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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
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 LAST thing we need is expanding military capability.
No, the last thing we need is people who think you should die for expressing your opinion having greater military capability. And the way to make that not worth it to them is to have countermeasures that are wildly more sophisticated than what they have to fight with. Small, non-manned tools like this REDUCE what we have to spend and deploy in any given scenario. And at the same time the technology lends itself to everything from fire fighting to wildlife monitoring in other venues. You're confusing tools with tool users. Just say it: you don't think it's appropriate to push back against groups like ISIS or regimes like North Korea's. Don't bother explaining why, since that's an irrational point of view and any attempt to justify it is going to be based on a broken world view. But at least just say what you mean, in plain language, and quit pretending that advances in technology are, in and of themselves, a bad thing.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
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.
> No, the last thing we need is people who think you should die for expressing your opinion having greater military capability....like this REDUCE what we have to spend and deploy in any given scenario
The second part seems counterproductive to the first.
There is no military solution here, all you do by making the use of force easier is make it easier for our for profit military industry to create more enemies in their desire for endless war.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
The geek in me is squealing...
But the more rational side of me is concerned about what this portends...
"War... War never changes..."
No, the last thing we need is people who think you should die for expressing your opinion having greater military capability. And the way to make that not worth it to them is to have countermeasures that are wildly more sophisticated than what they have to fight with.
The Russians have already done that.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Avatar: The Last Dronebender
The war is in fact endless. It is part of being a human to do war.
It is like a medal - there are two sides of it - you want to have one you get the other one too. The wars of humanity will end with humanity.
This does not mean that we should not try to prevent war as much as possible but if we want to eradicate war and violence we will ultimately fail. Society that has refused violence and war and was at the same time not protected by another bigger and less peaceful does not exist long - attempts have been made, none were successful.
OC concentrating on war only is as silly as refusing to fight in any conditions. Leadership of NK is as delusional as leadership of today's Germany.
In words of a great poet of war: "Doing right ain't got no end" so there will always be war. Endless as you said.
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.
Yep, we can always count on China to keep the sea lanes free and open.
then certainly military spending should go down at some point. something that hasn't happened in decades
It went down hugely as the Soviet threat dried up, and then has wobbled up and down in different sectors as different issues presented themselves. If we were dealing with everything we're dealing with now while only having the technology of the 1980's, military spending would be MUCH higher.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The second part seems counterproductive to the first.
No, it's not. Because technology isn't static, and our need to field and support as many human beings has gone down hugely. Which reduces everything from health care (and related veteran) costs to administrative costs. Staying focused on things like remote imagining and unmanned vehicles isn't free, but it produces results with far less cost per task (though we could use better human espionage/intelligence in many cases - that's a different problem, though it is also made more effective per human involved because of newer technology, especially on the back end analysis part).
There is no military solution here
There is no solution for mass murdering, medieval-minded theocratic thugocracies that can work without the ready enforcement of military power. The solution is for such entities to be gone from earth. You're hoping to talking (for example) a large chunk of Islam into thinking differently and giving up on everything they say they are required by Allah to do. What is your non-military way of dealing with that, when part of how they do it involves things like rolling a column of trucks into a village, grabbing the school teacher out of the school and shooting her in the head in front of her students as they burn the school down? Were you going to hang out by the school and sing folks songs to the Taliban or to ISIS so they won't do that? Please explain in detail how you would prevent a school full of girls from being kidnapped and sold by a bunch of machine-gun-carrying Boko Haram fighters without the use of force. Really, details, please. Or admit that your "solution" is to abandon a growing portion of the world to exactly that mindset.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
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
The problem with this concept is that once you destroy any recognizable fighting capability of the humans on the 'other' side (whatever that means) they will try to use something that does not look like weapon but does damage anyway. You can see where that leads on both sides of big wall between Israel and G. Strip. If there are some ways out of hell this is the misery and low level aggression will just spill all over the globe the 'syrian refugee crises' way.
Something tells me that this actually means there are few humans too many on this little planet to avoid such scenario.
Why do you think that was Americans?
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Now if we could only get the cool technology developed for something other than our war with Eastasia thanks.
Like the internet and GPS?
Most of the shrill "War is not the answer!" crowd are moral relativists who will always resist recognizing that doing things like fighting in WWII isn't the same as starting WWII. Or that using necessary force to push Saddam's annexation invasion forces out of Kuwait isn't the same as starting a war.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Well, my solution would start by the complete abandonment of your medieval simplistic assessment of a large section of the human population as guided by nothing more than blind superstition.
This is not even CLOSE to an accurate description of ANY real issue. In fact, your cowboyism serves to do nothing but rally people behind such polarizing and simplistic views that serve as little more than an excuse to continue the carnage.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
The problem with this concept is that once you destroy any recognizable fighting capability of the humans on the 'other' side (whatever that means) they will try to use something that does not look like weapon but does damage anyway. You can see where that leads on both sides of big wall between Israel and G. Strip. If there are some ways out of hell this is the misery and low level aggression will just spill all over the globe the 'syrian refugee crises' way. Something tells me that this actually means there are few humans too many on this little planet to avoid such scenario.
There's a Peter Weller movie about that called "Screamers."
Or we could do like Switzerland - put a military rifle and trainee in every household in the outer cantons and then just never get involved in wars for a couple hundred years (not even Hitler was foolish enough to try to take Switzerland) . Spend those trillions elsewhere.
They don't seem to have a need to glassify the rest of the planet. Maybe that's not such an unhealthy attitude. Heck, the USG can't even beat the Taliban, and all they have are small arms.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Wars have been predominantly fought as tools of the elite. Yes, individuals squabble, fight, and bicker. But to wage war requires the focused interests of the moneyed ruling class.
Name one war in modern history that was started by a majority vote of the people to do so?
Not that the people voted, but after 9-11, a majority of the US population rallied behind the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Granted, the war in Iraq was largely based off of incorrect intel, but at the time most supported it off of what was known.
The catalyst for those wars was the four hijacked planes, which was certainly not voted on by the people in the various countries those in the Taliban came from.
The Korean war had a 78% approval rating the first year. Granted, that dropped considerably after the first year. Vietnam was similar. Only 22% of democrats disapproved of the Vietnam war in the beginning vs. 28% of Republicans, who disapproved, when it started. It's interesting how the Democrat disapproval rating for Vietnam increased once Nixon went into office and the republicans disapproval rating decreased some. After both steadily rising for years
The majority of the US wanted to stay out of WW2. But once Pearl Harbor was attacked the public opinion quickly changed.
But yeah, most of us would like to avoid wars as much as possible. Once society advances to the point of no longer being tribal, most of us aren't interested in waging war unless we're directly attacked. But that's a first world perspective where little, if anything, is scarce.
what makes you think external powers can pick the "right" side in any given local situation?
What makes you think that's impossible when it comes to military force, but possible when it comes to sanctions or other non-military diplomatic-style power?
More to the point: just because the situation in one area is murky doesn't mean that it's in any way ambiguous who's right or wrong when a caravan of trucks loaded with men carrying machine guns pulls into a village and starts shooting school teachers in the town square. There are plenty of VERY cut and dry cases. For a "local" sociopolitical problem, ISIS sure is swimming in hundreds of millions of dollars, getting financial, logistical, and personnel support from all around the globe, and expanding their operations into (among other places) Africa. Their propaganda (which relies heavily on the narrative that they are militarily powerful and victorious) is being put to use around the world and gaining the support of people who perform mass killings in Europe and North America - not just in Syria or Iraq.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
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.
In addition to what the AC pointed out, Switzerland is a tiny country (barely bigger than the city of Dallas, TX according to google) with some pretty rugged mountains and not a lot in the way of natural resources. The defensive strategies for a small country with barely any resources don't really scale up to a large country with loads of natural resources and a population in the hundreds of millions.
Switzerland = 1590 square miles, Dallas = 380 square miles.
Switzerland is a verdant crossroads between FR, DE, IT, and AT with huge strategic value.
Dallas is a horrible shit hole of hot concrete and blue laws (I was born there).
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
So ISIS doesn't exist? Boko Haram doesn't exist? If your solution to bad people is to pretend there are no bad people, that doesn't sound like a good strategy to me.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
War most certainly is not endless, it just reflects the psychology of it's instigators. Basically eliminate psychopaths and you will eliminate war. The remaining humans simply lack the motivation to drive war where as psychopaths quite simply feed there ego by expressing the ultimate in their mind of control by taking the lives of other humans. So we only need one war to end all war the war of the 99% relatively normal population against the 1% psychopath population.
What the US military in this instance scampers past is of course the high performance, ramming speed, jet powered drones, the could hang in rotation in defensive formations to take out any approaching aircraft. Again similar swarm technology, drones at a fraction of the cost of fighters in set to launch at ratios between 10 to 100 to one. Better than a missile, because they any individual drone can miss and miss and miss and still pass on data to other drones, to improve vector approaches to ensure a hit (all happening regardless of flares or chaff, they will fly through both, acknowledge error and correct, so impact fuses work best). Drones work by far best in defensive applications simply because the closer to the supply point the bigger the swarm you can amass and sustain especially with regard to recovery and relaunching.
In offensive operations they are only really affective against more primitively armed opposition.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
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
Switzerland = 1590 square miles, Dallas = 380 square miles. Switzerland is a verdant crossroads between FR, DE, IT, and AT with huge strategic value. Dallas is a horrible shit hole of hot concrete and blue laws (I was born there).
It's a real pain with the math education in the US of A. Switzerland has an area of 41,285 km2, that's 15,940 square miles if you are stuck with Fred Flintstones unit, so you are still off by a factor off 10... But I like the description of Dallas...
It's a real pain with the math education in the US of A.
I spent all of 10 seconds googling. Looks like I misspoke and they were talking about Dallas and the surrounding developed area, I was using the number given here: http://www.travelersdigest.com...
Real classy though jumping to conclusions like that.
I literally spent 10 seconds googling it, this said 1.5: http://www.travelersdigest.com... But regardless, Switzerland is very small compared to the total area in the US. My point about defensive strategies not scaling up still stands.
Sure our one sided profit-minded foriegn policy for the past half century has created a number of enemies and caused many of them to band together behind all manner of scary banners. They will continue to do this and continue to make new scary banners as long as we continue to provoke them.
The only reason they do it can be seen as easily as the yellow fluid that pours down your leg every time they go "boo".
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"