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It's surprising that weapons manufacturers seem to be quite slow at adopting this trend. I guess they don't want to speed up the obsolescence of their own suppl

It's surprising that weapons manufacturers seem to be quite slow at adopting this trend. I guess they don't want to speed up the obsolescence of their own supply chains.

NickC25 3y ago
Well, for one, slowness of adoption usually translates to "let's milk the crap out of the government's dollars for as long as we can without putting too much of our own money into it". LHM's stock (as well as other major contractors) seems to be a good indicator of that. I have a relative who recently (2 years ago) called it a career after roughly 40 years at Lockheed-Martin, and a good chunk of that time was within the Skunk Works division. What I was able to gleam from him is that LHM sees the future of aerial warfare as a hybrid of manned and unmanned vehicles. The idea is that a 6th or 7th gen fighter might be a "mothership" of sorts with much more powerful weapons such as bombs or heavier artillery , but also in control of a number of unmanned drones capable of significantly faster attack abilities but with lighter armaments or laser weapons, all to replace current dogfighting scenarios. Fascinating, but terrifying at the same time.
jpk 3y ago
Defense contractors make heaps of money on big, drawn out projects like the F35. They probably stand to make much less if they pivot to compete with COTS drones carrying IEDs. So it's not surprising to me that the military industrial complex is more interested in milking the government for cash than actually innovating towards superior combat efficiency and effectiveness.
enaaem 3y ago
Cheap drones aren’t that cheap and conventional weapons aren’t always that expensive. A JDAM is like 20k which is cheaper than a Shahed, but way more powerful. There aren’t many ways to beat a modern air force other than having your own expensive modern airforce and AA systems. So you initially spent a lot of resources to beat those systems, and the moment you have beaten those, you can carpet bomb the battle field with bombs that are more powerful and cheaper than “cheap” drones.

It's surprising that weapons manufacturers seem to be quite slow at adopting this trend. I guess they don't want to speed up the obsolescence of their own supply chains.

NickC25 3y ago

Well, for one, slowness of adoption usually translates to "let's milk the crap out of the government's dollars for as long as we can without putting too much of our own money into it". LHM's stock (as well as other major contractors) seems to be a good indicator of that. I have a relative who recently (2 years ago) called it a career after roughly 40 years at Lockheed-Martin, and a good chunk of that time was within the Skunk Works division. What I was able to gleam from him is that LHM sees the future of aerial warfare as a hybrid of manned and unmanned vehicles. The idea is that a 6th or 7th gen fighter might be a "mothership" of sorts with much more powerful weapons such as bombs or heavier artillery , but also in control of a number of unmanned drones capable of significantly faster attack abilities but with lighter armaments or laser weapons, all to replace current dogfighting scenarios. Fascinating, but terrifying at the same time.

jpk 3y ago

Defense contractors make heaps of money on big, drawn out projects like the F35. They probably stand to make much less if they pivot to compete with COTS drones carrying IEDs. So it's not surprising to me that the military industrial complex is more interested in milking the government for cash than actually innovating towards superior combat efficiency and effectiveness.

enaaem 3y ago

Cheap drones aren’t that cheap and conventional weapons aren’t always that expensive. A JDAM is like 20k which is cheaper than a Shahed, but way more powerful. There aren’t many ways to beat a modern air force other than having your own expensive modern airforce and AA systems. So you initially spent a lot of resources to beat those systems, and the moment you have beaten those, you can carpet bomb the battle field with bombs that are more powerful and cheaper than “cheap” drones.