6 ms·

its pretty interesting to think about the implications. A few thoughts. Air power has been a decisive advantage in recent wars (e.g. Desert Storm). Seems poss

by riggins 14y ago

its pretty interesting to think about the implications. A few thoughts. Air power has been a decisive advantage in recent wars (e.g. Desert Storm). Seems possible/probable that the victor of future wars will be determined by who has the better drone air-force.

DanielBMarkham 14y ago
There's an old saying that it always takes boots on the ground to win a war. Along the lines of your analysis, I wonder if we won't start seeing low-observable drone ground forces.
- jdhuang 14y ago
  We already have automatic ground turrets that use heat signatures and computer vision http://singularityhub.com/2010/07/25/armed-robots-deployed-by-south-korea-in-demilitarized-zone-on-trial-basis/ http://singularityhub.com/2010/07/25/armed-robots-deployed-b... But at the end of the day, everything loses against a single nuclear bomb.
  - gaius 14y ago
    "The enemy cannot push a button, if you disable his hand" - Drill Sergeant Zim.
- alaskamiller 14y ago
  Winning takes boots on the ground. But death comes from above.
lifeisstillgood 14y ago
Actually I seriously doubt air power will continue to win - Raytheon have now demonstrated a lorry sized 25KW laser, and chemical lasers can deliver 100kw (from a site the size of a car park so less useful) Anyway, line of sight medium range lasers are really here, and long distance (hundreds of KM) feasible. Stick one of these every 100km round your borders and try flying an aircraft overhead. Air power may soon be just another casualty of the march of progress - and the billions it costs to run an aircraft carrier may seem a little expensive.
- gaius 14y ago
  Serious lasers + warships will be the game changer. A Destroyer's engines for power and the sea as a heat sink. A bottomless magazine and total domination of the airspace out to the horizon. Suddenly you don't need a carrier to provide topcover for amphibious operations, for example. You can put dozens of destroyers to sea for the cost of one carrier.
  - DanielBMarkham 14y ago
    Make this nuclear-powered, submersible, and robotic and you'd have one thorny strategic situation for a potential adversary to deal with -- dozens or hundreds of hidden air-supremacy devices able to redeploy at will. And impossible to take out. Let's say you wanted to protect the west coast of the U.S. You'd deploy 80 or 90 of these things (underwater, of course) along the shore. Every so often, one would surface, illuminate the skies with powerful radar, take out several targets, then disappear. Maybe it all happens inside of ten minutes. Then it relocates. Now picture that happening over a wide area with scores of ships. My numbers might be off, but you could get total coverage and not really present a target for counter-attack. And maintain that coverage for months or years without having to worry about refueling, port calls, a logistics train, or personnel issues. Lasers will change things in a big way, including creating completely new types of ships.
  - bdunbar 14y ago
    "Suddenly you don't need a carrier to provide topcover for amphibious operations," Airplanes do more than keep away other airplanes. They're also useful to blow up the enemy ashore, close air support for the grunts, deep tactical missions to isolate the battlefield. You're still going to need flying machines. Need some way to get them close to the battlefield. This might not Ford class super carrier but it's going to be _some_ kind of carrier.
  - popopje 14y ago
    as long as there's no fog or clouds, anyway.
- omilu 14y ago
ChuckMcM 14y ago
Actually the implication that most people seem focused on is that China has fewer restrictions on export (its even mentioned in the article). So if you have a stealthy UAV that can be bought, and you can arm it with a hellfire equivalent, then you can do much more damage to the "expensive" US infrastructure than the cost to acquire the drone + missile. Every additional strike you get out of it increases the ROI. Since it is already insanely expensive to run wars like the one in Afghanistan, if you can bump the cost up over the tipping point then you "win" by your opponent being unable to afford the cost. This was how the Afghans "beat" the Soviets, and how the US "won" the cold war. (scare quotes because in neither case did the Soviets surrender to an opposing force, they just stopped participating in the war effort. So if the US has to spend a couple billion dollars a month to make war against an enemy that is spending 100 million dollars a month, eventually the US loses.

by riggins 14y ago

DanielBMarkham 14y ago

There's an old saying that it always takes boots on the ground to win a war. Along the lines of your analysis, I wonder if we won't start seeing low-observable drone ground forces.

jdhuang 14y ago
We already have automatic ground turrets that use heat signatures and computer vision http://singularityhub.com/2010/07/25/armed-robots-deployed-by-south-korea-in-demilitarized-zone-on-trial-basis/ http://singularityhub.com/2010/07/25/armed-robots-deployed-b... But at the end of the day, everything loses against a single nuclear bomb.
- gaius 14y ago
  "The enemy cannot push a button, if you disable his hand" - Drill Sergeant Zim.
alaskamiller 14y ago
Winning takes boots on the ground. But death comes from above.

lifeisstillgood 14y ago

Actually I seriously doubt air power will continue to win - Raytheon have now demonstrated a lorry sized 25KW laser, and chemical lasers can deliver 100kw (from a site the size of a car park so less useful) Anyway, line of sight medium range lasers are really here, and long distance (hundreds of KM) feasible. Stick one of these every 100km round your borders and try flying an aircraft overhead. Air power may soon be just another casualty of the march of progress - and the billions it costs to run an aircraft carrier may seem a little expensive.

gaius 14y ago
Serious lasers + warships will be the game changer. A Destroyer's engines for power and the sea as a heat sink. A bottomless magazine and total domination of the airspace out to the horizon. Suddenly you don't need a carrier to provide topcover for amphibious operations, for example. You can put dozens of destroyers to sea for the cost of one carrier.
- DanielBMarkham 14y ago
  Make this nuclear-powered, submersible, and robotic and you'd have one thorny strategic situation for a potential adversary to deal with -- dozens or hundreds of hidden air-supremacy devices able to redeploy at will. And impossible to take out. Let's say you wanted to protect the west coast of the U.S. You'd deploy 80 or 90 of these things (underwater, of course) along the shore. Every so often, one would surface, illuminate the skies with powerful radar, take out several targets, then disappear. Maybe it all happens inside of ten minutes. Then it relocates. Now picture that happening over a wide area with scores of ships. My numbers might be off, but you could get total coverage and not really present a target for counter-attack. And maintain that coverage for months or years without having to worry about refueling, port calls, a logistics train, or personnel issues. Lasers will change things in a big way, including creating completely new types of ships.
- bdunbar 14y ago
  "Suddenly you don't need a carrier to provide topcover for amphibious operations," Airplanes do more than keep away other airplanes. They're also useful to blow up the enemy ashore, close air support for the grunts, deep tactical missions to isolate the battlefield. You're still going to need flying machines. Need some way to get them close to the battlefield. This might not Ford class super carrier but it's going to be _some_ kind of carrier.
- popopje 14y ago
  as long as there's no fog or clouds, anyway.
omilu 14y ago

ChuckMcM 14y ago

Actually the implication that most people seem focused on is that China has fewer restrictions on export (its even mentioned in the article). So if you have a stealthy UAV that can be bought, and you can arm it with a hellfire equivalent, then you can do much more damage to the "expensive" US infrastructure than the cost to acquire the drone + missile. Every additional strike you get out of it increases the ROI. Since it is already insanely expensive to run wars like the one in Afghanistan, if you can bump the cost up over the tipping point then you "win" by your opponent being unable to afford the cost. This was how the Afghans "beat" the Soviets, and how the US "won" the cold war. (scare quotes because in neither case did the Soviets surrender to an opposing force, they just stopped participating in the war effort. So if the US has to spend a couple billion dollars a month to make war against an enemy that is spending 100 million dollars a month, eventually the US loses.