This is a question that has been forming in my mind for some time now, and today the question rose again. The article that started it all is “Oil tanker off Saudi Arabian port hit by explosion caused by ‘external source‘’’ (source: the Guardian). The setting is not new, we have seen it a few times in the last year. We all want to point fingers and blame people left right and center, but the truth of it is that the problem goes deeper and the west is largely in denial or refuses to acknowledge the events. Less than a decade ago, an attack on Saudi Arabia was for the most unthinkable. Even as we see the crying blame game, this is not a Houthi issue. You see, the Houthi’s are firing drones and missiles on Saudi Arabia, but everyone is in denial and refusing to look at Iran. There is no Yemeni infrastructure to create and optionally test drones and missiles, there is no quality control, there is no technology available in Yemen for any of this and that has been shown by different sources over the last 2 years. Even as the New York Times gives us an opinion piece that gives us “Saudi Arabia is not entitled to U.S. military or diplomatic support. It’s not a treaty ally like Japan. Its importance to U.S. security has dwindled as the United States seeks to reorient its foreign policy away from the Middle East. And if Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s tutelage is any indication, the kingdom is proving to be a wildly destabilising force in the region”, Saudi Arabia, for the most has been the stability the Middle East (outside of Israel) needs, feel free to give it to Iran, but in this, the next time they elect another Ahmadinejad, all the linked nations will target Israel AND the United States AND Europe, is that what you want?
So whilst the New York Times is slamming Saudi Arabia, or seemingly so, it is actually proving the opposite. Saudi Arabia is entitled and worthy of support. It’s events into Yemen was done by the elected government of Yemen, and that is also ignored most of the time, just like the setting that Houthi forces are getting direct support from Iran, the Houthis are getting Iranian hardware, missiles and drones. They seemingly smuggle it by all naval intelligence operations. It is almost like the EU and the US are keeping the Middle East destabilised. That is at least what it looks like, you see, for the last two years someone is feeding the Houthi forces drones and missiles and that needs to stop. I would venture that the involved parties like the price of oil to go up, up by a lot.
In this I will tell you right now that this is my speculative view, I cannot prove the latter part (other than the Iranian support which has been proven by several parties), yet the media is silent on that part, why is that?
My mind has been busy considering an anti drone option, but as I see it, the larger part of Saudi Arabia is an empty sandbox, so how to go about it (without creating ecological and environmental devastation), a setting that needs thought, because the cure cannot be worst than the disease. The Brookings institute (at https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2016/03/16/six-ways-to-disable-a-drone/) give us 6 methods, but to deploy them in any rural situation (which is the bulk of Saudi Arabia) is not a good thing, yet it did give me an optional idea, not a great one mind you, but one that might work.
They had Radio waves (3) and Hacking (4), This gave me an optional idea. What if we create a wifi network, one that actively pushes. Consider 4 jeeps, each jeep is a network node, and as you can see, moving the second jeep to another location sets a larger and a different curtain. Now, consider that the latest Iranian drones can fly up to 250KM/H, now the Houthis will not get those (and they lack monumental amounts of skill to operate them), but the older ones are slower, as the jeeps get a lock on a danger, the remote operator uses the created network to disrupt drone operations. I reckon that a setting of 8 jeeps might be a good start, but how to deploy them? I see the need to create 3-5 clusters of up to 4-8 jeeps, it gives the remote operator a decent amount of time to crash the drones far away and safely, optionally (and harder) is to land them so that the evidence can be collected. A secondary option is to fry the electronics, so that the drones would return to the point of liftoff, giving Saudi Intelligence a place to work from. This is the drones, not sure yet how to stop (in a cheap way) Iranian missiles, but I reckon Raytheon has something they eagerly want to sell. I merely want it to cost Iran the farm, not Saudi Arabia, like in Charlie Wilson’s War, there Charlie Wilson provided the Afghans with stringers to stop the Russians, Stinger $38,000, Russian Hind (Mil Mi-24) $36,000,000, so almost 1000:1, those are numbers to work with and that stage needs to be found to top Iran as well. So as I was looking into the Shahab-1, Shahab-2, Shahab-3, can the same network be used to create a false image, or a setting to fool the missile?
GOT systems
It is one of two systems, and any Go-Onto-Target missile has three subsystems (or so I am told), they are :
Target tracker
We are told that the target tracker is also placed on the launching platform, yet is that so with the Iranian version? If that is true, then we need to find a way to infect both, or find a way to disrupt the link.
Missile tracker
This is where it is, I asked the missile, but it had no sound system installed, hence, I watched a USAF training tape and I learned “The missile guidance computer scenario works as follows. Because a variation has modified some of the information the missile has obtained, it is not sure just where it is. However, it is sure where it isn’t, within reason, and it knows where it was. It now subtracts where it should be from where it wasn’t, or vice-versa, and by differentiating this from the algebraic sum of where it shouldn’t be, and where it was, it is able to obtain the deviation and its variation, which is called error”, this seems effective and simple, I merely wonder what if we could find an automated way to mess with the error so it will assume wrongly where it was, and if this accumulative, it will crash ahead of schedule, optionally in a place where there is only sand.
Guidance computer
Guidance computers are in the missile and in the target tracker, it has the same setting as the Target Tracker, we cannot intervene in time, but what happens if we flood the missile with both disrupting and false information? (At the same time mind you)
This is where I found myself, my only reference to missile technology is pointing my own missile at a biological silo (me, as a once proud teenager), I just had to go there to make this story not too serious. Yet there was corroborating materials (not on the Silo though), it is seen in Northrop Grumman’s Patent US4589610A, the Guided missile subsystem. Here I see a little more, but it also gave me a thought. The patent gives us “The IMU driven Kalmanised radar track loop accommodates the use of a high performance radar, like a synthetic aperture radar, for example, which operates to measure radar data at a low rate on the order of 1 Hz, to generate estimates of relative target and missile kinematics to drive the control loop at rates compatible with high performance missile kinematics”, I believe that Iranian missiles are not that advanced, but the groundwork matters. The idea that we have “operates to measure radar data at a low rate”, so it reads signals to differentiate, what is we mess with that instance to create a different error in the Shabab missile? Radar is basically a radio signal, a specific one and specific signals are more easily messed with, yet can it be done efficiently and not expensive, or can we create a setting where on system can impact the next 200 missiles fired?
The second system is a GOLIS systems (go-onto-location-in-space), it is autonomous and created for targets that do not move (for example the IRS building at 300 N. Los Angeles St.), I would presume a building almost everyone hates, especially in Hollywood. I will not go into all the details, but it had one option I recognised, it was the Hyperbolic navigation, DECCA. Maritime uses (or used) it. It requires 3 stations to operate and if that is so, that is something we can use. We can actually guid a missile when we alter the signal of any two out of three elements. The nice part, as it is obsolete, there is a decent chance the Iranians are till using it, the DECCA system was pretty decent as a concept and for maritime navigation (before we had satellite navigation) was the most precise way to find ourselves in the ocean, it was precise up to 7M2, when you are 2432 KM from shore, that is pretty awesome. So as we see “Hyperbolic navigation is a class of obsolete radio navigation systems in which a navigation receiver instrument on a ship or aircraft is used to determine location based on the difference in timing of radio waves received from fixed land-based radio navigation beacon transmitters”, that is one principle, there is every chance that if we can intercept and relay 2 of the signals, we can create a different error and as such the missile becomes a lot less reliable.
These are merely a few thoughts and they should be seriously considered (except targeting the IRS building, these people have lives too), if we can change the game for Iran we can support Saudi Arabia in creating more stability, less stability is to adhere to Iran, I wonder if the New York Times considered that part that they are voicing, whether it is opinion or not.
OK, I knew about DECCA from my days at the. Merchant Naval Academy, so that might not be completely fair, but this is me thinking out of the box (and out of bed), which implies that this was another day, another dollar, and all done in less than 2 hours. I wonder what more Iranian stuff I can screw up this week, we all need a hobby at times.
Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be 