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Ah... you do realize that SEVERELY limits the range at which a target can be engaged, yes? That's what led to the air-to-air mess in Vietnam, where Phantoms without guns were being engaged with some success by old MiG-17s; the Phantoms were not allowed to use their range advantage because they had to visually ID any targets before shooting.
Which put them in gun range of a heavily-armed and maneuverable gunfighter...
Likewise, demanding an F-35 get within visual range of, say, an Su-37 will cost you the F-35. The Su-37 (like all Russian fighers) has an IR sight for using their medium (40 miles) range IR-guided missiles...
BaronIveagh wrote: Except the pilot might decide to use a weapon more appropriate to the target environment. You know, something a human pilot might understand to do, whereas a robot gives no feths.
The human pilot isn't going to care either. As soon as a critical target like a SAM site is identified it's getting hit with whatever available weapon is most likely to destroy it, nobody is stopping to check what might be nearby before starting the attack. Stop thinking with the mindset of current wars against helpless idiots with AK-47s and start thinking about the kind of total war between peer-level states where a drone swarm would actually be relevant.
Ask the guys down at Creech if they've finally gotten rid of that worm yet.
Link please? Google is not helping here.
And getting rid of a worm is easy. Read-only storage for the drone's computers, do a complete wipe and factory reset. I don't think you understand just how different security issues are between general-purpose PCs and single-purpose hardware developed with an emphasis on security.
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
Peregrine wrote: The human pilot isn't going to care either. As soon as a critical target like a SAM site is identified it's getting hit with whatever available weapon is most likely to destroy it, nobody is stopping to check what might be nearby before starting the attack. Stop thinking with the mindset of current wars against helpless idiots with AK-47s and start thinking about the kind of total war between peer-level states where a drone swarm would actually be relevant.
I was. Apparently, my assumption was mistaken that war crimes were still a negative thing. I mean, if you're going to throw out Protocol I (above example you give being a gross violation of), why not throw the whole thing out and dump Sarin on the school and SAM site?
And getting rid of a worm is easy. Read-only storage for the drone's computers, do a complete wipe and factory reset. I don't think you understand just how different security issues are between general-purpose PCs and single-purpose hardware developed with an emphasis on security.
The Virus turned up on the UAV's control computers at Creech rather than on the UAVs themselves, and deployed a key logger. It's believed that no classified information leaked, but the perps are unknown so it's not 100%. A policy exception allowing thumb drives allowed the virus to spread across numerous secure and non-secure systems.
Oldest story in IT, people got lazy.
Also you might have gotten a very small summery from Creech AFBs Wikipedia entry.
btw, some virii are not so easily disposed of.
Fate is in heaven, armor is on the chest, accomplishment is in the feet. - Nagao Kagetora
BaronIveagh wrote: I was. Apparently, my assumption was mistaken that war crimes were still a negative thing. I mean, if you're going to throw out Protocol I (above example you give being a gross violation of), why not throw the whole thing out and dump Sarin on the school and SAM site?
We had laws against war crimes in WWII and yet that didn't stop either side from carpet bombing whole cities to destroy a factory and anything that happened to be nearby. And you don't dump sarin on the SAM site because it's a laughably ineffective weapon against that kind of target. Chemical weapons are illegal without much controversy because people realized that they're primarily weapons of terror against civilian targets, not effective tools for winning a battle against peer-level forces. The relevant WMD would be tactical nuclear weapons, and it's quite likely that this hypothetical scenario escalates there and the SAM site gets nuked.
The Virus turned up on the UAV's control computers at Creech rather than on the UAVs themselves, and deployed a key logger. It's believed that no classified information leaked, but the perps are unknown so it's not 100%. A policy exception allowing thumb drives allowed the virus to spread across numerous secure and non-secure systems.
Keylogger on the computer =/= virus in the drone's control systems. They are two very different things.
btw, some virii are not so easily disposed of.
{citation needed}
How exactly does this hypothetical virus violate the laws of physics to maintain its presence in RAM that does not contain an electrical charge or in read-only storage that has been burned in at the factory and has no write function included in its hardware?
Also, disposing of the Creech virus would be easy. Thermite the hard drives of every computer involved, replace with new ones. The issue is not the technological ability to remove a virus, it's the IT department being cheap about replacing hardware.
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
BaronIveagh wrote: I was. Apparently, my assumption was mistaken that war crimes were still a negative thing. I mean, if you're going to throw out Protocol I (above example you give being a gross violation of), why not throw the whole thing out and dump Sarin on the school and SAM site?
We had laws against war crimes in WWII and yet that didn't stop either side from carpet bombing whole cities to destroy a factory and anything that happened to be nearby. And you don't dump sarin on the SAM site because it's a laughably ineffective weapon against that kind of target. Chemical weapons are illegal without much controversy because people realized that they're primarily weapons of terror against civilian targets, not effective tools for winning a battle against peer-level forces. The relevant WMD would be tactical nuclear weapons, and it's quite likely that this hypothetical scenario escalates there and the SAM site gets nuked.
Exactly. In this hypothetical total war scenario, I don't think drones would be a good weapon since they are complicated pieces of equipment and nuked the moment the war escalates to that level. For total war, it is a much better idea to invest into long-range missiles which are much more effective for indiscriminate bombing than aircraft could ever hope to be, and missile launch silos and vehicles are more resilient to enemy counterstrikes than air bases are. We use aircraft instead of long-range missiles to bomb targets because we think it is important to get "eyes on a target" and we like to be accurate as possible. Take away those requirements, and you have just made aircraft obsolete entirely (at least for strategic bombing roles).
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/09/26 23:07:08
Peregrine wrote: The human pilot isn't going to care either. As soon as a critical target like a SAM site is identified it's getting hit with whatever available weapon is most likely to destroy it, nobody is stopping to check what might be nearby before starting the attack. Stop thinking with the mindset of current wars against helpless idiots with AK-47s and start thinking about the kind of total war between peer-level states where a drone swarm would actually be relevant.
I was. Apparently, my assumption was mistaken that war crimes were still a negative thing. I mean, if you're going to throw out Protocol I (above example you give being a gross violation of), why not throw the whole thing out and dump Sarin on the school and SAM site?
Did you miss the part where the last time America fought a peer-level military we leveled whole cities and killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in the doing? Where we actually NUKED TWO CITIES to try and force a surrender?
That's the kind of war he's talking about. Not even a fairly limited conflict like Korea or Vietnam. A no-holds-barred (short of a general nuclear exchange), one side survives or the other, war against a military peer.
BaronIveagh wrote: I was. Apparently, my assumption was mistaken that war crimes were still a negative thing. I mean, if you're going to throw out Protocol I (above example you give being a gross violation of), why not throw the whole thing out and dump Sarin on the school and SAM site?
We had laws against war crimes in WWII and yet that didn't stop either side from carpet bombing whole cities to destroy a factory and anything that happened to be nearby. And you don't dump sarin on the SAM site because it's a laughably ineffective weapon against that kind of target. Chemical weapons are illegal without much controversy because people realized that they're primarily weapons of terror against civilian targets, not effective tools for winning a battle against peer-level forces. The relevant WMD would be tactical nuclear weapons, and it's quite likely that this hypothetical scenario escalates there and the SAM site gets nuked.
Exactly. In this hypothetical total war scenario, I don't think drones would be a good weapon since they are complicated pieces of equipment and nuked the moment the war escalates to that level. For total war, it is a much better idea to invest into long-range missiles which are much more effective for indiscriminate bombing than aircraft could ever hope to be, and missile launch silos and vehicles are more resilient to enemy counterstrikes than air bases are. We use aircraft instead of long-range missiles to bomb targets because we think it is important to get "eyes on a target" and we like to be accurate as possible. Take away those requirements, and you have just made aircraft obsolete entirely (at least for strategic bombing roles).
There is that, of course.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/09/27 03:45:46
Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios
Iron_Captain wrote: For total war, it is a much better idea to invest into long-range missiles which are much more effective for indiscriminate bombing than aircraft could ever hope to be, and missile launch silos and vehicles are more resilient to enemy counterstrikes than air bases are.
Missiles are hideously expensive though, and nobody really keeps what could be called a long term stockpile of the things. Estimates put the US Tomahawk missile stockpile at around 3600. Thats going to last maybe a couple days if we have any sort of long term full scale conflict and new missile production, assuming we are able to keep production facilities running, would be made far slower than we would use them up.
In the event of any long term full scale war that doesn't resort to launching the Nukes anybody involved is going to run out of missiles pretty fast and be down to bullets and conventional artillery.
Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines
Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.
Iron_Captain wrote: For total war, it is a much better idea to invest into long-range missiles which are much more effective for indiscriminate bombing than aircraft could ever hope to be, and missile launch silos and vehicles are more resilient to enemy counterstrikes than air bases are.
Missiles are hideously expensive though, and nobody really keeps what could be called a long term stockpile of the things. Estimates put the US Tomahawk missile stockpile at around 3600. Thats going to last maybe a couple days if we have any sort of long term full scale conflict and new missile production, assuming we are able to keep production facilities running, would be made far slower than we would use them up.
In the event of any long term full scale war that doesn't resort to launching the Nukes anybody involved is going to run out of missiles pretty fast and be down to bullets and conventional artillery.
And planes are cheap? Googling up claims F-35 costs over 90 millions while tomahawk costs 1.4. Presumably that 90 millions does not include it's missile supply either. Can you bomb more efficiently with 1 F-35 than about 66 tomahawks?
For the price of 3600 tomahawks you would get 53 F-35. And presumably still need to pay missiles for the planes.
Iron_Captain wrote: For total war, it is a much better idea to invest into long-range missiles which are much more effective for indiscriminate bombing than aircraft could ever hope to be, and missile launch silos and vehicles are more resilient to enemy counterstrikes than air bases are.
Missiles are hideously expensive though, and nobody really keeps what could be called a long term stockpile of the things. Estimates put the US Tomahawk missile stockpile at around 3600. Thats going to last maybe a couple days if we have any sort of long term full scale conflict and new missile production, assuming we are able to keep production facilities running, would be made far slower than we would use them up.
In the event of any long term full scale war that doesn't resort to launching the Nukes anybody involved is going to run out of missiles pretty fast and be down to bullets and conventional artillery.
And planes are cheap? Googling up claims F-35 costs over 90 millions while tomahawk costs 1.4. Presumably that 90 millions does not include it's missile supply either. Can you bomb more efficiently with 1 F-35 than about 66 tomahawks?
For the price of 3600 tomahawks you would get 53 F-35. And presumably still need to pay missiles for the planes.
And fuel, and pilots, and maintenance, and specialised refueling aircraft, and a big airbase etc. Missiles are expensive, but aircraft are an order of magnitude more expensive. On top of being less expensive to produce, missiles also do not require as much fuel, maintenance, auxiliary support, big sprawling bases etc. Militaries do generally not keep big stockpiles of long-range missiles since the only functionality offered by those missiles is "indiscriminate destruction of everything within a massive blast radius", which given how modern militaries at least pretend to strive towards minimising collateral damage, is not a very desirable functionality. But when you get to a total war, and you don't care about collateral damage anymore... Then there is no reason why you would not just send in a bunch of cruise missiles or ICBMs instead of aircraft. Of course, the low stockpiles means nations would run out pretty quickly, and then it would be down to whichever nation can rebuild rudimentary infrastructure and crank out cheap mass-produced tanks, artillery, planes and guns the fastest. With all advanced tech depleted or destroyed, we'd be basically be back to WW2 attrition warfare. Presuming of course that both warring parties are still willing to continue after having their infrastructure and cities blown to rubble. Luckily, the chance of a major war like this happening is rather low, because the destruction your own nation would inevitably suffer is not a very pretty idea even if you win the war. And that also means that aircraft will continue to play a significant role on the battlefield at least in the near future, since those battlefields are likely going to be mostly low-intensity proxy wars or insurrections like we are seeing today. And, going back to the autonomous drone discussion, that also means that it will be very important for any sort of drone to be able to avoid collateral damage. Which in turn means that human control will probably always remain a necessity.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2018/09/27 13:35:09
Iron_Captain wrote: For total war, it is a much better idea to invest into long-range missiles which are much more effective for indiscriminate bombing than aircraft could ever hope to be, and missile launch silos and vehicles are more resilient to enemy counterstrikes than air bases are.
Missiles are hideously expensive though, and nobody really keeps what could be called a long term stockpile of the things. Estimates put the US Tomahawk missile stockpile at around 3600. Thats going to last maybe a couple days if we have any sort of long term full scale conflict and new missile production, assuming we are able to keep production facilities running, would be made far slower than we would use them up.
In the event of any long term full scale war that doesn't resort to launching the Nukes anybody involved is going to run out of missiles pretty fast and be down to bullets and conventional artillery.
And planes are cheap? Googling up claims F-35 costs over 90 millions while tomahawk costs 1.4. Presumably that 90 millions does not include it's missile supply either. Can you bomb more efficiently with 1 F-35 than about 66 tomahawks?
For the price of 3600 tomahawks you would get 53 F-35. And presumably still need to pay missiles for the planes.
Hence why I said we're all going to be down to bullets and artillery.
I suppose you could argue that long range missiles are more cost effective than a plane, which would be true. But both will run out very quickly in an actual war as they suffer from the same problem.
Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines
Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.
We had laws against war crimes in WWII and yet that didn't stop either side from carpet bombing whole cities to destroy a factory and anything that happened to be nearby. And you don't dump sarin on the SAM site because it's a laughably ineffective weapon against that kind of target. Chemical weapons are illegal without much controversy because people realized that they're primarily weapons of terror against civilian targets, not effective tools for winning a battle against peer-level forces. The relevant WMD would be tactical nuclear weapons, and it's quite likely that this hypothetical scenario escalates there and the SAM site gets nuked.
Actually, Peregrine, what you described became a war crime with a 1977 addition to the Geneva conventions, which came about because WW2. Just like the rules about treatment of prisoners came about because the US Civil War. You might notice Coventry being prominently missing from the Nuremberg Trials.
Fate is in heaven, armor is on the chest, accomplishment is in the feet. - Nagao Kagetora
I kind of wonder when the dak hits the fan again, and we have even more people going to war than everyone has in WWII, its going to take a lot more munitions to blow each other up, and since everyone loves touting when another commits a war crime, you'll see lots of people in cities and close to civilians and the only way to kill a lot of the enemy is by mass bombing. I think after its all over people will say 'man that was terrible lets not do that again', but during? I expect a lot of the war crime stuff to be set aside.
How exactly does this hypothetical virus violate the laws of physics to maintain its presence in RAM that does not contain an electrical charge or in read-only storage that has been burned in at the factory and has no write function included in its hardware?
Also, disposing of the Creech virus would be easy. Thermite the hard drives of every computer involved, replace with new ones. The issue is not the technological ability to remove a virus, it's the IT department being cheap about replacing hardware.
Strictly speaking hypothetically, certain systems can't be ROM. They have to be EPROM. Unless they're buying a whole new drone or F-35 every time a new software version gets approved.
Which means that, yes, hypothetically you could create a virus that comes back every time the thing boots up by slipping it in with a firmware update. And it would be time consuming to find just which system it was coming from.
Getting back to the F-35 we had it's first combat missions with the US on Thursday, and first crash today. That was quick.
How exactly does this hypothetical virus violate the laws of physics to maintain its presence in RAM that does not contain an electrical charge or in read-only storage that has been burned in at the factory and has no write function included in its hardware?
Also, disposing of the Creech virus would be easy. Thermite the hard drives of every computer involved, replace with new ones. The issue is not the technological ability to remove a virus, it's the IT department being cheap about replacing hardware.
Strictly speaking hypothetically, certain systems can't be ROM. They have to be EPROM. Unless they're buying a whole new drone or F-35 every time a new software version gets approved.
Which means that, yes, hypothetically you could create a virus that comes back every time the thing boots up by slipping it in with a firmware update. And it would be time consuming to find just which system it was coming from.
These planes probably have ROMs for operational controls with custom architecture (ie, fly dat plane!) and solid state memory/harddrives for tasks that requires data collection. I would hope that those systems don't "talk" to each other to mitigate such virus/worm infection scenarios.
Furthermore, with the freaking costs to these machines, I'd totally believe new hardware would be needed to swap out the old for each software versions. (not including patches).
Getting back to the F-35 we had it's first combat missions with the US on Thursday, and first crash today. That was quick.
So the German Luftwaffe, still using our decades-old Panavia Tornados, is looking for a replacement for their multirole/ground attack jets. From what I read in German news, our department of defense squandered millions in the triple digits with "consulting" and corresponding jobs and is generally doing a crap job of replacing our old tech, but furthermore, it looks like the F-35 is our kind-of only choice for a replacement right now. The Dassault Rafale is still in the game, made by our neighbors, but politics seem to have sidelined that one and now we are looking at glorious "Lightning IIs", too, for our small Luftwaffe.
I'm not really hyped about this plane as many others, I guess. Especially for our comparably small army, compared to the bigger nations. Spending enormous amounts of money for maybe 20 planes that might just as well be shot down in the first days of a larger war by some new-tech missile or simply due to bad planning and bad luck, and then we have a Luftwaffe without planes anymore? These small numbers, regardless of how great the plane is supposed to be, just sound really dangerous to me.
Get those high-tech planes, alright, but perhaps have a second-line wave of MUCH cheaper, older-generation fighters ready, with enough trained pilots as well. World War II saw 20,000 Spitfires and 30,000 BF 109s alone in the European theater, and nowadays we bumble about with just enough planes to fill one large hangar? And when they get shot down or just killed on the ground by long-range missiles we can wait for a few years before they are replaced? None of this sounds sustainable.
Hell, we had 24 MiG-29 we took from the GDR when it collapsed, and we gave them away for 1 EUR each to Poland. I mean, more power to Poland, but in what world do you just give away 24 solid jet fighters when you are having trouble keeping your ridiculously old Tornados even slightly flyworty?!
/rant.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2018/09/30 14:05:37
These planes probably have ROMs for operational controls with custom architecture (ie, fly dat plane!) and solid state memory/harddrives for tasks that requires data collection. I would hope that those systems don't "talk" to each other to mitigate such virus/worm infection scenarios.
Autonomic Logistics Information System talks to all of them and has already been shown to be vulnerable, though it was limited to feeding the pilots and drones bad information, so if Peregrine wants that Children's hospital to be a SAM site, the hardware will tell him it is. As long as he doesn't use his eyeballs and something resembling judgment about the giant red cross on the roof, he's gonna be every bit as lethal as that drone.
Further, if you use ROM even a patch could, in theory, require the whole shebang to be replaced with a new one. I dunno about the air-force, but when I worked for Snyder, the army was pretty specific about wanting the firmware being patchable rather than the alternative.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Witzkatz wrote: So the German Luftwaffe, still using our decades-old Panavia Tornados, is looking for a replacement for their multirole/ground attack jets. From what I read in German news, our department of defense squandered millions in the triple digits with "consulting" and corresponding jobs and is generally doing a crap job of replacing our old tech, but furthermore, it looks like the F-35 is our kind-of only choice for a replacement right now. The Dassault Rafale is still in the game, made by our neighbors, but politics seem to have sidelined that one and now we are looking at glorious "Lightning IIs", too, for our small Luftwaffe.
I'm not really hyped about this plane as many others, I guess. Especially for our comparably small army, compared to the bigger nations. Spending enormous amounts of money for maybe 20 planes that might just as well be shot down in the first days of a larger war by some new-tech missile or simply due to bad planning and bad luck, and then we have a Luftwaffe without planes anymore? These small numbers, regardless of how great the plane is supposed to be, just sound really dangerous to me.
Get those high-tech planes, alright, but perhaps have a second-line wave of MUCH cheaper, older-generation fighters ready, with enough trained pilots as well. World War II saw 20,000 Spitfires and 30,000 BF 109s alone in the European theater, and nowadays we bumble about with just enough planes to fill one large hangar? And when they get shot down or just killed on the ground by long-range missiles we can wait for a few years before they are replaced? None of this sounds sustainable.
Hell, we had 24 MiG-29 we took from the GDR when it collapsed, and we gave them away for 1 EUR each to Poland. I mean, more power to Poland, but in what world do you just give away 24 solid jet fighters when you are having trouble keeping your ridiculously old Tornados even slightly flyworty?!
/rant.
Get more Typhoons. I know that Taktisches Luftwaffengeschwader 71 has some, and they're frankly better than the F-35.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/09/30 17:20:07
Fate is in heaven, armor is on the chest, accomplishment is in the feet. - Nagao Kagetora
The Typhoons are apparently only planned as air superiority fighters. I agree they should fill that role nicely, but apparently people don't think they can fill the fighter-bomber role.
Possibly roaming a bit OT with this, but aren't we gradually (or almost already?) at the point where the squishy meatbag is the limiting factor?
Just wondering how many Generations will follow Gen 5 before on-board human-pilot replacement? Maybe 1x more?
I'm not suggesting we're at the point for full-on autonomous fighters, but with AR/VR advancing pretty steadily, would we really need an -on-board pilot going beyond Gen 6? Can we not maybe do that already in some cases?
The F-35 has had issues with pilots blacking out, though they occasionally claim to have fixed them, it seems to be an issue that comes back after it's 'fixed'.
Fate is in heaven, armor is on the chest, accomplishment is in the feet. - Nagao Kagetora
BaronIveagh wrote: The F-35 has had issues with pilots blacking out, though they occasionally claim to have fixed them, it seems to be an issue that comes back after it's 'fixed'.
To get rid of the human pilot you have to either develop a highly capable AI that you trust not to zap an infant clinic because all the prams look like tanks, or you have to trust the controllers sitting in Arizona 8,000 miles from the battle area to make the right decisions despite the time lag and inability to eyeball the real situation the way a pilot can.
I don't mean to impune drone controllers in any way, but it just isn't the same.
Witzkatz wrote: The Typhoons are apparently only planned as air superiority fighters. I agree they should fill that role nicely, but apparently people don't think they can fill the fighter-bomber role.
The only thing stopping the Luftwaffe from getting more Typhoons in the bomber role is that the Tornado is the only German A/C that's capable of carrying nuclear ordnance (under the NATO nuclear sharing program) and it's extremely unlikely the US would certify the Typhoon for that when the F35 is out there as an option.
Kilkrazy wrote: To get rid of the human pilot you have to either develop a highly capable AI that you trust not to zap an infant clinic because all the prams look like tanks, or you have to trust the controllers sitting in Arizona 8,000 miles from the battle area to make the right decisions despite the time lag and inability to eyeball the real situation the way a pilot can.
I don't mean to impune drone controllers in any way, but it just isn't the same.
I get the lag at 8K, KK, but I'm thinking something like an "evolution" of AWACS? Say some fething huge & powerful C&C plane / blimp (feth-it ... satellite/space station?) with all the "pilots" on board, with gakloads of defensive swarmed interceptors / killer-sats? No?
Witzkatz wrote: The Typhoons are apparently only planned as air superiority fighters. I agree they should fill that role nicely, but apparently people don't think they can fill the fighter-bomber role.
The only thing stopping the Luftwaffe from getting more Typhoons in the bomber role is that the Tornado is the only German A/C that's capable of carrying nuclear ordnance (under the NATO nuclear sharing program) and it's extremely unlikely the US would certify the Typhoon for that when the F35 is out there as an option.
So our choices of acquiring new fighter-bombers are basically linked to what the US would like us to have? Because they need to allow the planes we are allowed to strap the bombs to that the US would like us to carry? That sounds like a Lockheed-Martin lobbyist's dream scenario indeed.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/09/30 22:19:41
Witzkatz wrote: The Typhoons are apparently only planned as air superiority fighters. I agree they should fill that role nicely, but apparently people don't think they can fill the fighter-bomber role.
The only thing stopping the Luftwaffe from getting more Typhoons in the bomber role is that the Tornado is the only German A/C that's capable of carrying nuclear ordnance (under the NATO nuclear sharing program) and it's extremely unlikely the US would certify the Typhoon for that when the F35 is out there as an option.
So our choices of acquiring new fighter-bombers are basically linked to what the US would like us to have? Because they need to allow the planes we are allowed to strap the bombs to that the US would like us to carry? That sounds like a Lockheed-Martin lobbyist's dream scenario indeed.
Did you "seriously" think it was ever any different? (not saying it's right ... just saying ...)
Kilkrazy wrote: To get rid of the human pilot you have to either develop a highly capable AI that you trust not to zap an infant clinic because all the prams look like tanks, or you have to trust the controllers sitting in Arizona 8,000 miles from the battle area to make the right decisions despite the time lag and inability to eyeball the real situation the way a pilot can.
Or, third option: you don't care about killing the infants because there's a war to be fought. The only real issue with killing them is that you've wasted ammunition on an irrelevant target, but the whole point of drone swarms is to be so cheap that sheer numbers overcome any inefficiency per drone. A "shoot first, ask questions never" policy works just fine for the swarm.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/10/01 08:28:47
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
Witzkatz wrote: The Typhoons are apparently only planned as air superiority fighters. I agree they should fill that role nicely, but apparently people don't think they can fill the fighter-bomber role.
The only thing stopping the Luftwaffe from getting more Typhoons in the bomber role is that the Tornado is the only German A/C that's capable of carrying nuclear ordnance (under the NATO nuclear sharing program) and it's extremely unlikely the US would certify the Typhoon for that when the F35 is out there as an option.
So our choices of acquiring new fighter-bombers are basically linked to what the US would like us to have? Because they need to allow the planes we are allowed to strap the bombs to that the US would like us to carry? That sounds like a Lockheed-Martin lobbyist's dream scenario indeed.
I can't comment further on that without breaking the politics ban but pretty much yes. That's the way NATO was set up.
Kilkrazy wrote: To get rid of the human pilot you have to either develop a highly capable AI that you trust not to zap an infant clinic because all the prams look like tanks, or you have to trust the controllers sitting in Arizona 8,000 miles from the battle area to make the right decisions despite the time lag and inability to eyeball the real situation the way a pilot can.
Or, third option: you don't care about killing the infants because there's a war to be fought. The only real issue with killing them is that you've wasted ammunition on an irrelevant target, but the whole point of drone swarms is to be so cheap that sheer numbers overcome any inefficiency per drone. A "shoot first, ask questions never" policy works just fine for the swarm.
People do care about killing infants though, so that is not an option. Not unless you want to deal with massive local resistance, political fallout at home and an entire world including your allies who hate you. In other words, a smart military uses smart bombs.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/10/01 10:10:51
Kilkrazy wrote: To get rid of the human pilot you have to either develop a highly capable AI that you trust not to zap an infant clinic because all the prams look like tanks, or you have to trust the controllers sitting in Arizona 8,000 miles from the battle area to make the right decisions despite the time lag and inability to eyeball the real situation the way a pilot can.
I don't mean to impune drone controllers in any way, but it just isn't the same.
I get the lag at 8K, KK, but I'm thinking something like an "evolution" of AWACS? Say some fething huge & powerful C&C plane / blimp (feth-it ... satellite/space station?) with all the "pilots" on board, with gakloads of defensive swarmed interceptors / killer-sats? No?
It could be done that way.
The counter-arguments are that the point of drones is to keep human crews well out of harm's way.
A large C&C plane in the near battle area is a mighty tempting target.
To protect it with lots of drones or fighters turns it into a Death Star which might be hard to kill but losing it wrecks the entire force structure.
Kilkrazy wrote: The counter-arguments are that the point of drones is to keep human crews well out of harm's way. A large C&C plane in the near battle area is a mighty tempting target.
To protect it with lots of drones or fighters turns it into a Death Star which might be hard to kill but losing it wrecks the entire force structure.
That Command plane would also be transmitting like crazy, giving commands to swarms of drones - one imagines the missile technology required to hit it wouldn't be nearly as high as what's needed against a properly working F-35.
Not to mention any enemy with the resources would be planning to get at the pilots, whether they sit in a plane, on a space station or in a bunker half the world away. They're piloting armed drones, they're a perfectly legitimate military target and worth taking out with any means necessary even if they sit in a downtown office building next to a daycare center.
