12 ms·

Air Support in a Backpack: The Switchblade

136 points by picture 4y ago

dredmorbius 4y ago
This is an excellent long-form article on the history of AeroVironment and their history of developing light-weight long-endurance aircraft. Beginning with the Gossamer Albatros and Solar Challenger, which may surprise some. That largely confirms a view I'd previously formed that the principle beneficiaries of lightweighting materials and solar (or small-engine) aircraft + nav & comms capabilities will be in warfare and surveillance applications. A solar + battery styrofoam + balsa aircraft with cameras and transmission capabilities could loiter for weeks or months over a region transmitting close-range realtime imagery. Given comparable mission costs for manned aircraft (listed in the article) at $20k -- $40k/hour, it would be possible to "darken the skies" (or at least saturate regions of interest) at very low cost. A smaller number of response UAVs could address specific points of interest with a response of a few minutes to hours. All without putting pilots in harm's way. The nature of ground (or surface naval) warfare will be profoundly changed. This is to bullets and shells what bullets and shells were to pikes.
- philipkglass 4y ago
  In related news, the Airbus Zephyr just set a new record for endurance flight and is still aloft: https://www.space.com/airbus-zephyr-drone-long-endurance-flight-record https://www.space.com/airbus-zephyr-drone-long-endurance-fli... An experimental aircraft tested in conjunction with the United States Army has been in the air above the Sonoran Desert for 42 days, breaking its own record for longest uncrewed flight. The solar-powered, high-altitude Airbus Zephyr S took off from the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground on June 15, 2022 and has since been flying patterns over the Yuma Test Range and Kofa National Wildlife Refuge. The flight has now broken Zephyr's previous record of 25 days, 23 hours that it set in August 2018. The latest flight has seen Zephyr reach a number of additional milestones including its first flight over water, first flight into international airspace, the longest continuous flight while being controlled through satellite communications, and the farthest flight from its launch point, according to a U.S. Army statement (opens in new tab).
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    Thanks, yes. That's the "weeks or months" I was talking about. I'd be interested in knowing what its flight profile looks like. The Solar Impulse manned solar-powered aircraft that flew around the world (though with stops) performed energy potential banking by climbing over the course of the day, then descending through the night. Altitude was thus a large part of the "battery" storage system, banking energy received during the day. Article below describes the aircraft, if not the energy management element. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/inside-first-solar-powered-flight-around-world-180968000/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/inside-first-solar...
    - sitkack 4y ago
      America's proxy war in the Ukraine, while full of video-op content from state media about kids with high tech weapons killing other kids in tin cans makes it seem like the good guys are winning. Everyone loses. Alpha Go plus some drone kit from aliexpress and banggood is the start of WW3. If America does anything well, it is blowback. Russia's utter dysfunction would and should have been a long term strategic asset, but we burned it in Ukraine. Good technologists are globally distributed, everyone know where this is going and it will only cost a buck oh five. Often times, the winning move is not to play. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiD86FtF2x0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiD86FtF2x0
      - dredmorbius 4y ago
        Leading your response with a gross mischaracterisation of a Russian war of aggression ... somewhat overwhelms any point you might have been trying to make here. Who is "we"? Good technologists ... tend to migrate toward attractive remuneration and/or sociopolitical environments, circumstances permitting.
        Nomentatus 4y ago
        There can be proxy wars in which one side is acting on the defence, I don't know if that's what your interlocutor had in mind or how pure his intentions are, but there can be. This is an odd case where the proxy isn't attacking and Russia is unlikely to be a proxy for China, granted. I glanced at the youtube he linked to but didn't start it up. Too vague and blustery and idiosyncratic to warrant my time.
- gumby 4y ago
  > AeroVironment and their history of developing light-weight long-endurance aircraft. Beginning with the Gossamer Albatros Before the Albatross there was the Gossamer Condor, which is the one that won the £50K prize mentioned in the article. For some reason the name of the aircraft wasn't given. I remember when this prize was won. I was taking Unified (MIT aero-astro department requirement) and this achievement astonished me.
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    GC was also MacCready: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacCready_Gossamer_Condor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacCready_Gossamer_Condor> I also remember when these flights were made. Part of the reason why TFA is having such a strong impression on me. Also MacCready was the Quetzalcoatlus pterosaur: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=8WFmpEmmzOU https://yewtu.be/watch?v=8WFmpEmmzOU
- tiahura 4y ago
  https://youtu.be/cH_vFJctl9I https://youtu.be/cH_vFJctl9I Solar loitering for a few hundred bucks.
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    Is there a particular segment of that hour-long video which specifically addresses capabilities / features / other elements of interest?
- UncleOxidant 4y ago
  > Beginning with the Gossamer Albatros and Solar Challenger, which may surprise some. Yeah, wow, I would not have even had the remotest idea that the Gossamer Albatross and the Switchblade were somehow connected prior to reading this article.
- marktangotango 4y ago
  > with cameras and transmission capabilities I think the "transmission" part here is the real story for military applications. To get real time video further out than a few kilometers, not many nations have satellite datalink capabilities. Those that don't will be at the whim of commercial providers (Starlink for now). Otherwise, the long duration drone flight discussed here could be most valuable for aerial, orbiting, microwave transponders.
  - semi-extrinsic 4y ago
    > To get real time video further out than a few kilometers, not many nations have satellite datalink capabilities. Suppose you capture video at 4k resolution and 2 frames per second, and you compress it with h.265 at reasonable quality. Most of your image will be the same from frame to frame, so encoding will be really efficient. Then you're looking at ballpark 70 kilobytes per frame, or 1120 kbit/s. If you transmit that over 1.3 GHz and the receiving station has a good antenna, there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to reach 100-200 km range?
  - nine_k 4y ago
    Fly a larger re-translator drone 50-100 km away from the area of interest, which can relay the signal over a higher-power microwave link to a ground station another 100-200 km away. It could relay signals from many front-line drones.
  - nradov 4y ago
    In future high end conflicts, satellite communications will be unreliable due to heavy use of anti-satellite weapons and electronic attacks. In order to maintain communications, military forces will need relays in the air and on the ground, plus agile orbital launch capabilities to quickly replace satellite attrition losses.
    - ElectricalUnion 4y ago
      > satellite communications will be unreliable due to heavy use of anti-satellite weapons > agile orbital launch capabilities to quickly replace satellite attrition losses. Once you reach Kessler syndrome / collisional cascading, the problem is no longer anti-satellite weapons, it's just lots of damaging space pollution in orbit - at this point, launching more satellites won't help anymore. EDIT: on another note, this also reflects the Mutual Assured Destruction/ICBM situation - you don't destroy my things, I don't destroy your things - it only works if both parties have things to loose. Anti-satellite weapons are the most dangerous in the hands of countries with low amounts of spacecraft.
- themodelplumber 4y ago
  It'd be interesting to look at cheap counter-loiter tech and e.g. light exostructures and materials that are more difficult to penetrate at layers and readily repairable after drone attacks. I would guess that there is some interesting low-hanging fruit in that area. It also seems like a possible co-creative opportunity with the concept of covering ground properties with solar panels. Defend against airborne threats but also make the protective layer pay for itself if possible. Given additional sensor and environmental control development (vs breathing in munitions byproducts, etc), I wonder if over time the rationale for going outside, especially in a war zone, will simply fade away.
  - pelorat 4y ago
    In the future all these things will be countered by portable LASER systems.
    - coredog64 4y ago
      Israel has explicitly identified drones as a target for Iron Beam. Once that’s operational I think you’ll see attitudes shift on drone value.
      - qqqwerty 4y ago
        Drones aren't going anywhere. They are so cheap, plentiful, and useful that it doesn't really matter how good the counter measures get. And if the counter measures get too good, then those systems will become primary targets themselves. EDIT: Looking at the wikipedia for Iron Beam. The range is only 7km. A quick google search indicates drones can fly at elevations of 10km, safely out of range. Also, it sounds like Iron Beam was designed to handle the occasional rocket launch from Hamas, and not a full scale barrage of artillery. So a possible way to defeat this system would be to send a drone up to 10km, locate the Iron Beam system, and send a barrage of artillery shells in its direction and maybe sneak in a high precision shell or two in the volley to increase your odds of a hit. That seems like it would be sufficient to take it out.
        4y ago
- hutzlibu 4y ago
  "This is to bullets and shells what bullets and shells were to pikes." Mainly these drones are for scouting and directing the shells of the artillery and the bullets of the soldiers, so I am not sure the comparison is adequate as they are not making the shells obsolete. Once they are so cheap, that a drone with explosive is cheaper than an artillery round, they might make artillery obsolete, but so far they are strenghtening the value of artillery.
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    Drones obviously provide several capabilities. One of those is precise pinpoint attacks. Russia's extraordinarily high losses of senior general staff officers would highlight these capabilities. The ability to identify, inderdict, and disable high-capital equipment (e.g., tanks, the Moskova missile cruiser, another. There's an interesting observation in an unusual source that I've had come to mind: Regularity, order, and prompt obedience to command are qualities which, in modern armies, are of more importance towards determining the fate of battles than the dexterity and skill of the soldiers in the use of their arms. But the noise of firearms, the smoke, and the invisible death to which every man feels himself every moment exposed as soon as he comes within cannon-shot, and frequently a long time before the battle can be well said to be engaged, must render it very difficult to maintain any considerable degree of this regularity, order, and prompt obedience, even in the beginning of a modern battle. In an ancient battle there was no noise but what arose from the human voice; there was no smoke, there was no invisible cause of wounds or death. -- Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_V/Chapter_1 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_V/... Smith discusses the earlier realm of shorter-ranged and melee weapons as well. Bullets have typically required soldiers somewhere in the immediate region, at distances of a few tens, hundreds, or at the extreme, a thousand or so metres. Artillery has longer range but has typically required larger launch systems, even where those are portable. Human-portable drones extend range to tens or hundreds of km with loitering and seeking capabilities. Again, the range of peril is extended greatly.
  - nine_k 4y ago
    An artillery round flies much, much faster, supersonic for a good part of the trajectory. It hits a target 10-15 km away in well under a minute. A drone would take 10-20 minutes to cover such a distance, and it would likely be easier to spot and destroy while en route, even if it tries to fly low and maneuver.
- jeffreyrogers 4y ago
  > The nature of ground (or surface naval) warfare will be profoundly changed. This is to bullets and shells what bullets and shells were to pikes. They said this about torpedo boats, submarines, tanks, and guided munitions among others. It will require countermeasures and changes in tactics but I doubt much will change. Since these systems are cheap and slow everyone else will have them too and they will be easy to shoot down.
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    Torpedo boats led to substantially-reinforced secondary batteries on capital ships and eventually mixed composition fleets. Submarines led to ASW (as a doctrine and embodied in single-purpose aerial and surface platforms). Tanks led to ATGMs and decades of penetrator and armor evolution. Guided munitions (and specifically, nuclear ones) led to radically dispersed combat and logistics deployments and the C3 necessary to support them. All of those are very big changes. The most likely effect of loitering munitions will be a revolution in SHORAD and an understanding that even dug-in infantry can't operate outside of an air defense bubble. Or countries with the manpower and ethical flexibility going all-in on poorly-equipped cheap numbers over exquisite platforms.
    - dredmorbius 4y ago
      Capital ships are hardly the only, or even primary, target of submarines. Cargo shipping was, and will likely be. Further, submarine warfare by the US against Japan during WWII was absolutely devastating to Japan's ability to supply raw materials for its own war effort. Japan was (and is) an extraordinarily capable and productive country, but, thanks to its volcanic geology, also extraordinarily limited in crucial raw materials, particularly iron and fuels (coal, oil), both of which are formed or concentrated largely through long-term biological activity. The U.S. had become aware of these costs itself due to the earlier actions of German U-boat operations against both intracoastal and transatlantic shipping early in WWII. In March 1943 alone German U-boats sank over 100 Allied vessels, mostly cargo. One consequence of the attacks against US oil shipments was the construction of inland oil pipelines, the "Big Inch" and "Little Inch", as government projects, during the war. These remain in use AFIAU. Later, one of the first projects following establishing a beachhead in Normandy was to run an oil pipeline across the English Channel. (Daniel Yergin's The Prize coves all of this, and I'm relying on it for specifics.) We're familiar with the notion of coal and oil forming over hundred-million-year intervals. Most iron-ore deposits are multi-billion year old accumulations, many predating the Great Oxygenation Event. Present long-distance transport modes (sea and air) are reliant on cheap fuels, large vehicles (both aircraft and ships become more efficient with size, within limits), and secure passage along routes. I was struck a few years ago how the development of large-scale long-distance cargo shipping largely paralleled the evolution of large-scale long-distance whale species. Both rely on the fundamental greater efficiency of long bodies moving through water ("hull speed"), the existence of widely-spaced reward (cargo/payment, food source) locations, and the ability to traverse such routes with little risk. Human-based whale hunting absolutely annihilated whale populations, which crashed to a few percent of their pre-hunt levels. In instances in which combat regions have emperilled commercial aviation flights, airlines have acted quickly to route around such regions, even at the cost of much longer travel (and higher fuel costs). A reintroduction of anti-shipping naval-warefare activities, and unlimited targeting of commercial aviation, would have profound effects.
- carabiner 4y ago
  > the principle beneficiaries of lightweighting materials and solar (or small-engine) aircraft + nav & comms capabilities will be in warfare and surveillance applications Isn't that the explicit reason these technologies were developed? Just as 7000 series aluminum and carbon fiber were made for fighter aircraft before they trickled down to iPhones and golf clubs.
  - InCityDreams 4y ago
    > before they trickled down to iPhones and golf clubs. Oh, and $€10k bicycle frames.
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    I don't believe military capabilities were high on the reported benefits of the Gossamer Albatross or Solar Challenger at the time. Contemporaneous account: <https://www.nytimes.com/1979/06/17/archives/over-the-waves-in-a-flying-bike.html https://www.nytimes.com/1979/06/17/archives/over-the-waves-i...> There was a long article in National Geographic at the time (where I likely saw it). I don't know if that's online though it appeared in the November 1979 issue: <https://nationalgeographicbackissues.com/product/national-geographic-november-1979/ https://nationalgeographicbackissues.com/product/national-ge...> Internet Archive doesn't appear to have the issue.
ransom1538 4y ago
The key learning from the Ukrainian conflict from a military standpoint is the use of hobby drones + old artillery. You can either drop artillery rounds or use the drone as a way to direct artillery fire. This has totally changed the game. The switchblade is amazing, but, realistically they wont be built in any quantity to matter. https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/wa74hd/ukrainian_drone_drops_a_grenade_straight_into_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/wa74hd/ukrai... https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/wamxri/ua_drone_drops_a_whole_bunch_of_grenades_at/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/wamxri/ua_dr...
- simonh 4y ago
  To give an indication 4,000 of these things were deployed in Afghanistan since 2013, I'm not sure if that counts as a significant quantity. I've no idea what their manufacturing capacity is now, but that's an average of about 600 a year.
- SolarNet 4y ago
  I think the interesting question is how they will "compare". If they compare favorably to that key learning, as "this kind of thing, but a better iteration on it" it won't much matter the quantity. As the article points out, it's not about this conflict, it's about the next one.
- rr888 4y ago
  I think Ukraine and the Russians have learned to track consumer drone signals with aeroscope https://www.dji.com/aeroscope https://www.dji.com/aeroscope. There are a few videos out there of drones taking off then artillery shells arriving very soon after.
  - dilyevsky 4y ago
    It’s real easy to root device and disable aeroscope but there are jammers on the market that equally easy land/home your device
- dilyevsky 4y ago
dukoid 4y ago
Does this threat make the retired German Gepard air defence tank "modern" again? Alternatively, could one mount something like Phalanx CIWS on a truck? I suppose one wouldn't want to use (expensive) missiles (stinger?) against small drones? BTW: Why is the ammunition for these systems still on chains -- opposed to "just" shovelling it into some kind of funnel?
- vladTheInhaler 4y ago
  Apparently it has been done: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS#Centurion_C-RAM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS#Centurion_C-RAM
- ISL 4y ago
  Funnels can plug/jam, chains rarely fail. Chainguns generally depend upon an external drive to pull ammunition through a gun -- whether a round in the chamber has fired or not, it will be extracted and a new one put in its place. As I understand it, this is the primary difference between chainguns and belt-fed guns (which use part of the energy expended by the cartridge to cycle the weapon and feed the belt) -- reliability. Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_gun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_gun
  - dogma1138 4y ago
    The chain in a chain-gun refers to the motor drive not a chain that hold the cartridges, it just an auto cannon that has its action being operated a motor drive basically it’s a very fast repeating rifle. It doesn’t have much to do with how the ammo is loaded. Also most auto cannons today even the high fire rate ones that are used for CIWS and AA aren’t chain guns.
  - adolph 4y ago
    The chain in an externally powered weapon is distinct from the belt [0] (which can be all metal) which is used to feed the ammunition. Its confusing since the sections of a disintegrating belt are referred to as "links." 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_(firearms) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_(firearms) 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M242_Bushmaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M242_Bushmaster
photochemsyn 4y ago
> "But the Ukrainian conflict has certainly put this thing on the map, and despite heavy competition I think AeroVironment is going to be finding a whole bunch of new customers soon. And the US military is going to learn a whole lot about what exactly these things can do." Small wars are like marketing campaigns for military-industrial suppliers around the world. They also drive up commodity prices. Since Dec 2021, average share prices for the oil majors and the defense contractors have increased from 25-50% depending on the company in question, as of last month.
- hef19898 4y ago
  Added benefit a lot of old stock, from ammunition to whole systems, finally hets ised and expended and needa replacement. Training alone only consumes so much over a given year.
- nine_k 4y ago
  This particular war, with a frontline of many hundreds of kilometers, and about 75k personnel losses on the Russia's side alone, is not a small war. This is more personnel than the US lost in Vietnam.
  - mlyle 4y ago
    > This is more personnel than the US lost in Vietnam. In about 1/30th the amount of time.
  - strictnein 4y ago
    That's 75k wounded and killed, not 75k deaths. Still, it is a staggering number of injury and death in such a short time. > "75,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the field" [0] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/russia-suffered-more-75-000-163815380.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/russia-suffered-more-75-000-1...
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Supposedly between 20,000 and 40,000 Russian Federation troops killed. Of course many of them, maybe most? are from former SSRs other than Russia. Russia is getting better at spotting with drones. I gather they just managed to wipe out a fleet of M777s that parked too close to Russian artillary. Or maybe it was rockets?
imwillofficial 4y ago
“I wouldn’t want to be a Russian tank, if it was even working in the first place.” I don’t understand one sided barbs in pieces trying to appear like unbiased analysis. Denying reality does nobody any good. In fact, denying Russias continuing victory only helps them, as people rest on their laurels.
- happyopossum 4y ago
  > Denying reality does nobody any good. True, so why deny the reality that Russian tanks have proven to be horribly unreliable?
  - imwillofficial 4y ago
    Hardly, info from the front outside of Twitter propaganda channels has shown otherwise. You don’t get 20% of a large country without reliable armor. Fact.
    - _kbh_ 4y ago
      Russia didn't even maintain the tires on their supply trucks properly, leading to a lot of breakdowns from sun damage, and you think they have good maintenance on their tanks?. They have undoubtably got working tanks, but I think the quality and maintenance of those tanks is what remains to be seen.
      - imwillofficial 4y ago
        Where did you get this info? I feel like people are just pulling stuff out of their ass now. Russia is a near peer, of course they maintained everything. They have been preparing for this since 2012. Pretending our adversaries are magically incompetent does NOTHING for us except make us complacent. Use. Your. Brain. Do you really think any modern military isn’t maintaining the tires on they transport vehicle? Does that make any sense whatsoever?
        4y ago
krzyk 4y ago
There is also Warmate drone (commercial https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zzzOH5fBAqw https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zzzOH5fBAqw) that is used by Ukraine forces.
bigodbiel 4y ago
The current conflict hasn't seen the best employment of loitering munitions, from both sides actually. Maybe as a function of the current paradigm (artillery duel), the low yield explosive of the S 300 fielded, or lack of experienced fixed wing drone operators, in comparison with multi-rotor drones, which are retrievable with much longer flight times. Tube launched loitering munitions are the future nonetheless and will replace the mortar and multi rotor drones, once all the issues have been figured out.
- zmgsabst 4y ago
  I think the bigger impact will be when the larger variants are deployed among artillery. We already have artillery that can reach 50-100km, but when that can be used to deploy drones with payloads capable of destroying tanks — then your entire style of fighting can change. I actually wonder if this will bring back something like battleships: a 6” gun firing off drones in a 50-100km range would likely be able to penetrate modern point defense and hit critical systems — like radars, point defense, or weapons. At least, as a swarm from a broadside.
  - happyopossum 4y ago
    > I actually wonder if this will bring back something like battleships: a 6” gun firing off drones in a 50-100km range would likely be able to penetrate modern point defense and hit critical systems — like radars, point defense, or weapons. At least, as a swarm from a broadside. Battleships have disappeared for several reasons, but the biggest one is that it's an incredibly expensive way (in money and manpower) to launch those 6" (or even much bigger) shells. Changing the value of the shell doesn't change the fact that it's still incredibly expensive. I think we'll be much more likely to see these launched in swarms from other aircraft - the Air Force is already exploring what they refer to as Arsenal Planes, which are basically cargo planes with the ability to launch or drop tons (literally) of long range munitions. These aircraft would remain hundreds of miles from contested airspace and still be able to bring hell down on a target. Something like the Switchblade 600, launched by the dozens and controlled en-masse by either in-craft or remote pilots would be the modern version of launching these from the Mighty Mo's main cannon.
ncmncm 4y ago
Why don't we hear anything about Switchblade anymore, in Ukraine? Did they use all theirs up? And didn't buy more, because artillery is cheaper, and lately just as precise?
- wrzuteczka 4y ago
  The smaller one turned out to be hardly useful, the larger one isn’t available. Warmates seem to be more effective in Ukraine, and Ukraine bought/received more of those.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    The smaller one, used on fuel trucks, could oblige the enemy to abandon tanks. But I guess wiping out the fuel depot would work better. That is anyway best done right before pushing back the front, so the abandoned equipment is left somewhere accessible.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- _kbh_ 4y ago
  We have a video from three days ago of Ukraine taking out a number of plain clothes FSB officers in Russia using a switchblade. https://twitter.com/uaweapons/status/1552012564485267456 https://twitter.com/uaweapons/status/1552012564485267456
MegaDeKay 4y ago
Meanwhile, this Ukrainian soldier wearing FPV goggles took a cheap commercial drone armed with explosives and flew it right to its target. Scary that almost anybody could do this anywhere, anytime. https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1553090460352135169 https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1553090460352135169
- AustinDev 4y ago
  People have been doing this in a game I play call Squad for years. Interesting to see it realized in real life. https://youtu.be/SctREcQ-D94?t=191 https://youtu.be/SctREcQ-D94?t=191

136 points by picture 4y ago

This is an excellent long-form article on the history of AeroVironment and their history of developing light-weight long-endurance aircraft. Beginning with the Gossamer Albatros and Solar Challenger, which may surprise some. That largely confirms a view I'd previously formed that the principle beneficiaries of lightweighting materials and solar (or small-engine) aircraft + nav & comms capabilities will be in warfare and surveillance applications. A solar + battery styrofoam + balsa aircraft with cameras and transmission capabilities could loiter for weeks or months over a region transmitting close-range realtime imagery. Given comparable mission costs for manned aircraft (listed in the article) at $20k -- $40k/hour, it would be possible to "darken the skies" (or at least saturate regions of interest) at very low cost. A smaller number of response UAVs could address specific points of interest with a response of a few minutes to hours. All without putting pilots in harm's way. The nature of ground (or surface naval) warfare will be profoundly changed. This is to bullets and shells what bullets and shells were to pikes.

philipkglass 4y ago
In related news, the Airbus Zephyr just set a new record for endurance flight and is still aloft: https://www.space.com/airbus-zephyr-drone-long-endurance-flight-record https://www.space.com/airbus-zephyr-drone-long-endurance-fli... An experimental aircraft tested in conjunction with the United States Army has been in the air above the Sonoran Desert for 42 days, breaking its own record for longest uncrewed flight. The solar-powered, high-altitude Airbus Zephyr S took off from the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground on June 15, 2022 and has since been flying patterns over the Yuma Test Range and Kofa National Wildlife Refuge. The flight has now broken Zephyr's previous record of 25 days, 23 hours that it set in August 2018. The latest flight has seen Zephyr reach a number of additional milestones including its first flight over water, first flight into international airspace, the longest continuous flight while being controlled through satellite communications, and the farthest flight from its launch point, according to a U.S. Army statement (opens in new tab).
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  Thanks, yes. That's the "weeks or months" I was talking about. I'd be interested in knowing what its flight profile looks like. The Solar Impulse manned solar-powered aircraft that flew around the world (though with stops) performed energy potential banking by climbing over the course of the day, then descending through the night. Altitude was thus a large part of the "battery" storage system, banking energy received during the day. Article below describes the aircraft, if not the energy management element. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/inside-first-solar-powered-flight-around-world-180968000/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/inside-first-solar...
  - sitkack 4y ago
    America's proxy war in the Ukraine, while full of video-op content from state media about kids with high tech weapons killing other kids in tin cans makes it seem like the good guys are winning. Everyone loses. Alpha Go plus some drone kit from aliexpress and banggood is the start of WW3. If America does anything well, it is blowback. Russia's utter dysfunction would and should have been a long term strategic asset, but we burned it in Ukraine. Good technologists are globally distributed, everyone know where this is going and it will only cost a buck oh five. Often times, the winning move is not to play. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiD86FtF2x0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiD86FtF2x0
    - dredmorbius 4y ago
      Leading your response with a gross mischaracterisation of a Russian war of aggression ... somewhat overwhelms any point you might have been trying to make here. Who is "we"? Good technologists ... tend to migrate toward attractive remuneration and/or sociopolitical environments, circumstances permitting.
      - Nomentatus 4y ago
        There can be proxy wars in which one side is acting on the defence, I don't know if that's what your interlocutor had in mind or how pure his intentions are, but there can be. This is an odd case where the proxy isn't attacking and Russia is unlikely to be a proxy for China, granted. I glanced at the youtube he linked to but didn't start it up. Too vague and blustery and idiosyncratic to warrant my time.
gumby 4y ago
> AeroVironment and their history of developing light-weight long-endurance aircraft. Beginning with the Gossamer Albatros Before the Albatross there was the Gossamer Condor, which is the one that won the £50K prize mentioned in the article. For some reason the name of the aircraft wasn't given. I remember when this prize was won. I was taking Unified (MIT aero-astro department requirement) and this achievement astonished me.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  GC was also MacCready: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacCready_Gossamer_Condor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacCready_Gossamer_Condor> I also remember when these flights were made. Part of the reason why TFA is having such a strong impression on me. Also MacCready was the Quetzalcoatlus pterosaur: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=8WFmpEmmzOU https://yewtu.be/watch?v=8WFmpEmmzOU
tiahura 4y ago
https://youtu.be/cH_vFJctl9I https://youtu.be/cH_vFJctl9I Solar loitering for a few hundred bucks.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  Is there a particular segment of that hour-long video which specifically addresses capabilities / features / other elements of interest?
UncleOxidant 4y ago
> Beginning with the Gossamer Albatros and Solar Challenger, which may surprise some. Yeah, wow, I would not have even had the remotest idea that the Gossamer Albatross and the Switchblade were somehow connected prior to reading this article.
marktangotango 4y ago
> with cameras and transmission capabilities I think the "transmission" part here is the real story for military applications. To get real time video further out than a few kilometers, not many nations have satellite datalink capabilities. Those that don't will be at the whim of commercial providers (Starlink for now). Otherwise, the long duration drone flight discussed here could be most valuable for aerial, orbiting, microwave transponders.
- semi-extrinsic 4y ago
  > To get real time video further out than a few kilometers, not many nations have satellite datalink capabilities. Suppose you capture video at 4k resolution and 2 frames per second, and you compress it with h.265 at reasonable quality. Most of your image will be the same from frame to frame, so encoding will be really efficient. Then you're looking at ballpark 70 kilobytes per frame, or 1120 kbit/s. If you transmit that over 1.3 GHz and the receiving station has a good antenna, there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to reach 100-200 km range?
- nine_k 4y ago
  Fly a larger re-translator drone 50-100 km away from the area of interest, which can relay the signal over a higher-power microwave link to a ground station another 100-200 km away. It could relay signals from many front-line drones.
- nradov 4y ago
  In future high end conflicts, satellite communications will be unreliable due to heavy use of anti-satellite weapons and electronic attacks. In order to maintain communications, military forces will need relays in the air and on the ground, plus agile orbital launch capabilities to quickly replace satellite attrition losses.
  - ElectricalUnion 4y ago
    > satellite communications will be unreliable due to heavy use of anti-satellite weapons > agile orbital launch capabilities to quickly replace satellite attrition losses. Once you reach Kessler syndrome / collisional cascading, the problem is no longer anti-satellite weapons, it's just lots of damaging space pollution in orbit - at this point, launching more satellites won't help anymore. EDIT: on another note, this also reflects the Mutual Assured Destruction/ICBM situation - you don't destroy my things, I don't destroy your things - it only works if both parties have things to loose. Anti-satellite weapons are the most dangerous in the hands of countries with low amounts of spacecraft.
themodelplumber 4y ago
It'd be interesting to look at cheap counter-loiter tech and e.g. light exostructures and materials that are more difficult to penetrate at layers and readily repairable after drone attacks. I would guess that there is some interesting low-hanging fruit in that area. It also seems like a possible co-creative opportunity with the concept of covering ground properties with solar panels. Defend against airborne threats but also make the protective layer pay for itself if possible. Given additional sensor and environmental control development (vs breathing in munitions byproducts, etc), I wonder if over time the rationale for going outside, especially in a war zone, will simply fade away.
- pelorat 4y ago
  In the future all these things will be countered by portable LASER systems.
  - coredog64 4y ago
    Israel has explicitly identified drones as a target for Iron Beam. Once that’s operational I think you’ll see attitudes shift on drone value.
    - qqqwerty 4y ago
      Drones aren't going anywhere. They are so cheap, plentiful, and useful that it doesn't really matter how good the counter measures get. And if the counter measures get too good, then those systems will become primary targets themselves. EDIT: Looking at the wikipedia for Iron Beam. The range is only 7km. A quick google search indicates drones can fly at elevations of 10km, safely out of range. Also, it sounds like Iron Beam was designed to handle the occasional rocket launch from Hamas, and not a full scale barrage of artillery. So a possible way to defeat this system would be to send a drone up to 10km, locate the Iron Beam system, and send a barrage of artillery shells in its direction and maybe sneak in a high precision shell or two in the volley to increase your odds of a hit. That seems like it would be sufficient to take it out.
      - 4y ago
hutzlibu 4y ago
"This is to bullets and shells what bullets and shells were to pikes." Mainly these drones are for scouting and directing the shells of the artillery and the bullets of the soldiers, so I am not sure the comparison is adequate as they are not making the shells obsolete. Once they are so cheap, that a drone with explosive is cheaper than an artillery round, they might make artillery obsolete, but so far they are strenghtening the value of artillery.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  Drones obviously provide several capabilities. One of those is precise pinpoint attacks. Russia's extraordinarily high losses of senior general staff officers would highlight these capabilities. The ability to identify, inderdict, and disable high-capital equipment (e.g., tanks, the Moskova missile cruiser, another. There's an interesting observation in an unusual source that I've had come to mind: Regularity, order, and prompt obedience to command are qualities which, in modern armies, are of more importance towards determining the fate of battles than the dexterity and skill of the soldiers in the use of their arms. But the noise of firearms, the smoke, and the invisible death to which every man feels himself every moment exposed as soon as he comes within cannon-shot, and frequently a long time before the battle can be well said to be engaged, must render it very difficult to maintain any considerable degree of this regularity, order, and prompt obedience, even in the beginning of a modern battle. In an ancient battle there was no noise but what arose from the human voice; there was no smoke, there was no invisible cause of wounds or death. -- Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_V/Chapter_1 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_V/... Smith discusses the earlier realm of shorter-ranged and melee weapons as well. Bullets have typically required soldiers somewhere in the immediate region, at distances of a few tens, hundreds, or at the extreme, a thousand or so metres. Artillery has longer range but has typically required larger launch systems, even where those are portable. Human-portable drones extend range to tens or hundreds of km with loitering and seeking capabilities. Again, the range of peril is extended greatly.
- nine_k 4y ago
  An artillery round flies much, much faster, supersonic for a good part of the trajectory. It hits a target 10-15 km away in well under a minute. A drone would take 10-20 minutes to cover such a distance, and it would likely be easier to spot and destroy while en route, even if it tries to fly low and maneuver.
jeffreyrogers 4y ago
> The nature of ground (or surface naval) warfare will be profoundly changed. This is to bullets and shells what bullets and shells were to pikes. They said this about torpedo boats, submarines, tanks, and guided munitions among others. It will require countermeasures and changes in tactics but I doubt much will change. Since these systems are cheap and slow everyone else will have them too and they will be easy to shoot down.
- ethbr0 4y ago
  Torpedo boats led to substantially-reinforced secondary batteries on capital ships and eventually mixed composition fleets. Submarines led to ASW (as a doctrine and embodied in single-purpose aerial and surface platforms). Tanks led to ATGMs and decades of penetrator and armor evolution. Guided munitions (and specifically, nuclear ones) led to radically dispersed combat and logistics deployments and the C3 necessary to support them. All of those are very big changes. The most likely effect of loitering munitions will be a revolution in SHORAD and an understanding that even dug-in infantry can't operate outside of an air defense bubble. Or countries with the manpower and ethical flexibility going all-in on poorly-equipped cheap numbers over exquisite platforms.
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    Capital ships are hardly the only, or even primary, target of submarines. Cargo shipping was, and will likely be. Further, submarine warfare by the US against Japan during WWII was absolutely devastating to Japan's ability to supply raw materials for its own war effort. Japan was (and is) an extraordinarily capable and productive country, but, thanks to its volcanic geology, also extraordinarily limited in crucial raw materials, particularly iron and fuels (coal, oil), both of which are formed or concentrated largely through long-term biological activity. The U.S. had become aware of these costs itself due to the earlier actions of German U-boat operations against both intracoastal and transatlantic shipping early in WWII. In March 1943 alone German U-boats sank over 100 Allied vessels, mostly cargo. One consequence of the attacks against US oil shipments was the construction of inland oil pipelines, the "Big Inch" and "Little Inch", as government projects, during the war. These remain in use AFIAU. Later, one of the first projects following establishing a beachhead in Normandy was to run an oil pipeline across the English Channel. (Daniel Yergin's The Prize coves all of this, and I'm relying on it for specifics.) We're familiar with the notion of coal and oil forming over hundred-million-year intervals. Most iron-ore deposits are multi-billion year old accumulations, many predating the Great Oxygenation Event. Present long-distance transport modes (sea and air) are reliant on cheap fuels, large vehicles (both aircraft and ships become more efficient with size, within limits), and secure passage along routes. I was struck a few years ago how the development of large-scale long-distance cargo shipping largely paralleled the evolution of large-scale long-distance whale species. Both rely on the fundamental greater efficiency of long bodies moving through water ("hull speed"), the existence of widely-spaced reward (cargo/payment, food source) locations, and the ability to traverse such routes with little risk. Human-based whale hunting absolutely annihilated whale populations, which crashed to a few percent of their pre-hunt levels. In instances in which combat regions have emperilled commercial aviation flights, airlines have acted quickly to route around such regions, even at the cost of much longer travel (and higher fuel costs). A reintroduction of anti-shipping naval-warefare activities, and unlimited targeting of commercial aviation, would have profound effects.
carabiner 4y ago
> the principle beneficiaries of lightweighting materials and solar (or small-engine) aircraft + nav & comms capabilities will be in warfare and surveillance applications Isn't that the explicit reason these technologies were developed? Just as 7000 series aluminum and carbon fiber were made for fighter aircraft before they trickled down to iPhones and golf clubs.
- InCityDreams 4y ago
  > before they trickled down to iPhones and golf clubs. Oh, and $€10k bicycle frames.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  I don't believe military capabilities were high on the reported benefits of the Gossamer Albatross or Solar Challenger at the time. Contemporaneous account: <https://www.nytimes.com/1979/06/17/archives/over-the-waves-in-a-flying-bike.html https://www.nytimes.com/1979/06/17/archives/over-the-waves-i...> There was a long article in National Geographic at the time (where I likely saw it). I don't know if that's online though it appeared in the November 1979 issue: <https://nationalgeographicbackissues.com/product/national-geographic-november-1979/ https://nationalgeographicbackissues.com/product/national-ge...> Internet Archive doesn't appear to have the issue.

ransom1538 4y ago

The key learning from the Ukrainian conflict from a military standpoint is the use of hobby drones + old artillery. You can either drop artillery rounds or use the drone as a way to direct artillery fire. This has totally changed the game. The switchblade is amazing, but, realistically they wont be built in any quantity to matter. https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/wa74hd/ukrainian_drone_drops_a_grenade_straight_into_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/wa74hd/ukrai... https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/wamxri/ua_drone_drops_a_whole_bunch_of_grenades_at/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/wamxri/ua_dr...

simonh 4y ago
To give an indication 4,000 of these things were deployed in Afghanistan since 2013, I'm not sure if that counts as a significant quantity. I've no idea what their manufacturing capacity is now, but that's an average of about 600 a year.
SolarNet 4y ago
I think the interesting question is how they will "compare". If they compare favorably to that key learning, as "this kind of thing, but a better iteration on it" it won't much matter the quantity. As the article points out, it's not about this conflict, it's about the next one.
rr888 4y ago
I think Ukraine and the Russians have learned to track consumer drone signals with aeroscope https://www.dji.com/aeroscope https://www.dji.com/aeroscope. There are a few videos out there of drones taking off then artillery shells arriving very soon after.
- dilyevsky 4y ago
  It’s real easy to root device and disable aeroscope but there are jammers on the market that equally easy land/home your device
dilyevsky 4y ago

dukoid 4y ago

Does this threat make the retired German Gepard air defence tank "modern" again? Alternatively, could one mount something like Phalanx CIWS on a truck? I suppose one wouldn't want to use (expensive) missiles (stinger?) against small drones? BTW: Why is the ammunition for these systems still on chains -- opposed to "just" shovelling it into some kind of funnel?

vladTheInhaler 4y ago
Apparently it has been done: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS#Centurion_C-RAM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS#Centurion_C-RAM
ISL 4y ago
Funnels can plug/jam, chains rarely fail. Chainguns generally depend upon an external drive to pull ammunition through a gun -- whether a round in the chamber has fired or not, it will be extracted and a new one put in its place. As I understand it, this is the primary difference between chainguns and belt-fed guns (which use part of the energy expended by the cartridge to cycle the weapon and feed the belt) -- reliability. Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_gun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_gun
- dogma1138 4y ago
  The chain in a chain-gun refers to the motor drive not a chain that hold the cartridges, it just an auto cannon that has its action being operated a motor drive basically it’s a very fast repeating rifle. It doesn’t have much to do with how the ammo is loaded. Also most auto cannons today even the high fire rate ones that are used for CIWS and AA aren’t chain guns.
- adolph 4y ago
  The chain in an externally powered weapon is distinct from the belt [0] (which can be all metal) which is used to feed the ammunition. Its confusing since the sections of a disintegrating belt are referred to as "links." 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_(firearms) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_(firearms) 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M242_Bushmaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M242_Bushmaster

photochemsyn 4y ago

> "But the Ukrainian conflict has certainly put this thing on the map, and despite heavy competition I think AeroVironment is going to be finding a whole bunch of new customers soon. And the US military is going to learn a whole lot about what exactly these things can do." Small wars are like marketing campaigns for military-industrial suppliers around the world. They also drive up commodity prices. Since Dec 2021, average share prices for the oil majors and the defense contractors have increased from 25-50% depending on the company in question, as of last month.

hef19898 4y ago
Added benefit a lot of old stock, from ammunition to whole systems, finally hets ised and expended and needa replacement. Training alone only consumes so much over a given year.
nine_k 4y ago
This particular war, with a frontline of many hundreds of kilometers, and about 75k personnel losses on the Russia's side alone, is not a small war. This is more personnel than the US lost in Vietnam.
- mlyle 4y ago
  > This is more personnel than the US lost in Vietnam. In about 1/30th the amount of time.
- strictnein 4y ago
  That's 75k wounded and killed, not 75k deaths. Still, it is a staggering number of injury and death in such a short time. > "75,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the field" [0] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/russia-suffered-more-75-000-163815380.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/russia-suffered-more-75-000-1...
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Supposedly between 20,000 and 40,000 Russian Federation troops killed. Of course many of them, maybe most? are from former SSRs other than Russia. Russia is getting better at spotting with drones. I gather they just managed to wipe out a fleet of M777s that parked too close to Russian artillary. Or maybe it was rockets?

imwillofficial 4y ago

“I wouldn’t want to be a Russian tank, if it was even working in the first place.” I don’t understand one sided barbs in pieces trying to appear like unbiased analysis. Denying reality does nobody any good. In fact, denying Russias continuing victory only helps them, as people rest on their laurels.

happyopossum 4y ago
> Denying reality does nobody any good. True, so why deny the reality that Russian tanks have proven to be horribly unreliable?
- imwillofficial 4y ago
  Hardly, info from the front outside of Twitter propaganda channels has shown otherwise. You don’t get 20% of a large country without reliable armor. Fact.
  - _kbh_ 4y ago
    Russia didn't even maintain the tires on their supply trucks properly, leading to a lot of breakdowns from sun damage, and you think they have good maintenance on their tanks?. They have undoubtably got working tanks, but I think the quality and maintenance of those tanks is what remains to be seen.
    - imwillofficial 4y ago
      Where did you get this info? I feel like people are just pulling stuff out of their ass now. Russia is a near peer, of course they maintained everything. They have been preparing for this since 2012. Pretending our adversaries are magically incompetent does NOTHING for us except make us complacent. Use. Your. Brain. Do you really think any modern military isn’t maintaining the tires on they transport vehicle? Does that make any sense whatsoever?
      - 4y ago

krzyk 4y ago

There is also Warmate drone (commercial https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zzzOH5fBAqw https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zzzOH5fBAqw) that is used by Ukraine forces.

bigodbiel 4y ago

The current conflict hasn't seen the best employment of loitering munitions, from both sides actually. Maybe as a function of the current paradigm (artillery duel), the low yield explosive of the S 300 fielded, or lack of experienced fixed wing drone operators, in comparison with multi-rotor drones, which are retrievable with much longer flight times. Tube launched loitering munitions are the future nonetheless and will replace the mortar and multi rotor drones, once all the issues have been figured out.

zmgsabst 4y ago
I think the bigger impact will be when the larger variants are deployed among artillery. We already have artillery that can reach 50-100km, but when that can be used to deploy drones with payloads capable of destroying tanks — then your entire style of fighting can change. I actually wonder if this will bring back something like battleships: a 6” gun firing off drones in a 50-100km range would likely be able to penetrate modern point defense and hit critical systems — like radars, point defense, or weapons. At least, as a swarm from a broadside.
- happyopossum 4y ago
  > I actually wonder if this will bring back something like battleships: a 6” gun firing off drones in a 50-100km range would likely be able to penetrate modern point defense and hit critical systems — like radars, point defense, or weapons. At least, as a swarm from a broadside. Battleships have disappeared for several reasons, but the biggest one is that it's an incredibly expensive way (in money and manpower) to launch those 6" (or even much bigger) shells. Changing the value of the shell doesn't change the fact that it's still incredibly expensive. I think we'll be much more likely to see these launched in swarms from other aircraft - the Air Force is already exploring what they refer to as Arsenal Planes, which are basically cargo planes with the ability to launch or drop tons (literally) of long range munitions. These aircraft would remain hundreds of miles from contested airspace and still be able to bring hell down on a target. Something like the Switchblade 600, launched by the dozens and controlled en-masse by either in-craft or remote pilots would be the modern version of launching these from the Mighty Mo's main cannon.

ncmncm 4y ago

Why don't we hear anything about Switchblade anymore, in Ukraine? Did they use all theirs up? And didn't buy more, because artillery is cheaper, and lately just as precise?

wrzuteczka 4y ago
The smaller one turned out to be hardly useful, the larger one isn’t available. Warmates seem to be more effective in Ukraine, and Ukraine bought/received more of those.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  The smaller one, used on fuel trucks, could oblige the enemy to abandon tanks. But I guess wiping out the fuel depot would work better. That is anyway best done right before pushing back the front, so the abandoned equipment is left somewhere accessible.
deleted 4y ago
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_kbh_ 4y ago
We have a video from three days ago of Ukraine taking out a number of plain clothes FSB officers in Russia using a switchblade. https://twitter.com/uaweapons/status/1552012564485267456 https://twitter.com/uaweapons/status/1552012564485267456

MegaDeKay 4y ago

Meanwhile, this Ukrainian soldier wearing FPV goggles took a cheap commercial drone armed with explosives and flew it right to its target. Scary that almost anybody could do this anywhere, anytime. https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1553090460352135169 https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1553090460352135169

AustinDev 4y ago
People have been doing this in a game I play call Squad for years. Interesting to see it realized in real life. https://youtu.be/SctREcQ-D94?t=191 https://youtu.be/SctREcQ-D94?t=191