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Anduril announces Roadrunner, jet-powered VTOL drone

anduril.com

211–220 of 259 posts

Re: Anduril announces Roadrunner, jet-powered VTOL drone

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia’s war in Ukraine is about NATO being on their doorstep and the failure of negotiated peace. That doesn’t change that the US trained and armed Banderites in Ukraine.

No, it isn’t. If it was, they wouldn’t be moving ordnance and personnel from Kaliningrad and their borders with Finland to Ukraine to bolster their invasion. My previous assessment hasn’t changed. You are either blissfully ignorant of the reality of the war in Ukraine and russia’s aims, or you are deliberately spreading misinformation here.

I think your previous assessment is right. I asked my initial question because it's not typical for someone to use the word Banderite. Combined with an account creation in Jan. 2022 and a history of comments like this. Well, it's strange.

Re: Anduril announces Roadrunner, jet-powered VTOL drone

#212
post #99
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is still benefit in shooting laser at a speed of light, instead of a guided rocket which travels at 2-3 Machs at best. 2 machs is ~0.686 km/s - vs 300k km/s for laser. and laser can be mounted on a plane, which makes it even more dangerous for air2air combat

Lasers won't really be used in A2A, except for maybe intercepting missiles and drones. There's not really any A2A going on anymore within visual range.

You speak with certainty, when you clearly have little knowledge on the topic.

Stealth aircraft are immune to targeting radar guided lock except at quite close range. IR missiles are better, but are generally not BVR.

Also, at high altitude “within laser range” could be at “BVR” type ranges, e.g. over eighty km.

Re: Anduril announces Roadrunner, jet-powered VTOL drone

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, so we're supposed to just listen and obey every dictator out there now? No, you can also go to war with them. The one side wants Ukraine in NATO, the other not, so there is a conflict. You can now either negotiate some compromise that is acceptable for both sides or you have to fight this out. I personally think that a Ukrainian NATO membership is not worth hundred thousands of dead and wounded, millions of refug…

> I personally think that a Ukrainian NATO membership is not worth hundred thousands of dead and wounded, millions of refuges and a destroyed country, but others obviously disagree. Well, it has been for the Ukrainians to decide. They have fought like hell to avoid being conquered by a foreign dictator that would destroy their country, their culture and the rape, torture and murder their own people. > Which threats?…

> Well, it has been for the Ukrainians to decide

This is idiotic, it is not up to the Ukrainians to decide to join NATO, their decision ends at applying for NATO membership. Not everybody gets to join NATO, it's not some open membership organization that anybody gets to join.

Re: Anduril announces Roadrunner, jet-powered VTOL drone

#215
post #94

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…

> 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.

Uhhh... that's not a wargame.

A wargame is when you send actual commanders into the actual field, with their actual troops, and roleplay a scenario.

Yeah, there's walkie talkies that go back to HQ where the top-level generals are rolling dice saying "That unit, you got shot, pretend you're dead", and such, but war-games are a scenario to test your generals, admirals, and chain of command. And often times, require physical movement of the lowest level troops.

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But at a minimum, you're testing the commander's reaction times in these scenarios.

Re: Anduril announces Roadrunner, jet-powered VTOL drone

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And NATO wanted it under their influence, I mean that is just the game of geopolitics.

NATO doesn't control any of the countries that decided to join. These are sovereign countries that decided to join an alliance for their own security. Most of the benefit comes from article 5 that protects smaller countries from being invaded. This is very different than an imperial dictatorship like Russia, which actually does turn their conquests into puppet states. But of course Russia and its minions like to act…

If NATO has no interest in Ukraine joining, then they could just have said no and avoided the entire mess.

Re: Anduril announces Roadrunner, jet-powered VTOL drone

#217
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, fair. I'm sure a lot of people don't want the OEM explosives and would rather tip it themselves.

Re: Anduril announces Roadrunner, jet-powered VTOL drone

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Nope! It turns out there is still a need for the USA to be an unrivaled global superpower, and for the rest of NATO to get its ass in gear and modernize. This doesn’t make sense to me. Russia remains a backwater with a GDP the size of Italy. They are not a significant threat to US interests, any more than Italy could possibly hope to be. If anything, a strong America just lends a false sense of security to countrie…

Low-cost defensive deployables like Roadrunner and the related subset of military industrial complex pork are what is needed to enable that future of smaller countries seeing to their own defense.

Re: Anduril announces Roadrunner, jet-powered VTOL drone

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I personally think that a Ukrainian NATO membership is not worth hundred thousands of dead and wounded, millions of refuges and a destroyed country, but others obviously disagree. Well, it has been for the Ukrainians to decide. They have fought like hell to avoid being conquered by a foreign dictator that would destroy their country, their culture and the rape, torture and murder their own people. > Which threats?…

> Well, it has been for the Ukrainians to decide This is idiotic, it is not up to the Ukrainians to decide to join NATO, their decision ends at applying for NATO membership. Not everybody gets to join NATO, it's not some open membership organization that anybody gets to join.

> This is idiotic, it is not up to the Ukrainians to decide to join NATO...

Yes, we know.

I definitely did not miss all those news stories about Turkey blocking the final approval for Sweden.

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