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I think we have neither the AI nor the war proof reliable communication to really steer something like a warplane remotely, in a first-world war scenario. The

I think we have neither the AI nor the war proof reliable communication to really steer something like a warplane remotely, in a first-world war scenario. The US could fly its drones with pilots comfortably sat in mainland US because the Taliban had no weapons able to shoot drones down. There was no dog fighting, no anti-satellite weaponry deployed etc. Another reason is that warplanes are saturated with expensive kit like crazy. Yes the pilot is a major constructional constraint, but the main reason drones are so much cheaper right now is that they just aren’t designed as equally versatile platforms. If you wanted a full-fledged F35 drone replacement, I’m not sure it would be that much cheaper. A different axis of the question, which came into play in the Azerbaijan-Armenia war recently, is whether we want few super-capable machines or much much more simpler ones. I think the jury is still out, but to me this is the interesting area of development.

meimo 5y ago
Interesting last point. Could be weighted by how each country values their servicemen, ie. culturally, (at the risk of making this political) one american soldier KIA > thousands of iraqis; makes sense that the US would lean towards safety for pilots. Contrasted with say a WW2 russia "defend the motherland" mentality where losses are acceptable.
chrisjc 5y ago
Interesting, wasn't that one of the objectives of the F-35? Penetrate (or come close enough) enemy airspace, then orchestrate a squadron of smaller, simpler unmanned aircraft and weapons that are sent in through other means with no particular expectation of returning after combat?
- rich_sasha 5y ago
  Possibly, I haven’t seen that past any conceptual stage (I’m an amateur btw, nothing to do with defence). The point stands that the shepherd is a lot more complex than the sheep. F-35 is so packed with sensors: multi purpose radar, IR sensors, I believe there are radio receivers throughout the airframe, turning the whole thing into a phased array receiver. It has sophisticated software and hardware to orchestrate it all. You can configure it to shoot down enemy planes, fight air defences, bomb targets, I’m guessing shoot at ships etc. It can do it all while maintaining stealth and remaining in the air for hours (with aerial refuelling). This is much fancier than any drone can do right now.
jillesvangurp 5y ago
Dogfights are pretty rare these days. Most air combat between planes revolves about launching & dodging air to air missiles that are fired from beyond visual range, and dealing with surface to air missiles while doing so. Shooting planes down with an actual gun in an actual dog fight is mostly reserved for countries that don't have modern planes (i.e. anything newer than half a century). Fighter planes do have a few remaining roles. They are delivery vehicles for cheaper missiles and bombs to take out smaller ground targets or lighting up targets for missiles/bombs that are launched from far away. The longer range missiles (e.g. cruise missiles) are more expensive. An additional role would be reconnaissance even though most of that is probably done by satellites and drones these days. Then there is the job of escorting bigger, more vulnerable planes like bombers or just generally patrolling areas of interest (which could be done by drones as well). And finally there's the psychological warfare factor where flying them over the enemy has a demoralizing effect. Basically a missile is an autonomous drone that happens to destroy on impact. Missiles have a few advantages over fighters: they are much faster and maneuverable. And they are disposable by their very nature which means they can go where no pilot would go except when very desperate. And a few disadvantages that mainly boil down to cost and range. The cost is high because they are 1 time use only. The range is limited by fuel and size. Which is why using fighter planes as a launch platform is common. Autonomous planes aren't particularly hard. It's mostly the price performance that needs attention. Cheap, autonomous drones already exist. Making them bigger and beefing up their abilities is just a matter of time. That's all there's to it. At some point their abilities encompass most of what fighter planes currently do.
- rich_sasha 5y ago
  > Autonomous planes aren't particularly hard. It's mostly the price performance that needs attention. Cheap, autonomous drones already exist. Making them bigger and beefing up their abilities is just a matter of time. That's all there's to it. At some point their abilities encompass most of what fighter planes currently do. Currently the allure of drones is that they are very cheap and can perform some missions as well as their big expensive brothers. If you make a drone that is equally capable as a modern crewed jet, you bear most of the cost anyway. You’ll save something by excluding the pilot, but have to pay for extra (stealth) communication, infrastructure etc. Maybe we’ll go away from that, have many types of cheap drones that are specialised and disposable. That’s not the case now. Bear in mind our perception is skewed by the fact that the last N wars were all fought against at least one country far behind in military technology. But NATO et al are really prepping against a war against an equal. Having a cheap plastic drone with a bomb attached at the bottom won’t do.
mrtksn 5y ago
I've heard the communication argument but I'm not convinced since the F-35 itself is sold as the "connected platform" which is supposed to be constantly communicating with the base and the troops on the ground and have complete situation awareness thanks to that integrated communications. If F-35 can stay connected, so can the drones. Drones also have the inherent advantage to do manoeuvres way beyond of what human can do or withstand, they don't carry the human and the devices that are made to keep it alive and in control. F-35 is also know for not flying that well, it's not really a dog fight machine and the scenarios where the plane is supposed to excel are stealth operation, remote intelligence gathering, launching missiles way before visual contact etc anyway. I don't see why drones can't do any of that.
- drran 5y ago
  USA uses drones for decades. > The first known U.S. drone strike in Yemen was November 3, 2002 (killing al-Qaeda operative Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi)
  - mrtksn 5y ago
    Sure, US is one of major drone developers and users.
- rich_sasha 5y ago
  I’m not sure you can push that much two-way bandwidth without compromising stealth; it’s one way to push information to the jet, or exchange little nuggets or he other way, but actually steering the thing remotely would make you totally visible to any radar. Plus, if you could disable an enemy airforce by destroying the infrastructure, that’s an uncomfortably simple way to ground them. An F35 can operate successfully in total radio silence if need be.
  - mrtksn 5y ago
    I believe there's no fundamental reason to have drones communicate %100 of the time and receive high fidelity inputs, even consumer drones are quite capable to fly without precise controls from the pilot. These days, a sub 1000$ consumer drone can follow targets, execute pre-determined tasks, navigate around obstacles and fly back home safely when the communication is lost.
thow-58d4e8b 5y ago
There's also a lot of confusion due to the overloaded use of the term 'drone' Drone could mean remotely piloted $4M Predator firing $140,000 a piece Hellfire missiles But drone could also mean mass-produced, battery operated quadcopters delivering small scale explosives over the distance of a few kilometers or less (or perform recon). Sometimes deployed in swarms, flying low. Not necessarily remote controlled Those are two very different military capabilities. The important impact of the kamikaze-drones is that it strongly favors the side with the stronger and more vertically integrated manufacturing base

meimo 5y ago

Interesting last point. Could be weighted by how each country values their servicemen, ie. culturally, (at the risk of making this political) one american soldier KIA > thousands of iraqis; makes sense that the US would lean towards safety for pilots. Contrasted with say a WW2 russia "defend the motherland" mentality where losses are acceptable.

chrisjc 5y ago

Interesting, wasn't that one of the objectives of the F-35? Penetrate (or come close enough) enemy airspace, then orchestrate a squadron of smaller, simpler unmanned aircraft and weapons that are sent in through other means with no particular expectation of returning after combat?

rich_sasha 5y ago
Possibly, I haven’t seen that past any conceptual stage (I’m an amateur btw, nothing to do with defence). The point stands that the shepherd is a lot more complex than the sheep. F-35 is so packed with sensors: multi purpose radar, IR sensors, I believe there are radio receivers throughout the airframe, turning the whole thing into a phased array receiver. It has sophisticated software and hardware to orchestrate it all. You can configure it to shoot down enemy planes, fight air defences, bomb targets, I’m guessing shoot at ships etc. It can do it all while maintaining stealth and remaining in the air for hours (with aerial refuelling). This is much fancier than any drone can do right now.

jillesvangurp 5y ago

Dogfights are pretty rare these days. Most air combat between planes revolves about launching & dodging air to air missiles that are fired from beyond visual range, and dealing with surface to air missiles while doing so. Shooting planes down with an actual gun in an actual dog fight is mostly reserved for countries that don't have modern planes (i.e. anything newer than half a century). Fighter planes do have a few remaining roles. They are delivery vehicles for cheaper missiles and bombs to take out smaller ground targets or lighting up targets for missiles/bombs that are launched from far away. The longer range missiles (e.g. cruise missiles) are more expensive. An additional role would be reconnaissance even though most of that is probably done by satellites and drones these days. Then there is the job of escorting bigger, more vulnerable planes like bombers or just generally patrolling areas of interest (which could be done by drones as well). And finally there's the psychological warfare factor where flying them over the enemy has a demoralizing effect. Basically a missile is an autonomous drone that happens to destroy on impact. Missiles have a few advantages over fighters: they are much faster and maneuverable. And they are disposable by their very nature which means they can go where no pilot would go except when very desperate. And a few disadvantages that mainly boil down to cost and range. The cost is high because they are 1 time use only. The range is limited by fuel and size. Which is why using fighter planes as a launch platform is common. Autonomous planes aren't particularly hard. It's mostly the price performance that needs attention. Cheap, autonomous drones already exist. Making them bigger and beefing up their abilities is just a matter of time. That's all there's to it. At some point their abilities encompass most of what fighter planes currently do.

rich_sasha 5y ago
> Autonomous planes aren't particularly hard. It's mostly the price performance that needs attention. Cheap, autonomous drones already exist. Making them bigger and beefing up their abilities is just a matter of time. That's all there's to it. At some point their abilities encompass most of what fighter planes currently do. Currently the allure of drones is that they are very cheap and can perform some missions as well as their big expensive brothers. If you make a drone that is equally capable as a modern crewed jet, you bear most of the cost anyway. You’ll save something by excluding the pilot, but have to pay for extra (stealth) communication, infrastructure etc. Maybe we’ll go away from that, have many types of cheap drones that are specialised and disposable. That’s not the case now. Bear in mind our perception is skewed by the fact that the last N wars were all fought against at least one country far behind in military technology. But NATO et al are really prepping against a war against an equal. Having a cheap plastic drone with a bomb attached at the bottom won’t do.

mrtksn 5y ago

I've heard the communication argument but I'm not convinced since the F-35 itself is sold as the "connected platform" which is supposed to be constantly communicating with the base and the troops on the ground and have complete situation awareness thanks to that integrated communications. If F-35 can stay connected, so can the drones. Drones also have the inherent advantage to do manoeuvres way beyond of what human can do or withstand, they don't carry the human and the devices that are made to keep it alive and in control. F-35 is also know for not flying that well, it's not really a dog fight machine and the scenarios where the plane is supposed to excel are stealth operation, remote intelligence gathering, launching missiles way before visual contact etc anyway. I don't see why drones can't do any of that.

drran 5y ago
USA uses drones for decades. > The first known U.S. drone strike in Yemen was November 3, 2002 (killing al-Qaeda operative Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi)
- mrtksn 5y ago
  Sure, US is one of major drone developers and users.
rich_sasha 5y ago
I’m not sure you can push that much two-way bandwidth without compromising stealth; it’s one way to push information to the jet, or exchange little nuggets or he other way, but actually steering the thing remotely would make you totally visible to any radar. Plus, if you could disable an enemy airforce by destroying the infrastructure, that’s an uncomfortably simple way to ground them. An F35 can operate successfully in total radio silence if need be.
- mrtksn 5y ago
  I believe there's no fundamental reason to have drones communicate %100 of the time and receive high fidelity inputs, even consumer drones are quite capable to fly without precise controls from the pilot. These days, a sub 1000$ consumer drone can follow targets, execute pre-determined tasks, navigate around obstacles and fly back home safely when the communication is lost.

thow-58d4e8b 5y ago

There's also a lot of confusion due to the overloaded use of the term 'drone' Drone could mean remotely piloted $4M Predator firing $140,000 a piece Hellfire missiles But drone could also mean mass-produced, battery operated quadcopters delivering small scale explosives over the distance of a few kilometers or less (or perform recon). Sometimes deployed in swarms, flying low. Not necessarily remote controlled Those are two very different military capabilities. The important impact of the kamikaze-drones is that it strongly favors the side with the stronger and more vertically integrated manufacturing base