those are ultra expensive toys.
the war gets won now by sending swarms of smaller, cheaper units. i did not see anything like that, yet. what is above is still same boeing mentality products.
to be specific - products that try to mimic human control vehicles that were built for humans and retrofitted for the AI. and that time now had passed.
and the aircraft carrier like today - will it survive a coordinated attack of, say, a mere 1000 of such drones, if launched at once? all they have to do for final design is to make them able to dunk under the water for the last half mile or whatnot, to be pretty much undefeatable. times they're changing.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIwrokb-oTg
Bottom line: I think your bias against the MIC is blinding you to the facts of the future involving autonomous combat.
Firsr, I didn’t post the small, cheap Group 1 and 2 UAVs that we use… because they have too short of a range to be effective from an aircraft carrier. I posted the UAVs that we have successfully operated from aircraft carriers. Something China has yet to prove they can do.
Yes, the DoD is procuring lots of cheap Group1/2 UAVs. And we’re also invested in the research for the autonomy and teaming that’s necessary to get the most of large groups of UAVs. We NOT behind the curve in this realm.
But we can’t rely on the Group 1/2 UAVs that are prominent in Ukraine right now. They are a great tool, but they are extremely limited in their range, munitions, and EW capability. All due to their small size.
As for your comment about USV swarms attacking a ship, that has nothing to do with our unmanned system R&D. Every country will have to do their own development of appropriate countermeasures. I don’t know if anybody has a solution fielded yet for defense against swarms of USVs. There are unique challenges for detection and tracking, but we’re working them. Regardless, we are doing lots of R&D into both USVs and UUVs of varying sizes.
those are ultra expensive toys.
the war gets won now by sending swarms of smaller, cheaper units. i did not see anything like that, yet. what is above is still same boeing mentality products.
to be specific - products that try to mimic human control vehicles that were built for humans and retrofitted for the AI. and that time now had passed.
Wars do not inherently get won by sending more, cheaper units. That is a fallacy.
As for working research on unmanned systems designed from previously manned platforms, that time HAS NOT passed yet. We are still in that key step of R&D. Partly because we can retrofit lots of F-16s in the near future for more attritable loyal wingmen, and partly because we still need pilots onboard to validate what AI/autonomy is doing. And I can tell you that China is nowhere close to having autonomous capabilities like we have.
VENOM-AFT is designed and funded to accelerate testing of autonomy software on crewed and uncrewed aircraft. It complements the autonomy data and AI experimentation proving ground at Eglin AFB and
www.af.mil
These near future Group 5 UAVs will be MUCH more influential in the operational and strategic strikes that actually win wars. Group 1/2 UAVs help infantry, but Group 4/5 UAVs help destroy the high value targets that were keeping the infantry stuck in the first place.