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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

#331

Post by dgroshev »

dragonwriter wrote: post #326
dgroshev wrote: post #207

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…

> More generally, I think we're seeing a repeat of the century old debate over torpedo boats. People saw how torpedo boats were much cheaper than battleships and thought "hey we can have many of those boats, it'll be cheaper and more lethal". 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 hist…

They are only a thing for navies that can't afford anything better. We just call our battleships "destroyers" now, Burke Flight III and Type 45 are almost exactly the size of HMS Dreadnought and half the displacement (we don't do armour anymore).

The top end of course got much bigger, CVNs displace almost twice as much as Yamato.

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

#332

Post by mrguyorama »

beastman82 wrote: post #316
qarl wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

So you disagree his achievements are impressive? That's my only assertion. And if so, you are saying his achievements are nullified by his behavior?

What achievements? Is productizing something we figured out in the 90s (you can do VR with a headset using some form of magnetic tracking) really comparable to splitting the goddamned atom?

The dude's a hacker, not a god.

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

#333

Post by mrguyorama »

nyolfen wrote: post #275
jaysonelliot wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One important distinction, though - lethal drones should not be making decisions.

this consensus will last until the first actor defects

This consensus doesn't exist. Computers have been designating targets and commanding attacks since at least the 60s. The Phalanx CIWS for example is designed to be run in fully automatic mode, choosing which radar contacts to engage and when to open fire on them. There's even already been friendly fire incidents from the system.

Modern anti-ship missiles, torpedos, and BVR missiles also are designed with the ability to "go to this point in space and then find yourself a target and kill it"

We automated target selection and tasking in warships shortly after the second world war, to combat the fact that we expected the soviets to send 200 missiles at a task force at once, and didn't think humans could manage that kind of task load.

If you turn the right keys in an Arleigh Burke, every single human can leave the command part of the ship and it will still shoot planes out of the sky, all automated.

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

#334

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

nbzso wrote: post #329
yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I have a thick skin, kid. I have seen things and done things in my life to know something about the military. Aside of stupidity of the Rada to prohibit any form of negotiation. Aside of almost perfect peace negotiations with Russia, ruined by MIC and Boris Johnson. 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…

Хватит пиздеть, ватник.

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

#335

Post by Gud »

mig39 wrote: post #288
stackedinserter wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frontline on both sides is saturated with electronic warfare system which are essentially microwaves with open doors. Both sides put them on trucks, armored vehicles, set up near trenches and even carry on their backpacks. There were absurd cases like this https://imgur.com/a/4LqgLED Drones evolve under this pressure. Dynamic frequency changes, computer vision, maneuvering (like "go up when lost signal") and many mor…

Consumer drones already deal with a hostile RF environment well. Finding the frequency with the least interference, using a wide bandwidth for control, and a different one for video, and programmable signal-loss behaviour. Cities are hugely hostile to low power transmission, especially in the 2.4 and 5ghz frequencies. The effective range of cheap DJI "mini" drones in cities is measured in kilometres. If you get away…

We are not talking "interference", but an enemy actively looking for your signals and overpowering it with massive high powered RF.

Flying your drone around in a city is not the same as flying it against an opponent skilled in electronic warfare.

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

#336

Post by qarl »

seti0Cha wrote: post #317
qarl wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Libertarians aren't anarchists. They don't generally believe that there should be no government (although you can find people who believe just about anything). I don't think there's anything hypocritical about libertarians taking government contracts for defense. If they were taking government contracts or jobs around regulating markets or building public housing, then that would be closer to hypocritical, but I'm no…

Maybe.

But they almost certainly don't just take this work. They advocate for more work. They lobby for more funds.

I'm not a libertarian, so I don't know the details, but I believe advocated for larger government must be contrary to their beliefs, no?

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

#337

Post by qarl »

beastman82 wrote: post #316
qarl wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

So you disagree his achievements are impressive? That's my only assertion. And if so, you are saying his achievements are nullified by his behavior?

I do disagree his achievements are impressive.

As near as I can tell, he is successful for advocating for VR headsets.

I do not believe that's equivalent to splitting the atom. But hey, I guess we all see things our own way.

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

#338

Post by ethbr1 »

willcipriano wrote: post #322
ethbr1 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

How's America though?

Still democratic and #1/#2 in the world, by most measures. Was there something specific you were looking for?

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

#339

Post by ethbr1 »

sandworm101 wrote: post #227
nradov wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The impact on logistics is at least somewhat revolutionary. Previously it probably took several cases of mortar shells to inflict one casualty. Now that can be done with a couple of drones. Much lighter.

Yes and no. Ammunition is important, but from a logistics standpoint it will be much less burdensome than the food/water/fuel that must be provided to men on the field. Even in a hot war, an infantry unit is not engaged in full combat 24/7. But it never stops eating.

But autonomy explicitly decreases the human logistics burden too, by multiplying the effectiveness of each human.

Where in Civil War times you would need to clothe, feed, camp 100 people, now you have that firepower in a single soldier's weapon.

And when you remove the need for even a single human, you also remove their logistics footprint.

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

#340

Post by ethbr1 »

sandworm101 wrote: post #223
ethbr1 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imho, the service branches are defined by and structured around the type of equipment required to complete their missions. The Navy builds years-long expensive ships, then sends them halfway around the world under command of someone. It has a structure to facilitate that. The Army (at best) efficiency organizes a huge amount of people and material, and it deploys and sustains it wherever needed. It has a structure to…

>> The Air Force procures, operates, and sustains the most technical platforms. Space force. It is like flying a billion-dollar fighter jet that you will never be allowed to repair after it takes off for the first time.

Space Force is still mostly Air Force though, and I'd expect it to take awhile to form it's own culture.
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