This is a basic description of my vision of the next epoch of war, based around the idea of sensor defeat. This vision treats the following as entirely separate capabilities: sensor, sensor-enabled action, communication, decision making, and movement. The following will focus on sensor and sensor-enabled action.
We start from the statement that at this point in time, a sufficiently motivated team of researchers can develop an EO/IR (Electro-Optical/Infrared) machine vision aimed sniper rifle capable of 99% second shot accuracy at 500 yards for around 5k dollars of hardware. The primary expense is servos that can withstand recoil.
The second statement is that this rifle, cued by a second, wide view motion sensor, preferably also with EO/IR capabilities, would be capable of locking off a large FOV (Field of View). We will refer to the FOV as a "denied zone" and the EO/IR aimed rifle as a "firing-sensor" for the rest of this document. The "wide-view sensor", while useful, is not required to understand the sensor duel, but greatly increases the effectiveness of the overall system. It would be possible to combine multiple of these wide-view sensors and firing-sensors to create a system that is not dependent on any individual component.
An important side effect of this autonomous firing-sensor is that "suppressing fire" is meaningless to it and any attempts at suppression by machine gun fire will be suicide.
In a closed environment with no neutral parties, the firing-sensor would be capable of defeating any attempts at moving a counter-sniper into a threatening location in the denied zone. In an area with neutrals, the system would have to raise their confidence threshold for what defines a "threat" significantly or there would be unacceptable civilian casualties. This confidence threshold can be considered similar to ROE (Rules of Engagement). In an unrestricted war situation it is likely the confidence threshold would not be raised and anything that moves would be considered a valid target.
Author's Note: This described capability does not exist yet, or if it does, is not being advertised. I am interested in both creating this capability and advertising it.
We are forced to reckon with the idea that with a static defense of denied zone, it is likely near impossible to safely move a counter-sniper into a threatening location. Likely it would require multiple moving counter-snipers with the expectation that it was a very high risk event. However, if you did, the aim of the first shot would be to achieve sensor defeat on the wide view sensors.
While historically counter-fire would be done with another rifle, it is likely that a laser based system would be significantly more effective, as light propagation would ensure the beam is large enough at range to blind the sensor it is directed at and there is no concern for the physics of bullet motion. Because the beam travels in a straight line, the range of the counter-fire system would be significantly greater than the expected range of the machine vision sensors. We will refer to this as the "counter-sensor".
A counter-sensor, if the location of the firing-sensor is known, can be expected to defeat the firing-sensor the vast majority of the time. If there are multiple firing-sensors, there must be an equal or greater number of counter-sensors available to defeat them all. As long as there is one undefeated firing-sensor, the counter-sensors are vulnerable.
If the location of all firing-sensors is not known, or only some are known, this becomes a significantly harder problem. The counter sensors must scan for the fire-sensors, and the fire-sensors, in order to defend themselves, likely have a network of counter-counter-sensors able to blind the searching counter-sensors. While the counter-sensors are blinded, the fire-sensors would attempt to bracket in the location of the counter-sensors to destroy them.
This leads us towards an idea of dueling fire-sensor and counter-sensors based on lasers, and the methods required to defeat them.
As described before, the primary defeat we will see is via laser. This has temporary blinding effects and the potential to damage the hardware inside of the opposing visual sensors leading to permanent defeat.
Before we get high tech, the other obvious answer is the use of smoke. By defeating visual sensors of both sides, the fire-sensor/counter-sensor fight becomes an IR fight. If there is no technical capability for an IR fight on either side, the counter-fire side will use the smoke to move their counter-sensors/firing-sensors into locations where when the smoke clears, they will have the ability to search for acquition and engage. This will greatly favor the static defenders who should be able to identify deltas in the environment faster as the smoke begins to clear. Either way, this is an acquisiton game and will be technically difficult for both sides.
Camo is good too, but won't be the best. Machine vision should not have any major trouble with fast moving camo. Slow moving camo will be more difficult and will lower confidence values. A person dressed as a giraffe might lower the confidence level enough that the decision making algorithms do not engage. You are fighting confidence values here. Anything that lowers confidence values will help.
The next step is IR visual defeat. There are a few approaches to this.
* The first is using an IR laser to do sensor defeat in a similar manner to the visual defeat with laser.
* Second is an underdeveloped field named "infrared obscurants". It is similar to a smoke grenade, but it works on IR. These are expensive, but will do the job. Lobbing an IR obscurant will allow people/robots/etc to move in the denied zone. As smoke clears, it will become a target acquisition game via IR and eventually visual.
* A third is using IR LEDs to create multiple "blind" areas that IR vision will not be able to see. By blinding an area, the firing-sensors may know there is something there but will be unable to focus on whatever the threat is. Firing blindly at the light will be less effective and may provide time for sensor defeat to occur.
* Fourth will be IR cloaking to lower heat signatures. This will likely be ineffective against a good target acquition system but will certainly be able to lower confidence levels. Remember, when fighting robots, you attack confidence levels.
This section is underdeveloped but contains notes that should be mentioned.
Ranged explosive weapons from rockets, sUAS, or mortars can be cued by any sensors and will be very effective. They will be required to defeat anything that the standard sniper fire-sensors are not able to address.
Rifles are ineffective against UAS and this fight will be an entirely different paradigm. Plenty has been written on it by smarter people, but the assumption should be that a UAS focused on sensor defeat with lasers will be able to defeat any visual ground based sensor, whether that sensor is targeting the ground or the air.
Mobile firing-sensors and counter-sensors require high quality servos and gimbals in order to maintain defeat on visual sensors. This is the most technically complicated problem descibed so far. Aiming and firing lasers is significantly easier than firing weapons, but is still a hard problem.
Manafacturing lower cost gyros, gimbals, and servos should be a national defense priority.
We are only a few years out from the proliferation of cheap, EM-seeking UAS. Any device that is transmitting (TX) live video is going to be too hot to survive as long as these EM seekers are available. Loitering UAS looking for EM will rule the battlefield. This includes radio comms and the vast majority of human-in-the-loop devices. Anything with human-in-the-loop that isn't wired is going to get destroyed as long as these are in the air. Comms betweeen sensors should be done via wires.
Developing low-cost versions of these weapons should be a priority. Additionally, countering these UAS should also be a priority. First side to kill all of the enemies EM-defeat UAS get to use the spectrum again... before that, you're going to catch artillery/mortar/UAS to the TXer within seconds. Implementing EMCON (Emissions Control) at the tactical level will be critical.
In addition to EM-defeat UAS, conventional loitering UAS will be just as effective as they are now. A UAS that is able to act as an autonomous spotter for movement and call in IDF (indirect fire) will be incredibly dangerous for any troops in the open. Similar to EM-defeat UAS, if you want to move in the open, you will need to counter these UAS first. While EM-defeat UAS might be more dangerous strategically, visual cueing will be very dangerous for less sophisticated or EMCON'd troops.
If you have questions, comments, concerns, or funding, hit me at d.m.devey@gmail.com.