| ▲ | Aboutplants 11 hours ago |
| The most surprising thing here is that the US was previously only spending $225 Million on drones when it’s been fully apparent for the past decade(s) that drones were the future of warfare. |
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| ▲ | jonplackett 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| What is weird is that all these current super expensive high tech weapons like aircraft carriers, f22s are basically like cavalry in the tank era. Drones (and cheap-ish ballistic missiles) have turned it all on its head. In the war with Iran you have the USA shooting down 50k drones with multiple multi-million dollar missiles. Some of the THAAD missiles are over 10 million each - and you have to launch 2 to get an interception. Meanwhile they have to keep the aircraft carriers hundreds of miles off shore or they’ll be sunk with hypersonic missiles. The economics are crazy but even if you’re willing to pay, the capacity to build enough isn’t there either. |
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| ▲ | canucker2016 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | In the book "Skunk Works" by Ben Rich (former head of Lockheed's Skunk Works), the authour talks about the behaviour of the military officers. Spy planes weren't seen as valuable/important to the typical officer who was looking to get promoted to higher levels versus the typical sexy fighter jets or bombers. Just as in any group, there are certain positions that are more prestigious/desired than other positions. Typically the prestige increased the more people that they supervised or valuable pieces of equipment (expensive tanks / fighter jets) in their group. Then there are other positions with lower prestige / desirability - think support/logistics (unless your org's main revenue stream is support/logistics). This has little correlation to the effectiveness/impact of the group. Those who worked well with the current strategies / standard operating procedures, can't see/don't want to see how new technology can be used to operate more effectively. Imagine how army officers treated those who wanted to use airplanes in the period from World War I to World War II. | | |
| ▲ | b3ing 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm sure the defense contractors wanted to sell the expensive planes that require more maintenance rather than drones |
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| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > they have to keep the aircraft carriers hundreds of miles off shore Drones + cheap antidrones + aircraft carriers + stealth aircraft looks like a solid high/low optimum. Anyone pitching an only-high or only-low strategy is leaving chips on the table. | | |
| ▲ | ohnei 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm not familiar with a stealth meant for even when you have to park it sometimes. If anyone has a great drone dominance then all your anti drone should go into drone related infrastructure. If someone has the corresponding high dominance then you can wait until nature runs out of resources for maintaining the absurd. The US is a strategy of failure since Vietnam because it is profitable to war hawk supporters to lose every war in the economics and funnel the money back into more strategic losers. | | |
| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | > If anyone has a great drone dominance then all your anti drone should go into drone related infrastructure If your opponent has drone dominance, you neutralize that advantage with anti-drone kit and then build your own advantage. Part of that will be drones. But part will be heavier, more sophisticated platforms. (Which will eventually pilot themselves, but aren’t drones since they aren’t cheap.) You can’t win a war only playing defense. > someone has the corresponding high dominance then you can wait until nature runs out of resources for maintaining the absurd Their high technology destroys your industry while you wait. This is strategy as old as the Bronze Age. |
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| ▲ | Leonard_of_Q 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > like cavalry in the tank era Ehhh, tanks are the cavalry of the tank era. Cavalry did not go away, it changed from its namesake horses to armoured battle vehicles but its task remains more or less the same. Drones and 'cheap-ish' ballistic missiles can make life harder for the mentioned expensive high-tech weaponry until cost-effective counter-measures are widely available. For drones that'll probably end up being directed energy weapons - lasers and the likes - while ballistic weaponry can (for now) be countered by moving out of their (ballistic) path. Eventually aircraft carriers will probably be replaced by multiple drone carriers, that may happen sooner or later depending on how the current fleets end up performing in coming conflicts. |
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| ▲ | scottyah 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It didn't make sense to physically stock up on them before. It was mostly research, prototyping, comms infrastructure, software for swarms, AI piloting, ground control, etc. The next phase of building factories and manufacturing tooling/capabilities is a little bit concerning. |
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| ▲ | GerryAdamsSF 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | Simple DJI style drones employed en masse in Afghanistan would have been helpful for a variety of tasks. I cannot see any reason, over than oversight and a lack of imagination, why something useful in Ukraine in 2022 was not feasible or useful in 2017 by the USA. We already used drones quite handily well before that time frame but in a much more limited manner in a different form factor. | | |
| ▲ | rl3 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | >I cannot see any reason, over than oversight and a lack of imagination, why something useful in Ukraine in 2022 was not feasible or useful in 2017 by the USA. Perhaps it had to do with optics? It's not like there was a lack of capability in 2017. [0] The war in Ukraine provided a way for the US to assist in rapid iteration of the technology without having to shoulder the negative sentiment or grapple with the morality of it. Also worth noting that the two conflicts were wildly different: Afghanistan was more of an occupation across a much larger area with air superiority. There's not really much impetus to field killer drone swarms when you already have the 24/7 ability to instantly delete most enemy combatants off the map to begin with. Whereas Ukraine with neither side having air superiority and it resembling something closer to modern trench warfare. In most cases with literal trenches. >We already used drones quite handily well before that time frame but in a much more limited manner in a different form factor. The picture below is from 1995. [1] By approximately 2001 it received the MQ-1A designation indicating it was capable of employing AGM-114 (hellfire) payloads. Kind of crazy to think about. [0] https://www.twz.com/6866/60-minutes-does-an-infomercial-on-d... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-1_Predator#... | |
| ▲ | cosmicgadget 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Combat in Ukraine is, as I understand it, somewhat like WWI with long lines of contact that only shift slowly. So you have a good idea that if you point your drone in a given direction, you'll find an enemy tank or trench. For Afghanistan it seems like high-flying, capable, armed drones were a better option for that type of conflict. |
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| ▲ | dijit 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I think the surprising thing to me here is that there is a generation of children afraid of a clear blue sky because it means drones can see them.. ... and it only cost $225M. (source: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2013/10/saddest-words-c...) |
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| ▲ | cosmicgadget 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | Surely the 225M only covers tiny drones and not the Predators, Reapers, and the others employed in the GWOT. |
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| ▲ | l5870uoo9y 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Took a war to realize this. |
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| ▲ | mc32 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I think we sorely miss people like Paul van Riper. I’m pretty confident he’d have seen their use and advocated for them years ago. |
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| ▲ | rozal 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
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