High value targets will justify expenditure of more resources. For most targets a few men with AK-47s might do the trick, but for the well protected target this would be a pretty decent strategy.
It certainly would strike fear into the hearts of men otherwise protected against more pedestrian threats, which is probably part of the point.
So how will a drone attack me in my house? Mind you my house is not a hard target but is air conditioned, so I keep the doors and windows shut. How will a drone attack me in my car? I don’t have a great car, but I’m pretty sure it can outrun an off the shelf quadcopter. So assuming I’m safe in my home and in my car, I guess other opportunities exist to kill me, but you need to have an operator ready with a drone in proximity. It just doesn’t make sense.
Admittedly, drones with IEDs can be used as a terror device, to kill someone in a group of people, but as a targeted means of killing I can’t imagine it being better than a mortar or RPG.
Ask Ukraine how they lost billions in ammunition due to a incendiary grenade dropped with a regular drone.
Someone does not need to kill you in your vehicle or your house -- they can start a major fire while you are in there, drop a defensive hand grenade while you're playing with your family in the back yard, touch you with some high voltage wires, dust you in some ultra-potent synthetic opioid.
A lot of people DO leave their windows open, and it is beyond the point anyway, as windows can be blasted away with the first drone, and while you naturally will inveatigate, the second drone will get you -- just immagine 4 AM, you are sleeping, boom the first drone blasts your windows open, 5 seconds later the next one detonates a defensive grenade in your bedroom.
This is obviously for higher value targets, but I'd say an assasin has a much greater chance of evading capture from a mile away, than doing the deed in person.
> I’m pretty sure it can outrun an off the shelf quadcopter.
You need to know you're running from something to run from it. Do you have set of mirrors or cameras to conveniently monitor what's happening above your car?
> Discussing/brainstorming this in a public forum is volunteering your brainpower in support of murderers.
If you think that you in a few moments on the back of a napkin will come up with something that someone funded and fuelled by an ideology that they are willing to die for can't with months of planning, then that's arrogance of an epic scale. This is as ridiculous as don't talk about hacking/spoofing/phishing because otherwise the bad guys won't figure it out.
A worldwide forum discussion among dozens of creative people out to one-up one another on clever strategies for killing another human may well put an effective idea in front of someone who might put it into practice.
There are occasions for discussing mechanisms by which one might construct such a weapon. I feel that this moment isn't one of them. Just because we can talk about it (and must be willing to defend the right to talk about it) doesn't mean that we should do so in this context.
> A worldwide forum discussion among dozens of creative people out to one-up one another on clever strategies for killing another human may well put an effective idea in front of someone who might put it into practice.
Got armored glass? If no, then two drones will do the trick.
> I don’t have a great car, but I’m pretty sure it can outrun an off the shelf quadcopter.
Not if you stop at stop lights.
More realistically, the thing that gets VIPs assassinated is a predictable schedule. Assassination drones up the ante quite a bit, because one can park a drone in the bushes by your favorite coffee shop in the off chance that you’ve decided to get a latte today, while it’s much harder to successfully hide men with guns in a similar position.
> but as a targeted means of killing I can’t imagine it being better than a mortar or RPG.
I think you’re probably right that an RPG shot at your vehicle is worse for your survival odds, but I think you’re missing the element of risk. The problem with assassinating someone with an RPG is that you’ve got to get within shooting-back range. The chances of you getting shot before or after starting an assassination attempt is pretty high, which means that a successful defensive strategy is to create a wide cordon around the VIP to make attempts too risky. With a drone you don’t have to be anywhere close to the target, which allows for you to make an attempt on a hypothetical VIP with no personal risk whatsoever. If they spot your drone and shoot it down, you’re only out a cheap drone and some explosives, which is much better than getting shot at personally.
Again, for a soft target this is silly, men with guns are used to hurt and terrorize soft targets the world over; they’re cheap and reliable. But as a means to harass hardened targets, drones create new possibilities.
You can’t order a mortar on alibaba, and it requires much more training to use it effectively than flying a drone.
Mortars are also large and heavy and require a crew to serve as well as spotters to direct fire which means you need to have people closer to your target and working communications.
All of this complicates the logistics considerably which makes them less effective and more dangerous to their operators.
Effective mortar attacks can be fairly easily countered in the long term by jamming radios, cutting brush and removing other natural hiding spots and by killing experienced mortar crews.
Drones can be piloted by nearly anyone and with basic consumer grade equipment they can also be piloted from anywhere in the world as long as you have an internet connection.
Mortars also have the nasty habit of drawing counter-battery fire, which occasionally leaves you short of a mortar and mortar crew. Drones are much lower risk to the operator, which is exactly why the US uses them too.
Believe it or not they do, small arms are much easier to get than heavy weapons they also are much easier to use. The cartels ironically rely on a lot of weapons coming in from the US especially as the remnants of Cold War era proxy wars in central and South America die out and they can no longer benefit from both the US and the former USSR dumping enough weaponry to invade Europe into the jungles.
Weapons don’t grow on trees, they are easy to get as long as there are conflicts in the region which are sponsored by superpowers or other patrons with sufficient resources that facilitate those shipments once those end they become rarer and rare.
Smack the back of a mortar round of pavement, and you now have an impact grenade. Hang that under a drone, and you have a way to drop impact grenades on unsuspecting targets from an altitude high enough that the drone can’t be detected visually.
ISIS was doing just that a few years ago. There were/are plans floating around on the Internet for stabilizing fins for common mortar rounds - 3D print those, and you’re 90% of the way there.
It certainly would strike fear into the hearts of men otherwise protected against more pedestrian threats, which is probably part of the point.