.

Too late.

I hear there is a proposal to add a fee to phone (or was it only cell) bills to cover costs of making a locator system for cell phones using 911.

After we pay to have this system put in place what's to stop anyone with the proper codes from using the system to track movements? Reading about the FBI and OnStar reinforces my paranoia.

OTOH, it's not paranoia if they really are after you.

Could you post the ones for flight control? -- I'm interested in how they managed to do it before computers were available.

The cell company can do that now. They can locate you fairly closely just from knowing what cells you are connecting to. Some cells are quite small in urban areas.

jk

Actually, I wrote that, not Gunner. Kamikaze tactics *are* being employed by the current crop of terrorists. But they aren't the

*only* methods being employed. Just because they *can* use such methods doesn't mean that they *prefer* such methods. Use of kamikaze methods is typically a move of desperation by people with no good alternatives. Bruce is showing that there is an alternative.

As we are painfully aware, we can't ignore the use of kamikaze tactics. But equally we can't ignore the idea that terrorists may use more sophisticated weaponry, especially since Bruce has made it clear that such weaponry can be relatively inexpensive to produce with relatively limited facilities.

Suicide bombers have to get physically close to their targets to be effective. While there are always *some* targets you can attack that way, well defended targets often require the use of stand off weaponry to have a reasonable chance of success. The latter are what we're discussing in this thread.

To effectively use stand off weaponry requires a greater level of skill than just strapping explosives made by someone else to your body and pushing the detonator. In other words, religious fervor isn't enough.

People with the required skill to effectively use stand off weaponry aren't as common as those with just religious fervor. So it makes sense even to fanatical terrorists to try to preserve those skilled individuals so they can attack again and again.

The best way to do that is by using stand off techniques which don't virtually guarantee their deaths or capture as the result of a single attack. In other words, you're better off using a weapon you can launch from

100 miles away than one which exposes you to immediate detection and retaliation because it has to be employed relatively near the target.

We also have to be aware that the "current crop" of terrorists aren't the only enemies we have. Low cost cruise missiles and UAVs change the equation for all sorts of conflicts. They offer an air power multiplier that's otherwise beyond the means of most non-governmental groups, and even many nations.

In other words, they're *lots* cheaper than skilled pilots flying conventional aircraft on strike or reconnaissance missions. That wasn't necessarily clear when the only examples of cruise missiles and UAVs were the multimillion dollar ones produced by US defense contractors. But we can now see, if we didn't before, that such expense isn't necessary.

Gary

If I remember right, they used a simple gyroscope set up to control direction, and a timing set up or a little propeller ( I forget which ) that measured how far it had gone.

So it basically it flew in certain direction and for a certain amount of time, then the engine was cut off, it then fell from the sky and the rest as they say was history.

The V2 was basically the same idea, to begin with.

Greg H.

The timing was much simpler than that.

They put only so much fuel in it. When the fuel ran out it came down.

I'm not totally sure about that, because I'm very sure that I remember that a fuel cut off was involved. If it was a matter of just how much fuel was in the tank, then they would not need the fuel cut off. there is this to consider, if there was a fuel left, even a gallon, when the engine stopped, it would add to the destructiveness of the explosive and add to the chance of possible fire afterwards.

Greg H.

Yes, it was a simple gyro-based inertial system with an slipstream-driven oddometer to determine the distance.

I'll hunt out the links. It's an extraordinarily complex piece of mechanics -- which can be replaced (thanks to techology) by an extraordiarily simple set of electronics today.

-- you can contact me via

Not true. The reason the engine cut out moments before the V1 impacted was because the guidance system would (at the preprogrammed point) push the craft into a steep dive. This would result in negative G's being experienced and that caused the fuel to move away from the fuel-pickup point at the bottom of the tank. As a result, the engine would stop from fuel starvation.

-- you can contact me via

No that was the V1 (Buzz bomb). The V2 was balistic. ...lew...

I stand corrected.

A prop tied to a counter, when the counter hit zero it came down.

" When the pre-set counter reached zero .... The air hose from the servo to the rear elevator was automatically cut, a spring mechanism would snap down the elevators, and the V1 would descend into a steep dive."

Yes, a part of it's flight was ballistic, but, in order for it to start on it's ballistic course, the engine ran for a certain amount of time, in a certain direction. Then after that amount of time, the engine was shut off. Take a V1 and scale it up so that it could handle a engine from a V2, and the results are the same

Even the scud, remains under power for a given amount of time depending on how far it's target is.

The space shuttle is the same way, real fancy navigation, but, if the engines stop before they are suppose to, the space shuttle is going to act just like a V1. As it is, the main engines are shut down at a pre-determined time on it's flight path, and it continues for the most part, on course for the rest of it's journey. If the V1 had the same power as the space shuttle, it to could achieve orbit.

Greg H.

A city wide blackout at Fri, 12 Dec 2003 16:33:01 GMT did not prevent Gunner from posting to rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

In "Protect & Defend" the author has Anarchists take out #10 Downing Street with a mortar in a van, using GPS to get the pre sighted mortar positioned "just right".

-- pyotr filipivich "We don't support "guns" ... the term "gun" gets in the way of what is really being talked about here - we want choice in personal security devices." Ann Coulter

I believe it was also radio controlled during launch, since the gyro system was too simple to reliably control the thing at low airspeed and a high angle of ascent.

-- Aamund Breivik

Forget fiction;

7 February 1991 IRA attacked 10 Downing Street with a Box van parked one half mile away, Van roof cut away and van loaded with a multi ( 16?) barrel mortar, fired by cellphone. Bombs hit rear garden and wall of the building only one or two exploded. Bombs did blow in all the windows of the cabinet room, whilst then Prime Minster John Major was leading a session of the Cabinet. 9 March 1994 IRA Mortar attack on heathrow airport with two vans parked in Hotel carparks adjacent to Heathrow runway in use for International Arrivals. Aircraft where landing for several minuites after the attack with some runway damage and some unexploded shells on the runway. "several dozen' shells where fired.

IRA was/is good at making mortars out of drain pipe ( often cast iron in the UK) and used them a lot, usually out of vehicles. .

How did they get it to fly at the correct altitude? And keep the wings horizontal?