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Airbus is preparing two uncrewed combat aircraft

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Re: Airbus is preparing two uncrewed combat aircraft

#111

Post by nradov »

jacquesm wrote: post #85
nradov wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven't been paying attention. We are at least 47 years into AI kill chains. https://www.vp4association.com/aircraft-information-2/32-2/m...

That's not really what they meant. They meant that the weapon is guided by software that decides which targets to pick and autonomously makes that decision without a human in the loop. The device seeks you instead of you going to it. A landmine has no friend-or-foe-or-noncombatant decision engine, it will kill you or maim you just like it will kill or maim the guy that laid it or any other passer by.

You missed the point. The Mk 60 Captor is not a "land" mine. It is guided by software and autonomously makes the decision to launch a homing torpedo without a human in the loop.

Re: Airbus is preparing two uncrewed combat aircraft

#112

Post by tim333 »

jonplackett wrote: post #71

Does this just continue the ‘western way’ of spending a crap load of money on each military item, instead of getting good at making A LOT of something really cheaply? Ukraine and Iran are both showing it quickly becomes a war of attrition and fancy weapons get very expensive very fast, or run out very fast.

The Ukrainians are still getting a lot of use out of F16s and the US from their aircraft carriers. These things are not fully redundant yet.

Re: Airbus is preparing two uncrewed combat aircraft

#113

Post by tim333 »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #74
jonplackett wrote: post #71

Does this just continue the ‘western way’ of spending a crap load of money on each military item, instead of getting good at making A LOT of something really cheaply? Ukraine and Iran are both showing it quickly becomes a war of attrition and fancy weapons get very expensive very fast, or run out very fast.

Sure seems so. They should just clone the latest Russian improved Geran and call it a day, but oc they won’t.

The thing in the article, a modified Vlakyrie is very different to a Geran suicide drone. It's more an uncrewed mini F-35 https://www.twz.com/air/xq-58-valkyrie-heading-to-european-m...

Re: Airbus is preparing two uncrewed combat aircraft

#114

Post by GuB-42 »

dmix wrote: post #31
icegreentea2 wrote: post #10

There are multiple interesting developments wrapped together here. First, these are intended to be "loyal wingman". They'll be commanded (but not really remotely controlled) from manned fighters nearbyish. Presumably, the "shoot authorization" will be delegated down to the pilots. Secondly, the actual unmanned platform (the Kratos Valkyrie) is also part of a program of record for the USMC (US Marine Corps) to act as…

Why do I get the feeling that the market shifted beneath their feet to drones and these old aircraft companies are using "loyal wingman" to make a half-hearted half-way play between old/new products to stay relevant, which just buys them time to keep selling expensive jets... until pure drone upstarts start eating their lunch. Like when Blackberry tried to make BlackBerry Storm after iPhone and Blockbuster tried to m…

One argument is that fighter airplanes are becoming more like airborne control centers than actual fighters. You don't get the same level of situational awareness from a remote controlled drone camera than from inside a cockpit. And if you look at the F-35, what is often put forward is its stealth and communication capabilities. Radars, electronic warfare, etc... that's what's important, and yes, having a human in the loop is important too. These planes can dogfight too, but ideally, they shouldn't, but they still have to be able to defend themselves when things go wrong.

Drones like they have in Ukraine are more like cheap missiles, they don't compete against fighter jets, and they can't do anything to them once they have taken off.

Re: Airbus is preparing two uncrewed combat aircraft

#115

Post by rustyhancock »

mikkupikku wrote: post #83
dmix wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do I get the feeling that the market shifted beneath their feet to drones and these old aircraft companies are using "loyal wingman" to make a half-hearted half-way play between old/new products to stay relevant, which just buys them time to keep selling expensive jets... until pure drone upstarts start eating their lunch. Like when Blackberry tried to make BlackBerry Storm after iPhone and Blockbuster tried to m…

My read is that the "loyal wingman" thing is a ploy to get around all the pilots / expilots in Air Force brass who might otherwise gatekeep anything they think is a threat to the careers of human pilots. These people want the Air Force to be about hotshots flying planes; this is part of the reason the US spun off the space stuff, because Air Force brass is institutionally incapable of taking anything other than manne…

Really loyal wingmen are just an extension of jets.

Ultimately a carrier strike group could achieve many of the missions a F35 can through cruise missiles, ballistic missiles etc.

What an F35 provides is a sensory platform deep into enemy airspace.

But with the F35 being very expensive, and required to stay silent in RF to maintain stealth it's further desirable to have a loyal wingman out there.

The whole thing becomes one large sensor network with th added weapons.

It makes most sense in a near adversary situation and as it stands that particular scenario is why the F22 is not exported.

Re: Airbus is preparing two uncrewed combat aircraft

#116

Post by Mawr »

bzzzt wrote: post #90
fpoling wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Latest FPV drones in Ukraine became much more resistant to electronic countermeasures. Plus other drones are used as retranslators.

Seems they are using kilometers of fibre optic cables, so they fly tethered and communication can't be disrupted. I'd hate to be part of the clean-up crew when that war ends. Broken fibre is nasty stuff.

I'll gladly take up the fibre clean up. You deal with the mines :)

Re: Airbus is preparing two uncrewed combat aircraft

#117

Post by konart »

tim333 wrote: post #113
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure seems so. They should just clone the latest Russian improved Geran and call it a day, but oc they won’t.

The thing in the article, a modified Vlakyrie is very different to a Geran suicide drone. It's more an uncrewed mini F-35 https://www.twz.com/air/xq-58-valkyrie-heading-to-european-m...

Yeah, more like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_S-70_Okhotnik-B

Re: Airbus is preparing two uncrewed combat aircraft

#118

Post by dmix »

icegreentea2 wrote: post #105
jonplackett wrote: post #71

Does this just continue the ‘western way’ of spending a crap load of money on each military item, instead of getting good at making A LOT of something really cheaply? Ukraine and Iran are both showing it quickly becomes a war of attrition and fancy weapons get very expensive very fast, or run out very fast.

I agree that European militaries need to be able to generate a lot of mass. But we would be remiss to pick up on some threads from both Ukraine and Iran. In Ukraine, the VKS is still able to generate substantial damage (both in tactical support of ground forces, as well as part of the civilian bombing campaign) with glide bombs (carrying 500kg+ class bombs, launched by tactical jets from over Russian controlled airsp…

Using a beaten down Russia in the current year is probably a bad way to plan for your future military. It should be considered against a real target like China where all of those fancy jets won't get close to China proper (w/ long range AA missiles and SAMs) so everything will be at standoff range including SEAD campaigns. Which is where mass drones and cheap cruise missiles/decoys will be much more effective.

Using high end jets as delivery platforms for high end missiles is not scalable in a conflict anymore. Likewise most estimates say even the US will run out of Tomahawks within the first 1-2 months of a conflict with China. They are gambling those missiles open up a big enough window to do anything else while their own Navy is under siege in the process.

Re: Airbus is preparing two uncrewed combat aircraft

#119

Post by bgnn »

tonfa wrote: post #81
jonplackett wrote: post #71

Does this just continue the ‘western way’ of spending a crap load of money on each military item, instead of getting good at making A LOT of something really cheaply? Ukraine and Iran are both showing it quickly becomes a war of attrition and fancy weapons get very expensive very fast, or run out very fast.

> instead of getting good at making A LOT of something really cheaply? also you'd want to maximize dual usage (civil/military) of components so that your production capacity can be easily switched back and forth more on demand. (Otherwise you just end up a stockpile of obsolete drones/weapons)

Instead of this we have anti dual-use policies, especially in semiconductor. Any chip a fab produces need hefty paper work to prove it cannot be used for military. This is due to the military-industrial complex lobby. They don't want cheap competition.

Re: Airbus is preparing two uncrewed combat aircraft

#120

Post by bluegatty »

twalichiewicz wrote: post #69
bluegatty wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stealth is less effective against long range radar, stealth is more effective closer in against targeting radars. When you're high up you can have pretty long 'line of sight' so it's not unreasonable that these could fly way way ahead. 100 miles and way more is not unreasonable. You basically get 'double standoff'. I can see this as being almost as effective as manned stealth and if they are cost effective they could…

That may be true, but it seems to strengthen the case for moving the human out of the forward cockpit rather than keeping them there. If the unmanned aircraft are the ones flying far ahead, taking the risk, and extending the standoff envelope, then why is the human still sitting in the forward fighter rather than supervising from a safer node further back? At that point it seems like the architecture is optimizing fo…

The human is 100 miles back, that's the point.
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