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

breakingdefense.com

301–310 of 439 posts

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

#301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firing traditional artillery makes you vulnerable to counter-battery radar. Since rockets, mortars, howitzers, etc all fire in a predictable ballistic trajectory, you have to quickly move or risk being shot at before your rounds even hit their target. An anti-personnel drone can move in any direction and can operate much lower to ground to avoid radar so no one will know exactly where it came from. You don't get as m…

Ya, but the drone operators emit radio. So too the drones. They are visually stealthy but are more visible electronically than an oldschool motor team. From what I have seen, the Ukrainian drone teams have to "shoot and scoot" in much the same way as the motor/artillery teams.

"Ya, but the drone operators emit radio. So too the drones. They are visually stealthy but are more visible electronically than an oldschool motor team."

Which is why it is very unlikely, that we can avoid fully autonomous killer drones.

(if they are not already deployed in experimental settings)

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

#302
post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think we as laypeople should even attempt to draw conclusions from Ukrainian battlefields ourselves, seeing how strong the survivorship bias is. Take FPV drones. In [1] Michael Kofman estimates (based on talking to a number of frontline units) that on average Or TB2s. Remember how they were the future of warfare after their success in Nagorno-Karabakh and the first few weeks in Ukraine? Few months later TB2s…

One of the advancements against EW is having on-device mapping systems (this goes back to the Tomahawk in the 70s) so that the projectile can adjust its flight in the absence of GPS. This is what one of the real advances of AI promises to be - a vehicle that can identify and change targets fully autonomously. Will especially apply to unmanned underwater vehicles which (as far as I know) haven't been deployed but will…

We had pretty smart weapon systems for a while now! P-700 Granit and Brimstone missiles were doing cooperative engagement and target selection for decades. BONUS rounds fit target recognition into small pucks. If we squint just a bit, many naval mines, especially something like CAPTOR, are "vehicles that can identify and change targets fully autonomously".

AI is not the limiting factor as much as sensors, energy, datalinks, logistics, and costs are. Yes we can miniaturise TERCOM now, but then where would the vehicle get maps from (battlefields change!), how would it see the terrain (at night? on a foggy, rainy day? deliberately dazzled/blinded with a cheap laser?), how far can it travel, how much payload can it take, where does it launch from, and how does it get to the launch point? Working through those questions and anticipating cycles of adaptation, I think it's easy to end up with a $1m JASSM-ER or a $3k 155mm shell (neither of which Ukrainians have in sufficient numbers).

For example, if you know there's an enemy platoon in that forest, why would you fly a swarm of autonomous tree-avoiding hunter drones there if you can drop some 155mm instead? The enemy can't blind a 155mm shell, EW wouldn't work, shells don't care about fog or darkness, payload-to-weight ratio is ~100%, and they're cheap. Of course if you don't have shells you have to be creative, but that doesn't mean the creative solutions are better.

On the other hand, according to the episode I linked, humble unarmed non-AI DJI Mavics have a very persistent and systemic impact. They provide 24/7 eyes in the sky over the entire front line, which makes tactical surprise impossible. This is very much not "AI swarming slaughterbots" many seem to imagine and invisible to folks on the sidelines like us, but that's why I'd be cautious of making inferences from the media we get to see.

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

#303
post #197
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your view, does any company that does business with government organizations count as sucking on the government teat?

Pretty much, yes. Personally I don't mind the idea of sucking on the government teat - seems pretty reasonable. But when you're a libertarian doing it - I just have to laugh. Ditto Tesla. It's not a coincidence that all these guys are suffering the same hypocrisy.

Defense/military is one of the few government functions that libertarians endorse as totally necessary. To many, it's the only legitimate government function.

I don't think you've thought about this very hard.

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

#304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Innovation has not been in defense engineering lately because the US has lost A LOT of public trust when it comes to the defense industry in the wake of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The US is not the country, nor do they have the reputation in front of the public that led to the Manhattan project, where the greatest minds would willingly work on defense projects, not just willingly but eagerly. The breakthroughs a…

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…

    > I made changes that impacted
    > tens of millions of users in...
    > no significant way whatsoever.
    > Certainly not anything they'd
    > remember on their deathbed [...]
Going into defense to directly contribute to someone's deathbed experience is certainly one way to guarantee that you'll make it memorable.

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

#305
Go find any GUR operator in Ukraine and ask them what they think of Anduril

Their proprietary controller doesn’t work with TAK or qgc and they keep everything closed with no interop with the actual FPV or other systems in use daily

Unusable in actual war

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

#306
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With shovels and washing machine chips I see:) Please open any map and see. Easy way: Check Weeb Union channel. But please, be seated.

I've checked Weeb Union. I have been checking for years now. He's a vatnik, of the same ilk as [thankfully deceased] Gonzalo Lira, convicted sex offender Scott Ritter, or the disgraced Douglas Macgregor. Why are you promoting a kremlin propagandist on this website?

Other Kremlin propagandists: Judge Napolitano. Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer. Prof. Jeffrey Sachs. Larry Johnson. Ray McGovern. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski. Go arrest them, kid. It is democracy or freedom. According to the always great Joe Biden. So everyone who follows facts is a "vatnik"? Ukrainians cannot renew their passports when abroad. This is winning, I suppose. PEACE IS WINING. PEACE. War is always a loss. And when you have no chance is the only way forward.

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

#307
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, you can check a thousand videos of those bottles with AI burning tanks, BMP’s, m777, etc. Or you can continue living in the Hollywood Metaverse. My country is part of NATO. Nobody asked us. No referendum. No voting. Nothing. The political class is filling their pockets with money, while propaganda is beyond the level of USSR and Nazi Germany. Some of us have military service behind our backs. Some of us lived un…

> but know that East Europeans see clearly who is the reason for this bloodbath Eastern European here. The putin regime is the reason for this bloodbath.

So you have the facts, kid? Are you sure?

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

#308

Is Anduril really that good? I am trying to figure out what is the potential of Anduril is. Their first phase product was in observability towers for border protection, then they made drone-ramming drones and now unmanned fighter jets. I am genuinely curious. I was in the whole retail investor space since early 2010s which saw the EV hype. Workhorse was supposed to supply vans for federal postal vans, Nikola had that…

I think their biggest differentiator is the way they sell their products. They haven't made a habit of winning big research contracts, blowing past the budget, and then blowing past the original per-unit manufacturing price estimates. It's probably much easier to make a deal with a company that is able to meet pricing and delivery dates

> I think their biggest differentiator is the way they sell their products.

They still sell their products in the same way the other contractors do, though. Specifically, you have to flash a badge to even get in the door.

Civilians, if they have the resources, should be able to procure these systems and vehicles if they so choose.

I'd much rather protect my property perimeter with one of their Lattice systems than with the hodgepodge array of Ubiquiti cameras and PIR sensors I use now.

I'd love to play with an ALTIUS out in the desert, even if I'm limited to civilian munitions.

But they won't even talk to you unless you are a Pig, a Fed, or a Glowie.

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

#309
post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sav…

The catch with all those things that "actually save people from dying" is that they happen to be the same things that "could potentially kill innocent civilians". Any pharmaceutical researcher, surgeon, civil engineer, utility worker, and yes – defense contractor, has the ability to kill innocent civilians. But they by and large continue to do their work on a belief that by doing X job to the best of their ability, they will have a positive impact on the world that will leave it in a better place than if either nobody did the job, or someone with less experience than themselves executed it poorly.

Regarding defense specifically, there is no shortage of ways for maniacal dictators to raze entire cities to the ground under the justification that "bad guys were in the tunnels". That is, in effect, a solved problem – many times over. Accordingly, that is not where the research money is being spent. Rather, the goal of most new "Defense" is to achieve those same mission goals (kill the bad guys) with as little civilian casualties as possible, or to protect our own assets against such attacks as well as possible.

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

#310
post #304

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…

> I made changes that impacted > tens of millions of users in... > no significant way whatsoever. > Certainly not anything they'd > remember on their deathbed [...] Going into defense to directly contribute to someone's deathbed experience is certainly one way to guarantee that you'll make it memorable.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40160961
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