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Some units even used horses in Afghanistan because they worked better over rough terrain.

There's also rescue services that are now using/looking to use hover-jet-suits for operations because it allows them to traverse the terrain super fast without the costs of a helicopter and because sometimes the helicopter can't get into a good position to land.

Military could again use such things for getting fast resupply or first aid to specific and hard to reach areas. Again not everything the army does is front line fighting.

In theory, a jetbike is a viable option wherever motorcycles and small gunship style helicopters are in modern warfare; so reconnaissance, lightning raids, sabotage/guerilla action and even communication.

Cronch wrote:
Now explain why they're better than cheap drones we're using for this job now? They have no added utility over existing scout/attack helis and remote drones. Same with "supression" in "trench" warfare. Why not just use what we have, it works great for supression.
Every job you can find for a jetbike, there's something already existing that does it just as well or better.

What you're describing is cavalry, and we know how well that worked in automatic-weapon environment.

Drones, even manned ones and not fully autonomous ones, are always going to be inferior to having an actual pilot in the seat. A human will always be superior in its decision making and information gathering abilities to a computer program or a human who is remotely controlling something.

Mobility is perhaps the most important component of modern warfare, and a 1 man vehicle that can move across any type of terrain is very very mobile by definition. Now you probably won't fight from such a vehicle much, but using it to get into a better position would be very valuable. You could use a bunch of Jetbikes to move an elite infantry unit around very fast with the intention to dismount when you get into position. This really is no different to how modern mechanized infantry works. You drive around in IFVs and APCs and dismount when you get into position. Now an IFV or APC has more potential than a jetbike in actual combat, but the jetbike makes up for it by literally being able to fly.

Cavalry didn't work well when machine guns were invented because at the time they were still using Napoleonic tactics and strategies. The issue wasn't the idea of dudes on a mobile platform(horse or jetbike), it was how you were using the tool itself.

One thought that just came to me is that if you're on a hover vehicle suddenly you don't have to touch the ground nor use roads. That removes a LOT of potential for mines and other improvised explosive devices to work.

Even if you can design them affordably to detect a passing hover vehicle and to hit it, or even just lurk nearby and manually detonate; you've now got the issue that they don't have to use roads. They can transport troops and materials over a huge range of different terrains.

 Overread wrote:
One thought that just came to me is that if you're on a hover vehicle suddenly you don't have to touch the ground nor use roads. That removes a LOT of potential for mines and other improvised explosive devices to work.

Even if you can design them affordably to detect a passing hover vehicle and to hit it, or even just lurk nearby and manually detonate; you've now got the issue that they don't have to use roads. They can transport troops and materials over a huge range of different terrains.

Well, yeah. Those advantages have been pretty well proven for over half a century now.



The thing that's missing here is figuring out what a hypothetical flying motorcycle does better than an enclosed, armored, multi-crew vehicle that can leverage the same technology. Horses were used in Afghanistan because they were quiet, don't scream 'hello we are foreign SAD operators here to whack your leaders', and don't require JP-50; when those factors stopped being relevant they switched to trucks and humvees, not motorcycles. Jetpacks are being given to the Navy as technology demonstrators because their propulsion system is completely different from that of a helicopter and has different limitations (particularly not having rotor blades to worry about), not because having engines on your arms is really appealing for VBSS. These are novel niches based on technological differences, not the ergonomics of a one-man unenclosed vehicle.

When similar concepts have been developed using like-for-like technology, such as the flying jeep or Hiller platform, they've failed to find any niche.

Put another way: Yes, there are some very limited applications for motorcycles in modern warfare. But we don't have motorcycle cavalry; we have trucks, APCs, and IFVs. Find what an open-topped one-man flying machine can do better than a hover-helicopter running on the same magic antigrav tech and you may have a purpose for jetbikes.

If your hover vehicle is, like 40k jetbikes, a grav-vehicle, it's going to "push" into ground as much as a traditional vehicle. if it's not a grav vehicle and instead using actual jet propulsion, either it has no range at all or it's jets probably set the mines off anyway.

Anyway, if you have the technology to build a jet-bike, the same technology can build a jet-truck, or jet-tank, unless you specifically write your setting to preclude such things. At which point, a jet-jeep is just as quick as a jet bike, and better for scouting since it can carry more fuel/batteries and more than one person, so now one person can drive and the other can scout. If you have the tech to build jet-bikes, it's going to be the least efficient use of that tech, just like bikes, cars and tanks currently. A Jet-APC will carry people in more safety and just as speedily as a jet-bike after all.

Drones, even manned ones and not fully autonomous ones, are always going to be inferior to having an actual pilot in the seat.

Always is a bold statement seeing as there is no magical "human touch" to pattern/visual recognition, drones are held back right now by image capturing/processing quality, not some mystical force of human nature.

Cronch wrote:

Drones, even manned ones and not fully autonomous ones, are always going to be inferior to having an actual pilot in the seat.

Always is a bold statement seeing as there is no magical "human touch" to pattern/visual recognition, drones are held back right now by image capturing/processing quality, not some mystical force of human nature.

Yes, thats the point. There is something special about the human brain. We will most likely never duplicate the human brain's abilities. So a drone will always be inferior to human brains. The only advantage is that a drone isn't risking human life and doesn't need to accommodate for human squishyness. There are tradeoffs, but its a false equivalence anyway. A Drone and a Jetbike are completely different niches. A Jetbike is specifically about moving a human(or maybe 2) rapidly around to different locations irregardless of terrain. Those humans could be actual soldiers, recon specialists, snipers, etc... It is a flexible idea. Drones are much more limited. A little backpack drone is only good for short range scouting. Its not gonna get some snipers on a ridge, nor can a little backpack drone do as good of a job as a trained human with some decent binocs and thermals.

 Grey Templar wrote:

Cronch wrote:

Drones, even manned ones and not fully autonomous ones, are always going to be inferior to having an actual pilot in the seat.

Always is a bold statement seeing as there is no magical "human touch" to pattern/visual recognition, drones are held back right now by image capturing/processing quality, not some mystical force of human nature.

Yes, thats the point. There is something special about the human brain. We will most likely never duplicate the human brain's abilities.

We don't need to duplicate it; just emulate or supersede it for a specific role.

Asides the human brain doesn't see impartially; a lot of the time when we look at something we see what our brain thinks we should see not that we actually see. Mix in fatigue, shock, experiences, and more and you can easily have two people see the same scene and yet report different interpretations. A machine doesn't have those limits.

OF course we still have a long way to go, but the ground work is there and its clear that at some point machines could well be a superior option in many ways. Heck with current studies on warfare even just removing humans from the environment and shock/horror impacts could be something developed rich nations will push toward. Even if a human still has to "ok" the kill/shoot button from a safe distance away.

 Grey Templar wrote:
There is something special about the human brain. We will most likely never duplicate the human brain's abilities. So a drone will always be inferior to human brains.

Three massive and completely unsupported assertions in a row rather undermine your argument.

The human brain is bad enough at data processing and reaction time that there already are cases where automated systems are trusted to make go/no-go decisions in lieu of humans. CIWS and other point defense systems, for example.

And of course, the question remains: Why do you want a flying motorcycle over flying analogues of more militarily successful ground vehicles?

 catbarf wrote:

And of course, the question remains: Why do you want a flying motorcycle over flying analogues of more militarily successful ground vehicles?

Because they would serve an obvious function that nothing else can. Its not necessarily that I want them to exist, its that they clearly can exist and that they would clearly be useful.

A Flying IFV would of course be useful for obvious reasons, but so would a flying Motorcycle. They're not mutually exclusive because they do different things. A Jetbike would be smaller and more maneuverable while the IFV would provide some actual combat abilities. A few soldiers on Jetbikes would be quite useful as scouts, snipers, equipment resupply, casualty evac, etc... A utility vehicle the size of a small car capable of high speed and good mobility.

Motorcycles aren't used by military units today because, like you are arguing, they don't do anything something else wouldn't. But if they suddenly gain the ability to fly, while maintaining similar speeds relative to an APC or IFV(even if those can also hover/fly). Being small and fast still puts them in a different class than those vehicles.

 catbarf wrote:


The human brain is bad enough at data processing and reaction time that there already are cases where automated systems are trusted to make go/no-go decisions in lieu of humans. CIWS and other point defense systems, for example.

CIWS and point defense aren't making decisions on weather to shoot a person though. They're shooting down missiles, which are rather simple to identify. Its not a moral decision to shoot down a missile. It is a moral decision to decide to which person among a crowd of people is a hostile enemy combatant and which are not threats.

You might be able to program a system to identify people who have weapons and say they are threats. But trying to get it to make decisions based on targets being armed, behavioral ques, etc... A computer is going to have difficulty telling the difference between a friendly armed security guard and an armed enemy soldier without many many other factors. But a human would make such a judgement much more easily.

 Grey Templar wrote:


You might be able to program a system to identify people who have weapons and say they are threats. But trying to get it to make decisions based on targets being armed, behavioral ques, etc... A computer is going to have difficulty telling the difference between a friendly armed security guard and an armed enemy soldier without many many other factors. But a human would make such a judgement much more easily.

What you are presenting isn't a moral choice though, its an identification choice.

The objective you outline is to shoot an armed enemy soldier and to not shoot a security guard. That isn't a moral choice, you've already committed to being at war and having an enemy force that you are taking lethal action against. The morality is far removed, the real element is the identification and the reliability of identification.


And I'd say that machines can likely be developed that would be just as good as a person. There's more than a few cases where armed police have shot people who were unarmed, but who were showing off with a toy or item that was made to look like a gun. Even in the UK we've had it where special forces have shot someone holding a fire lighter that was made to look like a gun.

I seem to recall that they are already making machines to read peoples bodies at airports to better detect if someone is armed based on the shape of their clothing and body language and such. Sure today we are still in the period where a human operator needs to review the machine results, but that might not remain the case forever. Though I would assume that various pressures will mean that machines will likely be overseen by human operators even once the machines surpass human skill in this regard. Future generations may also view human-machine morality in a different way as well. They might feel much safer with machines making moral choices because, in theory, the machine isn't biased nor capable of a laps in judgement because it was out drinking last night and has a big of a hangover; or has been fighting for 3 days straight and hasn't had proper rest.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Because they would serve an obvious function that nothing else can.

(...)

Motorcycles aren't used by military units today because, like you are arguing, they don't do anything something else wouldn't. But if they suddenly gain the ability to fly, while maintaining similar speeds relative to an APC or IFV(even if those can also hover/fly). Being small and fast still puts them in a different class than those vehicles.

This really just sounds to me like special pleading. Motorcycles are currently less militarily useful than larger vehicles on the ground. What advantages do they gain from becoming flying vehicles that larger vehicles don't? With light vehicles like humvees making better scouts and transports on the ground, why would a flying motorcycle be a better scout or transport than a flying humvee? Particularly when aerodynamics don't particularly favor the unenclosed vehicle.

If anything, I can think of a few reasons why a something like an IFV might translate better to becoming airborne than a motorcycle would. For starters, piloting a high-speed low-flying aircraft involves a lot more training than driving a land vehicle does; it's the sort of role that lends itself to having a dedicated pilot rather than having to train a whole platoon to be pilots in addition to infantrymen.

 Grey Templar wrote:
CIWS and point defense aren't making decisions on weather to shoot a person though.

They certainly are when they engage aircraft.

I think you're also grossly overestimating the reliability of humans when they make split-second shoot/no-shoot decisions. Human decision-makers routinely mistake outstretched wallets for guns, or private gatherings for insurgent HQs, and the results are tragic. The accountability of being able to put one human up on trial for making that mistake may not forever outweigh the deaths of innocents; AI could perform those sorts of decisions out of sheer utilitarianism if they end up having a lower error rate.

Right now, drones don't have autonomous attack option at all. All strikes are approved by humans. Still plenty of weddings and farm children get blown up by those supposedly superior human brains making the target identification. In fact, the only SURE way to prevent blue on blue is to ensure all parties have IFF equipment which speaks poorly of human ability to identify targets.

Humans are great at pattern recognition, but we've evolved (unsurprisingly), with bias to seeing patterns than to ignoring them. If you see ten tigers in the grass and only one turns out real, you just feel silly, whereas if you miss the tenth cause your brain was wired to ignore non-obvious signals, you're dead. It's a great survival trait that also leads us to seeing Jesus on toast and demons in patches of shadows. Which isn't a great trait if you're trying to minimize false positives.

The problem with autonomous drones versus manned craft, is that pulling a trigger will ALWAYS be different than pressing a button. We're seeing it in today's wars. It's easy to say that group of civilians is really a terrorist cell, push a button, and they all get blown up. It's a lot harder to be there, see the women and children in front of you, and pull the trigger.

Un-manned drones take all the humanity out of war. And war is basically the most human defining act in existence.

 Grey Templar wrote:
A little backpack drone is only good for short range scouting. Its not gonna get some snipers on a ridge,

The incoming fire it's spotting for on the other hand....

 Canadian 5th wrote:
I don't see the utlity. Current tech is too expensive, loud, and unreliable to fill the role. Future tech will likely make such a role redundant with smart drones and better signal security.

I mean look at planes... back when the Wright Brothers made their first plane that was not able to do much, but years of advancements and developments, and now we have things like the F22 and the B2 Spirit.

usmcmidn wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:
I don't see the utlity. Current tech is too expensive, loud, and unreliable to fill the role. Future tech will likely make such a role redundant with smart drones and better signal security.

I mean look at planes... back when the Wright Brothers made their first plane that was not able to do much, but years of advancements and developments, and now we have things like the F22 and the B2 Spirit.

Or look at jet body suits. Something that a only a few decades back was the stuff of sci-fi and now today they are training search and rescue staff in mountainous regions to use single person jet suits. 30 years ago it was Iron Man fantasy; then something so complex and expensive as to be impossible, then impractical. Continual investment and development later and we've a practical system that provides a new way to provide support.

Sure, but jetsuits do offer a highly specialized, but otherwise untapped niche. A jetbike would run into the same issues as bikes today- their use is very limited compared to larger vehicles with more utility. You might get jet-bikes, but they'll just do what bikes do today, only faster (maybe, their speed bonus might be lost due to human reaction speed if they try to fly IN terrain instead of over)

It's easy to say that group of civilians is really a terrorist cell, push a button, and they all get blown up. It's a lot harder to be there, see the women and children in front of you, and pull the trigger.

All you have to do is make your soldiers believe the enemy is inferior, some sort of human-shaped cattle or beast, and they'll have very little qualms. I bet we'll see autonomous combat drones/weapon platforms within 30 years in our dystopian timeline.

I picked for skirmishes but recon works as well. Fly swift, for the emperor.

For a rapid insertion or exfiltration of special forces units, a jet bike (depending on how loud, and its radar profile) could be exceedingly useful. Even more so if it works over water as well as land. Not for direct combat, but for getting men and materiel into (and possibly out of) position quickly.

Even just doing supply runs, getting 'stuff' to where its needed fast would be an immeasurable asset. If you'd wandered into SOE or LRDG offices in 1941 with a jetbike, they'd have found a use for it!


A quite unfortunate downside would be some factions would use it as a very fast and targeted suicide vehicle - strap a person and a load of HE to it and you've got a very sophisticated guided bomb. Like a gretchin, on a rocket...

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
And war is basically the most human defining act in existence.

That's a pitiable way of looking at humanity (and probably also objectively incorrect based on the frequency of "humans who do war" vs. "humans who foster family and community" throughout history).

But the rest of your point is accurate! There have been a number of famous studies done that have determined a significant percentage of soldiers will individually choose not to fire their weapons in a group engagement, or will not be capable of extremely personal violence like the use of a bayonet. And those are good instincts. Which, obviously, states (or, nowadays, private militaries) do not like, and seek to redress with technologies like remote/drone weaponry.

 Altruizine wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
And war is basically the most human defining act in existence.

That's a pitiable way of looking at humanity (and probably also objectively incorrect based on the frequency of "humans who do war" vs. "humans who foster family and community" throughout history).

But the rest of your point is accurate! There have been a number of famous studies done that have determined a significant percentage of soldiers will individually choose not to fire their weapons in a group engagement, or will not be capable of extremely personal violence like the use of a bayonet. And those are good instincts. Which, obviously, states (or, nowadays, private militaries) do not like, and seek to redress with technologies like remote/drone weaponry.

Someone read On Combat by Dave Grossman! What an amazing read. I agree with what you said about the instincts of not killing to an extent. But looking back at those statistics, I wonder if those situations the book outlines were by professional service-members or draftees. I think a professional service-member is more likely to kill verses some kid who was in college and then "boom" a couple months later was in Nazi occupied France or in the jungles of Vietnam. Those instances you say were taken from data from WW2 and Vietnam. I am not trying to be difficult just an observation from the book. On Killing was also a very good book. I believe it was his first book. Check it out. I find human psychology during acts or war extremely interesting. And just a public service announcement, real life war and all its horrors is horrible and should not be fantasized, however I do see the need for a very professionally and aggressively trained fighting force.

usmcmidn wrote:
How feasible are jet-bikes in war?

For direct action
For reconnaissance
For motor transport/logistical purposes
For skirmishes/raids/harassment
or Na dawg its stupid and wouldn't fly (lol) in real life.

Why did you say your specific responses ? ? ?

Bike mounted soldiers have been used very effectively through modern history. I see no reason a hoverbike couldn't be used effectively in similar roles.

It's basically a bicycle, motorcycle, or quad that hovers over the ground rather than rolling along it. This isn't particularly tactically or strategically revolutionary.

It really would depend on the jet bike itself and how expensive it is. If its a quiet flier? Could be used for recon and spotting and possibly insertion. There would probably be better options, as unless it is filled with active camouflage or the like a big floating jet bike might be noticeable. Also, just a reminder that Return of the Jedi did show us some of the flaws of high speed hover bikes when in dense terrain.

For other purposes, it feels like using floaty jet propulsion would be more useful on bigger things. Logistics, besides a courier, would probably be better served by a hover pickup truck. Movement of troops easier with a hover infantry fighting vehicle. Frontline combat? Hover tank.

I mean in the specific niche of jet hoverbikes being cheaper to produce, more fuel efficient, easier to repair, and simpler to train on than alternatives (ground motorcycles, training 1 pilot to move 10 dudes instead of 10 dudes to move themselves, etc) then sure, they will be super useful. Outside of that though, it just seems like they would be an incredibly niche unit.


A sidenote/pet peeve of mine in 40k specifically - why are troops mounted on bikes sturdier and harder to down than their foot based counterparts? I just don't understand how riding a motorcycle makes you tougher. Faster definitely, but tougher no. I mean getting a tire shot out while going 90km/h feels like it will hurt a lot and kill you easily, or the engine of a hoverbike being damaged would slam you into the ground full speed. I just never really understood this.

 kurhanik wrote:

A sidenote/pet peeve of mine in 40k specifically - why are troops mounted on bikes sturdier and harder to down than their foot based counterparts? I just don't understand how riding a motorcycle makes you tougher. Faster definitely, but tougher no. I mean getting a tire shot out while going 90km/h feels like it will hurt a lot and kill you easily, or the engine of a hoverbike being damaged would slam you into the ground full speed. I just never really understood this.

Well, 40k justifies it by saying that the bikes have reinforced armor plating and small shield generators that help protect the rider. Going off the Marine bike models, those are dummy thick tires that likely aren't inflated, and so can't be shot flat, so you have to actually destroy the bike.

Yeah, it’s an arbitrary effect added to represent a bit of additional robustness from the bike. The more catastrophic effects of bike destruction are also effectively represented by the fact that the rider can’t get off and walk after the bike gets totalled

Altruizine wrote:There have been a number of famous studies done that have determined a significant percentage of soldiers will individually choose not to fire their weapons in a group engagement

usmcmidn wrote:Someone read On Combat by Dave Grossman! What an amazing read.

Grossman's claims about soldiers being psychologically unwilling to kill, and needing to be conditioned to do so, are complete and utter bs that he invented in order to sell training seminars to police.

That little chestnut about most soldiers being unwilling to fire their weapons was based on claims made by S.L.A. Marshall (a journalist) based on interviews he supposedly had with WW2 combat veterans- third-hand information at best from unscientific sources, with no documentation about what questions were asked or how he arrived at his conclusion of how many soldiers actually fired their weapons. It's not 'a number of famous studies'; it's actually roundly rejected by most military historians.

Here's a fun article based on primary sources- written accounts of Canadian officers- that comes to the exact opposite conclusion about combatants in WW2. Grossman is a hack.

kurhanik wrote:A sidenote/pet peeve of mine in 40k specifically - why are troops mounted on bikes sturdier and harder to down than their foot based counterparts? I just don't understand how riding a motorcycle makes you tougher. Faster definitely, but tougher no. I mean getting a tire shot out while going 90km/h feels like it will hurt a lot and kill you easily, or the engine of a hoverbike being damaged would slam you into the ground full speed. I just never really understood this.

Because it's a space-fantasy universe, and adding an extra point of T is needed to make bike-cavalry something more than really expensive fast infantry who die just as easily. They can justify it by saying the bike is armored, but the bike is also a large target, and the guy riding on it is completely unprotected by said armor. If 40K used more hit modifiers I'd expect that the effect of bikes would be a -1 to hit when at speed.

Grey Templar wrote:

 kurhanik wrote:

A sidenote/pet peeve of mine in 40k specifically - why are troops mounted on bikes sturdier and harder to down than their foot based counterparts? I just don't understand how riding a motorcycle makes you tougher. Faster definitely, but tougher no. I mean getting a tire shot out while going 90km/h feels like it will hurt a lot and kill you easily, or the engine of a hoverbike being damaged would slam you into the ground full speed. I just never really understood this.

Well, 40k justifies it by saying that the bikes have reinforced armor plating and small shield generators that help protect the rider. Going off the Marine bike models, those are dummy thick tires that likely aren't inflated, and so can't be shot flat, so you have to actually destroy the bike.

Fair enough, but I would think armor and force fields would be better represented by better armor save, or say a 5+ invulnerable save, to represent it tanking a hit it got better, as opposed to making it harder to wound in general. I mean I'll live with considering its been a thing for longer than I have played, it it just that mentally to me it feels odd that riding a motorcycle makes a space marine more likely to tank a melta shot to the chest.

catbarf wrote:

kurhanik wrote:A sidenote/pet peeve of mine in 40k specifically - why are troops mounted on bikes sturdier and harder to down than their foot based counterparts? I just don't understand how riding a motorcycle makes you tougher. Faster definitely, but tougher no. I mean getting a tire shot out while going 90km/h feels like it will hurt a lot and kill you easily, or the engine of a hoverbike being damaged would slam you into the ground full speed. I just never really understood this.

Because it's a space-fantasy universe, and adding an extra point of T is needed to make bike-cavalry something more than really expensive fast infantry who die just as easily. They can justify it by saying the bike is armored, but the bike is also a large target, and the guy riding on it is completely unprotected by said armor. If 40K used more hit modifiers I'd expect that the effect of bikes would be a -1 to hit when at speed.

If anything, I would think something like that - harder to hit due to their speed but if you get through it isn't suddenly sturdier. The advantage of the bike would make more sense as mobility instead of toughness - being able to fling the riders farther than foot sloggers and dip from cover to cover till in position to dismount and do their job.

I mean, one more toughness vs a Meltagun isn't making much difference. A 5+ invulnerable however would make it massively more survivable.

The problem with Jetbikes is that it makes it’s self more visible by being higher off the ground and more of a target by being higher up. You can avoid it by lowering it to ground level but that puts it at risk of hitting small objects on the ground and losing the “hover” advantage. Motorbikes have been effectively employed by the military in roles such as recon and dispatch riders, even used on patrols in some cases in Afghanistan and Syria but those are more unique to the theatre and their requirements. I don’t see it having much of an advantage over regular bikes in those areas. But with all technology time will tell, well meaning cynicism comes off as stupid and stubborn in hindsight when it works, as would praising and pushing for a project that failed.