Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Regulatory gridlock in the U.S. risks losing the drone arms race

seanobannon.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 105 posts

Re: Regulatory gridlock in the U.S. risks losing the drone arms race

#31

Post by palata »

The problem I have with the idea of subsidising small drones as a proxy for defense is that they solve very different problems: Making a small quadcopter that flies is now entirely solved: you take an open source autopilot, put it on some open source autopilot board, and that's it.

If you go further than that, successfully producing delivery drones means that they need to carry a payload safely to some destination, deliver the payload nicely (as in, smoothly leave a parcel on the ground), come back and be reusable. The drone flies by GPS, but doesn't really need a radio signal (ideally there is no operator, the drone just goes, delivers and comes back).

Killer drones are "one-way". They are defined by a lifetime of like 25min, ending up violently in a place where the operators care about maximising damage. They fly in war zones. Nobody really cares if some percentage of the drones falls from the sky or doesn't explode upon contact. They need to fly in GPS-denied mode, and they probably need a radio for the operator to select the target when the times comes. This has to be a military-grade radio that works in the presence of jamming to some extent.

Those are very different projects. Feels a bit like saying that subsidising personal cars is good for the tank business.

Re: Regulatory gridlock in the U.S. risks losing the drone arms race

#32

Post by rtkwe »

pjc50 wrote: post #12
rtkwe wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The major threat is SAM and other anti air. Maybe the US's stealth or long range cruise missiles would be enough to knock down and keep down the opponents anti air coverage but it's not guaranteed. Neither side has been able to gain safe access to the skies in this whole conflict, modern AA is just able to cover such a wide area it's hard to get ground assets close enough to strike.

> Maybe the US's stealth or long range cruise missiles would be enough to knock down and keep down the opponents anti air coverage but it's not guaranteed. That's what those capabilities are designed to do ("SEAD"), but they're very expensive. And so strategic that the US wasn't willing to let the Ukranians have any.

Of course yeah, the main thing is they've not really been tested in a while against OpFor radar or AA so I have some reservations about it actually working long term. The last time they really tested at all was 2003 during the second Iraq war. Even if they can knock out dedicated AA manpads could still pose a significant threat they haven't had to encounter in a while.

If they work like they should on paper and can keep the opponents pinned to the ground under US air supremacy it'll be great but there's always that little doubt that it will work as well against a more evenly match opponent like a theoretical US v Russia/China when it's not punching down so far.

Re: Regulatory gridlock in the U.S. risks losing the drone arms race

#33

Post by lawn »

palata wrote: post #30
lawn wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> BTW, I assume that when/if the Ukraine war ends, the Ukrainian drone industry will be the best in the world. I'd say it already is.

Don't forget China. China is way ahead everybody else when it comes to consumer drones and producing them at scale. Like way ahead.

They may have the manufacturing muscles but Ukraine has been able to develop and test their drones in live combat for years. There's nothing that propels technology forward as much as deadly necessity.

Re: Regulatory gridlock in the U.S. risks losing the drone arms race

#34

Post by maximusdrex »

While I agree with the ultimate conclusion of the article, that FAA regulations need to be modernized for commercial use of sUAS systems, it completely fails to analyze any of the other relevant dynamics facing the American drone industry. There are a plethora of American companies building drones for commercial and/or defense purposes (I work at one) but this article reads like the author knows only about the most publicized one and another company they heard about on a podcast. The article would benefit from an understanding of the Probably the most major blocker for the authors dreams of swarms of millions of American military drones is the following: jet engines and rocket motors can be produced in the US profitably, the American economy just isn’t set up to build drones motors, props, etc. in an economically efficient manner. Because of this, the cost-optimized drones developed for the commercial sector will never be acceptable for the us military. Secondly, the author seems to think that self-organized systems are a brand new innovation and would trivially port to a battlefield environment. However, these techniques rely on 5G connectivity and gps, whereas military sUAS systems need GPS-denied autonomy and the ability to communicate in a heavily jammed environment.

Re: Regulatory gridlock in the U.S. risks losing the drone arms race

#35

Post by cutemonster »

palata wrote: post #31

The problem I have with the idea of subsidising small drones as a proxy for defense is that they solve very different problems: Making a small quadcopter that flies is now entirely solved: you take an open source autopilot, put it on some open source autopilot board, and that's it. If you go further than that, successfully producing delivery drones means that they need to carry a payload safely to some destination, d…

Bomb and kamikaze drones based on civilian drones are already a reality though, Ukraine uses to defend itself. Don't know why you're talking as if that wasn't possible, when it's happening already.

Re: Regulatory gridlock in the U.S. risks losing the drone arms race

#36

Post by palata »

cutemonster wrote: post #35
palata wrote: post #31

The problem I have with the idea of subsidising small drones as a proxy for defense is that they solve very different problems: Making a small quadcopter that flies is now entirely solved: you take an open source autopilot, put it on some open source autopilot board, and that's it. If you go further than that, successfully producing delivery drones means that they need to carry a payload safely to some destination, d…

Bomb and kamikaze drones based on civilian drones are already a reality though, Ukraine uses to defend itself. Don't know why you're talking as if that wasn't possible, when it's happening already.

Hmm maybe I'm not being very clear, I didn't want to write a 20 pages essay :-). I was saying that I don't think it's a particularly efficient way to approach defense.

My point was that Ukraine doesn't buy 2 millions civilian drones and use them as killer drones. Ukraine is actually producing killer drones.

If you are good at producing civilian drones, it doesn't mean that you are good at producing killer drones because the specs are pretty different. If you subsidise heavily a civilian company making survey drones, for instance, and then try to attach a bomb to those and send them in a war zone, they won't do much today. In the end you will have subsidised work that went into making a drone that can make hundreds or thousands of flights during its lifetime, never fall from the sky, lands smoothly, doesn't make too much noise, follows drone regulations in civilian spaces, etc. But none of that work is useful for a killer drone (that has a lifetime of 25min in a war zone). On the other hand, your civilian drones will not have the ability to lock a target and crash into it, fly in GPS-denied environments and a jamming-resistant radio.

Re: Regulatory gridlock in the U.S. risks losing the drone arms race

#37

Post by palata »

lawn wrote: post #33
palata wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget China. China is way ahead everybody else when it comes to consumer drones and producing them at scale. Like way ahead.

They may have the manufacturing muscles but Ukraine has been able to develop and test their drones in live combat for years. There's nothing that propels technology forward as much as deadly necessity.

> They may have the manufacturing muscles

This sounds like it's dramatically under-estimating the Chinese engineers. If you take a drone today, like a DJI Mavic. Pretty much every single component of that drone is better than what we can do - at scale - in the West. It's not like we sent them blueprints and they mass produced the drones. Their technology is first class, arguably better than the West in the field of robotics.

Re: Regulatory gridlock in the U.S. risks losing the drone arms race

#38

Post by cutemonster »

palata wrote: post #36
cutemonster wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bomb and kamikaze drones based on civilian drones are already a reality though, Ukraine uses to defend itself. Don't know why you're talking as if that wasn't possible, when it's happening already.

Hmm maybe I'm not being very clear, I didn't want to write a 20 pages essay :-). I was saying that I don't think it's a particularly efficient way to approach defense. My point was that Ukraine doesn't buy 2 millions civilian drones and use them as killer drones. Ukraine is actually producing killer drones. If you are good at producing civilian drones, it doesn't mean that you are good at producing killer drones beca…

Thanks for explaining!

I think the article says that the factories are important too, and can be altered to produce these different drones much faster than if starting from zero.

And having one's own already verified and certified backdoor free electronics, rather than buying from what might turn out to be the adversary

Re: Regulatory gridlock in the U.S. risks losing the drone arms race

#39

Post by dang »

pjc50 wrote: post #13
BurningFrog wrote: post #4

I saw someone claiming drones are the biggest military invention since the stirrup! The US would do well to start catching up on that technology. BTW, I assume that when/if the Ukraine war ends, the Ukrainian drone industry will be the best in the world.

[flagged]

"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Regulatory gridlock in the U.S. risks losing the drone arms race

#40

Post by tim333 »

clvx wrote: post #27
BurningFrog wrote: post #4

I saw someone claiming drones are the biggest military invention since the stirrup! The US would do well to start catching up on that technology. BTW, I assume that when/if the Ukraine war ends, the Ukrainian drone industry will be the best in the world.

I’m just baffled how Russia switched the frontline using fiber drones. It’s genius and worrisome at the same time.

Ukraine has them too. They both buy the fiber tech from China.
Post reply on HN