8 ms·
Gremlins
- mirimir 8y agoCruise missiles? Drones? With "AI"? Whatever, so damn predictable. But hey, when you gotta kill, you gotta kill. Might as well do it efficiently, with as little operator risk as possible. But it does suck, when you're the target. And low operator risk makes wars a lot easier to sell to frightened masses. So likely, there'll be more targets, for less justifiable reasons. Resource wars, for example.
- Koshkin 8y agoOn the other hand, it's the military who have the money. Jet fighters and bombers came before jet airliners. So, maybe DOD's involvement will bring the Singularity closer.
- mirimir 8y agoI'm not sure that angry AI is something to look forward to. Unless I'm the angry AI, anyway ;)
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- nickhalfasleep 8y agoIt's easy for politicians to dispatch robots, no danger of service members being killed. Look at the proliferation of questionable targets and results that cruise missiles have given politicians when they need to make empty threats.
- angry_octet 8y agoYou can definitely argue that drones are a proliferation risk, and also risk conflict escalation. Because there is no pilot on board, A is willing to action riskier/provocative missions against B. B knows it is a drone, so it can shoot it down without loss of human life, and possibly analyse the fragments. A knows B will do this, so uses disposables to probe air defence capabilities. B sends its own drones to probe A's launch site/platform. Et cetera. So it allows idiot governments to seriously escalate conflicts. I can totally see this in regional conflicts. The disposable nature with low local expertise requirements might increase sales to poor countries too. While they might not be willing to risk their air superiority totems (MiGs of F-16s) in a border dispute, drones are qualitatively different.
- mirimir 8y agoYou don't need to argue hypotheticals. This has been the US pattern for decades. Even in Iraq, the US casualty rate was far lower than in Vietnam.
- angry_octet 8y agoThe problem with the SUAS concept is energy and scale. You can't have something very small (small enough to fit a dozen in a C-130, so several metres in length at most) which has a powerful turbofan engine and significant range and excellent manoeuvrability and compact stowage. Recovery especially is rather implausible due to the complex aerodynamics and risk to the people on the mothership. C-130s are fine for a demo I guess, but are particularly terrible tactically, as the adversary SUAS systems would easily be able to take them out.
- Shivetya 8y agoI just figured recovery could be sky hook or similar, have a cable out there that the drone snags and then it gets pulled in. I cannot imagine the hell of trying to fly in the turbulence behind a C130
- lainga 8y agoWe tried that in the 20's with airship carriers. It was hard even at airship and biplane speeds.
- VectorLock 8y agoThe Fulton recovery system only had one fatality in its uses. And recovering a UAV is more durable than a squishy meat bag human.
- NegativeLatency 8y agoAnd in the 30s, 40s, 50s. It’s an enduring dream. One of my favorite parasite fighters https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_XF-85_Goblin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_XF-85_Goblin
- derefr 8y ago> Recovery especially is rather implausible due to the complex aerodynamics and risk to the people on the mothership. Why not recover the sUAs with a big UAV? You can do all sorts of crazy things re: vehicle design, if you don't need people inside. For example, have each sUA just dive toward the UAV from above, decelerate to a zero/zero intercept, and cut propulsion, such that it goes ballistic falling past the loading bay; and then have the UAV target the sUA with a net out of its loading bay, catch it, and reel it in. Like a skyhook that assumes an uncooperative peer. Or, have the sUAs throw themselves at random points on the the UAV's (very thick and solid and ferromagnetic) hull, and lock onto it magnetically, and then have the UAV pluck the sUAs off with external cranes and bring the sUAs into the loading bay. Like a monkey plucking ticks off of itself and eating them.
- victorbstan 8y agoCarrier has arrived.
- taneq 8y ago<Protoss noises intensify>
- goshx 8y agoI don't understand why you'd want to tell everyone how your weapons work. It may be a cultural thing, as I am not American. What is the reasoning behind it?
- mirimir 8y agoAdvertising, given huge income from arms sales. Also perhaps generating fear and awe.
- adventured 8y agoIt's definitely a form of advertising. US companies often publish vast amounts of public R&D, and universities routinely do it. The US military sometimes behaves that way for the exact same reason. When you can advertise that you're cutting edge, it helps attract the best minds. That's dramatically more valuable than worrying about eg China or Russia stealing the idea to Gremlins. Those ideas and technologies get out regardless, you can't protect them very long. Competitors and adversaries are going to catch up with a given piece of technology, even if they have to figure out how you did it the hard way. By recruiting the best minds to work on problems, you can ensure that you remain a lap ahead of the competitors that will steal or copy from you regardless. If something is very sensitive, then perhaps you can buy a bit more time by keeping it strictly secret, it's still going to get out. If your tech is good enough, powerful countries will do anything to get at it.
- cirgue 8y agoI am not an aerospace engineer, but the figure '20 uses' stood out to me as odd: if it's 20 uses, why not just build it to be easily serviceable indefinitely? With no pilot you massively simplify the set of engineering and materials problems, and if it's going to be reusable that many times you're still going to have to perform maintenance, refuel, re-arm, etc. What is so different between '20 uses' and 'decades'?
- genocidicbunny 8y agoPerhaps they're using that to establish a goal line of sorts? There's also the matter of cost. Eventually diffuse wear and tear from the launches and retrievals is going to cause components to fail at a higher frequency. The scales of 'continue repairing' vs 'buy new one' are going to tip towards 'buy new one'. I'm sure the old one will still be useful for something as well -- perhaps as a target drone.
- taneq 8y agoIf they're expecting a 5% loss rate per mission, then there's no point making them last longer than 20 missions. You can also make things cheaper and more durable if they don't have to be designed to be disassembled.
- adrianN 8y agoIf you expect to only fly them during missions with that loss rate. I thought planes were used mostly for training. There are not that many active wars being fought right now.
- taneq 8y agoYou'd probably train in a simulator, or with more serviceable training drones, I guess.
- caf 8y agoIf there's a 5% loss rate per mission, then there's a 35% chance that it will survive 20 missions.
- ohazi 8y ago"and retrieve them in mid-air" sounds pretty challenging.
- 0003 8y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppression_of_Enemy_Air_Defenses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppression_of_Enemy_Air_Defen...
- Animats 8y agoThis isn't just a concept. There's already hardware flying.[1] As a concept, it makes sense. The USAF is being killed by the costs of the F-35. An aircraft that can survive in hostile airspace today is insanely expensive. The USAF just won't have enough of them to go up against anybody serious. Something cheaper is needed. A cheaper unmanned aircraft won't survive as well. That's OK; if you can get 20 combat missions out of the thing, that's not bad. [1] https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2018-05-09 https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2018-05-09
- TeMPOraL 8y ago> Something cheaper is needed. And if you can get it below (or in the ballpark of) the costs of shooting it down, that's another huge win.
- CPAhem 8y agoGremlins were not "luck charms of many British pilots during World War II" as Darpa states. They were bad luck demons that could kill pilots. "Gremlins were said to engage in such a myriad of bad behavior as sucking the gas out of tanks through hoses, jamming radio frequencies, mucking up landing gear, blowing dust or sand into fuel pipes or sensitive electrical equipment, cutting wires, removing bolts or screws, tinkering with dials, knobs or switches, jostling controls, slashing wings or tires, poking or pinching gunners or pilots, banging incessantly on the fuselage, breaking windows, and a wide variety of other prankish acts. " https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2015/07/the-real-gremlins-of-wwii/ https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2015/07/the-real-gremlins-of-...
- js2 8y agoGremlins sound like a Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.
- aaron695 8y agoUmmm what's bizarre is that link doesn't mention they probably were widely popularised by Roald Dahl. Especially since they use pics in the article from his book? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gremlins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gremlins Certainly that's what I think of first, over the film. Especially when talking about aircraft. In the book they were not bad luck demons, more mischievous. Roald Dahl was a fighter pilot.
- codetrotter 8y agoThere’s a Bugs Bunny animated cartoon in the Merrie Melodies series that depicts a Gremlin like the one you mentioned. Falling Hare (1943) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZElJxTCIsJI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZElJxTCIsJI
- lerie 8y agoThe part I found most enjoyable was the fact that DARPA says the British love Gremlins, while Americans made them into horror icons.