581–590 of 650 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since they are ramping up to build switchblades in Ukraine [1], I would say they are a quiet success. They were just extremely overhyped before they got there. [1] https://kyivindependent.com/us-company-aerovironment-plans-t...
I’m guessing they just don’t have camera links so they don’t make the best videos, i.e quiet sucess
In the war I fought in, there was a markedly different approach to combat air ops between even just the different service branches. The Army tended to use the Apache like it was a flying tank, hovering and delivering ordinance; the Marines (which is where I fought) flew as low and as quickly as possible even while sending rounds and hellfire missiles downrange. The marines were not losing aircraft in anywhere close t…
Attack helicopters might still have a limited role in some theaters. But the Marine Corps seems to realigning to fight China in the Western Pacific where, regardless of survivability, regular attack helicopters lack the range and speed necessary to be relevant. They might also face a threat from manned fighters which are potentially very dangerous to helicopters, even those flying evasively at low altitude. Thus the…
Maybe Marines on the ground had a different experience, but I viewed the jets, Artillery, and AC-130s as a much more blunt instrument. We got a lot of calls for precision strikes that would have been danger close, and without us I can imagine a lot more friendly fire incidents.
That said, there is no air to air defense for an attack helicopter, it’s comical that we even practiced. Without our jets suppressing enemy jets, there would be no way helicopters could operate, we’re sitting ducks.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
0 of these heavy UAVs will be able to operate in contested airspace. This is why you no longer see Bayraktar footage anymore, and they aren't even remotely as heavy.
Successor heavy UAVs such as the RQ-180 are specifically designed to operate in contested airspace. These are far more capable and survivable than anything Turkey can produce.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
The french are actually trying to drag the rest of EU into war because they lost their colonies to russia.
It's something else - a new game with different rules. You can decry/condemn it this influence-jockeying all want, but if you can't get past 19th/20th century idioms and imagery about how the world operates, you'll never get anywhere in your analysis.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But can it be cheaper? That's the lesson from drones vs tanks.
No, because all the things you got rid of to make drones cheap when fighting tanks are required when fighting fighters. You only need to be slightly faster and slightly more maneuverable than your target to take it down, while older AT weapons were much faster: so slower drones could still be just as effective. This is not true for fighter jets.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the speed will be what protects the helicopters from the drones. The drones can't sustain 200 miles per hour for long while the helicopter can do it for literal hours. The rocket motor is a good idea, probably the most likely to succeed
Nope. Due to retreating blade stall, only a few helicopter models such as the CH-47 can hit a top speed of 200mph, and then only with a light load for a short time. They certainly don't have enough fuel to sustain that speed for hours. High sustained speeds require a fundamentally different design such tilt rotor or compound.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
TSMC is building significant, cutting-edge fab capacity in the US at present
Is it cost effective or logistically scalable to have the kinds of ICs that are used in current cheap FPV drones to be made on the latest fabs?
Most are much smaller and more specialised/less automated so they don't have the same kind of production but there are a lot of fabs in the US and a lot of fab knowledge. Of all the countries, the US is one of the few that could probably survive a semiconductor industry collapse outside.
And many of those semiconductors in cheap FPV drones likely are actually fabbed in the US or could easily be fabbed in the US by Intel, Infineon, Texas Instruments, pSemi, NXP, Bosch, Renesas, Micron, onsemi, Analog Devices, Honeywell, Polar, GlobalFoundaries, Microchip, or Samsung, just to name a few non-military facing companies with significant fab operations in the US.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well your drone would need to fly faster than an f35 to catch up, maneuver more effectively than an f35 to hit a defending f35 and have a sufficiently complex sensor array to track and defeat the f35 autonomously. We have many drones much cheaper than an f35 that can do this already. They're called AIM-9, AIM-120, Meteor. Or if you're Russian they're called R77, or R73. These are, of course, anti-aircraft missiles.
Do you think it is plausible that we will see an incredibly cheap anti-aircraft missile that can destroy the latest fighter aircraft just like we've seen incredibly cheap drones that can destroy the latest tanks? Why or why not?
So essentially you can't see an F-35 until it is already lined up to kill you. That tends to make it pretty difficult to hit it.