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US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

arstechnica.com

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Re: US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

#21

Post by Matl »

ryandvm wrote: post #8
exabrial wrote: post #3

The defense industry has spent the last 40+ years grooming the DoD into thinking it costs $30mil/unit to produce missiles and drones. They should have rejected any of the bids, but being fueled by massively excessive taxes in the USA, they don't have to answer to any sort of efficiency or profitability. These things should cost less than a Toyota Camry.

The purpose of a system is what it does. It costs $30M/unit because our trillion dollar defense budget is mostly just a jobs program (25%) and wealth transfer apparatus (75%). Killing people is just a side effect.

> Killing people is just a side effect

That budget and wealth transfer requires the US Dollar to remain the world's reserve currency. A lot of the killing has to do with ensuring it remains that way.

Re: US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

#22

Post by matwood »

pixl97 wrote: post #12
freedomben wrote: post #2

I worked on the control systems for Predators and Reapers back in the mid and late 00s, and the inefficiencies around process were enormous. Safety is extremely important, so you expect some slowness as a result, but it got pretty extreme. I remember one time having to do 6 weeks of testing around a one-line code change because a "helpful" dev fixed a small bug that had no practical impact. Yet because it changed the…

Life critical software that gets visibility by congress tends to be a very bureaucratic process. Your boss doesn't want your commit being the one that causes a worldwide diplomatic issue. I assume that smaller/cheaper drones avoid a lot of this because the stakes aren't near as high and quite a bit of the development occurs in private industry first.

> visibility by congress tends to be a very bureaucratic process

See also SpaceX vs. NASA. No way would NASA have been allowed to blow up as many rockets as SpaceX did to finally get to their working solution.

Re: US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

#23

Post by pixl97 »

ck2 wrote: post #4

there's a better way for 100% savings just completely exit like Afghanistan and remember all this military hardware eventually ends up in the hands of police departments domestically, next decade is going to be wild $21 TRILLION spent on militarization 2001-2021 * https://ips-dc.org/report-state-of-insecurity-cost-militariz... imagine how much by 2031, at least double ps. they are still executing fishermen without tr…

>just completely exit like Afghanistan

We can't just completely exit Iran without a time machine. Dufus Donny attempting to escape his Epstein folly by kicking the hornet's nest and now Iran holds the gulf hostage for as long as they want.

Re: US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

#24

Post by herry6 »

ck2 wrote: post #4

there's a better way for 100% savings just completely exit like Afghanistan and remember all this military hardware eventually ends up in the hands of police departments domestically, next decade is going to be wild $21 TRILLION spent on militarization 2001-2021 * https://ips-dc.org/report-state-of-insecurity-cost-militariz... imagine how much by 2031, at least double ps. they are still executing fishermen without tr…

[flagged]

Re: US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

#25

Post by swiftcoder »

> The Defense Innovation Unit notice called for drones capable of carrying many different sensor and weapons payloads up to 2,800 pounds and flying with a combat radius of at least 2,300 nautical miles—or 8,000 nautical miles on a one-way strike mission—while executing the same missions that the MQ-9A Reaper drone currently performs for the US military

I feel like they might be taking the wrong lesson from this. The Reaper costs $30-50 million precisely because its mission profile is to deliver 3,500 pounds of payload over 1,000 nautical mile radius.

The cheap Iranian and Ukrainian drones these are increasingly competing with are only delivering 50-100kg of payload - which is plenty to blow shit up, and doesn't require a big, expensive, reusable airframe.

Re: US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

#26

Post by dataviz1000 »

There are ~350,000,000 of us. When I read we spent $1B, I think about how I'm responsible for $3 of that. It doesn't matter considering the ~$117,550 of the national debt I'm responsible for. It palls compared to the $3,000 a year in interest towards the national debt I'm responsible for.

What boggles my mind is that I make coffee at home because I'm frugal. I guess it is good the government and DoD are seeking cheaper alternatives also.

My favorite interview question: If I gave you a swarm of autonomous drones, what would you do with them?

There is a group in South Florida who stand watch over turtle nests on the beach to ensure the hatchlings make it to the ocean instead of instinctively moving towards the street lamps or the bright hotels. I would use drones to hover over the nests to detect if the turtles hatch so people don't have to stand there.

What would you do?

Re: US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

#27

Post by newaccount670 »

exabrial wrote: post #3

The defense industry has spent the last 40+ years grooming the DoD into thinking it costs $30mil/unit to produce missiles and drones. They should have rejected any of the bids, but being fueled by massively excessive taxes in the USA, they don't have to answer to any sort of efficiency or profitability. These things should cost less than a Toyota Camry.

If you think you can produce them for cheaper, you could make yourself a lot of money and save taxpayers a lot of money by starting your own company.

Re: US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

#28

Post by mrtksn »

I’m no military expert by any means but US appears to be obsessed with destroying some super important target to win, like they did with killing Iran leaders only to find out that new leader replace the perished.

The same with the other stuff, they have super important radar and super important ships that need to be defended and a failure creates irreplaceable loses. Iran on the other hand, just like with their super important leaders lost all its “super weapons” like destroyers and the drone ships and yet again brought USA to its knees.

Maybe USA has more fundamental problems, not just drones. Maybe the problem is the obsession of wonderweapons for destroying wondertargets.

It is fascinating that there are so many movies revolving around the US president, as if he has some ability that no one has and you can’t simply elect a new one if the enemy gets him.

Maybe the desire for concentration of power and seeing everything through that lens is the issue?

Re: US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

#29

Post by newaccount670 »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #20
ck2 wrote: post #4

there's a better way for 100% savings just completely exit like Afghanistan and remember all this military hardware eventually ends up in the hands of police departments domestically, next decade is going to be wild $21 TRILLION spent on militarization 2001-2021 * https://ips-dc.org/report-state-of-insecurity-cost-militariz... imagine how much by 2031, at least double ps. they are still executing fishermen without tr…

> ps. they are still executing fishermen without trial off Oh. You should have started with this.

The fact that this person thinks the Afghanistan exit was a success should have let you know he is a crackpot well before the last sentence.

Re: US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

#30

Post by mountainb »

hvb2 wrote: post #7
exabrial wrote: post #3

The defense industry has spent the last 40+ years grooming the DoD into thinking it costs $30mil/unit to produce missiles and drones. They should have rejected any of the bids, but being fueled by massively excessive taxes in the USA, they don't have to answer to any sort of efficiency or profitability. These things should cost less than a Toyota Camry.

> but being fueled by massively excessive taxes in the USA Not excessive taxes, a political choice to spend a lot of the revenue on defense. And anyone who wants to reduce military spending will get asked: "Don't you support our troops?" And that'll be the end of that

Taxes in the US go to a cluster of major items. Medicare, other medical, Social Security, interest, VA benefits and veteran's medical care, federal spending on the indigent or disabled, and Defense. Those together are 94% of annual federal spending.

None of that spending is subject to that much debate; all the remaining "debate" is over the remaining 6%.

I don't think defense is really as discretionary as it seems. A lot of it is effectively bribing and menacing trading partners to keep trading with the US on favorable terms through cash transfers, provision of military equipment, training, and mutual defense pacts among other diplomatic agreements.

Japan didn't just decide on its own free will to become a pacifist country dedicated to exporting cheap, high-quality manufactured goods to the United States. General MacArthur did that.

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