Slashdot Mirror
Pentagon Office Planning 'Avatar' Fighters and Fighter-Launched Drone Swarms (washingtonpost.com)
schwit1 writes: High over Alaska last summer, the Pentagon experimented with new, secret prototypes: Micro-drones that can be launched from the flare dispensers of moving F-16s and F/A-18 fighter jets. Canisters containing the tiny aircraft descended from the jets on parachutes before breaking open, allowing wings on each drone to swing out and catch the wind. Inch-wide propellers on the back provided propulsion as they found one another and created a swarm.
They must have figured the name SCO is available now.
Nope, no sig
Now if we could only get the cool technology developed for something other than our war with Eastasia thanks.
The LAST thing we need is expanding military capability.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Where did you route them to?
This seems like a good idea to counter the advancements in Russian anti-aircraft missiles. Seeing as how they have come quite a long way it would make sense to use drone swarms to make their life a nightmare. I think the USAF was trying to do the same thing with the tacit rainbow project. Where B-52s would release large numbers of drone like anti-radar missiles that would loiter over the battlefield near suspected anti-aircraft units.
The minute they turn on their radars, BAM, they would have large numbers of drones just seconds away from their unlucky ass. This would turn the job into having to counter the incoming swarm of drones AND then firing missiles at the manned fighters, making a unit that wants to stay mobile pretty much useless because it wouldn't be able to counter the number of targets with a portable amount of missiles (ammo).
life finds a way
Null0
The reality would be offering apartments and air conditioners to the youths, who will flock to the new towns so they can have what passes for an iPhone in the future.
The old priests and chieftains, like those with power everywhere, will resist it, perhaps sucking in the SJWs of the future, who, enjoying patting blue skins on the head as quaint, without thinking of them as quaint, will agree there is value in forcibly keeping them in loincloths and barking at the moon.
The media should do its job, which is to embarrass any company or government that rips off the natives rather than making them rich. This should include embarrassing SJWs who think the priests and chieftains are in it for anything other than power, a patronizing-racist concept.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The AC is claiming he setup the route that turned out to be so poor for the marines. He was the root cause of all those people dying.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
comments here say this would be good counter to russian anti aircraft weapons, but real beneficiaries of drone swarm technologies, which are relatively cheap and easy to deploy(and will be ever more so as times goes on), and not that secret, will be smaller nations defending against bigger costlier high tech aircraft, missiles, and drones( and big ships at sea).
this would be another form of asymmetric warfare, like guerrilla and terrorist warfare.
in fact, biggest losers will be usa and nato.
Make them big enough to do all the above, but each one carries a standard frag grenade. Then swarm the city homing in on human targets to explode about 3 feet from.
Instead of bombing a city to hell.... drop 50,000 human seeking frag grenades.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The geek in me is squealing...
But the more rational side of me is concerned about what this portends...
"War... War never changes..."
noes
I have a feeling this will play out so that war will be OUR guys/gals playing a video game against THEIR guys/gals. No real fighting - just video games. Of course, DOD will still want gazillions of dollars to play/create off-the-shelf games.
Avatar: The Last Dronebender
This is a big improvement over v. 1.0, which were launched from the flare dispensers of stationary F-16s and F/A-18s. Good work.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
TFA description doesn't mention the 'Avatar' details at all.
The swarms are cool, but the 'Avatar' program is with *full size* F-15, F-16, and F-18's that are autonomous drones that follow a lead pilot in an F-22 or F-35...from TFA:
This is also the future for Google's AI-cars, the actual practical application will be in long-haul trucking. AI will never replace human drivers...Google's cars with no steering wheel will never be implimented. However, we will see the self-driving car tech used in the same way as this aircraft application. One human-driven lead vehicle with AI drones following the human.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Why do you think that was Americans?
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Who else could accomplish interstellar travel?
Is that again a posting about the fail of the F35?
Just wondering ...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Somebody needs to go and look up the definition of avatar.
The idea of recycling old jets into autonomous aircraft goes back many decades, the new part is putting AI in them, but suggesting there could still always be a man-in-the-middle is deceptive. It only works 100% if the jet can fly itself and make weapons fire decisions autonomously, that is not an avatar, that is the terminator, with wings.
probably some nation with manned orbital launch capability
The reality would be...
bumping some orbital body large enough to obliterate the area in question and small enough not to destroy the planet's surface. You would classify it enough so that some of your own people would die so that you could bond with the natives in a shared experience of grief, tell them that the area is dangerous and that by stretching our own meager resources we might have the equipment to render the area safe again, one day. In the meantime we can only protect you natives if you stay away from the area.
Why the fuck would you risk your own assets when you can control what falls on where from orbit and no one can see your preparations and planning. In that regard Avatar is more stupid than a bunch of Jar Jar Binks.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Hello,
Your copyright date needs to be updated.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Dexter is a good dog.
Defense takes up ~20% of US Federal budget, paid out mostly directly to the military.
That's your tax dollars paying for soldiers, guns, tanks, missiles, ships, bases and for buying allies through foreign aid (a tiny piece of it all).
Veterans also represent a sizeable chunk of the whole thing, either through compensation paid out to them by the government, or through medical costs.
Again... your tax dollars are spent on all that.
"Medicare" takes up ~27% of US Federal budget BUT... and it's a HUGE BUT...
It is paid out from TRUST FUNDS, paid into by the workers, from their payroll and income taxes as INSURANCE for themselves and their families.
NOT your tax dollars - THEIR tax dollars, entrusted to the government, to be paid out TO THEM in the time of need.
I.e. That's people's savings for the rainy day.
Cause it rains on just and the unjust alike. And it never stops.
That's why government HANDLES that much cash - but it is NOT spent.
It is RETURNED to those who've provided it. With interest.
Same goes for social security, of which only a tiny chunk is actual spending instead of again - savings.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens