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Anduril announces Roadrunner, jet-powered VTOL drone

anduril.com

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Re: Anduril announces Roadrunner, jet-powered VTOL drone

#51

Post by grogenaut »

Fabricio20 wrote: post #45
brotchie wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too complicated. My understanding is that you have an defensive area with ~20 of the hangers scattered around. 1. !!Incoming threat!! 2. LAUNCH ALL THE DRONES, 3. One intercepts, 4. Other loiter a while in case of additional threats, 5. Remaining drones return to base. Get the operational advantage of having many vehicles in the air, all controllable by one operator, but you recover those not used.

I guess this is the best scenario for this as far as I can tell, but as another commenter mentioned, how is this better than standard small missiles such as a normal "Iron Dome" style system? Having them "in the air" waiting doesn't seem to be that big of a help when your missile launcher can have the rocket in the air about as fast after an intercept command is issued. And small missiles are and will continue to get…

further you'd want to inspect them all after recovery, fix breakages, and refuel them. or as you say, just sabot one out into the sky and have it chase or die.

Re: Anduril announces Roadrunner, jet-powered VTOL drone

#52

Post by jacquesm »

remarkEon wrote: post #24

So the emergency services use-cases seem obvious and straightforward, but rare. Can't be that big of a market for that, at least for repeat customers. Maybe I'm missing something, but I'd figure that those emergency services organizations would buy 2-3 and keep one in the field and the balance in inventory. The armed HE variant, that one does not seem that straightforward to me because I don't quite see how this is b…

It could loiter on the ground, relaunch and hit a target that never saw it coming because it wasn't airborne except for the last little bit.

Re: Anduril announces Roadrunner, jet-powered VTOL drone

#53

Post by xyzzyz »

poof131 wrote: post #49

I want missile trucks. That launch from submarines. Can carry AMRAAM, SLAM, JSOW, etc. Can land in the water and be recovered by the submarine and launched for more missile truck missions. I’d war-game this against super duper expensive jets, carriers, etc. Maybe even the subs can be autonomous and run off AI.

> Maybe even the subs can be autonomous and run off AI.

https://www.anduril.com/hardware/dive-ld/

Re: Anduril announces Roadrunner, jet-powered VTOL drone

#54

Post by gantron »

justrealist wrote: post #10
roamerz wrote: post #8

Weapons systems used to be pretty hush hush. I wonder how much of the information you see these days is propaganda designed to mislead.

It's only hush if it's already exclusively contracted to the DoD. If you're trying to sell a system, you were always hyping it up.

This really isn’t to sell any Roadrunners. Anduril has surely been talking to the right program offices and relevant government entities for some time now.

This is more to establish the company’s general credibility & draw in new talent.

Re: Anduril announces Roadrunner, jet-powered VTOL drone

#55

Post by megous »

goalonetwo wrote: post #47

The whole defense industry leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Once you peel the narrative that we are supposed to be the good guys (hint: in some/most cases, we are not), you realize that you really just help to kill people.

Autonomous killing with good UI/UX is the future, you know...

"Human operator supervises autonomous mission execution with intuitive UI/UX to enable increased understanding and decision advantage ."

https://www.anduril.com/mission-autonomy/

When AI assisted mass target selection is already a thing:

https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-cal...

Autonomous killing tools are an obvious next step.

Re: Anduril announces Roadrunner, jet-powered VTOL drone

#57

Post by qup »

charcircuit wrote: post #48
xyzzyz wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of "release" are you talking about? You mean when it hits the shelves of Bass Pro Shops?

>What kind of "release" are you talking about? When people are able to buy it. >You mean when it hits the shelves of Bass Pro Shops? I would expect an online shop like most specialty goods.

For a drone tipped with high explosives?

I gotta know, what kind of online shops do you frequent?

Re: Anduril announces Roadrunner, jet-powered VTOL drone

#58

Post by baron816 »

I’ve been watching a bunch of these videos where they war game realistic and pretty far fetched battle scenarios https://youtube.com/@grimreapers?si=lvRNWBee9RfnkxBI. They’ll cover stuff like a Chinese carrier group vs a US carrier group using slightly futuristic weapons. What often decides the outcomes of battles are the accuracy of ships’ air defenses and how many missiles they have onboard.

Shooting down supersonic, hypersonic, and stealth missiles is hard. You may need to fire multiple anti-air missile just to hit one attacking anti-ship missile. But doing so depletes your magazine faster and it can just come down to who has more ammo.

If you’re able to fire a couple anti-air missiles, and then recover the ones that miss, or have them loiter and acquire a new target, I could see that as being an advantage.

Re: Anduril announces Roadrunner, jet-powered VTOL drone

#59

Post by remarkEon »

jacquesm wrote: post #52
remarkEon wrote: post #24

So the emergency services use-cases seem obvious and straightforward, but rare. Can't be that big of a market for that, at least for repeat customers. Maybe I'm missing something, but I'd figure that those emergency services organizations would buy 2-3 and keep one in the field and the balance in inventory. The armed HE variant, that one does not seem that straightforward to me because I don't quite see how this is b…

It could loiter on the ground , relaunch and hit a target that never saw it coming because it wasn't airborne except for the last little bit.

Good point. In addition to that, it could loiter mobile on the ground. Put a Nest in the back of a JLTV.

Re: Anduril announces Roadrunner, jet-powered VTOL drone

#60

Post by charcircuit »

qup wrote: post #57
charcircuit wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What kind of "release" are you talking about? When people are able to buy it. >You mean when it hits the shelves of Bass Pro Shops? I would expect an online shop like most specialty goods.

For a drone tipped with high explosives? I gotta know, what kind of online shops do you frequent?

I would expect the explosives to be sold separately. So it's more like buying a drone equipped with jet engines.
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