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> There's a pending military technology shift where cheap autonomous weaponry fundamentally changes the power balance between large nation states and small insu

> There's a pending military technology shift where cheap autonomous weaponry fundamentally changes the power balance between large nation states and small insurgencies. It would seem to me that this shift towards remote weapons would favor the military, not insurgents in the event of civil strife.

nostrademons 6y ago
Autonomous/remote weapons let you take the human out of the weapon system, which lets you drastically shrink the weapon system. We haven't really seen the full effect of this yet, because we haven't expanded along the dimensions of freedom this allows: cost, quantity, expendability, scalability, and taking the human out of the kill loop. So far our remote weapons look basically like our piloted weapons, just with a computer and a data uplink in the driver's seat. But imagine that you make your remote weapons 1/100th the size, 1/100,000th the cost, and build 100,000x more of them. That fundamentally changes the nature of warfare. The goal is to overwhelm the enemy's decision-making and manufacturing capabilities as much as it is to outmaneuver them. Shrinking the weapon system usually results in physics limitations on range and speed - a 20-ton plane can carry enough fuel to go 2000 miles, but a 1 kg drone might have enough charge to go 2 miles. This favors the defender and prevents the use of these weapons for power-projection. Drone swarms are great for close air support, field defense, and urban warfare, but you can't do precision strikes across a continent (but you can defend against precision strikes, as long as your drones are accurate enough to intercept a missile). That fundamentally changes the balance of power toward smaller political entities.
- Hammershaft 6y ago
  > But imagine that you make your remote weapons 1/100th the size, 1/100,000th the cost, and build 100,000x more of them. The transistor is the only physical process that I know of that has improved at that pace. What makes you think drones can improve to that magnitude?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - njwi332 6y ago
    He's not comparing drones to drones, he's comparing drones to say, an F22 or ICBM.
- Ekaros 6y ago
  I wonder what is actual realistic minimum size and mass for effective drone in warfare. We are still using essentially projectile weapons, be it bullets or missiles. These have minimum effective mass not to forget delivery system. Even theoretical energy weapons have to get the power from somewhere...

nostrademons 6y ago

Autonomous/remote weapons let you take the human out of the weapon system, which lets you drastically shrink the weapon system. We haven't really seen the full effect of this yet, because we haven't expanded along the dimensions of freedom this allows: cost, quantity, expendability, scalability, and taking the human out of the kill loop. So far our remote weapons look basically like our piloted weapons, just with a computer and a data uplink in the driver's seat. But imagine that you make your remote weapons 1/100th the size, 1/100,000th the cost, and build 100,000x more of them. That fundamentally changes the nature of warfare. The goal is to overwhelm the enemy's decision-making and manufacturing capabilities as much as it is to outmaneuver them. Shrinking the weapon system usually results in physics limitations on range and speed - a 20-ton plane can carry enough fuel to go 2000 miles, but a 1 kg drone might have enough charge to go 2 miles. This favors the defender and prevents the use of these weapons for power-projection. Drone swarms are great for close air support, field defense, and urban warfare, but you can't do precision strikes across a continent (but you can defend against precision strikes, as long as your drones are accurate enough to intercept a missile). That fundamentally changes the balance of power toward smaller political entities.

Hammershaft 6y ago
> But imagine that you make your remote weapons 1/100th the size, 1/100,000th the cost, and build 100,000x more of them. The transistor is the only physical process that I know of that has improved at that pace. What makes you think drones can improve to that magnitude?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- njwi332 6y ago
  He's not comparing drones to drones, he's comparing drones to say, an F22 or ICBM.
Ekaros 6y ago
I wonder what is actual realistic minimum size and mass for effective drone in warfare. We are still using essentially projectile weapons, be it bullets or missiles. These have minimum effective mass not to forget delivery system. Even theoretical energy weapons have to get the power from somewhere...