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Demand For Unmanned Aircraft Outstripping Their Capabilities
coondoggie writes "Has the highly successful but disparate unmanned aircraft strategy deployed by the military outstripped the Department of Defense's ability to handle its growth? The Air Force, Army, and Navy have requested approximately $6.1 billion in fiscal year 2010 for new systems and expanded capabilities. The Pentagon's fiscal year 2010 budget request wants to increase the Air Force's Predator and Reaper unmanned aircraft programs to 50 combat air patrols by fiscal year 2011 — an increase of nearly 300% since fiscal year 2007. In 2000, the DoD had fewer than 50 unmanned aircraft in its inventory; as of October 2009, this number had grown to more than 6,800. The program's success, however, is causing some big cracks in the system. According to a report issued this week by congressional watchdogs at the Government Accountability Office. The military is facing a number of challenges — including training, accessing national air space, and improving aircraft communications systems — that must be overcome if unmanned aircraft are to take their place as a central piece of the military's future, the GAO stated."
Seems like this works so well they want more of it... but in order for it to do all that they want it to do they'll have to divert resources from the manned flights that exist now. Some programs win, some programs lose. Typical Washington debate about to come up...
These thing remove the human element to much, from dropping missiles onto weddings and random cars they target from "intel" received.
I think you should have to send in meat soldiers if you want a war, get verification of who your killing, this is making it to easy to unclear to dangerous morally
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
And yet they still try to convince you that playing video games all day doesn't teach you any marketable skills!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
They could develop a computer system which combines sensor input and calculates optimal control output. For resilience it should be distributed and connected through a network. A network for the sky controlling machines which terminate enemy combatants.
Who's there?
I kill you.
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
My capabilities are far outstripped by my wife's demands.
Put videogames that simulate the planes in trailer parks and recruit the kid with the highest score.
The most important part of this for the Pentagon is that there's no human cost to losing a UAV on the American side. There are no airfields with reporters to deal with - you're not going to allow a journalist on to an airforce base inside the control room for "security" purposes. The pussies who call themselves reporters don't go out of the green zone anymore, and it's hard to get anyone to care about a grainy video or far away sounding reports from foreign news sources. You can bomb the hell out of whomever you like. Even the most dovish democrats will have jobs tied to it in their home districts. Americans have proved we have an endless capacity for funding war. And with UAVs, no caskets with American flags, no problems.
“Vietnam was the first war ever fought without any censorship. Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind.” -General Westmoreland
"The military is facing a number of challenges, including training, accessing national air space and improving aircraft communications systems..."
And rehabilitation. For reasons not yet understood UAV remote pilots are suffering more burnout than most others, as well as PTSD to an extent that mystifies.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Seems like this works so well they want more of it... but in order for it to do all that they want it to do they'll have to divert resources from the manned flights that exist now. Some programs win, some programs lose. Typical Washington debate about to come up...
No, more than that, UAV's are such a contentious issue because of the tremendous culture clash it's causing in the Air Force. In the Army, Navy, and Marines, UAV's are just another military tech tool to use in battle. But in the Air Force, which bases its entire identity on the old Knights of the Air thing, UAV's aren't seen as a valuable tool so much as they're seen as a threat to the very existence of the Air Force itself.
Think about it. If the day is coming when you can train young, non pilot computer geeks to do what current pilots do.... at less cost and less training time, too.... then why have an independent Air Force at all? Because sooner or later, we'll be able to make UAV fighters that can maneuver better, fly farther, and hit harder than any manned craft of today. It's just a matter of time
I think the dawn of the UAV era may well herald the end of the independent Air Force, and I think the current crop of pilots know it too. And it begs the question, did a seperate Air Force ever really make that much sense? It was a branch based on a particular technology.... akin to the Army splitting Tanks off into their own separate service, or the Navy doing the same with submarines. Airpower really isn't a doctrine so much as it's just one more weapon in your arsenal.
I think by our children or grandchildren's lifetimes, the Air Force may be long gone, and looked at the same way jousting knights in armor are looked at... a glamorous, romantic period that was relatively brief, and brought to an end by technology that made it obsolete.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
We did not choose it? You might want to do a little studying about the "peace" conditions imposed on Germany after World War 1.
By the same logic, women deserve to get raped because they wear skimpy clothing.
I think that's a bad analogy in this case. I'm pretty patriotic, and pro-military. I'm a vet as well. And as I've read more about WWI over the years, I've become more and more convinced that WWII didn't have to happen, and that we in the west... including the United States... bear some responsibility for WWII. How? First off, it's becoming harder and harder to convince me that the US had to fight in Europe, that we had any real interest there. The Germans didn't start it, and looking back, was an ascendent Germany really a threat to the US? No, I don't think so. When you get right down to it, I thinking more and more that WWI was just another European Great-Power pissing match.
Further, the absolute draconian position that we put Germany in after the war created an atmosphere perfect for the rise of Adolf Hitler. Had we not tipped the balance in favor of the UK and France... had Germany fared better after the war.... I think there's a good chance Hitler never rises to power. He wasn't inevitable. He took advantage of the utter desperation Germans were feeling.
Woodrow Wilson should have never agreed to the draconian demands of our fellow allies. Despite his best intentions, all he helped accomplish was the implosion of one empire in favor of two others in Europe.
So I think the analogy is more along the lines of a combatant being raped by the victors... and then becoming so twisted by the experience that they embrace total evil to have the satisfaction of their revenge.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
It depends on what you're considering a UAV. By far the most common UAV is a glorified toy RC airplane. The RQ-11B Raven, for example, of which 13,000 have been built, costs about $35,000 including camera and data link. The ground station is a laptop.
Of the big, expensive UAVs you see on the news, Global Hawk and Predator/Reaper, less than 250 have been produced. I doubt even half of the original MQ-1 Predators remain - according to wikipedia we'd lost 70 of them by March 2009. UAVs aren't as reliable as human-piloted aircraft, especially while landing. Also, engine wear is a function of flight hours, and these things can stay in the air for up to 48 hours, depending on the loadout.
I assume GP's point was that the money could be better spent employing people in Afghanistan, so that they have something better to do than join the Taliban and whatnot. It's not clear to me that GP is right, mind you. ;)
"I think by our children or grandchildren's lifetimes, the Air Force may be long gone"
Ah, ye of little faith in this country's military-industrial complex. It is the engine that drives our economy. We spend more on military junk than the rest of the world combined. We have, almost constantly, for the past 50 years, been invading some country or another for no particular reason. The day we see our military shrink one red cent will be the day we see Duke Nuke'Em Forever released.
I don't respond to AC's.