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.
Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets
321–330 of 439 posts
Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets
#322Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd believe that if we won the wars instead of losing them all. This is just looting.
South Korea's doing pretty well. Germany's in one piece. The Balkans aren't on fire. Granted, the Middle East is still its perpetual religious/sectarian/ethnic clusterfuck...
Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets
#323Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you please elaborate which part of the comment you are refuting?
if it was not more effective than existing options, both sides would not be scaling production and deployment at an unparalleled rate
The 10% estimate is not mine, it's from a legitimate expert who regularly goes to the frontline in Ukraine.
[1]: An amusing anecdote from that podcast: Tesla battery packs are a big source of batteries for FPV drones. The packs can be sourced for next to nothing from totaled Teslas, and individual cells are very reliable.
[2]: https://www.twz.com/ukrainians-are-cutting-open-u-s-cluster-...
[3]: https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/04/17/ukraine-frontline-ammo-...
Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We'll see what things look like once the post-drone evolution cycle has turned on the armored side I'm not convinced this is feasible in the short term; drone warfare is predicated on launching not just cheap drones but many of them. The new armor isn't steel or iron to survive the blast, but to shoot down attacking drones before they can explode. Most current defenses are ground-based missile batteries that can't…
It's already being done. Check out these Russian improvised "Turtle Tanks"[1]. A big, light, metal canopy to keep drones from exploding next to the tank. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDfkwlMaK7g
Ukraine hunted that tank down and destroyed it by drone, btw.
Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets
#325It's impressive how much hardware they've been able to develop. Their "Fury", which they acquired from Blue Force, is "a single engine business jet with no cabin." It was originally intended as a target drone, something for fighter pilots to practice against. Anduril repurposed it as an autonomous weapons system. They do mean autonomous. Their slogan is "Autonomy for Every Mission". We're seeing the future of warfare…
Just remember that, unless your goal is just to kill everyone and scorch the earth, the aim of warfare is to occupy and control territory, which at some point necessitates humans to do the occupation. Nobody is yet trying to create permanent wastelands inhabited only by robots. It may become increasingly dangerous, but whether it's helicopters or some other means of transportation, you have to get humans into the lan…
On the contrary-- I think that capability would be enthusiastically adopted by a state like Ukraine, which is fighting an asymmetric defensive war against a larger aggressor with logistical advantages. Keep in mind that a "permanent wasteland" as a buffer was in fact the status quo in parts of the east prior to the Russian invasion in 2022, except the wasteland was maintained by human beings at a high political and economic cost. Today, both Russia and Ukraine create permanent wastelands in the form of extensive minefields, passing those costs on to posterity.
The autonomous No Man's Land--a relatively low-cost deployment of a buffer zone along a state border, in which nothing human may move and live--is likely to be the future of warfare in a world increasingly defined by ethnic conflicts, unchecked inter-state rivalries, and migratory pressures.
Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets
#326It's impressive how much hardware they've been able to develop. Their "Fury", which they acquired from Blue Force, is "a single engine business jet with no cabin." It was originally intended as a target drone, something for fighter pilots to practice against. Anduril repurposed it as an autonomous weapons system. They do mean autonomous. Their slogan is "Autonomy for Every Mission". We're seeing the future of warfare…
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…
And that was mostly right; that's why fast attack craft, the modern evolution of torpedo boats, are still a thing, while battleships have been relegated to the graveyard of history.
Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets
#327Is 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 worked there. Think: budget defense contractor and you'll be really accurate. Their whole thing is to move fast and produce shit that breaks often and a lot. Pretty unreliable overall. Their major success is marketing and B2G (business to government) and funding. Ultimately it is these three things that will make them successful. You iterate on crap long enough (which defense contracts tend to allow) eventually the…
Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your timeframe is a bit off. Piston powered aircraft were not in use in the US military 30 years ago. 30 years ago was 1994. We had B2 bombers, and the F22 was in full development. Also Boeing was developing the F-32 (which lost out to the F-35) in the mid 90's, so it's conceivable that an engineer on that program might still be around in some role.
As a minor point of no real consequence the Cessna T-41 Mescalero has been in service in the US airforce and army from 1964 until today, and I've been told the Diamond DA20 Katana is in indirect service via a through a civilian contract that screens prospective pilots. Weird nitpick, I know. There's also a slew of drones that may or may not use efficient small piston engines or rotary varients which may or may not co…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L3Harris_OA-1K_Sky_Warden
It looks like someone is abusing a small prop plane that's normally used for crop dustin and just duct taping some cheap weapons to it.
Because that's exactly what it is
Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
So you have the facts, kid? Are you sure?
Yes, I am absolutely sure. Each of the propagandists I mentioned in this comment[0] made assertions that are demonstrably false, e.g. , russia isn't going to invade Ukraine; this is just a western conspiracy theory. They each insisted that Ukraine has no chance, like you do. They each insisted repeatedly that Ukraine was just about to collapse. They said that several times in 2022. They said that several times in 202…
This is the historical reality of war. There is no technology who will remove the need of a soldier on foot to put a flag on a territory. War is logistic. War is human resource intensive. Those who have more well-trained, organized and supplied soldiers win. Currently, there is no meaningful air-defense in Ukraine.
The Russian army has a calculated approach in which they bomb with FAB's, FPV's and artillery before ground operation. There is no adequate way to replenish the lost soldiers for Ukraine. Russians are plenty.
War must be stopped by Ukraine suing for peace. "Suing for", in this older sense of the phrase, means "pleading or petitioning for".
> General Christopher Cavoli, the commander of European Command, told the House Armed Services Committee on April 10 that the severity of the situation in Ukraine “can’t be overstated” as troops on the battlefield run short of ammunition and as the country’s air-defense capabilities are depleted.
Ukrainian troops have been rationing ammunition as Russian forces outfire them at a rate of about 5-to-1, he told the committee.
“That will immediately go to 10-to-1 in a matter of weeks. We are not talking about months. We are not talking hypothetically…. We are talking about weeks,”
He obviously forgot the most important part. WELL TRAINED SOLDIERS. Money and weapons will not change the outcome.
Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets
#330They 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…
Those aren't meant to fly high and send missiles at weddings on the ground, those are maneuverable wingmen for F-35s.