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Autonomous F-16 Fighters Are 'Roughly Even' with Human Pilots

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Re: Autonomous F-16 Fighters Are 'Roughly Even' with Human Pilots

#41

Post by t0mas88 »

This is quite a dangerous mindset, pushing for AI weapons with limited constraints:

> “I think the future is becoming clearer,” Kendall continued. “I think the only question that really may remain is who’s going to get there first? And what are the constraints we want to place on ourselves that will limit our operational effectiveness compared to our adversaries and how we manage our way through that.”

It has some resemblance to the arms race to develop a nuclear weapon. Several people were exposed to radiation, tests killed civilians, all because both sides were afraid of not being the first.

Re: Autonomous F-16 Fighters Are 'Roughly Even' with Human Pilots

#42

Post by datadrivenangel »

GuB-42 wrote: post #23
krunck wrote: post #7

Seeing term "loyal wingman" - meaning an unmanned combat air vehicle - makes me ask: Are the human pilots not considered loyal enough? Maybe so. The humans might hesitate on an order to shoot whereas the AI will not. I prefer the human that at least hesitates to shoot at a target that will cause substantial "collateral damage".

Missiles, which are essentially single use "unmanned combat air vehicles" don't hesitate to destroy whatever target they are shot at. If these "loyal wingmen" only shoot when ordered to by a human, these can be seen as reusable missiles more than actual human wingmen.

loitering recoverable munitions.

There is a spectrum of expected reusability, even with human piloted aircraft.

Re: Autonomous F-16 Fighters Are 'Roughly Even' with Human Pilots

#43

Post by topspin »

maxglute wrote: post #38
foxyv wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Higher Gs isn't a significant advantage anymore. Sidewinder missiles hit 60-70Gs and no plane you can make will out pull one. Modern dogfights often last for a single turn or even less. It's often a matter of who sees the other first. Israel's new Python-5 is able to attack jets in a 360 degree sphere and has lock after launch. Countermeasure rejection has gotten so good a merge is essentially a death sentence. The r…

High G can significantly reduce no-escape zone of AA missiles with limit fuel for final maneuvering. A performant unmanned fighter with more endurance to play the energetics game can make anti air very expensive, and possibly impracticable depending on context.

This is absolutely correct. The air-to-air game is very complex and high-G is still a thing.

And yet, this is small ball stuff. When I think of all the possible ways autonomous combat aircraft will revolutionize air combat it's a bit overwhelming. We're talking about unlimited, fatigue-less, highly effective, fearless piloting of aircraft that can assume designs that don't have to accommodate or risk a human.

If it isn't yet an arms race, it will be when some conflict sees someone punch way above their weight because they have the supersonic robots and the other guy doesn't.

Re: Autonomous F-16 Fighters Are 'Roughly Even' with Human Pilots

#44

Post by maxglute »

foxyv wrote: post #40
maxglute wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High G can significantly reduce no-escape zone of AA missiles with limit fuel for final maneuvering. A performant unmanned fighter with more endurance to play the energetics game can make anti air very expensive, and possibly impracticable depending on context.

High Gs in a BVR engagement aren't that great either. You lose too much energy engaging in that much acceleration. The killer feature of BVR is the trade. If your loyal wingman will happily fly well into minimum abort range and launch high PK shots, against manned targets you can almost guarantee a kill.

>against manned target

Against manned targets sure, US air power can stomp most manned adversaries already. But drive behind autonmous fighters is really about versus against autonomous platforms of peer powers, and really that's PRC, who has AI pilot program of their own. So future scenario that what we'll probably see is a bunch of attritable, high performance loyal wingmans designed to draw as much expensive interceptors as they can against each other, i.e. engagements becomes a unmanned platform attrition / IAMDs magazine depth equation. Question is, who wins in that numbers game? I would say land aviation with better logistics vs carrier aviation with limited magazine depth.

Then what does that mean when this tech proliferates, especially local vs outside power projection - because autonmous piloting removes expensive intitution building layer and will enable many shit-mid tier powers to now have airpower. Maybe even very competent air power depending on training data.

Re: Autonomous F-16 Fighters Are 'Roughly Even' with Human Pilots

#45

Post by maxglute »

topspin wrote: post #43
maxglute wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High G can significantly reduce no-escape zone of AA missiles with limit fuel for final maneuvering. A performant unmanned fighter with more endurance to play the energetics game can make anti air very expensive, and possibly impracticable depending on context.

This is absolutely correct. The air-to-air game is very complex and high-G is still a thing. And yet, this is small ball stuff. When I think of all the possible ways autonomous combat aircraft will revolutionize air combat it's a bit overwhelming. We're talking about unlimited, fatigue-less, highly effective, fearless piloting of aircraft that can assume designs that don't have to accommodate or risk a human. If it i…

>they have the supersonic robots and the other guy doesn't

Should also consider what happens when more actors have supersonic robots if/when this tech proliferates. AI pilots is going to lower barrier for _real_ airpower for small/medium size powers. Not just US is training relevant models. And AI pilots = accepting future is going to be full of attritable platforms, whose going to be making/selling all the cheap disposable defense hardware. Just like drones, commoditizing theatre level air power is going to be gamechanging.

Re: Autonomous F-16 Fighters Are 'Roughly Even' with Human Pilots

#46

Post by aiNohY6g »

krunck wrote: post #7

Seeing term "loyal wingman" - meaning an unmanned combat air vehicle - makes me ask: Are the human pilots not considered loyal enough? Maybe so. The humans might hesitate on an order to shoot whereas the AI will not. I prefer the human that at least hesitates to shoot at a target that will cause substantial "collateral damage".

related, about trust in this context: Is the Pull-Down Effect Overstated? An Examination of Trust Propagation Among Fighter Pilots in a High-Fidelity Simulation https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/15553434231225909

Re: Autonomous F-16 Fighters Are 'Roughly Even' with Human Pilots

#48

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

maxglute wrote: post #35
jandrewrogers wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. In principle you could engineer something to support higher Gs but that is not a critical part of the performance envelope in modern combat and it comes at the cost of heavier weight and reduced weapons capacity. Since modern aerial combat is sensor-driven, you'd be better off with a lighter and less maneuverable airframe and larger weapon capacity. You can see this with the recent evolution of combat air…

Bomb trucks is what better sensors/networking enabled. Perfromant AI piloting can enable other tactics, i.e. high performance, high G UAVs with great energetics and endurance can feasibly out evade anti air missiles to bruce force through IAMDs at scale. Sensors would matters less if hardware can't intercept because targetting performance envelop without meatbag limits is harder. Being able to detect =/= being able t…

Pretty sure you just described Ace Combat 7 UAVs

Re: Autonomous F-16 Fighters Are 'Roughly Even' with Human Pilots

#49

Post by superkuh »

greedylizard wrote: post #9
superkuh wrote: post #4

Faster ODA loop, much shallower incorporation of energy tactics and greater strategy. F-16 is not an energy fighter though, it's a dog fighter (at least in original design). Not surprising to see much faster ODA loop win out.

Do you mean OODA loop? Observe Orient Decide Act?

Oof. Yes. Thanks for the correction.

Re: Autonomous F-16 Fighters Are 'Roughly Even' with Human Pilots

#50

Post by foxyv »

maxglute wrote: post #44
foxyv wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High Gs in a BVR engagement aren't that great either. You lose too much energy engaging in that much acceleration. The killer feature of BVR is the trade. If your loyal wingman will happily fly well into minimum abort range and launch high PK shots, against manned targets you can almost guarantee a kill.

>against manned target Against manned targets sure, US air power can stomp most manned adversaries already. But drive behind autonmous fighters is really about versus against autonomous platforms of peer powers, and really that's PRC, who has AI pilot program of their own. So future scenario that what we'll probably see is a bunch of attritable, high performance loyal wingmans designed to draw as much expensive inter…

Personally I think it will be more like a bunch of slow, high altitude, cheap drones with high performance BVR missiles and datalink. The missiles have just gotten too dang good in the last 20 years. When the MAR is over 50 miles on the deck, energy fighting just doesn't matter anymore.
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