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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Loads of stuff like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hornet_Nano The defence industry in the EU is just is less ra-ra jingoism mixed with SV hype in comparison.
Perhaps the EU could do with some ra-ra jingoism!
I've watched more than a few videos of jet-powered RC aircraft, and they are scary fast. So it shouldn't be a surprise for the performance of a craft like this.
Anduril is one of these companies I would leave my own startup for to work for. I love what they are doing.
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.
A lot of people will argue that defense companies want wars to break out to increase their business, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true. In wartime, the military mostly needs cheap commodities—ammunition, supplies, food, fuel—nothing you can really differentiate on. And especially the most recent wars have mostly been against poorly armed terrorists, when the defense industry makes a lot more money selling weapons that would be total overkill against the Taliban but potentially useful against Russia or China.
Anduril is one of these companies I would leave my own startup for to work for. I love what they are doing.
What is good about this company is that we build things fast and there's not of lot of slacking going on that you see in most of the defense industry. We make things fast and cheap, but they're very poor quality.
To give one example take a look at our counter UAS:
https://www.anduril.com/capability/counter-uas/
Watch the video it will give you chills. What the video won't show is how ineffective this product is. The enemy sends one drone, maybe it will work. If the enemy sends 3 or 4 we're done. This shit barely works, I wouldn't trust my life with it at all. All tests and demonstrations showed utter failure and STILL even though we failed on all the tests we STILL got a contract from the government. There's for sure money changing hands behind the scenes.
It also doesn't show you how crappy the UI is. You think we have a custom UI device to control this thing? No. It's react running in chrome on windows. It's also really poorly designed. The initial UI was made by some kid straight out of school and it was just poorly optimized. And despite this... The government still bought it, simply because a crap product is the only available option.
And to be real with you, we can't beat China tech. In terms of the quality, price and speed ratio, China dominates anduril by a landslide. The US can dominate on quality, but we we give up speed and price as a result. And if you want quality, anduril is not at the forefront of this at all.
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.
I get where you are coming from. In the last two decades, the USA and allies have spent trillions of dollars increasing the suffering and death in Iraq and Afghanistan, and didn't even gain much geopolitical advantage in return. A giant waste of time, money, and human life. Had we not invaded them, there might be a million more Iraqis alive today. Afghanistan would still be a failed state though. The 2014 invasion of…
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 superson…
> What often decides the outcomes of battles are the accuracy of ships’ air defenses and how many missiles they have onboard. I always do wonder how realistic these war games actually are? They (at least the war games that are public) always assume at least one or both sides are near 100% competent with their systems. The Ukraine war has at least showed that that is not the case, the best example perhaps being the si…
Where is the UK/EU equivalent of Anduril? Seems this "neo-defense" revolution is a US only phenomenon.