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Air superiority basically means being able to deny airspace to your enemy's forces while ensuring the safety of your own air assets. What if we developed swarms

Air superiority basically means being able to deny airspace to your enemy's forces while ensuring the safety of your own air assets. What if we developed swarms of drones to the point where both sides could ensure the destruction of anything flying in contested airspace, but not ensure the safety of anything flying? Maybe warfare will return to a static mode, like WWI, but with much deadlier weapons, including automated AI area denial tanks and swarms of suicidal aerial drones.

sitkack 8y ago
At the same time it will shoot sub-prime mortgages directly into the Wells Fargo accounts of the enemy. Interesting times indeed. If WW1 was facilitated by the telegraph, WW3 will be lubricated by Twitter.
- m1573rp34130dy 8y ago
  if you are joking this is humorous... but this is also serious reality that you have commented about, it is a feasible thing with sufficient sophisocation... ...the economic system is a vital leverage point...
rch 8y ago
That pretty much sums up the endgame with Anti-access Area Denial (A2/AD) strategy: https://www.sto.nato.int/SitePages/newsitem.aspx?ID=3546 https://www.sto.nato.int/SitePages/newsitem.aspx?ID=3546
hindsightbias 8y ago
The capabilites to deny airspace to something like an F-22 would be pretty high/expensive. AA missiles are expensive to buy, deploy and maintain and they probably haven't gotten cheaper over time. Their true effectiveness in a peer-to-peer contest is unknown or only known to a select few with access. Drones would likely not be cheaper than AAM. But swarms could change the whole anti-personnel/troop exposure calculation, so it might make mute using super-platforms for air support. Flying IEDs is a lot easier to imagine than an F-22/35 killer (that are in the air, at least).
- stcredzero 8y ago
  Drones would likely not be cheaper than AAM. Right. In a way, that's part of the point. AAM are constrained to me munitions. They are expensive, but need to be far cheaper than the aircraft they are launched from, because the missiles are meant to be expended and the aircraft is meant to return. Swarms of suicide drones running tactics of area denial could be made at many different levels of capability and expense. make mute (Make moot.) Flying IEDs is a lot easier to imagine than an F-22/35 killer (that are in the air, at least). AAM are already flying explosive devices. Drones might well still carry AAMs, but be able to operate in a "mutual destruction" mode, sacrificing themselves to make a shot on a more expensive aircraft. AI programmers for fighter drones might well build in economic decisions. "Suicide for the kill, but only when the target is more expensive than yourself."
  - m1573rp34130dy 8y ago
    they have been imagined and created and used in venezuela... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-45077057 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-45077057 [dupl] ...also, i wonder what a wardrone does to a fighter jet when its titanium chassis is sucked into the engine :-/
    - 15155 8y ago
      Considering the fact that organic geese will handily destroy aircraft turbines, I'd hazard to guess that a metal drone loaded with fuel and explosive armaments would also do a fair bit of damage.
m1573rp34130dy 8y ago
its happening, its not maybe [probably]... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-45077057 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-45077057 from daily mail[meh], but a counterpoint and illustration of the weaponization of information that is happening... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6027507/Venezuelan-President-Nicolas-Maduro-survives-alleged-drone-assassination-attempt.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6027507/Venezuelan-P...

sitkack 8y ago

At the same time it will shoot sub-prime mortgages directly into the Wells Fargo accounts of the enemy. Interesting times indeed. If WW1 was facilitated by the telegraph, WW3 will be lubricated by Twitter.

m1573rp34130dy 8y ago
if you are joking this is humorous... but this is also serious reality that you have commented about, it is a feasible thing with sufficient sophisocation... ...the economic system is a vital leverage point...

rch 8y ago

That pretty much sums up the endgame with Anti-access Area Denial (A2/AD) strategy: https://www.sto.nato.int/SitePages/newsitem.aspx?ID=3546 https://www.sto.nato.int/SitePages/newsitem.aspx?ID=3546

hindsightbias 8y ago

The capabilites to deny airspace to something like an F-22 would be pretty high/expensive. AA missiles are expensive to buy, deploy and maintain and they probably haven't gotten cheaper over time. Their true effectiveness in a peer-to-peer contest is unknown or only known to a select few with access. Drones would likely not be cheaper than AAM. But swarms could change the whole anti-personnel/troop exposure calculation, so it might make mute using super-platforms for air support. Flying IEDs is a lot easier to imagine than an F-22/35 killer (that are in the air, at least).

stcredzero 8y ago
Drones would likely not be cheaper than AAM. Right. In a way, that's part of the point. AAM are constrained to me munitions. They are expensive, but need to be far cheaper than the aircraft they are launched from, because the missiles are meant to be expended and the aircraft is meant to return. Swarms of suicide drones running tactics of area denial could be made at many different levels of capability and expense. make mute (Make moot.) Flying IEDs is a lot easier to imagine than an F-22/35 killer (that are in the air, at least). AAM are already flying explosive devices. Drones might well still carry AAMs, but be able to operate in a "mutual destruction" mode, sacrificing themselves to make a shot on a more expensive aircraft. AI programmers for fighter drones might well build in economic decisions. "Suicide for the kill, but only when the target is more expensive than yourself."
- m1573rp34130dy 8y ago
  they have been imagined and created and used in venezuela... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-45077057 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-45077057 [dupl] ...also, i wonder what a wardrone does to a fighter jet when its titanium chassis is sucked into the engine :-/
  - 15155 8y ago
    Considering the fact that organic geese will handily destroy aircraft turbines, I'd hazard to guess that a metal drone loaded with fuel and explosive armaments would also do a fair bit of damage.

m1573rp34130dy 8y ago

its happening, its not maybe [probably]... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-45077057 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-45077057 from daily mail[meh], but a counterpoint and illustration of the weaponization of information that is happening... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6027507/Venezuelan-President-Nicolas-Maduro-survives-alleged-drone-assassination-attempt.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6027507/Venezuelan-P...