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Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

breakingdefense.com

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Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

#291

Post by labrador »

SushiHippie wrote: post #144
labrador wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case you haven't noticed, there's a pretty serious drone war going on right now and Anduril makes drones. With the new US defense package they stand to get some business, among other reasons for them to be in the news.

Okay sorry, I'm not from the US and sometimes I think I live behind the moon. Do you mean with drone war, the usage of drones in a war (like they do in Ukraine and middle east) or a 'war' between manufacturers?

All of the above. Drones have changed the face of war, like the introduction of the machine gun or airplane changed war.

Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

#292

Post by tomjakubowski »

kube-system wrote: post #285
justin66 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems just completely wrong. The trend for drones is that features and capabilities are increasing and costs are decreasing because they're based on cheap software and cheap consumer hardware. The trend for unguided mortar rounds or artillery shells is that they're as cheap as they're ever likely to be at thousands of dollars a round, plus the cost of the gun and its replacement barrels and crew. (guided artille…

Aren't these "cheap" drones tens to hundreds of thousands each? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HESA_Shahed_136

in Ukraine the FPV infantry killers are modified hobbyist drones, in the ~$500 range

the economist: https://www.economist.com/interactive/science-and-technology... https://archive.is/nJYJ0

Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

#293

Post by daedrdev »

sandworm101 wrote: post #208

They are pilotless. Ok. That is one job that has been removed from the equation, but take a look at any airforce base. Not everyone is a pilot. The vast majority of personnel are not pilots. These things will still need the engine techs, the avionics people, the ground crew, fuel people, air traffic controllers, all the way down to the guy driving the mule. The net change in manning between an "autonomous" drone and…

The point is the maneuvers can be much more extreme because the done doesn't need to prevent a bag of meat from rupturing due to high g forces.

Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

#294

Post by acjohnson55 »

Reading the comments here is giving me the disturbing realization that the war in Ukraine is extremely valuable to the US because the US gets to collect immense amounts of data to inform perspectives on how modern technology is revolutionizing warfare with minimal risk to American troops. And that's with technology in the hands of an extremely motivated ally against one of our top rivals. This opportunity doesn't come very often, and I can imagine there are a lot of parties interested in it persisting at least until the value in the observational data starts to tail off. Along with other concerns, this may be a reason to parcel out exactly what tech gets given to Ukraine at which times.

Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

#295

Post by adhamsalama »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #259
gnatman wrote: post #245

I guess autonomous platforms are exciting to defense procurement and war planners because they can use them much more aggressively in theatre without risking expensive pilots. It's hard not to think of the recent reporting on the "Lavender" AI targeting system and how these two ideas combined will lead to more indiscriminate killing of civilians. What's the calculus for human American pilot lives to collateral civili…

Collateral damage should be at historic lows with an ai army. Fly a swarm like birds over a city, identify your target, and you can selectively eliminate that target with a single bullet from the drone. Sure beats filling the sky with bombers and flattening a city overnight as was done in wwii.

Israel did flatten Gaza. They don't care about killing innocent civilians.

Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

#297

Post by bmitc »

How does a company like Anduril come out of nowhere to scale so fast, get so much money, and so many contracts in a very entrenched field of government defense contracts? Yes, they're bringing modern industry experience to these things, but I don't see that as enough to break through all the barriers that are there. How have they done it?

Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

#298

Post by mingus88 »

bmitc wrote: post #297

How does a company like Anduril come out of nowhere to scale so fast, get so much money, and so many contracts in a very entrenched field of government defense contracts? Yes, they're bringing modern industry experience to these things, but I don't see that as enough to break through all the barriers that are there. How have they done it?

Andruil is a bunch of ex-Palantir folk.

Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

#299

Post by putridmetal »

qarl wrote: post #284
beastman82 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about equal but Luckey has achieved some pretty impressive things by age 31. I think people are blinded by his political activity.

> I don't know about equal but Luckey has achieved some pretty impressive things by age 31. Having interacted with Luckey in a number of unpleasant ways, I think we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Don't tease me with that cliffhanger. Throw me some breadcrumbs. Do tell.

Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

#300

Post by bmitc »

potatoman22 wrote: post #240
basil-rash wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also went to a/the top CS school. When I graduated I would have never considered working at a defense company. Now, after bouncing around big tech and startups for a few years, I am a few days away from accepting a position at one. What changed? Appreciation for how entirely insignificant to downright harmful the rest of the industry is, perhaps. I made changes that impacted tens of millions of users in... no signi…

The defense industry isn't just "defense" against bad people. Is it better to optimize the colors of buttons, or work on projects that could potentially kill innocent civilians?

There are lots of things in the public sector that also kill people, unfortunately. While often less indirect or over time, companies simply trying to make a buck (be capitalist) have led to products, processes, trends, etc. that have killed a lot of people over time.

I think the conclusion is that there is very little justified technology development that actually betters society, except for things that actually save people from dying. Things like healthcare, utilities, civil engineering, defense, etc. However, almost all of those industries are mired in bureaucracy and are the ultimate examples of such.

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