Air power has become a way for small numbers of people to control large numbers spread over large areas. Helicopters in particular are capable of doing a lot of damage without risking many lives. They can be based in a small area and control a very large area. Drones have become very sophisticated and effective. They can control even larger areas with even less personnel. No one can hold a piece of territory without controlling the air space above it. This is a collection of ideas to defeat air power.

When airplanes were first developed they all used propellers. Propellers spin very fast around a point in the center. Like automobile tires they're susceptible to centrifugal force. The propellers must be perfectly balanced or it will vibrate violently and damage other parts of the plane.

Turbines were developed during WWII. Turbines (aka jets) create thrust by compressing air and adding fuel. Air is pulled in the front and squeezed through a small chamber to compress it. Fuel is added and then ignited. Turbines can be used with propellers. Turboprops are used for small planes. Helicopters are turboprops with the turbine vertical not horizontal.

Chaff is used to confuse RADAR. (RAdio Detecting And Ranging) It was first used during WWII. Millions of pieces of metal, usually aluminum, were dropped before bombers came to confuse RADAR. RADAR sends out a high wattage pulse of microwave energy and 'listens' for anything it 'hits'. It then displays the results on a screen. Chaff looks like fog or rain and makes it difficult to tell planes from anything else. It is a defensive weapon not offensive.

Many commercial airliners have been brought down when birds got sucked into the turbine. Producing chaff in larger pieces and throwing it into the path of a turbine could destroy the engine much like a bird. If some small pieces of steel were included, enough damage could be done to the props to throw it off balance.

Chaff can be packed into small rockets. When the rocket reaches a certain altitude it explodes dispersing the chaff. With low flying planes the rocket could be propelled with compressed air thus eliminating the need for fuel. The amount of explosive needed would also be small. Most helicopters are at a low altitude while attacking. Larger planes could be brought down while taking off or landing.

Aluminum can be easily obtained from soda cans. Cans could be cut up and packed into cardboard tubes. Larger pieces can be bought at home improvement stores. It's used for flashing on roofs. It comes as a long roll about 24 inches wide by 100 feet long for about $100. If pieces were cut like an "X" they would act like a helicopter and hang in the air for a long time.

If you want to take down helicopters with chaff you need to lead the helicopter with any rocket you fire at it. That is the rocket must go off in the path of the helicopter so it flies through the chaff. Modern electronics is now very sophisticated. A small MCU (micro controller unit) can have multiple pins for input output. There are now a dizzying array of sensors to guide the rocket. For helicopters you could use vibration, sound, heat, radio and infrared. The MCU could also control a guidance system. This is my idea to guide a missile. Every missile has a stream of propellant. You could insert a small ring with numerous nodules that are kept in place by a spring. They could be pushed into the stream by a coil controlled by the MCU. When the stream is interrupted it changes the direction of the missile.

I think, I don't know, many rockets have gyros. They are used for guidance. I think. But I think planes don't. Planes use wings and a tail to guide them and change direction. Any rocket could be designed with wings and a tail and be directed with them.

When flying a plane the pilot must remain oriented to the land. They have to always be parallel to the land. If they are flying in dense fog or rain or even at night they must fly by thier instruments to stay parallel or they could fly into the ground without knowing it. Smoke bombs could be used to disorient a pilot. They make flare guns that fire a flare with a small parachute. The parachute keeps the flare aloft as long as the flare burns. This same technology could be used with smoke bombs. Helicopters fly low to the ground when attacking. Many times there are numerous helicopters at the same time. Smoke could force the pilots on to thier instruments and they could fly into each other. If the turbine sucked in enough smoke, it would deprive the turbine of oxygen and it would stall.

When the Allies bombed Germany during WWII they had hundreds of planes take off from bases in England and fly in formation all the way to the target. To defend against this Germany developed flak. Flak is an airborne fragmentation grenade. When it explodes it breaks into thousands of small piece each acting like a bullet capable of destroying equipment of injuring someone. Since airplanes must be as light as possible they are not armored. The fuselage is usually aluminum and very thin. Flak easily penetrates this.

I don't know how the Germans detonated the flak. Todays electronics offer a wide array of possibilities. The grenade could be an electro-magnet and go off when it gets close. It could be altitude or heat etc.

RADAR was developed in the 1930's to pick up aircraft from the ground. RADAR sends a very high power microwave signal into the air and then picks up anything that bounces off an airplane. RADAR can be picked up by the aircraft and steps can be taken to neutralize the RADAR equipment. Great strides have been made in electronics since the 1930's. There are now transducers for almost any type of phenomena. Light, vibration, heat, etc etc. Many of these are used in satellites. If they can be used to sense something on the ground from that far away why not from the ground to the air. If an anti-aircraft installation was based on sensing technology instead of RADAR it would be harder for the enemy to pick up and destroy. The installation could be small and portable. The anti-aircraft personnel on the ground would have the element of surprise. Two transducers that could be used are infrared C.C.D. (charge coupled device) and vibration. Airplanes, including helicopters and drones, produce heat and vibration. A C.C.D. is used in almost every digital camera. An infrared C.C.D. could be attached to a high power wide angle lens and monitored with a computer screen. A separate vibration sensor could be used to guide any missile used to take down the airplane. A directed beam of microwaves might be used to scramble the avionics of the plane. You can Google "NASA Remote Sensing Tutorial" for more information.

Instead of manned anti-aircraft I think it's possible to design a gun that will produce a wall of bullets by simply motioning up and down a tiny amount. No need to go left and right. Trigger the gun as helicopters approach and wait for them to fly through the wall. These could be hidden on hillsides between trees and triggered automatically and would cut through whatever leaves and twigs are in the way in seconds. Someone would have to be nearby but doesnt have to actually man and aim it.

This is a continuation of my anti aircraft ideas. I think it's possible to do serious damage to helicopters by just putting up a wall of bullets with an anti aircraft gun. If you place multiple gun barrels vertically and move the gun up and down a small amount you would create a wall of bullets. Then you wait for the helicopters to fly through the wall. The gun could be guided by a Forward Looking Infra Red (FLIR) sensor. FLIR gives the anti aircraft gun the element of surprise. RADAR would give it's position away to the target before firing.

This is a couple ideas to stop military vehicles. Any engine that burns fossil fuels needs an air intake with a filter. Fossil fuels must have oxygen to maintain combustion. Tanks, trains, trucks, automobiles, helicopters etc. The idea is to come up with a chemical that when it burns creates a smoke that will choke the air filter and shut down the engine. Maybe something could be rigged up with used motor oil. Combine motor oil with potash or something and a detonator. It could be deployed as a mine or a flare. When a tank runs over it the smoke goes off. If you attached it to a magnet and shot it at a moving train engine it would carry it until the filter is clogged.

Most vehicles have both advanced electronics and basic electrical components that could be destroyed with a pulse of EMI. Most engines have an alternator to generate electricity for the spark plugs. An alternator is a coil. Tanks have electric motors to move the turret and other things. You could rig a large super capacitor to a high wattage pulse generator and deploy as a mine. When the tank runs over it, it goes off and destroys the motors.

All internal combustion engines produce heat and must be continuously cooled. Automobiles have a radiator in the front. The radiator holds a water and anti-freeze mixture that is pumped through the engine to remove heat. If the radiator shuts down, or loses it's coolant, the engine will overheat and sieze. Radiators are almost always made of a light weight metal and are very thin to promote heat transfer They can be punctured very easily. Pellet/BB guns can be bought pretty much anywhere and are powerful enough to puncture a radiator from a reasonable distance. They are virtually silent since they are an air rifle. If a military vehicle is left runing but not guarded someone could puncture the radiator froma distance without detection. The engine would slowly overheat.

Ordinary bar magnets could be used to disable tanks. If the magnet is large enough you could attache steel cables or chain to it. When the tank runs over the magnet it picks it up and the cables will get tangled in the tracks. The magnet could be used to have the tank carry a smoke bomb, as described above to ensure the engine chokes.

This is an idea that might help if things get out of control. Back in the 1990's there was a company called Global Crossing. They strung fiber optic cable to all continents despite the fact we were only using 3% of what had already been built. When the dot com bubble burst the company went bankrupt. The government made a half assed attempt to go after the people who ran the company but they all walked away millionaires. That network is very powerful as a tool. As are all under water cables. And communications in general. Cutting off an enemies communications is a priority. The Navy uses depth charges to sink submarines. You can see them in old Hollywood movies. It looks like a 50 gallon drum. They set a timer, or something, for a certain depth and launch it like a catapult. If you knew approximately where the cable was you could rig the charge to go off when it hits bottom. Cutting the cable.

I think it's possible to defeat sub vocal speech with a hat lined with EMI absorbent if the sensor is a satellite. EMI absorbent can be bought at any electronic supply. Mouser com digi-key Newark com. RADAR sends out high wattage pulses and then waits for them to bounce off an object. Then it receives the return signal and plots data on a screen. To keep track of aircraft it sends out thousands of pulses per second. The F-117 stealth fighter was the first to be invisible to RADAR. It was later revealed to be covered with EMI absorbent. A satellite could send out thousands of pulses per second and measure the movement of a human larnyx, vocal cords. It could then reconstruct the movement as speech. The hat would absorb the RADAR and defeat the satellite. Remote sensing is the backbone of the space program.

The picture below is potting fluid. In electronics potting is a process of filling a complete electronic assembly with a solid or gelatinous compound for resistance to shock and vibration, and for exclusion of moisture and corrosive agents. Thermosetting plastics or silicone rubber gels are often used, though epoxy resins are also very common. Many sites recommend using a potting product to protect sensitive electronic components from impact, vibration, and loose wires. If you want to stop someone from siphoning off data or voice (NSA or CIA or FBI) from communications equipment you could disconnect the cable they're using and pour some of this into the connector on the PCB board. They would not be able to re-connect it.