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

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

breakingdefense.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 439 posts

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

#391

Post by hackerlight »

kornhole wrote: post #381
kornhole wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was fake news. https://www.theinteldrop.org/2023/05/14/confirmed-ukraine-ly... Additionally, Iran claims that Israel did not intercept any of the hypersonic missiles they fired at Israel. NATO does not possess any hypersonic missiles. Some people might say that NATO is keeping them secret, but that makes no sense. Nations exhibit their technologies as a deterrent.

Further explanation of how it is impossible for a Patriot missile to intercept a Kinzhal. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230510/fact-check-ukraine-didnt-s...

Palmer Luckey says Russia's Kinzhal is not a hypersonic glide vehicle so it's not that hard to intercept, unlike what China can field.

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

#392

Post by [deleted] »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #376
shrimp_emoji wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you get the disturbing realization that Russia gets data on the materiel too?

Of course they are, but to me at least, it seems like their cost-benefit is very different from the US. I don't think the war is worth it to them just to learn more about warfare.

[deleted]

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

#393

Post by ycombinete »

qarl wrote: post #253
ycombinete wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This FT long piece on Palmer Lucky, and Anduril has some good context: https://www.ft.com/content/ce6f96f8-6ab8-4089-b7db-f99db22c2...

WHOAH. Is this article really equating Palmer Lucky to Oppenheimer?

No, the only mention of Oppenheimer in the article is this:

> Essentially, Luckey’s aim is to make the US and its allies almost impossible to harm — “a prickly porcupine” in his words — as well as to supply weapons powerful enough to put adversaries off attacking in the first place. “We want to build the capabilities that give us the ability to swiftly win any war we are forced to enter,” he says.

> The thesis is not original. It’s the same idea that led to Robert Oppenheimer’s development of the atomic bomb. America’s attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the second world war, killing more than 100,000 people, and nuclear weapons have not been deployed in conflict since.

Newspaper headlines are usually added by the copy editors, not the author of the article.

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

#394

Post by dgroshev »

RF_Savage wrote: post #383
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…

Ain't basic fpv drones around half the price of a 155mm HE shell?

Basic FPV drones are rapidly getting countered/obsolete. The moment people start doing something smarter/custom the drones stop being cheap.

It's an unavoidable dilemma: commodity stuff is cheap, but easily countered; stuff that isn't easy to counter isn't commodity and isn't cheap. You probably heard "yes but you can JUST add a jamming-resistant radio, and a thermal camera, and autonomous recognition/coordination, and larger payload, and…", but that's just motte-and-bailey.

Plus the drones still need the payload. If they are used against armour, they need shaped charges, which aren't free. In practice they often get random RPG-7 HEAT warheads from Soviet stockpiles, but we can't compare that with newly manufactured western 155mm HE.

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

#395

Post by dgroshev »

constantcrying wrote: post #353
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…

A 10% success chance seems incredibly effective. I would have estimated the chances quite a bit lower. Tanks are million dollar devices, which are expensive to replace and require significant training. If they can be effectively attacked by infantry without putting themselves in significant danger, that drastically lowers the value of a tank.

We had man-portable ATGMs for decades, they didn't "lower the value of a tank".

Less than 10% is not good when you consider how much does it cost in practice. Drone teams are often 2 pilots + technician + explosives technician (an incredibly risky job btw, those bastardised RPG warheads are live and sensitive) + infantry cover. At least double that if you want to strike beyond line of sight and need a retransmitter drone. Those teams can only move at night and on foot because they are actively hunted by the other side. They can only have one or two drones simultaneously in the air at best, and the drones need to get to their targets first without giving away the launch point. All of that for less than 10% success rate is not "incredibly effective".

Now compare to fire-and-forget Javelins that are way more lethal and are just something added to a normal infantry platoon.

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

#397

Post by kornhole »

blue_pants wrote: post #382
kornhole wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Further explanation of how it is impossible for a Patriot missile to intercept a Kinzhal. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230510/fact-check-ukraine-didnt-s...

Those are not credible sources. From the theinteldrop link: "several sources within the Russian military and defense industry told the newspaper Izvestia on Saturday" From the sputnikglobe link: "Moscow-based military expert Alexey Leonkov told Sputnik"

What makes these sources not credible in your mind? I have not observed them reporting anything incorrectly. They are citing military experts who know the technical capabilities of these weapons and defense systems. If you want to refute what they say, show how a slower Patriot missile could target and intercept a much faster mach 5 missile. It is basic physics without getting deeply into rocket science.

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

#398

Post by 83 »

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

This comment thread is about cheap drones hunting down individuals. They are not using Shahed for that. You can easily build a small drone capable of carrying a grenade for under $300.

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

#399

Post by qarl »

ycombinete wrote: post #393
qarl wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WHOAH. Is this article really equating Palmer Lucky to Oppenheimer?

No, the only mention of Oppenheimer in the article is this: > Essentially, Luckey’s aim is to make the US and its allies almost impossible to harm — “a prickly porcupine” in his words — as well as to supply weapons powerful enough to put adversaries off attacking in the first place. “We want to build the capabilities that give us the ability to swiftly win any war we are forced to enter,” he says. > The thesis is not…

Ah - so it was the FT editor that equated Palmer Luckey to Oppenheimer.

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

#400

Post by Shawnj2 »

dralley wrote: post #55
torginus wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem in the US defense industry is, that since the end of the cold war, defense companies have consolidated into just 5 huge conglomerates and the lack of competition wasn't great for the pace of innovation, affordability or timely development. And the Cold War ended more than three decades ago, about the time we went from piston aircraft to the teen series jets making up the bulk of US inventory even today. I…

There's definitely more than one problem with defense procurement, one of the biggest problems is simply having straightforward, acheivable goals in the first place and not fucking with them halfway through the process. And honestly at this point the Air Force is handling this much better than the other branches. Despite all the delays and cost overruns on the F-22 and F-35 projects, at least we ended up with really…

Cost plus contracts are a mistake. If you get paid to do something, it should be for a fixed price not a variable number that encourages you to waste as much taxpayer money as you want. If you can’t do it for that price you need to increase your estimate until you can.
Post reply on HN