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This feels like the same thing that happened with tanks. The end of WW1 saw tanks deployed effectively. WW2 was then fought using entirely new tactics and strat

This feels like the same thing that happened with tanks. The end of WW1 saw tanks deployed effectively. WW2 was then fought using entirely new tactics and strategies enabled by tanks (not least "blitzkrieg"). Britain and France, notably, hadn't really worked out how to use them effectively and so were left fighting the last war, horribly disadvantaged until they worked out how to catch up (though air power being developed at the same time also had an influence). So now we have drones, and all those incredibly expensive fighter planes are useless. Aircraft carriers will be replaced with cheap drone swarm carriers, so naval strategy will need to change. Anti-tank drone swarms will make conventional armour more or less ineffective. And so on. The good news is that there will be anti-drone swarms too. And so we'll end up fighting battles mostly by destroying drones instead of people. Once you've knocked out all the enemy drones, they'll surrender because humans can't fight drones. Interesting times.

nickthemagicman 5y ago
> And so we'll end up fighting battles mostly by destroying drones instead of people. This is one piece of possibly good news that it seems like everyone is overlooking. Automation/Remote control applies not just to drones, but tanks, boats, other aerial vehicles, and maybe troops(after seeing that Boston Dynamics dog robot) etc. Seems like it will be a small squad of highly advanced human troops to move in after the Remotes to secure and maintain control of the area. So many lives will be spared during wars. However, this may be unbeatable tech by humans, so any future revolutions will be easily quelled by a gov't with a few drone pilots piloting a drone swarm in a room a thousand miles away.
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  I agree. This isn't all bad :) Like the move from conscript peasant armies to volunteer professional armies, leave the rest of us out of it. It'll come down to "how many drones, and of what quality, can your manufacturing base produce?". But this is not that dissimilar from WW2's "how many tanks, and of what quality, can you manufacture?" equation. Insurgencies will be about getting a small swarm in exactly the right place at the right time.
- throwaway316943 5y ago
  More likely it will cause a greater loss of life while invalidating previous military tactics. These weapons are more similar to land mines than guided missiles. They’ll be used primarily against troops and armour but also stationary targets like radar, command posts, barracks, depots, and in a bigger war probably against civilian targets. You could drop hundreds of these from a bomber or dozens from a large truck that an insurgent can park close to the target but outside the secured area or a single terrorist could deploy a single drone at a high value target. I’m hoping anti drone technology turns out to be easier and cheaper otherwise we’re seriously screwed.
falcolas 5y ago
Nah. Humans can't fight cruise missiles either, yet it hasn't changed to where one side gives up when the other has cruise missiles. Humans aren't that logical.
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  I thought Patriot and all those Isreali firework shows were anti-missile defences?
  - AlexandrB 5y ago
    The Venn diagram of people who have cruise missiles and people who have anti-missile defences is a circle. I think parent was talking about various guerrilla fighters/terrorists who have neither technology but still engage in conflicts with those that do.
    - epicureanideal 5y ago
      Cruise missiles are expensive. In theory a million person guerrilla army that stays somewhat spread out can be too expensive to use cruise missiles against effectively. But small, cheap drones…
  - baybal2 5y ago
    You can't shoot down modern cruise missiles with any kind of reliability. Qassam missiles are straight, dumb ballistic missiles with no guidance.
  - ska 5y ago
    I thought all of that works pretty ok against relatively slow and dumb missiles only though, no?
- rajin444 5y ago
  > Humans aren't that logical. I think they're perfectly logical. Superior force (in the context being discussed) makes you better at war, but not ruling. Advances in military tech will probably reduce the overall bodycount of wars, but they don't solve the insurgency problem.
ReptileMan 5y ago
And I will spend the weekend developing autoaiming gun battery that shoots the .22LR that needs to ground one of those birds and we are at stage 1.
- nomoreplease 5y ago
  This isn’t realistic 1. This won’t be your average <$1000 quad copter with a two kilometer range 2. Even if it was it could be hundreds of them 3. The military are developing large aircraft that function as essentially fighter aircraft that can destroy your tiny gun battery from 50-100 km away
  - stickfigure 5y ago
    This makes no sense. If we're talking about an opponent that can field fighter aircraft and missiles that can destroy anti-drone defenses at 50-100km away, they could just use those missiles instead of drones to destroy the "real" target. Seems to me the likely scenario is some sort of cheap projectile automatic weapon mounted on a vehicle. It doesn't take much to take down a drone and they move incredibly slowly compared to "real" missiles. Sure, 22LR, why not.
    - marcus_holmes 5y ago
      iirc the "slaughterbot" concept is about tiny kamikaze drones. Enough explosive to crack open a skull in a drone about the size of a coin, and not much more expensive than that coin. Release hundreds of thousands of them for less than the cost of a single missile, and each of them will independently target and execute a single human. I don't think any kind of conventional gun is going to do anything against this.
      - klyrs 5y ago
        Bullets are a truly silly approach. Grapeshot is already banned in war, and seems like it could be significantly more effective (but still they'll only tear a cone out of a cloud). As far as I can tell, the best defense is an EMP pulse to fry their electronics. If they aren't fully autonomous, jamming the radio might work.
onion2k 5y ago
Once you've knocked out all the enemy drones... Then the enemy will build, or buy, more drones. Well-funded armies or terrorist groups don't lose because they run out of weapons.
petermcneeley 5y ago
This analysis is slightly off because WWI and WWII were great powers fighting each other. If the great powers were ever to directly fight this would still be nuclear war. Nothing about "swarming bots" has significantly changed this domain. Where bots and swarm bots would be used is likely in asymmetric warfare. "Aircraft carriers will be replaced with cheap drone swarm carriers" I would argue that Aircraft carriers are the size and cost due to large munitions and maintenance constraints.
- epicureanideal 5y ago
  Swarm bots would also be useless against tanks or carriers. Too small to carry enough explosives to do much. As the drone becomes big enough to do more it approaches the size of a missile, which we already have.
  - marcus_holmes 5y ago
    how much of a missile's weight is payload, and how much is "missile"? I don't know enough about either to be able to say for certainty, but it's probable that the ratio of payload:delivery is different for drones, and possibly better. also, drones can do stupid things like fly underneath tanks, or land on them and then place a charge right up against the armour (or a vision slit, etc). Or even place a charge, back off, detonate it, then place a second charge on the same spot and detonate that. And of course a swarm can see multiple drones attack exactly the same spot on a tank's armour. also, they don't need to destroy the tank. They just need to mess with it enough that it needs repair.
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      > also, drones can do stupid things like fly underneath tanks I'm not sure how this is superior to just shooting a tank with a missile. > Or even place a charge, back off, detonate it, then place a second charge on the same spot and detonate that Now you've halved the payload. If your drone can carry 10kg, you now have 2x 5kg bombs instead of 1x 10kg bomb. If you have a single payload, you have just a shitty, slow moving cruise missile. > And of course a swarm can see multiple drones attack exactly the same spot on a tank's armour. We have *guns* that attack the same spot on a Tank's armor. Let alone missiles or drones. Al Qaeda was chaining RPGs in the last war together (__literally__ a chain) that accomplishes that goal. -------------- The __ONLY__ advantage I can see drones having is sustaining a position for hours at a time. Missiles always fly at top speed, so you can't just "wait around" an area with a missile. A drone with a gun can sit in a location for 4 hours waiting for the tank to come, then fire the RPG when the tank comes into position. That is, the drone plays a role similar to a modern infantry, except the drone is cheaper to make. But as soon as you're talking "hit the same spot twice", then we're back to guns / RPGs with a chain on it. Maybe a drone can fire that gun, but... don't have the drone do the job directly. --------- EDIT: The theory of "Combined Arms" means that in practice, you'll never face a lone tank. In practice, infantry move to protect tanks, and tanks move to protect infantry. If you are a soldier who is facing an enemy army: you only have enough strength to carry one weapon. So what do you pick? An anti-tank RPG? Or an anti-infantry machine gun? Drones seem to fit the same conundrum on both sides. I'd expect drones to be weak against small arms (a machine gun would quickly disable a drone, even if it moves at 100 mph). While RPGs are useless vs drones. Similarly, a drone has a very small payload, so it only can have a certain number of weapons.
keiferski 5y ago
On that note, it is interesting how a British military theorist more-or-less invented these tank tactics used by the Germans. (Although it is debated as to how much influence he actually had.) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._H._Liddell_Hart https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._H._Liddell_Hart
epicureanideal 5y ago
> Once you've knocked out all the enemy drones, they'll surrender because humans can't fight drones. Or will lead to blending in with civilians, more advanced camouflage, or “hugging the enemy” tactics (staying close enough that they risk harming their own people). Or more terrorism rather than open warfare. It might be that with these killer drones, we will look back on WW2 style armies in the field as equivalent to 18th century musketeers lining up and firing volleys at each other in bright colored shirts.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  > It might be that with these killer drones, we will look back on WW2 style armies in the field as equivalent to 18th century musketeers lining up and firing volleys at each other in bright colored shirts. When the guns were so inaccurate that getting more shots was more important than actually aiming, that's the natural tactic to employ. Lining up was hugely important for other members of the army to know what you're doing. If you're 1st in line, you shoot. Back of the line you're loading gunpowder (with everyone else). Middle of the line, you're dropping the bullet into the musket. Etc. etc. Like a choir performance: its more about having tons of other people doing the same thing you're supposed to be doing. So no one in the army ever "misses" a step in the ~1-minute reload process. Even if you're not that good at singing, you get "better" in a choir because you just follow the crowd. Similarly, even if you've forgotten a few steps in the long reload process, you just mimic the actions of your neighbors. ----------- Note that the Redcoat beat the US rifles at pretty much every engagement. It was guerilla warfare that allowed George Washington to survive and last through the war. Rifles took longer to load. Without precision machining, the bullets needed to be wadded up with paper to stick with the rifling, adding a laborious step in the shooting process. Muskets could fire more shots per minute due to the smooth (though inaccurate) barrels. In army vs army battles, aim doesn't matter, your bullet will hit somebody over there, so there's no advantage to the superior aim that rifles have. You've added 20-seconds to your reload process for almost no tactical advantage at all. USA experimented with rifles / guerilla warfare, but it really wasn't that successful in the 1700s. (It got the job done but... George Washington lost far more battles than he won). Even in the mid 1800s, the British Square formations were doing decently.
stickfigure 5y ago
> those incredibly expensive fighter planes are useless. Aircraft carriers will be replaced I'm not fully convinced. The advantage of drones is that they are relatively cheap. That automatically comes with significant range and speed limitations; after all, as someone else mentioned, we already have long-range semi-autonomous drones called missiles. They aren't cheap. Naval engagements, not to mention aircraft engagements, happen at distances that are just not in the reach of cheap drones. Someone might get a surprise shot at an aircraft carrier in peacetime, but probably not while alert on the open sea. And I'm sure ships will be upgraded with defenses (if they haven't already). Tanks and infantry, that's a more interesting problem.
- sandworm101 5y ago
  >> And I'm sure ships will be upgraded with defenses (if they haven't already). They already have CIWS (and a bunch of other stuff) to shoot down incoming supersonic and maneuvering anti-ship missiles. Any drone slower or less difficult to hit than those missiles stands little chance. Drones can extend the eye and ears of a ship but they are not going to be killing ships themselves anytime soon.
  - baybal2 5y ago
    No air defence system is considered efficient against supersonic, sea skimming missiles, let alone manoeuvering ones.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- koonsolo 5y ago
  I agree. Plus, the payload of a drone is way too small to do any proper damage. That's like a 100 mosquitos stinging an elephant.
  - the_sleaze 5y ago
    This is an entirely inaccurate metaphor, and a frightening lack of insight.
jayd16 5y ago
I kind of doubt drone vs drone will be all that effective. Have anti-missile systems ever been all that effective?
- Grimm665 5y ago
  Simulation of course, but I'll submit this video for your consideration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K8LGTwy6Zw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K8LGTwy6Zw To sum up the conclusion of the several-hour video series: the Aegis Combat System is essentially impenetrable to all but the most overwhelming of forces.
  - rightbyte 5y ago
    The resurgence of battle ships? It can't counter cannons right?
    - Grimm665 5y ago
      Perhaps not, but missile cruisers can :) They try that in a different series, a fully armed WWII battleship group against a modern US carrier group. Guns just don't have the range compared to surface launched missiles and they can't get close enough. I won't pretend to be some expert on military hardware, I'm a guy interested in flight sims, and that video series just happened to catch my attention. They make a compelling argument though, cruise missiles are one of the methods they try (unsure if supersonic), and they are attacking the carrier group in the absolute worst defensive position it could be in: a narrow gulf surrounded by unfriendly territory on most sides. Still, not much gets through. If it's not the missile defense system that gets you, it's the F/A-18 patrols. If not them, it's the F-14s that can scramble in minutes. Scary stuff.
  - Gunax 5y ago
    I didnt watch it, but what about a supersonic cruise missile?
caseysoftware 5y ago
This is a rough explanation of the "generations of warfare" where our tactics are defined by the tools and weapons we have available. Unfortunately, we (humans, not just the US) tend to then treat those as the "right" tactics even as the underlying tools and weapons change so we're always fighting the last war. Cheap, autonomous, easily-deployed tools - weapons drones, sensors, etc - are a huge change that some are adapting to leverage but few have adapted to respond to. Which is scary considering the "generations of warfare" model where in fourth generation warfare, the boundary between civilian and combatant is blurred..
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  Exactly. Machine guns invalidated cavalry charges, but we ended up in a trench war just trying to create a break in the trenches long enough to get the cavalry through. Tanks invalidated trench warfare, but the French built an impregnable defensive line along the border that would make them invincible in the next trench war. And it's fascinating seeing the comments here saying "nah, this won't change anything" when it already is changing things. And yes, the blurring of the lines is a problem. As others have pointed out, hiding drones in civilian populations is easy.
  - caseysoftware 5y ago
    I was at an SMS aggregator before joining Twilio back in the day. At the SMS aggregator, it took $10k to get started, $1k/month for a short code, and $0.1/message. When I discovered Twilio and found it took $0 to get started, $1/month for a long code, and $0.01/message, the world changed. It became easy enough to build yourself, fast enough to experiment with, and cheap enough to fail. I see the same thing happening here but with lives on the line.
spywaregorilla 5y ago
> The good news is that there will be anti-drone swarms too. And so we'll end up fighting battles mostly by destroying drones instead of people. Once you've knocked out all the enemy drones, they'll surrender because humans can't fight drones. They can still fight the guerilla war among citizens. That's been an incredibly effective strategy because it's so expensive to fight. One might wonder if drones are the key to fighting these wars cheaply. If all you need is a small local base and then a thousand drones to surveil a populace... Well that sounds pretty nightmarish for the citizens, but it would certainly change the nature of war.
hermitcrab 5y ago
>Once you've knocked out all the enemy drones, they'll surrender because humans can't fight drones. And what happens if these autonomous drones aren't programmed to accept surrounder (as seems likely)?
sabhiram 5y ago
Directional EMP development, here we go!
koonsolo 5y ago
I see you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. A drone cannot effectively damage a tank or any other major equipment. The payload a swarm-drone is just way too small. Why have 100 needles when you can have 1 sword. We have rockets, which are way more effective than any number drones. A "drone" that can do proper damage is already the size of a plane. Anything less is only useful for recon.
GuB-42 5y ago
> So now we have drones, and all those incredibly expensive fighter planes are useless. Not useless. The idea seem to be that fighter planes will become something like a command center for the drone swarm. There is value in having a human on site, to take quick decisions for instance, and links to drones can be jammed. And if you look at the F-35 program, you'll see hints that it is the way we are going. It is a stealth fighter with a heavy emphasis on communication systems. Perfect for managing a fleet of drones. Ok, the execution is far from perfect, but that's another debate. In the end, it is not entirely unlike the current situation. The difference is that these drones blow themselves up on arrival and are called missiles. Oh, and swarms of drones won't be cheap, that's the army we are talking about. "Predator" style drones are multi-million dollar machines. A small missile like the Hellfire costs around $100k apiece. Forget your idea of a swarm of hobby quadcopters.
grey-area 5y ago
> And so we'll end up fighting battles mostly by destroying drones instead of people. Once you've knocked out all the enemy drones, they'll surrender because humans can't fight drones. A war like no other?
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  "war never changes" right? ;)

nickthemagicman 5y ago

> And so we'll end up fighting battles mostly by destroying drones instead of people. This is one piece of possibly good news that it seems like everyone is overlooking. Automation/Remote control applies not just to drones, but tanks, boats, other aerial vehicles, and maybe troops(after seeing that Boston Dynamics dog robot) etc. Seems like it will be a small squad of highly advanced human troops to move in after the Remotes to secure and maintain control of the area. So many lives will be spared during wars. However, this may be unbeatable tech by humans, so any future revolutions will be easily quelled by a gov't with a few drone pilots piloting a drone swarm in a room a thousand miles away.

marcus_holmes 5y ago
I agree. This isn't all bad :) Like the move from conscript peasant armies to volunteer professional armies, leave the rest of us out of it. It'll come down to "how many drones, and of what quality, can your manufacturing base produce?". But this is not that dissimilar from WW2's "how many tanks, and of what quality, can you manufacture?" equation. Insurgencies will be about getting a small swarm in exactly the right place at the right time.
throwaway316943 5y ago
More likely it will cause a greater loss of life while invalidating previous military tactics. These weapons are more similar to land mines than guided missiles. They’ll be used primarily against troops and armour but also stationary targets like radar, command posts, barracks, depots, and in a bigger war probably against civilian targets. You could drop hundreds of these from a bomber or dozens from a large truck that an insurgent can park close to the target but outside the secured area or a single terrorist could deploy a single drone at a high value target. I’m hoping anti drone technology turns out to be easier and cheaper otherwise we’re seriously screwed.

falcolas 5y ago

Nah. Humans can't fight cruise missiles either, yet it hasn't changed to where one side gives up when the other has cruise missiles. Humans aren't that logical.

marcus_holmes 5y ago
I thought Patriot and all those Isreali firework shows were anti-missile defences?
- AlexandrB 5y ago
  The Venn diagram of people who have cruise missiles and people who have anti-missile defences is a circle. I think parent was talking about various guerrilla fighters/terrorists who have neither technology but still engage in conflicts with those that do.
  - epicureanideal 5y ago
    Cruise missiles are expensive. In theory a million person guerrilla army that stays somewhat spread out can be too expensive to use cruise missiles against effectively. But small, cheap drones…
- baybal2 5y ago
  You can't shoot down modern cruise missiles with any kind of reliability. Qassam missiles are straight, dumb ballistic missiles with no guidance.
- ska 5y ago
  I thought all of that works pretty ok against relatively slow and dumb missiles only though, no?
rajin444 5y ago
> Humans aren't that logical. I think they're perfectly logical. Superior force (in the context being discussed) makes you better at war, but not ruling. Advances in military tech will probably reduce the overall bodycount of wars, but they don't solve the insurgency problem.

ReptileMan 5y ago

And I will spend the weekend developing autoaiming gun battery that shoots the .22LR that needs to ground one of those birds and we are at stage 1.

nomoreplease 5y ago
This isn’t realistic 1. This won’t be your average <$1000 quad copter with a two kilometer range 2. Even if it was it could be hundreds of them 3. The military are developing large aircraft that function as essentially fighter aircraft that can destroy your tiny gun battery from 50-100 km away
- stickfigure 5y ago
  This makes no sense. If we're talking about an opponent that can field fighter aircraft and missiles that can destroy anti-drone defenses at 50-100km away, they could just use those missiles instead of drones to destroy the "real" target. Seems to me the likely scenario is some sort of cheap projectile automatic weapon mounted on a vehicle. It doesn't take much to take down a drone and they move incredibly slowly compared to "real" missiles. Sure, 22LR, why not.
  - marcus_holmes 5y ago
    iirc the "slaughterbot" concept is about tiny kamikaze drones. Enough explosive to crack open a skull in a drone about the size of a coin, and not much more expensive than that coin. Release hundreds of thousands of them for less than the cost of a single missile, and each of them will independently target and execute a single human. I don't think any kind of conventional gun is going to do anything against this.
    - klyrs 5y ago
      Bullets are a truly silly approach. Grapeshot is already banned in war, and seems like it could be significantly more effective (but still they'll only tear a cone out of a cloud). As far as I can tell, the best defense is an EMP pulse to fry their electronics. If they aren't fully autonomous, jamming the radio might work.

onion2k 5y ago

Once you've knocked out all the enemy drones... Then the enemy will build, or buy, more drones. Well-funded armies or terrorist groups don't lose because they run out of weapons.

petermcneeley 5y ago

This analysis is slightly off because WWI and WWII were great powers fighting each other. If the great powers were ever to directly fight this would still be nuclear war. Nothing about "swarming bots" has significantly changed this domain. Where bots and swarm bots would be used is likely in asymmetric warfare. "Aircraft carriers will be replaced with cheap drone swarm carriers" I would argue that Aircraft carriers are the size and cost due to large munitions and maintenance constraints.

epicureanideal 5y ago
Swarm bots would also be useless against tanks or carriers. Too small to carry enough explosives to do much. As the drone becomes big enough to do more it approaches the size of a missile, which we already have.
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  how much of a missile's weight is payload, and how much is "missile"? I don't know enough about either to be able to say for certainty, but it's probable that the ratio of payload:delivery is different for drones, and possibly better. also, drones can do stupid things like fly underneath tanks, or land on them and then place a charge right up against the armour (or a vision slit, etc). Or even place a charge, back off, detonate it, then place a second charge on the same spot and detonate that. And of course a swarm can see multiple drones attack exactly the same spot on a tank's armour. also, they don't need to destroy the tank. They just need to mess with it enough that it needs repair.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    > also, drones can do stupid things like fly underneath tanks I'm not sure how this is superior to just shooting a tank with a missile. > Or even place a charge, back off, detonate it, then place a second charge on the same spot and detonate that Now you've halved the payload. If your drone can carry 10kg, you now have 2x 5kg bombs instead of 1x 10kg bomb. If you have a single payload, you have just a shitty, slow moving cruise missile. > And of course a swarm can see multiple drones attack exactly the same spot on a tank's armour. We have *guns* that attack the same spot on a Tank's armor. Let alone missiles or drones. Al Qaeda was chaining RPGs in the last war together (__literally__ a chain) that accomplishes that goal. -------------- The __ONLY__ advantage I can see drones having is sustaining a position for hours at a time. Missiles always fly at top speed, so you can't just "wait around" an area with a missile. A drone with a gun can sit in a location for 4 hours waiting for the tank to come, then fire the RPG when the tank comes into position. That is, the drone plays a role similar to a modern infantry, except the drone is cheaper to make. But as soon as you're talking "hit the same spot twice", then we're back to guns / RPGs with a chain on it. Maybe a drone can fire that gun, but... don't have the drone do the job directly. --------- EDIT: The theory of "Combined Arms" means that in practice, you'll never face a lone tank. In practice, infantry move to protect tanks, and tanks move to protect infantry. If you are a soldier who is facing an enemy army: you only have enough strength to carry one weapon. So what do you pick? An anti-tank RPG? Or an anti-infantry machine gun? Drones seem to fit the same conundrum on both sides. I'd expect drones to be weak against small arms (a machine gun would quickly disable a drone, even if it moves at 100 mph). While RPGs are useless vs drones. Similarly, a drone has a very small payload, so it only can have a certain number of weapons.

keiferski 5y ago

On that note, it is interesting how a British military theorist more-or-less invented these tank tactics used by the Germans. (Although it is debated as to how much influence he actually had.) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._H._Liddell_Hart https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._H._Liddell_Hart

epicureanideal 5y ago

> Once you've knocked out all the enemy drones, they'll surrender because humans can't fight drones. Or will lead to blending in with civilians, more advanced camouflage, or “hugging the enemy” tactics (staying close enough that they risk harming their own people). Or more terrorism rather than open warfare. It might be that with these killer drones, we will look back on WW2 style armies in the field as equivalent to 18th century musketeers lining up and firing volleys at each other in bright colored shirts.

dragontamer 5y ago
> It might be that with these killer drones, we will look back on WW2 style armies in the field as equivalent to 18th century musketeers lining up and firing volleys at each other in bright colored shirts. When the guns were so inaccurate that getting more shots was more important than actually aiming, that's the natural tactic to employ. Lining up was hugely important for other members of the army to know what you're doing. If you're 1st in line, you shoot. Back of the line you're loading gunpowder (with everyone else). Middle of the line, you're dropping the bullet into the musket. Etc. etc. Like a choir performance: its more about having tons of other people doing the same thing you're supposed to be doing. So no one in the army ever "misses" a step in the ~1-minute reload process. Even if you're not that good at singing, you get "better" in a choir because you just follow the crowd. Similarly, even if you've forgotten a few steps in the long reload process, you just mimic the actions of your neighbors. ----------- Note that the Redcoat beat the US rifles at pretty much every engagement. It was guerilla warfare that allowed George Washington to survive and last through the war. Rifles took longer to load. Without precision machining, the bullets needed to be wadded up with paper to stick with the rifling, adding a laborious step in the shooting process. Muskets could fire more shots per minute due to the smooth (though inaccurate) barrels. In army vs army battles, aim doesn't matter, your bullet will hit somebody over there, so there's no advantage to the superior aim that rifles have. You've added 20-seconds to your reload process for almost no tactical advantage at all. USA experimented with rifles / guerilla warfare, but it really wasn't that successful in the 1700s. (It got the job done but... George Washington lost far more battles than he won). Even in the mid 1800s, the British Square formations were doing decently.

stickfigure 5y ago

> those incredibly expensive fighter planes are useless. Aircraft carriers will be replaced I'm not fully convinced. The advantage of drones is that they are relatively cheap. That automatically comes with significant range and speed limitations; after all, as someone else mentioned, we already have long-range semi-autonomous drones called missiles. They aren't cheap. Naval engagements, not to mention aircraft engagements, happen at distances that are just not in the reach of cheap drones. Someone might get a surprise shot at an aircraft carrier in peacetime, but probably not while alert on the open sea. And I'm sure ships will be upgraded with defenses (if they haven't already). Tanks and infantry, that's a more interesting problem.

sandworm101 5y ago
>> And I'm sure ships will be upgraded with defenses (if they haven't already). They already have CIWS (and a bunch of other stuff) to shoot down incoming supersonic and maneuvering anti-ship missiles. Any drone slower or less difficult to hit than those missiles stands little chance. Drones can extend the eye and ears of a ship but they are not going to be killing ships themselves anytime soon.
- baybal2 5y ago
  No air defence system is considered efficient against supersonic, sea skimming missiles, let alone manoeuvering ones.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
koonsolo 5y ago
I agree. Plus, the payload of a drone is way too small to do any proper damage. That's like a 100 mosquitos stinging an elephant.
- the_sleaze 5y ago
  This is an entirely inaccurate metaphor, and a frightening lack of insight.

jayd16 5y ago

I kind of doubt drone vs drone will be all that effective. Have anti-missile systems ever been all that effective?

Grimm665 5y ago
Simulation of course, but I'll submit this video for your consideration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K8LGTwy6Zw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K8LGTwy6Zw To sum up the conclusion of the several-hour video series: the Aegis Combat System is essentially impenetrable to all but the most overwhelming of forces.
- rightbyte 5y ago
  The resurgence of battle ships? It can't counter cannons right?
  - Grimm665 5y ago
    Perhaps not, but missile cruisers can :) They try that in a different series, a fully armed WWII battleship group against a modern US carrier group. Guns just don't have the range compared to surface launched missiles and they can't get close enough. I won't pretend to be some expert on military hardware, I'm a guy interested in flight sims, and that video series just happened to catch my attention. They make a compelling argument though, cruise missiles are one of the methods they try (unsure if supersonic), and they are attacking the carrier group in the absolute worst defensive position it could be in: a narrow gulf surrounded by unfriendly territory on most sides. Still, not much gets through. If it's not the missile defense system that gets you, it's the F/A-18 patrols. If not them, it's the F-14s that can scramble in minutes. Scary stuff.
- Gunax 5y ago
  I didnt watch it, but what about a supersonic cruise missile?

caseysoftware 5y ago

This is a rough explanation of the "generations of warfare" where our tactics are defined by the tools and weapons we have available. Unfortunately, we (humans, not just the US) tend to then treat those as the "right" tactics even as the underlying tools and weapons change so we're always fighting the last war. Cheap, autonomous, easily-deployed tools - weapons drones, sensors, etc - are a huge change that some are adapting to leverage but few have adapted to respond to. Which is scary considering the "generations of warfare" model where in fourth generation warfare, the boundary between civilian and combatant is blurred..

marcus_holmes 5y ago
Exactly. Machine guns invalidated cavalry charges, but we ended up in a trench war just trying to create a break in the trenches long enough to get the cavalry through. Tanks invalidated trench warfare, but the French built an impregnable defensive line along the border that would make them invincible in the next trench war. And it's fascinating seeing the comments here saying "nah, this won't change anything" when it already is changing things. And yes, the blurring of the lines is a problem. As others have pointed out, hiding drones in civilian populations is easy.
- caseysoftware 5y ago
  I was at an SMS aggregator before joining Twilio back in the day. At the SMS aggregator, it took $10k to get started, $1k/month for a short code, and $0.1/message. When I discovered Twilio and found it took $0 to get started, $1/month for a long code, and $0.01/message, the world changed. It became easy enough to build yourself, fast enough to experiment with, and cheap enough to fail. I see the same thing happening here but with lives on the line.

spywaregorilla 5y ago

> The good news is that there will be anti-drone swarms too. And so we'll end up fighting battles mostly by destroying drones instead of people. Once you've knocked out all the enemy drones, they'll surrender because humans can't fight drones. They can still fight the guerilla war among citizens. That's been an incredibly effective strategy because it's so expensive to fight. One might wonder if drones are the key to fighting these wars cheaply. If all you need is a small local base and then a thousand drones to surveil a populace... Well that sounds pretty nightmarish for the citizens, but it would certainly change the nature of war.

hermitcrab 5y ago

>Once you've knocked out all the enemy drones, they'll surrender because humans can't fight drones. And what happens if these autonomous drones aren't programmed to accept surrounder (as seems likely)?

sabhiram 5y ago

Directional EMP development, here we go!

koonsolo 5y ago

I see you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. A drone cannot effectively damage a tank or any other major equipment. The payload a swarm-drone is just way too small. Why have 100 needles when you can have 1 sword. We have rockets, which are way more effective than any number drones. A "drone" that can do proper damage is already the size of a plane. Anything less is only useful for recon.

GuB-42 5y ago

> So now we have drones, and all those incredibly expensive fighter planes are useless. Not useless. The idea seem to be that fighter planes will become something like a command center for the drone swarm. There is value in having a human on site, to take quick decisions for instance, and links to drones can be jammed. And if you look at the F-35 program, you'll see hints that it is the way we are going. It is a stealth fighter with a heavy emphasis on communication systems. Perfect for managing a fleet of drones. Ok, the execution is far from perfect, but that's another debate. In the end, it is not entirely unlike the current situation. The difference is that these drones blow themselves up on arrival and are called missiles. Oh, and swarms of drones won't be cheap, that's the army we are talking about. "Predator" style drones are multi-million dollar machines. A small missile like the Hellfire costs around $100k apiece. Forget your idea of a swarm of hobby quadcopters.

grey-area 5y ago

> And so we'll end up fighting battles mostly by destroying drones instead of people. Once you've knocked out all the enemy drones, they'll surrender because humans can't fight drones. A war like no other?

marcus_holmes 5y ago
"war never changes" right? ;)