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What prevented that from being possible before?

by beaner 7y ago

jacquesm 7y ago
Air power wasn't usually available to smaller players in capacity large enough to be reckoned with.
- HenryBemis 7y ago
  Basically it momentarily eliminates the advantage of supreme military power; "you got F16s", and you spend $1.8m [0] for each cruise missile, and we will make you never sleep again with 100k (I have no idea about the types of drones and their costs - just throwing a number). Similarly, once can disrupt (peacefully - no deaths) civil aviation, e.g. use of drone in Heathrow airport. [1], [2] [0]: https://www.johnlaurits.com/2018/cost-of-tomahawk-missiles-trump-strikes-damascus/ https://www.johnlaurits.com/2018/cost-of-tomahawk-missiles-t... [1]: https://dronedj.com/2019/08/14/climate-change-activists-shut-down-heathrow-drones/ https://dronedj.com/2019/08/14/climate-change-activists-shut... [2]: https://voyagesafriq.com/2019/01/08/heathrow-airport-drone-sighting-halts-departures/ https://voyagesafriq.com/2019/01/08/heathrow-airport-drone-s...
rdtsc 7y ago
Technology. Now with relatively cheap drones you can have surveillance, bomb delivery, and you can mostly hide and not risk your operatives loosing their lives. Before there was the annoying bit of having to brainwash them to blow themselves up along with the bomb they where delivering on foot, by car or boat.
HarryHirsch 7y ago
You needed airplanes, and antiaircraft weapons were so much cheaper. With drones the calculation is the other way around. It completely changes the face of war, offensive warfare is now possible again. Ernst Jünger said something similar when he witnessed the first tanks in World War 1.
- johntiger1 7y ago
  You can't just have an AA gun on every street corner; air power is so powerful precisely because of its mobility and strategic reach
- nostrademons 7y ago
  Seems like drones preference the attacker over the defender on a tactical scale (because they're cheap and numerous) but preference local warfare over global warfare on a strategic scale (because to get that cheapness you need to sacrifice range & performance). They favor insurgent groups over power projection. Supply lines for offensive warfare also get more challenging with drones, because you have this great weapon that doesn't require any people on the front lines to use, but it still requires a great deal of manpower on the back line to service and maintain. I'd say the analogous technology is really the musket. On the battlefield it gave an advantage over knights, cavalry, and swordsmen, but it also gave that advantage to unskilled groups of militia rather than organized fiefdoms that could field large numbers of mounted knights and the support staff needed for them. The result was the Renaissance and birth of nationalism, as local, commercial organizations gained power over the feudal empires that had governed them.
  - loeg 7y ago
    > Seems like drones preference … local warfare over global warfare on a strategic scale (because to get that cheapness you need to sacrifice range & performance) It seems relatively straightforward to deliver drones via any kind of existing global scale transit available today (on the one end, C130s, or on the other end, ICBMs?). A predator drone (not the latest tech) weighs ~5000 lbs and the MIRV Mark 5 SLBMs can launch 8x ~800 lb "W88" warheads, for a combined payload weight of around 6400 lbs. (I'm not super familiar with any of this and might be missing something; just skimmed wikipedia to see if I could make the ICBM math work out.)
- devoply 7y ago
  > offensive warfare is now possible again You mean defensive. Where American firepower at the hands of Saudis completely fucking up your country can be finally challenged with a response that might make them reconsider war. Where it was just a beat down like America is using to doing. Who knows maybe this thing spirals out of control and destroys all of Saudi Arabia, when you are dealing with these sorts of political realities you reconsider things like destroying the entire country of Yemen because you don't like the politics of its majority or its rebel government.
wbl 7y ago
World War II bombing was extremely inaccurate for a number of reasons including heavy losses during daytime bombing unless you went high. Post 1950's SAM really made things fun. It's not until the stealth bomber makes SEAD work and the cruise missile that you can pinpoint things.

What prevented that from being possible before?

by beaner 7y ago

What prevented that from being possible before?

jacquesm 7y ago

Air power wasn't usually available to smaller players in capacity large enough to be reckoned with.

HenryBemis 7y ago
Basically it momentarily eliminates the advantage of supreme military power; "you got F16s", and you spend $1.8m [0] for each cruise missile, and we will make you never sleep again with 100k (I have no idea about the types of drones and their costs - just throwing a number). Similarly, once can disrupt (peacefully - no deaths) civil aviation, e.g. use of drone in Heathrow airport. [1], [2] [0]: https://www.johnlaurits.com/2018/cost-of-tomahawk-missiles-trump-strikes-damascus/ https://www.johnlaurits.com/2018/cost-of-tomahawk-missiles-t... [1]: https://dronedj.com/2019/08/14/climate-change-activists-shut-down-heathrow-drones/ https://dronedj.com/2019/08/14/climate-change-activists-shut... [2]: https://voyagesafriq.com/2019/01/08/heathrow-airport-drone-sighting-halts-departures/ https://voyagesafriq.com/2019/01/08/heathrow-airport-drone-s...

rdtsc 7y ago

Technology. Now with relatively cheap drones you can have surveillance, bomb delivery, and you can mostly hide and not risk your operatives loosing their lives. Before there was the annoying bit of having to brainwash them to blow themselves up along with the bomb they where delivering on foot, by car or boat.

HarryHirsch 7y ago

You needed airplanes, and antiaircraft weapons were so much cheaper. With drones the calculation is the other way around. It completely changes the face of war, offensive warfare is now possible again. Ernst Jünger said something similar when he witnessed the first tanks in World War 1.

johntiger1 7y ago
You can't just have an AA gun on every street corner; air power is so powerful precisely because of its mobility and strategic reach
nostrademons 7y ago
Seems like drones preference the attacker over the defender on a tactical scale (because they're cheap and numerous) but preference local warfare over global warfare on a strategic scale (because to get that cheapness you need to sacrifice range & performance). They favor insurgent groups over power projection. Supply lines for offensive warfare also get more challenging with drones, because you have this great weapon that doesn't require any people on the front lines to use, but it still requires a great deal of manpower on the back line to service and maintain. I'd say the analogous technology is really the musket. On the battlefield it gave an advantage over knights, cavalry, and swordsmen, but it also gave that advantage to unskilled groups of militia rather than organized fiefdoms that could field large numbers of mounted knights and the support staff needed for them. The result was the Renaissance and birth of nationalism, as local, commercial organizations gained power over the feudal empires that had governed them.
- loeg 7y ago
  > Seems like drones preference … local warfare over global warfare on a strategic scale (because to get that cheapness you need to sacrifice range & performance) It seems relatively straightforward to deliver drones via any kind of existing global scale transit available today (on the one end, C130s, or on the other end, ICBMs?). A predator drone (not the latest tech) weighs ~5000 lbs and the MIRV Mark 5 SLBMs can launch 8x ~800 lb "W88" warheads, for a combined payload weight of around 6400 lbs. (I'm not super familiar with any of this and might be missing something; just skimmed wikipedia to see if I could make the ICBM math work out.)
devoply 7y ago
> offensive warfare is now possible again You mean defensive. Where American firepower at the hands of Saudis completely fucking up your country can be finally challenged with a response that might make them reconsider war. Where it was just a beat down like America is using to doing. Who knows maybe this thing spirals out of control and destroys all of Saudi Arabia, when you are dealing with these sorts of political realities you reconsider things like destroying the entire country of Yemen because you don't like the politics of its majority or its rebel government.

wbl 7y ago

World War II bombing was extremely inaccurate for a number of reasons including heavy losses during daytime bombing unless you went high. Post 1950's SAM really made things fun. It's not until the stealth bomber makes SEAD work and the cruise missile that you can pinpoint things.