improvised drone and helicopter defense

I was thinking today about the fact that nearly any individual or well funded group can have at their disposal armed drones. Even small helicopters that can carry a passenger of a destructive payload. For this reason and for any type of red dawn scenario. I wanted to give some thought to defense against this technology that can be improvised from readily available parts that do not form any sort of infernal device that might be illegal to possess.

I read military history a great deal so I had to consider weapons systems from not just the present but from the distant past of siege engines and such to include in my considerations.

The first one I was toying with was the shotgun fired modified bolo type of round. Most of the bolo rounds I have worked with were not much for range at all but in a semi-automatic shotgun you might be able to put enough of them in the flight path of the drone type craft to knock it out. The problem with the idea of course is short range poor ballistics and of course potential for collateral damage. If you replace the coiled wire with a multiple carbon fiber rovings and sewn together on one of their ends and then attach a lead spinner weight to the center joint while pinching on split lead weights to the other ends you might be able to fit it in a standard sized 12 gauge shell and still have room for the wadding.

These would I think fly pretty well and the carbon fiber roving would tangle up rotors pretty quickly.

The second idea I had was similar in concept but using a passive balloon launch instead. Imagine something like 99 red balloons launched all at once with long lengths of carbon fiber roving with some tiny weights at the end. If a drone is overhead this causes a potential collision with the drone and one of those balloons. Maneuvering would suddenly become difficult to avoid the balloons at varying altitudes and positions. It might be enough to thwart an attack. Again the problem with this solution to the drone problem lies with the potential for collateral damage of one of these carbon fiber rovings crossed a couple of power lines causing a fire or even loss of the power lines or even getting sucked into a jet turbine at far greater altitude.

Of course just a standard long barreled shot gun can gather geese from a pretty high altitude with some training and bird shot has very little energy once it has reached its peak altitude and is free falling back to Earth. They even have bismuth shot which is more environmentally friendly than spraying lead all over the place.

Anyone have other concepts or potential technical responses to drone attacks?

How about the obvious...Remote control planes to Kamikaze them !!!

reply to post by RocksFromSpace


I think shotgun shells is a lot cheaper but I like your idea of cheap kamikaze drones of our own. Not armed of course as that would not be legal but say a carbon fiber and epoxy constructed remote control airplane might be a good answer. Thanks for the contribution to the thread.

in your 2nd idea ... you could use lenghts of sticky 'duct tape', with weighted ends, instead of the carbon ?? actually i was not sure if you meant a 'string' or 'net'.

also important to know is how to defeat infrared detection with a sheet of 'painters plastic'.

reply to post by tinhattribunal


Sticky tape. I like that idea as it would be safer and cheaper than carbon fiber roving. It would stick to the airframe and make the drone unstable. It would also be hard to keep it untangled but it is worth a try.

Originally posted by tinhattribunal
also important to know is how to defeat infrared detection with a sheet of 'painters plastic'.

How is that done?

Now, this is for drones only. The smaller types. Helicopters? I'm not going there.

I like the idea of the goose gun.
Another obvious possibility is to take it out with a scoped rifle when it stops to hover.
Is it flying at treetop level? Pick a buckshot type. Any type will do, from #4 to 000 buck.
Heck, for that matter, even some of the larger shot might work. From #3 up to .F.
Now, this is for treetop level. Any higher and you're hit probability drops dramatically.

reply to post by Mike U.


Thanks for your contribution to the thread content. We now have a fair understanding of your anti drone technology and tactics for our considerations. Thanks again.

The real key to prevention is on the runway and the guys who fly them.

Originally posted by dainoyfb

Originally posted by tinhattribunal
also important to know is how to defeat infrared detection with a sheet of 'painters plastic'.

How is that done?

i started a new thread to share that info here ...how to defeat infrared night vision and other SHTF tips

reply to post by yourmaker


Now, that's the ticket. Drones are easy to replace. People to run them? Not so much.
Hypothetically speaking, of course. I'm not advocating the killing of another human being.