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Regulatory gridlock in the U.S. risks losing the drone arms race

seanobannon.substack.com

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Re: Regulatory gridlock in the U.S. risks losing the drone arms race

#81

Post by TheBicPen »

uejfiweun wrote: post #20
TheBicPen wrote: post #14

This reads like a piece of defense propaganda. "Undoing the 1990s decision" - should we really return the US defense industry to cold-war levels? The world has changed, and the threat of outright war with the US is dramatically lower than 4 decades ago. Yes, China is an adversary, but to say that it's an existential threat to the US the same way the Soviet Union was is absurd.

[deleted]

Say what you will about the current situation, at least there is no nuclear arms race. I'd say that's a pretty big distinction.

Re: Regulatory gridlock in the U.S. risks losing the drone arms race

#82

Post by klooney »

palata wrote: post #31

The problem I have with the idea of subsidising small drones as a proxy for defense is that they solve very different problems: Making a small quadcopter that flies is now entirely solved: you take an open source autopilot, put it on some open source autopilot board, and that's it. If you go further than that, successfully producing delivery drones means that they need to carry a payload safely to some destination, d…

> Feels a bit like saying that subsidising personal cars is good for the tank business.

I mean, in WWII, a lot of car manufacturers made tanks instead. Buick made the Hellcat, Chrysler, Ford and a variety of train manufacturers made the Sherman, and on and on. The skills are much more transferable than a lot of other fields.

In fact, this is explicitly why the US and others subsidize their passenger car industries.

This probably wouldn't work as well today, because most modern automakers just do engine design, assembly, and pick some parts out of a Bosch catalog, but I bet the more ambitious, vertically integrated automakers like BYD or Tesla could do an OK job in a pinch.

Re: Regulatory gridlock in the U.S. risks losing the drone arms race

#83

Post by esseph »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #63
throwup238 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s better to look at it as a spectrum and Russia’s place on it differs based on time and place. They don’t have the air superiority to carry out the kinds of operations the US could and what seems like a suboptimal command structure but they are getting increasingly more organized, especially as the war drags on and they develop/acquire more adaptions like the Shahed drones or glide bomb conversion kits. IM…

> but they are getting increasingly more organized, especially as the war drags on and they develop/acquire more adaptions like the Shahed drones or glide bomb conversion kits I’m not suggesting they aren’t a lethal fighting force. They’re just not a dynamic one. They still rely on static tactics, i.e. blowing up the enemy, versus dynamic ones that rely on manoeuvre.

Their leadership and training is not pushed to the lower levels like in the US military NCO corps. Russian warfare is extremely. . bureaucratic.

Re: Regulatory gridlock in the U.S. risks losing the drone arms race

#84

Post by esseph »

xnx wrote: post #57
Syonyk wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My genuine hope is that secretly we actually are really good with drones and just strategically have decided not to broadcast it... What would you call the Reapers and such? The US has a massive fleet of large, armed drones, remotely operated, and quite a few are capable of being armed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanned_aerial_vehicles_in_th... It's different from the consumer/small commercial drones being tal…

True. This is a very different class of drone. What is the defense against an adversary who releases a thousand quadcopter style drones against a US aircraft carrier?

Insanely sophisticated electronic warfare that can disrupt / defeat / destroy.

A few nice miniguns with radars sensitive enough to pick up birds that fire flak.

Auto cannons.

Missiles.

... Lasers.

Re: Regulatory gridlock in the U.S. risks losing the drone arms race

#85

Post by jandrewrogers »

mopsi wrote: post #80
jandrewrogers wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My genuine hope is that secretly we actually are really good with drones and just strategically have decided not to broadcast it I am confused. The US has massive fleets of military drones of every type and size that have been proven in combat environments. They literally pioneered the development of this type of military system and have been using them operationally decades before anyone else. Did everyone just fo…

Entire categories of drones are missing from the US arsenal, such as the ultra-cheap wire-guided ones that allow Ukrainians to fly 20 km into the enemy's rear, enter buildings, explore them from the inside, and leave behind presents or detonate immediately if they find any targets. Such drones can be seen at the start of this video, and at the very end too, when they are sneaking up to artillery and puncturing gun ba…

The US has a different drone tech tree than Ukraine. Ukraine is adapting to the limitations of the cheap drones available to them. There is value in this as operational knowledge but it is a mistake to assume that the US is bound by similar constraints. They do things differently because they have other options. The US has plenty of experience designing wire-guided systems; they largely abandoned them for a reason.

There is much to learn about drone warfare from Ukraine but I would not expect a conflict with advanced technical capabilities to look similar.

Re: Regulatory gridlock in the U.S. risks losing the drone arms race

#86

Post by DeathArrow »

pjc50 wrote: post #23
floatrock wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not Russia's aircraft carriers I'm concerned about. Russia's experience with drones vs. her guided missile cruisers has more than enough there to translate to more capable aircraft carriers.

If I remember rightly, one of the successful attacks was a floating "drone" made of a small boat packed with explosives. Kind of a hybrid between the torpedo and the fireship, and quite hard to defend against at night. China has (checks wikipedia) three operational carriers, one very modern Fujian , the obsolete former training ship Liaoning , and Shandong , which appears to be halfway between the two, the first loca…

China doesn't need lots of aircraft carriers unless the want to invade US.

What they need and they have is enough weapons to destroy any US aircraft carrier approaching their coast.

Naval power doesn't mean just aircraft carriers and China has 100x shipbuilding capacity US has.

Re: Regulatory gridlock in the U.S. risks losing the drone arms race

#87

Post by euroderf »

clvx wrote: post #27
BurningFrog wrote: post #4

I saw someone claiming drones are the biggest military invention since the stirrup! The US would do well to start catching up on that technology. BTW, I assume that when/if the Ukraine war ends, the Ukrainian drone industry will be the best in the world.

I’m just baffled how Russia switched the frontline using fiber drones. It’s genius and worrisome at the same time.

And then you trace back the fibers, glistening in the sunlight... your operators had better be mobile.

Re: Regulatory gridlock in the U.S. risks losing the drone arms race

#88

Post by euroderf »

nradov wrote: post #66
xnx wrote: post #2

It's shocking to me the Secretary of Defense confirmation hearing only mentioned "drone" once, and that was not in reference to the future of warfare. Ukraine has made pretty clear that drones will play a huge roll in future major conflicts. It's crazy that we haven't already shifted major portions of the defense budget from legacy weapons systems (e.g. tanks) to drones.

I guess you haven't been paying attention. The Marine Corps has divested its tanks in preparation for fighting an island-hopping campaign against China. https://www.marines.mil/News/News-Display/Article/2857680/fo...

It's pretty amazing that an American armed forces service gave up an entire lineup of weaponry. 2021: "The Marine Corps had more than 450 tanks prior to the deactivation of the tank battalions. To date, MCSC has transferred more than 400 tanks to the Army. The remaining tanks in the Marine Corps inventory are afloat globally on Maritime Prepositioning Ships and are scheduled for transfer to the Army over the next few years."

Re: Regulatory gridlock in the U.S. risks losing the drone arms race

#89

Post by euroderf »

00N8 wrote: post #67
xnx wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. This is a very different class of drone. What is the defense against an adversary who releases a thousand quadcopter style drones against a US aircraft carrier?

The carriers aren't sailing around alone - they're escorted by a whole fleet (plus air patrol) that will intercept the drone launching vehicle at multiple dozen nautical miles range. Smaller quadcopter drones won't even get close to catching the carrier (which can travel over 40 kts while evading) before their batteries die. And even if a few hundred got through, how much damage can they really do? I'd imagine the fl…

Agreed. But there's going to be "happy medium" drones that can be delivered by a long-range mothership. Price is no object when you can take out a carrier.

Re: Regulatory gridlock in the U.S. risks losing the drone arms race

#90

Post by toss1 »

CrimsonCape wrote: post #62
toss1 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Feels a bit like saying that subsidising personal cars is good for the tank business. Funny you should say that. The US had in 1938 a grand total of about 38 tanks. WWII started a few years later, and after converting prewar automobile factories to tank factories, the USA built more tanks than every other nation combined. Pretty much the same thing happened for airplanes, as mentioned in the article. US industrial…

I have the impression from reading history books that the workforce at the time of World War 2 was uniquely specialized and widely available. There were many machinists that had special knowledge and experience of how to run their lathes, presses, etc. This workforce was involved in the assembly line of passenger cars, so you had expert machinists involved in producing passenger cars which made expertise widely avail…

Good points, although a nit that I'd characterize the workforce as more specialized today rather than less. Didn't the old-school machinists have more knowledge over the full range of production processes, vs a CAD drafter vs a Fanuc CNC operator, vs an assembler?

That said, I'd still say having one capability today still makes a far shorter path to convert from Civ-to-Mil output. I run a carbon-fiber composites shop that does everything from design through materials, CAD, CAM, moldmaking, forming with multiple technologies, CNC machining, and assembly. It would be a straightforward task to setup for new Mil products (and not just because we already do some Mil work), especially compared to not having it at all.

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