The Unmanned Air Force 352
coondoggie writes "How important have unmanned aircraft become to the US military? Well how's this: the Air Force says next year it will acquire more unmanned aircraft than manned. Air Force Lt. Gen. Norman Seip this week said the service is 'all in' when it comes to developing unmanned systems and aircraft. 'Next year, the Air Force will procure more unmanned aircraft than manned aircraft,' the general said. 'I think that makes a very pointed statement about our commitment to the future of [unmanned aircraft] and what it brings to the fight in meeting the requirements of combatant commanders.'"
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you even need AI if you can do low-latency remote control?
You do if your opponent has some sort of communications jamming technology.
Re:Not surprising (Score:1, Insightful)
How hard can it be? Laser communication via a stratosphere communication relay for unjammable control, 360 camera and VR environment for the pilot.
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Re:Among insiders this is a well-known phenomenon. (Score:5, Insightful)
*Reaction time for the remote pilot must equal or exceed that of an in-the-air pilot.
*Data the remote pilot has access to must equal or exceed that of an in-the-air pilot.
*Counter-counter measures must ensure that the remote pilot is always in control of the craft.
In order for self-guided robotic aircraft to replace live pilots the following must happen:
*Reaction speed must equal or exceed that of human pilots.
*Appropriateness of reaction must equal or exceed that of human pilots.
*Counter-counter measures must ensure that the robot cannot act against its creator body (IE, it can neither be subverted, nor rebel).
Re:So winning a war... (Score:2, Insightful)
Winning a war will, as always, be a combination of many factors. Economic power is only one of these; no doubt it will continue to be an important one.
As far as the specific issue of producing leading-edge UAVs goes, the USSR was not particularly good at either software or electrical engineering, IIRC. Command economies and totalitarian ideologies seem to be good at the brute-force, metal-bashing, rule-of-thumb kind of engineering, but not stuff requiring higher levels of precision. To the degree that the PRC is catching up, they're doing so by becoming steadily less "communist" in any meaningful sense of the word.
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
No UAV is capable of fighting a mannned air craft and winning.
On a one to one basis, maybe no. But what about a ten to one basis? UAVs are a lot cheaper, and a lot more expendable.
If you can occupy the enemy's airforce with some UAVs, while others bombard the airstrips, you win.
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
No UAV is capable of fighting a mannned air craft and winning yet.
there, fixed that for you
Re:Not surprising (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet. Have you noticed that no UAV has been designed for dogfighting yet?
the manned aircraft can turn their head and see the planes over their shoulder
A data acquisition/display issue.
And no human can withstand as much turning acceleration as a UAV can.
rj
Assymentrical warfare (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole point of UAVs is that they are great in assymetrical warfare — such as what we and our allies (like Israel) are engaged in now and for the foreseeable future. A really strong military facing weak opponents, who carefully exploit not military strength (which they do not have), but their blending among civilians, terrorism, and some legal tricks too.
It does not work the other way — against comparable or stronger military. When Georgians tried, earlier this year, to use UAVs to monitor their rebel territories from the air, the rebel-supporting Russia quickly blasted the UAV out of the sky with a manned fighter.
Should we come to the unfortunate point of facing a comparably-equipped military once again, Air Force's spending priorities will change again.
Launching space tractors. (Score:3, Insightful)
"Command economies and totalitarian ideologies seem to be good at the brute-force, metal-bashing, rule-of-thumb kind of engineering, but not stuff requiring higher levels of precision."
Like say launching rockets into orbit.
Re:Not surprising (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
UAVs are a lot cheaper, and a lot more expendable.
Exactly. UAVs will require a complete reevaluation of how we fight an air war. Much like tanks, machine guns, manned aircraft, and ICBMs before them, UAVs won't fulfill their promise until our military doctrine catches up.
Re:Not surprising (Score:3, Insightful)
One hell of a jamming technology to block the laser to satellite communication of a high-altitude plane.
Misleading number (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Launching space tractors. (Score:3, Insightful)
Like say launching rockets into orbit.
Which they did, basically, by brute force, metal bashing, and rule of thumb. And killed a hell of a lot of people doing it. I'm a big fan of Soviet-era space technology, actually -- the stuff that has lasted is cheap and reliable -- but the process of developing it was something that would have been completely unacceptable to Americans, and rightly so.
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
One hell of a jamming technology to block the laser to satellite communication of a high-altitude plane.
1) Satellite communications are not generally referred to as "low-latency" which the OP suggested were required.
2) Two way Laser links are extremely difficult to maintain outside of your idealized scenario. Two rapidly moving endpoints, one of which might be engaged in combat.
Re:Not surprising (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd imagine you'd jam that system just like you jam radio: by sending a stronger signal -- in this case, by shining brighter lasers on the receivers on both ends (the satellite and the UAV).
Or by simply interrupting line-of-sight.
Re:Very Very Dangerous Ground We Tread Upon (Score:4, Insightful)
If and when we end up fighting a "real" war, by which I assume you mean a war against a superpower with near-comparable strength to the United States, there are a couple of factors to keep in mind:
1) Each power is unilaterally capable of assuring mutual destruction of the other, should the conflict escalate to atomic-biological-chemical (ABC) levels.
2) Should the loser be pushed to hard by losing, they will escalate the conflict. See 1) above.
3) This means that at best, any such conflict will consist of minor skirmishes, preferably through third parties, such as Iraq.
4) Please refer to this hypothetical situation [wikipedia.org] which simulates what a "real" war might be like.
Re:Not surprising (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:About time. (Score:5, Insightful)
For years, "fighters" really haven't been doing A2A combat. Most (all?) of these are employed as bombers. And fighter/bombers are limited by airframe, not the pilot.
And when it comes to bombing, unmanned aircraft are just better. One can orbit at high altitude and lase targets while others come in lower and drop GBUs all over the target. If a few get shot down, no big deal.
Set up an INS with a gyroscope and trigger that to the proposed flight path and set the bomb to detonate if the plane veers off course. If a few blow up in the air, no big deal. Better than having one go "unguided" and hit whatever.
Forget calling in air strikes for CAS roles. The soldiers on the front can launch their own RPVs for some stuff. And for other missions, it'll be cost effective to have a wing of escorts accompany the troops. If they are attacked, the UCAVs can come down in seconds and drop munitions.
Forget the traditional role of air dominance. We can just send hundreds of UCAVs for every piloted vehicle the enemy has. He can't possibly shoot them all down. And in the opening days of the war, we'll blanket all the enemy runways with thousands of UCAVs anyway. Bomb the shit out of the runways and then loiter to take out any combat engineers trying to fix it.
The greatest thing is the manpower use. One pilot can update the INS for hundreds of UCAVs. Then, they just fly themselves. Once over the target, one pilot can take a single UCAV out of loiter and hit targets all night. Or, 20 pilots can be re-directed to engage in "shock and awe" while their former flights loiter.
Pilots will be working 8-hour shifts with 15 minute breaks every hour. They will even be able to take lunch. They can do their job from Utah or Maryland or Colorado without every having to deploy to Iraq. They won't have to be in perfect physical shape to fly. Bum knee on a great pilot; no problem.
Re:Among insiders this is a well-known phenomenon. (Score:3, Insightful)
Or, you know, be able to put 3 unmanned airborne weapon platforms in the air for the same cost as a single manned jet-fighter and develop sophisticated enough auto-pilot that a human controller is only required during tactical maneuvers and blow the hell out of any human pilot opponents because:
1) You outnumber them
2) Your cost of casualties is far less because a single lost plane is 1/3 the price and no human casualties as a result
3) Your ability to maneuver is much greater because you don't have to worry about physical limits on human pilots
4) You have much better judgment and information at hand for the controller because they aren't being shot at, they can have support staff in the room with them, and important decisions can be more easily confirmed or double-checked (such as "are those actually enemies"? stupid friendly fire that killed 4 Canadian in Afghanistan...)
I think the benefits and advantages of unmanned aircraft far outweigh manned aircraft at this point. The exception being instances where you need humans to be present (ie. troop transport, search and rescue, etc.)
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
It's even better than that. The pilot is really only needed on take-off, landing, and to carry out the mission over the target.
20 pilots can take-off 200 UCAVs, direct them to loiter over the target, and then bring them down in groups of 20 over the target. Finally, they can land the remaining UCAVs at the base.
While those 200 are en-route, the 20 pilots can be launching or recovering 200 more planes.
Or, even better, you can set up an assembly line of pilotage. 20 dedicated launchers, 20 dedicated recoverers, 20 dedicated mission specialists. And maybe 5 guys to monitor in-flight information. You could rain constant fire on a target for 24/7*365 with 300 pilots or so.
And all the pilots would be able to go home at the end of the day.
Re:Not surprising (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Satellite communications are not generally referred to as "low-latency" which the OP suggested were required.
Geosync? Yes. Very high latency. LEO? (Iridium) Tolerable. I know only because I've integrated systems with Iridium. Expensive as hell, but imagine being able to control something from damn near anywhere.
Re:Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Remote or AI? (Score:1, Insightful)
As for not bombing civilians, if someone would convince the bad guys to quit hiding in civilian neighborhoods, homes, crowds, etc., we'd be quite happy to not inflict collateral damage in the process of killing said bad guys.
So if your family are taken hostage in your family home by some arsehole murderer, you would have no problems with the idea of the police destroying your home and killing your family in order to - hopefully - get the bad guy?
Re:Remote or AI? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah damn those evil TV stations, evil UN safe houses, evil electricity sub-stations and evil 'bad guy' bridges. The 'bad guys' (grow up) should know better than to have those things in built up areas.
If *you* can simply dismiss the innocent being killed because you want to wage war against a tiny fragment of their neighbours as 'collateral damage', then by that exact same logic, all of the dead on 9/11 can simply be dismissed as collateral damage too.
But then logic nor emotion enters the world of the chicken hawk...until it's their own neck on the line and then raw emotion *must* be dished out in spades.
Re:UAV's vs. Manned Fighters (Score:5, Insightful)
You're making something of a ridiculous comparison.
Nobody is planning on attacking an F-22 with Predator. That's not the purpose of the Predator, or of any other current UAV. It's not what they're designed for, and it makes no sense. Criticizing them on that basis is like arguing that you can't shoot and disable a tank with a handgun; very true, but only an idiot would try. It doesn't really say anything about the fundamental design of the handgun, or whether bigger guns operating on the same principles might not be useful against the tank.
The F-22 is the pinnacle of more than 100 years of manned flight experience, and it represents an investment of trillions of dollars over the course of decades by the U.S. alone (for it and its antecedents, which it builds off of). It's a stunning machine.
Current UAVs are the very bleeding edge of an emerging technology that wasn't realistically possible until perhaps a decade ago. Someday they'll probably be regarded as the Sopwith Camels of unmanned aviation (and perhaps only then if someone is speaking kindly).
Given that manned aviation is starting to run into some fundamental limitations (amount of force the human body can bear, minimum size of an adult human, need for oxygen and sleep), plus it has political concerns (risk of dead or captured pilots and resulting changes in public support for military action), which UAVs simply do not have, it seems very likely that an increasing amount of resources will be spent on unmanned platforms rather than manned.
A great many of the advantages currently enjoyed by manned aircraft will probably be transferred to UAVs (there's no reason why you can't build a UAV with a low radar cross-section, for example), and it seems arguable at best that the one difference they will always have -- the presence of a human operator in the manned one -- will always translate into combat superiority. There seem to be many situations where that could be a serious liability rather than an advantage.
Re:Not surprising (Score:2, Insightful)
UAV airforce (Score:2, Insightful)