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

Post by MR4D » Sat, Apr 27, 2024, 4:20 AM UTC

thexumaker wrote: post #278

Animats wrote: post #68

It'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…

Drones have changed warfare at a local tactical level. But your drones and smaller autonomous systems aren't helping if you have overwhelming firepower superiority, ie in Gaza drones haven't inflicted too much damage if you can just drop a couple thousand JDAMS and level out a territory.

Post by barrenko » Sat, Apr 27, 2024, 1:23 PM UTC

psunavy03 wrote: post #270

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #60

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…

And it's frankly a childish sentiment. Go look at what's happening in Ukraine today. Why did that occur? Because a dictator woke up on the wrong side of the bed and said "you have, I want, I take." Military force and military innovation is the only thing stopping him from literally committing genocide against the Ukrainian people. Not "genocide" as in faculty lounge hyperbole . . . actual genocide.

Post by p0w3n3d » Sat, Apr 27, 2024, 7:32 PM UTC

api wrote: post #121

p0w3n3d wrote: post #114

I don't know what weapons World War III will be fought with, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

Einstein was referring to the hydrogen bomb of course. If high tech superpowers went at each other full bore with H bombs we’d probably be LARPing Mad Max, but so far that hasn’t happened and seems unlikely. All leaders in all these powers know that any such exchange would be mutual and thus suicidal (MAD) so the only way it happens is if you get someone truly insane in power. What has happened since the bomb was dev…

Post by dgroshev » Sat, Apr 27, 2024, 8:35 PM UTC

quartesixte wrote: post #422

dgroshev wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wait are you telling me that the only reason why we think Burke class ships are small is because 1) “Destroyer” and then 2) CVNs are just fucking massive?

Post by c_o_n_v_e_x » Sun, Apr 28, 2024, 9:25 AM UTC

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?