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I would encourage countries like China or Russia to develop cheap mass drone swarm systems that can deny access to airspace to any adversary. A country could se

I would encourage countries like China or Russia to develop cheap mass drone swarm systems that can deny access to airspace to any adversary. A country could sell this sort of service for hundreds of billions of dollars to another country like an insurance policy. Entire wars could be made impossible. It would be great progress for the world.

King-Aaron 8y ago
Please, China and Russia, don't do this.
ceejayoz 8y ago
> Entire wars could be made impossible. Maybe, but it might make others go nuclear if there aren't conventional options available anymore.
- devoply 8y ago
  Canard or red herring used to justify militarism and military aggression. In our world when countries get too powerful to fight they usually simply don't and use proxies to fight conventional wars.
wmeredith 8y ago
Something like the “Dog Dod Grid” from Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age... >> Atlantis/Shanghai occupied the loftiest ninety percent of New Chusan's land area - an inner plateau about a mile above sea level, where the air was cooler and cleaner. Parts of it were marked off with a lovely wrought-iron fence, but the real border was defended by something called the dog pod grid - a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats... >> These pods were programmed to hang in space in a hexagonal grid pattern about ten centimeters apart near the ground (close enough to stop a dog but not a cat, hence "dog pods") and spaced wider as they got higher. Further reading: http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=243 http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=243
walrus01 8y ago
anti drone swarm drone: several dozen large-ish sized x8 hexacopters, capable of 2 hour flight time and carrying a 10kg load, with a gimbal mounted semiauto 12 gauge shotgun + large magazine of birdshot shells. Drone swarms are possible, sure, but it's also quite possible to miniaturize existing concepts of antiaircraft missiles and guns, and automate those. Or build swarms of disposable 2 meter wingspan size drones that can fly above a drone swarm, and drop chaff consisting of long lengths of fishing line. Tangle propellers. Basically something like this, which is a bit smaller than the Zipline drones: https://www.banggood.com/Believer-1960mm-Wingspan-EPO-Portable-Aerial-Survey-Aircraft-RC-Airplane-KIT-p-1178800.html?cur_warehouse=CN https://www.banggood.com/Believer-1960mm-Wingspan-EPO-Portab...
- mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  anti anti drone swarm drone drone swarm: a swarm of those.
  - walrus01 8y ago
    or, fly a C-17 sized aircraft at FL400 over the anti-anti-anti-droneswarm and drop many metric tons of unspooled fine gauge fishing line. More seriously though, if small drone swarms will be limited in the altitudes that they can reach (being limited by battery life, not enough motor runtime to ascend to FL200, travel laterally, and then down to a ground attack again, for instance), any modern air force that can establish air superiority over a battlefield... Will have a lot of different options to attack drone swarms from above.
- gotocake 8y ago
  ...100 years later it’s all nanoscale and we’re living in ‘The Diamond Age” and wondering where it all went wrong.
- robotresearcher 8y ago
  Drones are small and hard to see with small cheap sensors. You have to see them to shoot them, the range of a shotgun is very small, and the sky is a big place.
fernly 8y ago
What are the aerodynamic abilities of a drone swarm? That is, to what altitude can a swarm reach, to interdict an incoming aircraft? How fast? My impression of current drones is that they are fairly small, less than 2 metres diameter, which implies pretty tight limits on range, altitude, speed, and time-on-station. So even if you have thousands of them, a conventional bomber can come over at an altitude the swarm can't reach -- or a fleet of bombers can hang off the border for hours, probing at random, until the drones run out of juice -- or a fighter can make a fast pass, dodging the much slower-climbing swarm, and drop chaff or smoke or an EMP weapon to confuse the swarm. Bottom line, I seriously doubt drones could permanently block access to a national airspace.
- nyolfen 8y ago
  look at airplanes a century ago and from the perspective of someone then try to extrapolate from those to an sr71 or a space shuttle in just a generation or two
nradov 8y ago
There is a long history of people claiming that new weapons would make war impossible, going back to the crossbow. So far the predictions have been wrong.

King-Aaron 8y ago

Please, China and Russia, don't do this.

ceejayoz 8y ago

> Entire wars could be made impossible. Maybe, but it might make others go nuclear if there aren't conventional options available anymore.

devoply 8y ago
Canard or red herring used to justify militarism and military aggression. In our world when countries get too powerful to fight they usually simply don't and use proxies to fight conventional wars.

wmeredith 8y ago

Something like the “Dog Dod Grid” from Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age... >> Atlantis/Shanghai occupied the loftiest ninety percent of New Chusan's land area - an inner plateau about a mile above sea level, where the air was cooler and cleaner. Parts of it were marked off with a lovely wrought-iron fence, but the real border was defended by something called the dog pod grid - a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats... >> These pods were programmed to hang in space in a hexagonal grid pattern about ten centimeters apart near the ground (close enough to stop a dog but not a cat, hence "dog pods") and spaced wider as they got higher. Further reading: http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=243 http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=243

walrus01 8y ago

anti drone swarm drone: several dozen large-ish sized x8 hexacopters, capable of 2 hour flight time and carrying a 10kg load, with a gimbal mounted semiauto 12 gauge shotgun + large magazine of birdshot shells. Drone swarms are possible, sure, but it's also quite possible to miniaturize existing concepts of antiaircraft missiles and guns, and automate those. Or build swarms of disposable 2 meter wingspan size drones that can fly above a drone swarm, and drop chaff consisting of long lengths of fishing line. Tangle propellers. Basically something like this, which is a bit smaller than the Zipline drones: https://www.banggood.com/Believer-1960mm-Wingspan-EPO-Portable-Aerial-Survey-Aircraft-RC-Airplane-KIT-p-1178800.html?cur_warehouse=CN https://www.banggood.com/Believer-1960mm-Wingspan-EPO-Portab...

mlthoughts2018 8y ago
anti anti drone swarm drone drone swarm: a swarm of those.
- walrus01 8y ago
  or, fly a C-17 sized aircraft at FL400 over the anti-anti-anti-droneswarm and drop many metric tons of unspooled fine gauge fishing line. More seriously though, if small drone swarms will be limited in the altitudes that they can reach (being limited by battery life, not enough motor runtime to ascend to FL200, travel laterally, and then down to a ground attack again, for instance), any modern air force that can establish air superiority over a battlefield... Will have a lot of different options to attack drone swarms from above.
gotocake 8y ago
...100 years later it’s all nanoscale and we’re living in ‘The Diamond Age” and wondering where it all went wrong.
robotresearcher 8y ago
Drones are small and hard to see with small cheap sensors. You have to see them to shoot them, the range of a shotgun is very small, and the sky is a big place.

fernly 8y ago

What are the aerodynamic abilities of a drone swarm? That is, to what altitude can a swarm reach, to interdict an incoming aircraft? How fast? My impression of current drones is that they are fairly small, less than 2 metres diameter, which implies pretty tight limits on range, altitude, speed, and time-on-station. So even if you have thousands of them, a conventional bomber can come over at an altitude the swarm can't reach -- or a fleet of bombers can hang off the border for hours, probing at random, until the drones run out of juice -- or a fighter can make a fast pass, dodging the much slower-climbing swarm, and drop chaff or smoke or an EMP weapon to confuse the swarm. Bottom line, I seriously doubt drones could permanently block access to a national airspace.

nyolfen 8y ago
look at airplanes a century ago and from the perspective of someone then try to extrapolate from those to an sr71 or a space shuttle in just a generation or two

nradov 8y ago

There is a long history of people claiming that new weapons would make war impossible, going back to the crossbow. So far the predictions have been wrong.