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It's a bit more complicated than just production capacity of shitty quadcopters. The limiting factor with them isn't the airframe, you can make that out of lit

It's a bit more complicated than just production capacity of shitty quadcopters. The limiting factor with them isn't the airframe, you can make that out of literal tree branches and duct tape. The part that's important is the chips and US leadership seems very intent on fixing that, the question is if they're capable of doing so. We also don't know what form drones will take as the technology matures. Quadcopters are common right now because they require exactly zero aerodynamic knowledge to build or fly. Any tween with an AliExpress+YouTube account could design, build, and fly all of the systems we've seen to date. As the systems become more automated in the face of EWAR, lasers, shotguns, whatever, expect a reversion to high speed fixed wing systems that trade a little bit of CDF knowledge for order-of-magnitude performance improvement in basically all realms (payload, range, endurance, speed, survivability etc).

surfingdino 2y ago
We are already working on unmanned autonomous drones the size of a fighter jet https://www.defensenews.com/air/2024/04/19/us-air-force-stages-dogfights-with-ai-flown-fighter-jet/ https://www.defensenews.com/air/2024/04/19/us-air-force-stag...
- AnarchismIsCool 2y ago
  I'm well aware, but that's not what the commenter was referring to.
ramesh31 2y ago
Quantity has a quality all its' own. A swarm of a thousand quadcopters negates any drawbacks you've mentioned, and would be cheaper than even a single Bayraktar or Reaper (not even including their 6 figure weapons payload). And we're already seeing drone carrying "motherships" that drop multiple quads and have RF repeaters to extend range to 50km+. It's a lot like the switch from battleships to aircraft carriers in the early 20th century. When a single squadron of cloth and wooden biplanes became capable of sinking a 50,000 ton armored warship that took 5 years to build, the writing was on the wall, and the countries who didn't adapt lost.
- _DeadFred_ 2y ago
  The USA isn't going to fight a trench warfare style war with China. We would fight a standoff/siege war and would overwhelm China's defenses and take out China's production capabilities. China's production is mainly in the east, whereas the USA's is spread out across the country. China imports it oil (making them susceptible to siege) while the USA is a net exporter. There is a reason we are developing Rapid Dragon (named after a Chinese siege weapon) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Dragon_(missile_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Dragon_(missile_system) . It quickly converts our 1500+ supply chain heavy aircraft fleet into stand-off attack platforms.
- rgmerk 2y ago
  War in East Asia, were it to happen, will be nothing like war in Europe - as was the case in WWII.
- AnarchismIsCool 2y ago
  I'm still talking about the tiny high quantity quads, they can't do anything if they don't have the range to get from the launch location to the target and stand off range is the oldest advantage in warfare. I guarantee the ones fielded in the next ~5 years will start to look like the new high speed bullet quads but with a blended wing between the rotors so they're not wasting energy plowing diagonally through the air. You may see configurations that can tail stand or enter a hover briefly and some that fly entirely conventionally, but the current paradigm of quads hovering near targets is going to be short lived as defenses ratchet up. As I said, the chips are going to be the issue. If you can deploy a $200 Wish dot com wifi/gps jammer and take down every drone within 500m, again, quantity doesn't do anything. They'll be moving toward relying on spread spectrum and variations of basic image recognition up through spicier algorithms for localization and targeting.
  - onion2k 2y ago
    I would be willing to bet a very large sum that China has the capability to drop 10,000 drones from a high altitude plane over US soil in one go, with the range to strike anywhere on the US mainland. I have no basis for this claim apart from the fact it's a really obvious thing to do.

surfingdino 2y ago

We are already working on unmanned autonomous drones the size of a fighter jet https://www.defensenews.com/air/2024/04/19/us-air-force-stages-dogfights-with-ai-flown-fighter-jet/ https://www.defensenews.com/air/2024/04/19/us-air-force-stag...

AnarchismIsCool 2y ago
I'm well aware, but that's not what the commenter was referring to.

ramesh31 2y ago

Quantity has a quality all its' own. A swarm of a thousand quadcopters negates any drawbacks you've mentioned, and would be cheaper than even a single Bayraktar or Reaper (not even including their 6 figure weapons payload). And we're already seeing drone carrying "motherships" that drop multiple quads and have RF repeaters to extend range to 50km+. It's a lot like the switch from battleships to aircraft carriers in the early 20th century. When a single squadron of cloth and wooden biplanes became capable of sinking a 50,000 ton armored warship that took 5 years to build, the writing was on the wall, and the countries who didn't adapt lost.

_DeadFred_ 2y ago
The USA isn't going to fight a trench warfare style war with China. We would fight a standoff/siege war and would overwhelm China's defenses and take out China's production capabilities. China's production is mainly in the east, whereas the USA's is spread out across the country. China imports it oil (making them susceptible to siege) while the USA is a net exporter. There is a reason we are developing Rapid Dragon (named after a Chinese siege weapon) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Dragon_(missile_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Dragon_(missile_system) . It quickly converts our 1500+ supply chain heavy aircraft fleet into stand-off attack platforms.
rgmerk 2y ago
War in East Asia, were it to happen, will be nothing like war in Europe - as was the case in WWII.
AnarchismIsCool 2y ago
I'm still talking about the tiny high quantity quads, they can't do anything if they don't have the range to get from the launch location to the target and stand off range is the oldest advantage in warfare. I guarantee the ones fielded in the next ~5 years will start to look like the new high speed bullet quads but with a blended wing between the rotors so they're not wasting energy plowing diagonally through the air. You may see configurations that can tail stand or enter a hover briefly and some that fly entirely conventionally, but the current paradigm of quads hovering near targets is going to be short lived as defenses ratchet up. As I said, the chips are going to be the issue. If you can deploy a $200 Wish dot com wifi/gps jammer and take down every drone within 500m, again, quantity doesn't do anything. They'll be moving toward relying on spread spectrum and variations of basic image recognition up through spicier algorithms for localization and targeting.
- onion2k 2y ago
  I would be willing to bet a very large sum that China has the capability to drop 10,000 drones from a high altitude plane over US soil in one go, with the range to strike anywhere on the US mainland. I have no basis for this claim apart from the fact it's a really obvious thing to do.