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Unlikely to be soon. Radar guided missiles are easily defeated with modern ECM. Despite what the salesmen will tell you, in a real fight you have to get in an

Unlikely to be soon. Radar guided missiles are easily defeated with modern ECM. Despite what the salesmen will tell you, in a real fight you have to get in and knife the f*&kers. The same happens with remotely piloted vehicles. If you ever go up against even a modestly sophisticated adversary they will show phenomenal pluck and ingenuity. See serbian downing of an F-117 for an example. Human pilots will be needed for some time to avoid having your toys fall out of the sky or stolen and used against you.

dmix 17y ago
I agree, the article talks about the competition investing in UAV's but it fails to mention the average modern military's ability to defend themselves against UAV's.
nostrademons 17y ago
Didn't they say the same thing about swords when guns were invented, about infantry when artillery was invented, and about battleships when aircraft carriers were invented? It was true back then, too - it was a good 25 years between when aircraft carriers were invented in WW1 and when they sank their first vessel at Coral Sea. But new technology opens up new tactics and new economies of scale that can fundamentally change the rules of battle. What if you didn't care about having your toys fall out of the sky, for example? Make them so cheap that you can literally blanket the sky with them. Send up thousands of computer-piloted missile-aircraft. If they get shot down, who cares? If they shoot each other down, who cares? If they get stolen by the enemy and used to shoot down your own missile-craft...well, that's what was happening before anyway. But you could throw up a curtain so dense and so shifting that it's impossible for anything to fly through them. And that's exactly what a potential adversary of the U.S. wants: nullify American air power so the f#&kers on the ground can knife our guys. It doesn't matter if they shoot down 10 of their own missile-craft for every one of ours. If they can put up 100x as many, that still equals no aircraft in the sky for Uncle Sam. There was a recent wargame that followed a strategy much like this, except that instead of computer-controlled aircraft it used human-controlled small boats launching cruise missiles (that other automated-pilot air weapon): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002
- jws 17y ago
  Nearly pointless correction: when they sank their first vessel at Coral Sea – that was the first direct battle between carriers, not the first sinking of an opposing vessel. They did a bang up job at Pearl Harbor if nothing else.
skmurphy 17y ago
Already happening. Radar/IR vs. ECM vs. ECCM is an ongoing 'cobra vs. mongoose' co-evolution that won't settle in favor of either offense or defense. US air superiority is a system that includes AWACS (enabling better situational awareness), GPS (enabling JDAM/SDB for example), tankers, and a constellation of factors other than "mano a mano" with bullets. UAVs are already an integral part of the mix.
jackfoxy 17y ago
The Serbian downing of the F-117 almost certainly had more to do with a spy in NATO relaying flight path info on a moonlit night, making visual contact possible. But as is the case of all black bag operations, the real story will likely stay hidden.
- nl 17y ago
  Or, somewhat more boringly, the spies were posted outside the airbases in Italy with a mobile phone and instructions to call when the F-117's took off. There are a few details on http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htada/articles/20051121.aspx http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htada/articles/20051121.asp...
  - jackfoxy 17y ago
    That doesn't give you the flight path information
  - jackfoxy 17y ago
    My apologies for not first reading your link before my curt response. Both the article and website are interesting in their own way. First a primer on websites reporting military/intelligence affairs: two sites that occupy the ends of the credibility spectrum, http://smallwarsjournal.com http://smallwarsjournal.com and http://www.debka.com http://www.debka.com. The first is a forum for junior military officers and professional analysts for discussing tactics and strategy. The articles all have by-lines, mostly by Captains and Majors (i.e. recently promoted Captains). The editorial board is made up of professionals. You will never read any classified information here. You may read some good war stories, but mostly you will read professional treatments of modern tactics by professionals for professionals. On the other extreme many consider debka a conduit for the Mossad. Good luck separating the information from the disinformation on this site, but the articles can be a good read, if you can deal with the wilderness of mirrors. In between these extremes keep in mind that intelligence analysis is about connecting the dots. Even the professionals seldom know anything for sure, and sources and means of gathering information are usually more important than any individual datum. If it makes it to print (or html), there’s probably a reason. So where does this leave http://www.strategypage.com http://www.strategypage.com ? Let’s look at the staff bios on the about us page. Of the four "staff" exactly one has any military/intelligence background at all. "...author (over 20 books), wargame designer (over 100 designed and publisher of over 500), defense advisor (since the 1970s), pundit (since the 1970s) and general troublemaker. Served in the US Army artillery (1961-64) as a Spec/4." His website, http://www.jimdunnigan.com http://www.jimdunnigan.com , lists some of his books, and more bio info including "Various Department of Defense and State Department agencies called on me to give lectures or just have a chat." I guess that was his "defense advisor" gig. He’s certainly a dedicated amateur. If luck had broken his way a little better, perhaps he could have been Tom Clancy. There’s also a handy "write for us" page. If you write well enough and don’t make any flaming technical errors, you can make some coin. In short, I don’t think this site would even attract placing any real disinformation. So how about the article itself? First, no by-line. Secondly the protagonist’s name, "Zoltan". Sure sounds made up to me, but that’s just my opinion. The way the piece is put together has the feel of a composite, somebody who did some research and threw this story together. If a real reporter got the real story from a real Colonel (and covered up his identity with a pseudonym) he could have written for a more prestigious publication or wire service and made better money. Still...not entirely implausible. For now I’m sticking to my theory of the shoot-down only because accounts I read right after the incident described the wreckage of the aircraft landing largely intact (a little hard to believe since the fuselage is composite) with bullet holes and, if I recall correctly, the pilot ejected and survived (a little less likely after a missile strike). Hence my belief in heavy machine gun fire from a pursuit aircraft. Also the Russians really wanted to get their hands on one of these babies, even a crashed specimen. So it’s easy to imagine their risking an agent inside NATO to pull this off. Reading this stuff on the web is not like reading hacking tips. The background is more important than the foreground, and you can never be sure.

dmix 17y ago

I agree, the article talks about the competition investing in UAV's but it fails to mention the average modern military's ability to defend themselves against UAV's.

nostrademons 17y ago

Didn't they say the same thing about swords when guns were invented, about infantry when artillery was invented, and about battleships when aircraft carriers were invented? It was true back then, too - it was a good 25 years between when aircraft carriers were invented in WW1 and when they sank their first vessel at Coral Sea. But new technology opens up new tactics and new economies of scale that can fundamentally change the rules of battle. What if you didn't care about having your toys fall out of the sky, for example? Make them so cheap that you can literally blanket the sky with them. Send up thousands of computer-piloted missile-aircraft. If they get shot down, who cares? If they shoot each other down, who cares? If they get stolen by the enemy and used to shoot down your own missile-craft...well, that's what was happening before anyway. But you could throw up a curtain so dense and so shifting that it's impossible for anything to fly through them. And that's exactly what a potential adversary of the U.S. wants: nullify American air power so the f#&kers on the ground can knife our guys. It doesn't matter if they shoot down 10 of their own missile-craft for every one of ours. If they can put up 100x as many, that still equals no aircraft in the sky for Uncle Sam. There was a recent wargame that followed a strategy much like this, except that instead of computer-controlled aircraft it used human-controlled small boats launching cruise missiles (that other automated-pilot air weapon): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

jws 17y ago
Nearly pointless correction: when they sank their first vessel at Coral Sea – that was the first direct battle between carriers, not the first sinking of an opposing vessel. They did a bang up job at Pearl Harbor if nothing else.

skmurphy 17y ago

Already happening. Radar/IR vs. ECM vs. ECCM is an ongoing 'cobra vs. mongoose' co-evolution that won't settle in favor of either offense or defense. US air superiority is a system that includes AWACS (enabling better situational awareness), GPS (enabling JDAM/SDB for example), tankers, and a constellation of factors other than "mano a mano" with bullets. UAVs are already an integral part of the mix.

jackfoxy 17y ago

The Serbian downing of the F-117 almost certainly had more to do with a spy in NATO relaying flight path info on a moonlit night, making visual contact possible. But as is the case of all black bag operations, the real story will likely stay hidden.

nl 17y ago
Or, somewhat more boringly, the spies were posted outside the airbases in Italy with a mobile phone and instructions to call when the F-117's took off. There are a few details on http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htada/articles/20051121.aspx http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htada/articles/20051121.asp...
- jackfoxy 17y ago
  That doesn't give you the flight path information
- jackfoxy 17y ago
  My apologies for not first reading your link before my curt response. Both the article and website are interesting in their own way. First a primer on websites reporting military/intelligence affairs: two sites that occupy the ends of the credibility spectrum, http://smallwarsjournal.com http://smallwarsjournal.com and http://www.debka.com http://www.debka.com. The first is a forum for junior military officers and professional analysts for discussing tactics and strategy. The articles all have by-lines, mostly by Captains and Majors (i.e. recently promoted Captains). The editorial board is made up of professionals. You will never read any classified information here. You may read some good war stories, but mostly you will read professional treatments of modern tactics by professionals for professionals. On the other extreme many consider debka a conduit for the Mossad. Good luck separating the information from the disinformation on this site, but the articles can be a good read, if you can deal with the wilderness of mirrors. In between these extremes keep in mind that intelligence analysis is about connecting the dots. Even the professionals seldom know anything for sure, and sources and means of gathering information are usually more important than any individual datum. If it makes it to print (or html), there’s probably a reason. So where does this leave http://www.strategypage.com http://www.strategypage.com ? Let’s look at the staff bios on the about us page. Of the four "staff" exactly one has any military/intelligence background at all. "...author (over 20 books), wargame designer (over 100 designed and publisher of over 500), defense advisor (since the 1970s), pundit (since the 1970s) and general troublemaker. Served in the US Army artillery (1961-64) as a Spec/4." His website, http://www.jimdunnigan.com http://www.jimdunnigan.com , lists some of his books, and more bio info including "Various Department of Defense and State Department agencies called on me to give lectures or just have a chat." I guess that was his "defense advisor" gig. He’s certainly a dedicated amateur. If luck had broken his way a little better, perhaps he could have been Tom Clancy. There’s also a handy "write for us" page. If you write well enough and don’t make any flaming technical errors, you can make some coin. In short, I don’t think this site would even attract placing any real disinformation. So how about the article itself? First, no by-line. Secondly the protagonist’s name, "Zoltan". Sure sounds made up to me, but that’s just my opinion. The way the piece is put together has the feel of a composite, somebody who did some research and threw this story together. If a real reporter got the real story from a real Colonel (and covered up his identity with a pseudonym) he could have written for a more prestigious publication or wire service and made better money. Still...not entirely implausible. For now I’m sticking to my theory of the shoot-down only because accounts I read right after the incident described the wreckage of the aircraft landing largely intact (a little hard to believe since the fuselage is composite) with bullet holes and, if I recall correctly, the pilot ejected and survived (a little less likely after a missile strike). Hence my belief in heavy machine gun fire from a pursuit aircraft. Also the Russians really wanted to get their hands on one of these babies, even a crashed specimen. So it’s easy to imagine their risking an agent inside NATO to pull this off. Reading this stuff on the web is not like reading hacking tips. The background is more important than the foreground, and you can never be sure.