9 ms·

most one sided fights ever. Just look at G forces. drone could have higher max speeds, higher max acceleration. fighter was designed ... what 20 years ago? Co

most one sided fights ever. Just look at G forces. drone could have higher max speeds, higher max acceleration. fighter was designed ... what 20 years ago? Cost of drone? Cost of loss of either? total cost of ownership is vastly different. There is real cause to be very afraid.

cheeze 6y ago
Yeah. I have no idea how a human would compete at all with g-forces alone. Add the fact that you no longer have to design a plane around a human and that definitely gives you a pretty hefty advantage against an f18
- chongli 6y ago
  Why even put the drone in a fighter? Just put it in a SAM. AI-based guidance system with a multitude of sensors that’s been trained to defeat countermeasures. Seems difficult for a pilot to do much against that.
  - United857 6y ago
    Perhaps cost? 1 reusable AI platform controlling multiple missiles, vs multiple expendable one. Also I'm guessing maneuverability of a fighter aircraft is much better than a SAM which is more or less ballistic.
    - chongli 6y ago
      Also I'm guessing maneuverability of a fighter aircraft is much better than a SAM which is more or less ballistic. Not at all. Missiles are far faster and more maneuverable than aircraft. The only chance a fighter plane has against them is with countermeasures such as chaff and flares as well as electronic countermeasures (ECM). All of these are designed to fill the missile’s tracking and guidance systems. Without them, the plane is helpless against the faster and more maneuverable missile. Missiles are also far cheaper than aircraft. There’s no need to sustain the life and health of a pilot and no need to carry fuel for return trips. This makes missiles very small and light (and thus cheap) compared to a plane.
      - DuskStar 6y ago
        Planes have another advantage - endurance. Missiles have greater acceleration and maneuverability, but they can't sustain that for as long as a plane can. Which makes "run away" a solution in certain parts of the engagement envelope.
        ajuc 6y ago
        Make a drone that casts away unnecessary parts and turns into a missile when it's close to the enemy. It can carry half the fuel (or fly twice as long), doesn't need landing mechanisms, can be made with less focus on durability (just needs to survive one flight). It can be very small and fly low (and subsonic) to avoid detection. It could even land and wait near military airports on top of trees etc. Basically it would work like movable minefields in air. Denying territory to the enemy planes.
        DuskStar 6y ago
        I think "single-use missile sled" is actually a USAF project right now, but that's meant to be deployed from a fighter/bomber.
  - albntomat0 6y ago
    Fighters and SAMs serve different roles. A fighter is reusable, can provide coverage at a much greater distance from its launch point and can decide not to shoot/do patrols
  - azernik 6y ago
    SAMs already have as many sensors as can be packed in, and mostly have the human in the loop just to make the decision whether to engage a target. And still cannot reliably get through sophisticated countermeasures. Airborne platforms for both the big launch sensors and the missile launch point have some inherent advantages is all.
  - ThrustVectoring 6y ago
    If the plane is high up in the air and moving fast, you have to burn a lot of fuel to make up the difference in energy. Given that they have enough of an energy advantage, they could never get into the engagement range of the surface. Also, it's really hard to set up a SAM a hundred miles into enemy territory - SAM is fundamentally a defensive technology with extremely limited use for air superiority missions.
  - Agnu 6y ago
    The arms race between drones+AI that can beat countermeasures and countermeasure-carrying drones+AI is going to be insane.
airstrike 6y ago
On the flip side, once both sides are just robots, the cost of lives is also vastly different... A thousand years for now, it may be up to Brion Brandd to save this planet... https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2559973349 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2559973349
- devdas 6y ago
  Or the robots will evolve.
na85 6y ago
Load factor (g force) is actually a small percentage of what makes an effective air to air weapon system such as a fighter jet. It turns out that the faster, higher aircraft has the advantage. If you have speed, you can deny your better-turning adversary an opportunity to engage you, and you thus dictate the terms of the engagement. If you find yourself on equal footing as a bandit, you can simply climb away at the enemy's maximum level speed and he will be unable to catch you. Additionally, BVR missiles in particular benefit from a high initial launch velocity so they can use their finite delta-V budget to maximize range and closure with the target. G Force tolerance only matters if you're in the air combat equivalent of a knife fight in a phone booth. Methinks these trials coming up will not be fair: a human can continue making good decisions in a non permissive electromagnetic/cyber battle space whereas a drone cannot. Air combat tactics will have to evolve but I don't think we will see drones defeating piloted fighters (in actual combat) in my lifetime. Perhaps if there's a watershed moment in AI but we aren't there yet.
- EGreg 6y ago
  I kind of don’t get it Why isn’t auto-aim game over here for both sides? Approach and simply fire missiles at all the spots the plane could be in the next few seconds. Done.
  - azernik 6y ago
    Because high speed and maneuverability means that's a lot of space to cover.
  - salawat 6y ago
    The word simply is doing so much heavy lifting there, I think it almost cracked my screen.
  - na85 6y ago
    At the ranges you're talking, that's simply too many missiles. To take a SWAG at it: For an aircraft at Mach 1, to hit every potential spot it could occupy in one second from now, you're talking about saturating a 340-metre radius sphere with missiles. For context, the volume of that sphere is about 164 million cubic metres. Even if you assume it can't maneuver with complete authority anywhere in that sphere (valid assumption), you could reduce that volume by 75% and still be looking at 40 million cubic metres.

cheeze 6y ago

Yeah. I have no idea how a human would compete at all with g-forces alone. Add the fact that you no longer have to design a plane around a human and that definitely gives you a pretty hefty advantage against an f18

chongli 6y ago
Why even put the drone in a fighter? Just put it in a SAM. AI-based guidance system with a multitude of sensors that’s been trained to defeat countermeasures. Seems difficult for a pilot to do much against that.
- United857 6y ago
  Perhaps cost? 1 reusable AI platform controlling multiple missiles, vs multiple expendable one. Also I'm guessing maneuverability of a fighter aircraft is much better than a SAM which is more or less ballistic.
  - chongli 6y ago
    Also I'm guessing maneuverability of a fighter aircraft is much better than a SAM which is more or less ballistic. Not at all. Missiles are far faster and more maneuverable than aircraft. The only chance a fighter plane has against them is with countermeasures such as chaff and flares as well as electronic countermeasures (ECM). All of these are designed to fill the missile’s tracking and guidance systems. Without them, the plane is helpless against the faster and more maneuverable missile. Missiles are also far cheaper than aircraft. There’s no need to sustain the life and health of a pilot and no need to carry fuel for return trips. This makes missiles very small and light (and thus cheap) compared to a plane.
    - DuskStar 6y ago
      Planes have another advantage - endurance. Missiles have greater acceleration and maneuverability, but they can't sustain that for as long as a plane can. Which makes "run away" a solution in certain parts of the engagement envelope.
      - ajuc 6y ago
        Make a drone that casts away unnecessary parts and turns into a missile when it's close to the enemy. It can carry half the fuel (or fly twice as long), doesn't need landing mechanisms, can be made with less focus on durability (just needs to survive one flight). It can be very small and fly low (and subsonic) to avoid detection. It could even land and wait near military airports on top of trees etc. Basically it would work like movable minefields in air. Denying territory to the enemy planes.
        DuskStar 6y ago
        I think "single-use missile sled" is actually a USAF project right now, but that's meant to be deployed from a fighter/bomber.
- albntomat0 6y ago
  Fighters and SAMs serve different roles. A fighter is reusable, can provide coverage at a much greater distance from its launch point and can decide not to shoot/do patrols
- azernik 6y ago
  SAMs already have as many sensors as can be packed in, and mostly have the human in the loop just to make the decision whether to engage a target. And still cannot reliably get through sophisticated countermeasures. Airborne platforms for both the big launch sensors and the missile launch point have some inherent advantages is all.
- ThrustVectoring 6y ago
  If the plane is high up in the air and moving fast, you have to burn a lot of fuel to make up the difference in energy. Given that they have enough of an energy advantage, they could never get into the engagement range of the surface. Also, it's really hard to set up a SAM a hundred miles into enemy territory - SAM is fundamentally a defensive technology with extremely limited use for air superiority missions.
- Agnu 6y ago
  The arms race between drones+AI that can beat countermeasures and countermeasure-carrying drones+AI is going to be insane.

airstrike 6y ago

On the flip side, once both sides are just robots, the cost of lives is also vastly different... A thousand years for now, it may be up to Brion Brandd to save this planet... https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2559973349 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2559973349

devdas 6y ago
Or the robots will evolve.

na85 6y ago

Load factor (g force) is actually a small percentage of what makes an effective air to air weapon system such as a fighter jet. It turns out that the faster, higher aircraft has the advantage. If you have speed, you can deny your better-turning adversary an opportunity to engage you, and you thus dictate the terms of the engagement. If you find yourself on equal footing as a bandit, you can simply climb away at the enemy's maximum level speed and he will be unable to catch you. Additionally, BVR missiles in particular benefit from a high initial launch velocity so they can use their finite delta-V budget to maximize range and closure with the target. G Force tolerance only matters if you're in the air combat equivalent of a knife fight in a phone booth. Methinks these trials coming up will not be fair: a human can continue making good decisions in a non permissive electromagnetic/cyber battle space whereas a drone cannot. Air combat tactics will have to evolve but I don't think we will see drones defeating piloted fighters (in actual combat) in my lifetime. Perhaps if there's a watershed moment in AI but we aren't there yet.

EGreg 6y ago
I kind of don’t get it Why isn’t auto-aim game over here for both sides? Approach and simply fire missiles at all the spots the plane could be in the next few seconds. Done.
- azernik 6y ago
  Because high speed and maneuverability means that's a lot of space to cover.
- salawat 6y ago
  The word simply is doing so much heavy lifting there, I think it almost cracked my screen.
- na85 6y ago
  At the ranges you're talking, that's simply too many missiles. To take a SWAG at it: For an aircraft at Mach 1, to hit every potential spot it could occupy in one second from now, you're talking about saturating a 340-metre radius sphere with missiles. For context, the volume of that sphere is about 164 million cubic metres. Even if you assume it can't maneuver with complete authority anywhere in that sphere (valid assumption), you could reduce that volume by 75% and still be looking at 40 million cubic metres.