http://www.defensenews.com/story/mi...t-strike-fighter-f-35-unmanned/25832745/


Before all you ex airdales start in on this, let me go grab some popcorn...

makes sense to me.

I like this idea - swarms of smaller, basically expendable drones since anything that flies can and will be shot down eventually.

They can attack targets directly or identify and illuminate them for a larger attack craft standing by with a heavier ordnance capability or stand-off type munitions.

The size of them would be adaptable to mounting on a mobile land based carrier which could be stationed just behind the lines or close to areas of combat in dispersed regions with no front line like Vietnam was or Afghanistan is today.

LOCUST swarm

What can you expect from an obama appointee and other idiots...?

I knew I could count on you. :-)

Sure, always a good idea to make sure that your armed forces have a small number of options. It makes it very nice for the potential opponents too since they can use a minimal defense budget and pretty much be sure that they'll be ready to ensure the USN Power projection isn't a factor.

Growing up my Dad had an extensive collection of Popular Mechanics an such from the 60's predicting the same demise. Wasn't true then. Isn't true now.

Not seeing the issue with going to attacking via program. Indoctrination of a human to do anything they are ordered is close to, but not 100%, guaranteed.

KW, regale us with your expertise in combat, planning, strategy, tactics etc.

I like this idea. You could cut back the manned aircraft back =by half and replace it with twice the number of unmanned drones.

You'd still have to keep pilots and conventional transport and combat aircraft, because there are just some missions that couldn't be done any other way.

So what is to be done when someone learns to jam the control systems on the drones, or even worse takes controls and turns them against us?
Can't be done?
Maybe not yet but anyone willing to bet their future against someones future skills?
A man in the bird has hands on the stick and feet on the rudders. Difficult to take over that system.

Oh disturbed one, my experience is not relevant to the discussion. In case you missed it, the point of posting this story was to solicit the views of those with extensive military aviation experience -- such as Jorge and Pugs, who I respect -- on SECNAV's comments about taking pilots out of the cockpit.

I was not an aviator and I make no claims to any special martial prowess, but I did my job and served honorably, mostly forward deployed in WESTPAC and the IO for roughly 3 1/2 years, during a never-dull period of history. I make no apologies for that to you or anyone else.

Correct. There are things drones do very well. long endurance Intelligence Surveillance and Recon (ISR) are sweet spots for sure. When it comes to boys in green in trouble though I want a guy looking down with eyeballs on, transport troops? No CO wants to tell a parent his child was killed by a robot aircraft software glitch.

Don't think drones are cheap and they still have a lot of issues. Predator loss rate run about 10/100,000 hours. This compares to the overall Navy rate of less than 1/100,000 hours in manned aircraft. That's class A's so it doesn't include combat losses. Numbers like that mean that the technical and operational maturity of drones is still quite low.

I believe part of the development is to make the UAV's autonomous or as autonomous as possible. Just point'em at what you want attacked - i.e. GPS coordinates or whatever - and they do the rest without a human pilot either in a cockpit or 5,000 miles away in a control room. No outside data link, no jamming them.

There will always be a need for manned aircraft for certain missions but for ground attack or CAS which are very high risk missions, especially with the portable anti-air capabilities available to even guerrilla forces these days, it makes sense to have a smaller, extremely maneuverable vehicle capable of G-force turns no human could stand, and without the risk of a very expensive to train pilot becoming a casualty or POW.

That's called a Tomahawk land attack missile. They work really well.

Curious on how you'd preprogram a drone for CAS...

Well, continue to stir the pot to no good end. SecNav is here today, gone tomorrow. Irrelevant as a tick on a dog's butt. Just as knowledgeable as McNamara.

Don't forget to add "I think New Braunfels is awesome" to your resume.

It says a LOT.



Clark

Over half a million Americans plus their friends and families would disagree about Robert McNamara being irrelevant.

How do you sustain your energy sans Bluedreaux's COCK these days?

Protein bars?


Clark

Slurp, how long have you suffered from Comprehension Deficit Disorder? Is it painful? Hope so, but best of luck regardless.

I hate to say it but Mabus was a midshipman in NROTC at Ole Miss at the same time I was. He was a couple(?) of years ahead of me and IIRC he was the CO of the midshipman corps.

Later, when he ran for governor of Mississippi, the saying was, "Save us from Mabus!"

[ [/quote]

Don't forget to add "I think New Braunfels is awesome" to your resume.

It says a LOT.



Clark [/quote]

Don't forget to do your homework, junior, on matching ammo to rifle. When you get that right, that will say a LOT. Of course, you would have to leave the sheep alone long enough to study, so the jury's still out on your chances.

New Braunfels...

It never gets old. Thanks again.




Dave

I have been kinda keeping up with this thread.Every time I read it I keep coming back to when the F4 didnt need guns because of missles.Guns wont be needed.Sure seems like the same sort of short sighted foolishness to me.We need both,all we can afford.

"Pre program" suggests a pre defined and somewhat fixed mission profile.

A drone controlled via a data link from the ground would not have that issue. Indeed Predators are used in a ground attack role now, although its very limited compared to say an A10 or Apache.

Alternatively, the future of drones will be making them autonomous and equipping them with Artificial Intelligence ie enable them to respond and be flexible, in real time so to speak..

The mind boggles at the computer and software needed for this, but if a computer can be programed to be unbeatable at Chess, I guess its only a matter of time..

Unmanned aircraft technologies will continually be subjected to electronic counter measures therefore I see live bodies in cockpits for many moons to come and certainly don't buy into the SecNav's Cylon approach.

I suspect unmanned, autonomous, aircraft probably don't worry much about who they are told to shoot and where. The way things are going with government, I'd rather have a pilot in the aircraft.

Those like the current generation which rely on data links for command and control will certainly be vulnerable, but as the use of AI develops and drones become more and more autonomous, that vulnerability will decrease greatly.

It also needs to be remembered that todays manned aircraft are also susceptible having data links jammed and attacks from other forms of electronic warfare..

I tend to agree, but the switch to autonomous drones will come, its just a matter of time.

Taking the human out of the cockpit/tank degrades the psychological aspect of war at many levels and in my opinion increases the threat of escalating to nukes much faster.

For every firewall of security there is a guy in china/russia/n.korea/isis/iran etc. working to break it. They've already broken into the whitehouse, the pentigon.......Putting all your eggs in one basket will lead to major negative consequences. History has proven this many times over

Eggs in one basket? The Maginot Line comes to mind.

A good example, however the Maginot might have held if command didn't have it's head up its butt. German mil. build up had been going on for some days before the attack but French leadership were still so torqued over the losses during WWI, by the time they realized it was starting all over again it was too late, the blitzkrieg had already happened.

Looks to me like this strategic switch to "all" drones has as much to do with our $18+ trillion debt as to a "new era" of fighting wars. The pentagon has priced itself out of its own blasters. Only time will tell, unfortunately.

Until they can be made to function without a data link, they have too big of an Achilles heel to put all your eggs in that basket.

I think it premature to rule out pilots in future platforms, but the issue is more limitation of the human body to survive the issues of acceleration then anything else, as the technology improves.

Question, are all 3 versions of the F-35 going to be called the Lightning II?

Phil

Drones will follow commands and fire upon whomever is doing the programming or running the joystick.

Ponder that for a few moments.

Think Ft Hood shooting but on a much grander scale.

You just program it to deploy itself to the loiter point, so the kid with the xbox controller can take it in for it's run. After it's out of fuel and ammo, he just pushes triangle, (or is it circle) to send it back to rearm and refuel as he picks up control of the next CAS drone to continue supporting our ground troops and killing bad guys.

Why does it bother you that McNamara had so much control over the lives of so many?

This is much closer to reality.

We will continue to expand the role of drones, but the traditional pilot is not going away anytime soon.

As for machines choosing target, we've all seen too many terminator movies for the American public or military leadership to me comfortable with automatic target selection being employed beyond the close in point defense role (think CWIS shooting down incoming missiles)

Over half a million Americans got sent to Vietnam and he played a major role in getting them there. What part of that do you not comprehend?

Slurp, GTF off this thread.

Fixed it for ya

Why are you upset that McNamara has significant clout?

Unless I have gooks in the wire, or I'm on fire, nothing really upsets me anymore, dork.
But, you're sort of like King Midas, with the glaring exception everything you touch turns toshit and you are bringing nothing to this thread other than like you, McNamara should have been told to GFY a long time ago. Now go back to zip-locking shower pistols, Chris...

I was looking at CAS in context with this post...


"Just point'em at what you want attacked - i.e. GPS coordinates or whatever - and they do the rest without a human pilot either in a cockpit or 5,000 miles away in a control room. No outside data link, no jamming them.

There will always be a need for manned aircraft for certain missions but for ground attack or CAS which are very high risk missions, especially with the portable anti-air capabilities available to even guerrilla forces these days, it makes sense to have a smaller, extremely maneuverable vehicle capable of G-force turns no human could stand, and without the risk of a very expensive to train pilot becoming a casualty or POW."

It is obvious things still upset you.

No pistols in the shower for me. No problem that you have one hidden inside you at all times.

Why should McNamara " been told to GFY a long time ago" exactly?

Chriss got pissy when folks started talking about his real life, so he left as TRH and came back as this POS.

He won't leave, and Rick won't kick him off unless he starts posting porn, bashing on Catholics, or maybe slaps a little duct tape on the corners of his dog's eyes.

He exists, here and now, for no other reason than to disrupt this site and to give other folks here heartburn.

A point being missed by some here and certainly by the SecNav is that CAS is a synergistic affair between those in need of support and those delivering same. It is also very fluid and the technology does not exist now nor will it in the foreseeable future which empowers drones with human insight and the on site decision making capability that is required. It is not as simple as putting ordnance on a target, not by a long shot. Maybe put yourself on the ground in a bad situation and tell me whether you'd prefer a UAV or pilot to deliver the goods 10 meters from your frontal position. Maybe tell the UAV you need a medivac after the ordinance is expended? Good luck with that.

Using a UAV for CAS is a BS idea and little more. Combat is a lot more complicated that theoreticians imagine. It is the warrior that can snatch victory from chaos, not a farking machine.

Someone that swore the oath!

Not TRH or Chriss so lucky for you Rick doesn't ban people for being wrong repeatedly.

Why would I give you or anyone like you heartburn. I praise the same people and groups you and others like you do.

A robot can be programmed to wear the oath just as much as a man can be. Fortunately, keeping things running smooth would be more important than the oath to either.

Love your avoiding of that question.

You're the cockhound of all cockhounds.



Travis

PS- I have a cock. GIT SUM!

I am not avoiding the question about McNamara. I asked it, several others are avoiding it.

Not avoiding your repeated requests for gay sex either since I keep telling you that I am not a homosexual like you are. Plenty of other here seem to be wired that way so you should have more success getting a date with them.

Treason among other things.

And SECNAV, aside the fact he is an obama appointee, has ZERO flying OR combat experience, so like slerp, he spews...

Why compare me to him? I know you can be counted on to do anything you are ordered to do, but not everyone is like that so real deal robots(not just humans who have characteristics worthy of the moniker) have a place in combat and may be better than US citizens for that purpose.

Slurp, You need to chow down on a couple pounds of Ex-Lax.

Why would you say that? For pointing out the clout that McNamara possessed?

That seems to matter little as late, but I put more faith in Americans than our last few presidents.

I wouldn't call it a faith issue and back to at least Lincoln. We can always count on our MIL/LE to do what needs to be done. The oath is just a nice thing to say that is not legally binding.

You're probably the biggest DSMF I know...

Maybe not for you...

It is indeed legally binding and matters not if you're a soldier, civil servant or political hack. A convenient point of reference is Richard Nixon and the articles of impeachment drawn up by the House over the Watergate affair. Practice up on your Google-Foo.

Mebbe you need 3#?

Just a democratic Congress going after him, not that they were mad at what he had done. Hate the sinner, not the sin.

Please link us to all of the penalties for violations mentioned in the Constitution.

GFY. Make it 4#.

No different than all of us supporting McCain in 2008 since he voted for the bailouts while opposing Obama for voting for the bailouts or supporting one while opposing the other over gun control. Heck, we all adore Reagan for his lifelong support of gun control measures but have a democrat hint at doing the same and the gnashing of teeth is on.