Whenever I see something like this it reminds me of the Demolition Ranch YouTube channel, one of my all time favorites. It will be missed. :(
$96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor
481–490 of 561 posts
Re: $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor
#482> Despite the tech-cool factor of the project, Tom's Hardware does not condone making your own weapons system at home. Not that this matters for the topic, but I don't see why people have started saying "weapons system" instead of "weapon".
Guns, swords, and bombs are weapons. The same, attached to fancy computers that can use them autonomously are weapon systems. At least that's how I've always hears the terms used.
Re: $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor
#483> Despite the tech-cool factor of the project, Tom's Hardware does not condone making your own weapons system at home. Not that this matters for the topic, but I don't see why people have started saying "weapons system" instead of "weapon".
It’s a bit silly for this situation, but the basic idea of moving from “weapon” to “weapon system” is reasonable, in a 20th century kind of way.
Basically, WWII showed planners they were in the war business not in the ship/plane/tank business. Take navies, for example. For most of the history of the professional navy, the overwhelming cognitive container for “unit in the navy” was a ship. Planners paid for ships to be laid down, admirals planned where they went and captains were responsible for them in all regards. You could reasonable count a navy’s capability by counting the kind and number of their ships: thus and such frigates, ships of the line, etc. However, even before the 20th century naval planners knew and acted like ships weren’t atomic: counting guns on ships of the line as a distinguishing feature or planning a sortie based on available marines both herald what would come later. But mostly we thought of ships as ships. If the enemy was to have 3 battlecruisers then we ought to have 4.
WWII shuffled all that around. At the scale of fighting and industrial demand, the idea of a “ship” or a “tank” or a “fighter” as a unit of analysis started to look tenuous. Successful commanders and (especially) planners noticed that the math worked out much better if we considered units of analysis larger than individual technological objects. The immediate consequence is one starts to think in terms of weapons delivery to the enemy and not the Sherman tank. The primary concerns then (often but not always) shift from characteristics of the weapon as a weapon to: can this system as a collective be built cheaply, can it be deployed + trained on easily, and can it achieve goals in mixed employment.
The same basic idea animated the operations research revolution in warfare, the bam changes from thing to thing_system or thing_platform are consequences of that.
Re: $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor
#484When everyone started working on 3D-printed guns, I was sitting here thinking that if it comes to actual revolution, one is going to need anti-tank/anti-air a whole lot more than (relatively easy to acquire) small arms... Nice to see movement on this front
In the American context, hopefully it never comes to an actual revolution, because life for everyone will be much, much worse with little prospect of anything being better afterward. We should do what we can to avoid one, especially because while it's fun to fantasize about your side being the one to start a revolution, there's no reason to think that the other side won't also think the same way and maybe they'll bea…
For anyone that thinks a "civil war" scenario might be fun, I recommend watching Alex Garland's 'Civil War' - a highly realistic portrait of what an inter-US war would actually look like.
Re: $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor
#485Earlier quoted context omitted.
> hopefully it never comes to an actual revolution, because life for everyone will be much, much worse with little prospect of anything being better afterward. In the situations a revolution comes to exist, it is because life for everyone is already getting much, much worse with little prospect of anything being better. Nobody starts a revolution for funsies, so you're supposing a false dichotomy where the choice is…
> In the situations a revolution comes to exist, it is because life for everyone is already getting much, much worse with little prospect of anything being better. Some folks want to hasten "a revolution" because (a) they think it's going to happen 'eventually' anyway so might as well get it over with, and (b) they think they can come out 'on top' and set up the new system the way they want it (because the current En…
> Some folks want to hasten "a revolution"
well some folks are doing that all the time, but only sometimes does it take. what's the difference between one time and another?
Re: $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor
#486When everyone started working on 3D-printed guns, I was sitting here thinking that if it comes to actual revolution, one is going to need anti-tank/anti-air a whole lot more than (relatively easy to acquire) small arms... Nice to see movement on this front
In the American context, hopefully it never comes to an actual revolution, because life for everyone will be much, much worse with little prospect of anything being better afterward. We should do what we can to avoid one, especially because while it's fun to fantasize about your side being the one to start a revolution, there's no reason to think that the other side won't also think the same way and maybe they'll bea…
> Most of it is pure fantasy including the idea that 3D printed missiles are going to start striking US strike aircraft at 40k feet
Nobody is really talking about hitting supersonic jets at 40k feet, nor even destroying a fully-armoured tank. More about making your opponent think twice about deploying close air support, and have move cautiously with their APCs and supply trucks.
We can see some version of this playing out in Ukraine, and I guess it is possible that FPV drones have pretty much invalidated the role a DIY missile launcher would play
Re: $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor
#487When everyone started working on 3D-printed guns, I was sitting here thinking that if it comes to actual revolution, one is going to need anti-tank/anti-air a whole lot more than (relatively easy to acquire) small arms... Nice to see movement on this front
In the American context, hopefully it never comes to an actual revolution, because life for everyone will be much, much worse with little prospect of anything being better afterward. We should do what we can to avoid one, especially because while it's fun to fantasize about your side being the one to start a revolution, there's no reason to think that the other side won't also think the same way and maybe they'll bea…
It’s practically impossible for an indigenous insurgency to be effective without state backing, so the real question is who would be willing provide such support and under what circumstances. Similar to how France supported US independence as a way to hurt the UK. Or the UK supporting Native Americans to attack the US (war of 1812).
Being able to effectively organize enough to create home grown weapons and fight an insurgency is a signal to a 3rd party that you are organized and committed and worthy of further support. From there it can snowball.
Re: $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor
#488Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the American context, hopefully it never comes to an actual revolution, because life for everyone will be much, much worse with little prospect of anything being better afterward. We should do what we can to avoid one, especially because while it's fun to fantasize about your side being the one to start a revolution, there's no reason to think that the other side won't also think the same way and maybe they'll bea…
If its a revolution you probably aren't hitting them 40k in the air, your hitting them when they park similar to how Ukraine sent drones after bombers behind enemy lines. I really hope we can avoid any kind of conflict, with the way American's think I could see one or both sides resorting to biological/chemical weapons faster than they start making missiles. There is also no reason to assume what starts out as your s…
> If its a revolution you probably aren't hitting them 40k in the air, your hitting them when they park similar to how Ukraine sent drones after bombers behind enemy lines.
Right, and you don't need to conjure up anti-tank missiles (sure those could be nice to have) to do this. You could seize a bulldozer and drive it into the airframes, or just shoot them to bits. At this point if you have access to American jets on the ground to destroy them, you've already lost the manufacturing capacity to repair them.
> There is also no reason to assume what starts out as your side will remain such, revolutions are crazy risky.
Absolutely. Robespierre learned that lesson. Putin is learning that lesson from the perspective of starting a war but not being able to predict the outcome. The status quo is pretty great and we should be very careful and guarded about changing that, especially through violent means. Most things that are problems today can be resolved through legislation and the existing democratic mechanisms. Throwing that out (not suggesting you are suggesting that) would be almost certainly profoundly unwise. It's very much like the Monty Hall Problem.
Re: $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor
#489Earlier quoted context omitted.
I see it the other way round: there's no way to achieve public safety without drastically reduced gun ideology and availability, but there's no way to do that while the second amendment is in place, so you get both illiberal, ineffective and irrelevant laws and regular mass shootings.
Let's assume you get rid of the second amendment and totally ban civilian gun ownership in the US. No legal firearms other than for the police/military, full confiscation of guns, etc. Let's also assume the public is broadly supportive of this effort, and that there are not large black-market caches for sale. I am arguing there will still be a significant number mass shootings/casualty events, political assassination…
> I am arguing there will still be a significant number mass shootings/casualty events
These are extremely rare in other countries? It's very hard to achieve true zero, yes, but the UK has about 30 gun deaths per year, almost all of which are crime-related rather than mass casualty events. Those tend to be rare, and tend to be bombs. The Shinzo Abe assassination was also such a "black swan".
> I expect they will still be higher than anywhere else in the world
Why do you think that would be, given (important!) your premise "the public is broadly supportive of this effort"?
Re: $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor
#490Earlier quoted context omitted.
> $1k active countermeasures Sure you didn't forget a few zeros there bud? They are currently trying to shoot down Iranian drones with $4 million Patriot missiles
>Sure you didn't forget a few zeros there bud? The IR flare or 30mm bullets or whatever, not the whole system that fires it.
The $4 million is the sticker price of the PAC-3 payload, not the launch system (reports put the missile battery + radar setup at ~$350 million, before you load any ammo)