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Id Like to see a vid bout this: NATO and EU should Send more Their old and new ww1 interwar ww2 COLD WAR etc equipment and tech to ukraine aswell As thousands to millions of volunteers
It makes sense the US government wants to give a company like Anduril a go. All the top 5 companies are known for overcharging the military for parts and they’re incentivised for delays and other things happening that increase their reasons to increase cost. A small company will just be happy to get their foot in the door as a military contractor and will keep their prices very low for repeat contracts.
I also think they are very suspicious of he big 5 for being compromised by chinese, russian, and iranian spy agencies. They don't want a repeat of the F35 leak.
Russia these days. They're the ones always going on about nukes. The Chinese are the Yuktobanians before Harling and Nikanor had their kiss and make up moment
I was a designer on a DARPA driven project that explored exactly that problem. The attempt was to design the sensor suite and control for a FULLY autonomous cruise missile. It's requirement was to locate targets, using smart search algorithms that concentrated on tree lines, etc. It was to find, classify, map, and select targets to dispense munitions onto, and return to an area where it could be recovered, downloaded, and reused, at least the sensors and computer electronics. The requirement on false foe was very high, needless to say, and I mean higher than manned fighters achieve, so the classification had to be VERY nearly flawless. Friendly fire is not a good thing, especially from a silicon driven selector. This was two and a half decades ago, and the hardware we had then, though designed from the IC chip design level up, was a joke compared to today's stuff. We didn't do that badly, and I'm surprised that level hasn't been reached by now. I know there is a lot of trepidation from letting weapons loose that are TOO smart, and I agree, but you don't need a silicon brain to perform that function, not remotely, any more than you do to drive a car or make medical diagnoses. I would be interested to see the true level of autonomy of these vehicles, and that will change over time, obviously, but I no longer work in the industry, and as such am totally out of that loop.
when you started describing i the project i was wondering how you got away with sharing information about new darpa projects... until i read "two ans a half decades ago" lol. fuck the mic tho
2 drones for radar and detection. 2 missile trucks. 2 countermeasure drones. 1 pilot capable of controlling airspace like 10 pilots. Yeah its a good concept.
The Ukrainians are creating the future of the drones right now I think. Wars are many things, mostly bad, but they do push humans in extremis to create things out of desperation that otherwise would never see the light of day, or at least, they appear much sooner than ordinarily. The main example being, the atomic bomb. Many of the physicists on Manhattan Project said they knew the Germans must have similar projects, and might somehow beat them to a nuke, and it terrified them. So this was their incentive and their motivation to fast-track their work. Anyway, I'm certain the Ukrainians, probably with Americans right beside them, are doing and trying all sorts of things with drones that we won't know about for a long time. The "man-hacks' from Half life 2 video game are old technology now. I've seen too many of the Ukraine war videos with the drone zooming up on a random Russkie soldier then literally blowing up in his face...
That was what I thinking as well. If they go first as the tip of the spear, with enough distance to the mothership, then the possible enemy needs to engage the drones first or be destroyed by the drones before the mothership is even in range of being spotted and targeted.
Depends on the drones. Not all should be swarm. I think it makes sense ATM to make a limited amount with technology moving so fast. I think we are seeing a Cold War like arms race where new generations will be coming out way quicker than say... F 15 to the F 22 to the NGAD. We need a stealth AWAC drones for sure. The Roadrunner seems useless to me.
@@FieryWACO Yes as in new iterations or generations will be rapidly developed unlike when the Cold War ended. Not the best at reading comprehension are we?
Personally, I think we need some two-seater F-35s. The rear seater can operate the CCAs and/or manage the data generated by the CCA, to include EW and ECW. That or allow one F-35 to manage more CCAs. I am a firm believer in letting pilots focus on piloting, weapons deployments, and evasion.
What they need is for the B-21 to be a carrier for thousands of smaller drones it can deploy and rotate constantly. It would have a control center that can control all the drones and compile all the surveillance into useful information for ground forces, planes, ships and armed drones.
Would be badass but the cost of bringing it back to service would equal to 2 or 3 drones so.... You're better off just getting the drones plus, stealth
they already they use old f4 f16 and crusader as target practice and testing for new missles if push come to shove the us could easily field 500 decoy drone plane to saturate enemy anti air imagine having hundreds of f4/f16/f5 planes firing old stock of agm harm missles at enemy anti air battary a nightmare situation where it not only have to stop the inomcing anti radiation radar but also the vast fleet of enemy planes now we can talk about the reliability of using out to date missle but thats not the point the point is the missle will at least fire and enemy cant be sure of how reliable or effective it will be so they will have to intercept with there precious and finite air defense missles and will need to be able to have enough left over to take down enemy planes i dont care how capable s300/400/500 is you can only shot 1 target down per missle so imagine 100 drone plane firing 4 agm harm each thats 400 missle thats 500 targets you have to acount for and the plane dosent give a fuck if its shot down or not it will carry its order and luanch regardless of weather its friends are being shot down or not all cordinated by stealthy 5gen aircraft at the back and awacs.
From what I've seen most CCAs will have stealth features, the amount will vary. I expect we'll see some full stealth, some configured for Wild Weasel tactics, some as decoys, etc.
I can barely switch the radio station while driving at 50mph... hats off to pilots who can fly their own plane and 5 other planes at the same time at mach 2!
I think maybe you should look a bit further into the F-16 Venom program. They seem to be a lot more confident about what the AI can do than what was stated here.
I'm wondering if anyone is considering mid air refueling for some of these drone types. The Pacific is a very large theater, and mission deployment range is going to be critical.
Honestly a pretty good idea. Air tankers will likely be China's #1 target in the air and the main goal of their stealth fighters. Having a relatively cheap and unmanned fuel tanker could not only save lives, but allow for a higher degree of risk taking since if it's just drone refueling drone, there is much less of a risk than with their manned counterparts.
Actually loyal wingman concept is popular in all advance country not only US but her advisory and partner nation working on same like Indian CATSA programs but as usual US leads the race.
Sooo Anduril (Aargon's sword) was founded with the help of the company Palantir (seeing stones). Just calling it now, wouldn't be surprised if the founders of Palantir help start up another LoTR named defence company, perhaps Glamdring (Gandalf's sword)?
It simply might not pan out and the project could get cancelled… but. Really interesting to traditional giants aren’t leading. I see that as a positive especially in boings case… heh then again I’m just an armchair guy
To be honest, the project does look legit. It just absolutely makes sense, and the US is capable ( in theory) of delivering a new gen jet (i. e. just get a YF23 program on steroids nad it can pass as a 6th gen jet). But, the only question is ofcourse it's cost and more importantly maintenance. So far it looks like they will have the moneyz for it for now... But if the Trump comes... Something tells me it might not get completed... with a cost of 300 to 500 million dollars per plane... It might be just easier for them to rely on advancing the old tech, like the F35 ( and even modernizing F22s)... If you modernize an F35A with modern avionics for 100 - 200 million, surprisingly it might end up being a better deal, than actually building a new gen jet...
The opposite. They will still need real fighter pilots. In such threat environment means they will need more training which means higher top gun!!!! That is if congress and navy brass can put two and two together
I have a third proposal. By the time the 6th gen planes will be in the skies 4th gen fighters will be technologically obsolete, at least against major opponents. But they’ll probably still be flyable, and so, expendable, unlike human pilots. They have already fly by wire. So why not simply convert them in drones? No need for training, so they can stay on the ground until really needed, so minimal maintenance, huge payloads compared to these drones, supersonic, plus they have already onboard most of the sensors required. All already paid for and in huge numbers. They aren’t stealthy, just like these drones, but that also means that they would probably take the hit to save the mother plane. If AI can be made to fly these drones, it can also fly an F16. And by stripping all the needs for a human pilot also means quite a bit more payload.
AI is already flying F-16s. The Secretary of the Air Force recently rode in an AI piloted F-16 as it flew against a seasoned human F-16 pilot in a mock dogfight.
@@josephahner3031 so maybe they already have the drones to be associated with F35. And the program being developed can be brought into these old planes.
The services have a difficult task: figuring out what they want. Bringing a small, young company into the competition might have the aim of developing an acquisition process that responds to changes quickly. The "primes" are good at what they do but large size and past success tend to make organizations less flexible.
Last June I put the greater part of a thousand bucks into Boeing Stock, telling Myself “They are powerhouses in both the military and civilian aviation industries, if one falls through they’ll still be on top.” I also bought 300 bucks into Raytheon, which promptly had a deal fall through with its P&W engines being shipped to Airbus.
I don't think so. This isn't the 1990s movie Air Force One when a fighter sized aircraft can maneuver in front of an AAM, even with the additional maneuverability and smaller size that the CCAs would have. Air-to-air missiles in post-burn (so literally any conceivable opfor BVR AAM from the R-37M, R-77-1, PL-17, SD-10/PL-12, or PL-15) are incredibly difficult to detect; you will notice that on the F-15 EX, the USAF decided to omit the UV-based Common Missile Warning System that the highly advanced Qatari, Saudi, and Singaporean export F-15's have. The CCA's would be better suited to having a dedicated self-defense wingman with electronic warfare to counter BVR air-to-air missiles and DRCM for IR-guided shorter ranged missiles. Yes, IR-guided air-to-air missiles have burning rocket motors throughout the entirety of their short flight until they hit their target (or miss), but the time frame between launch and impact of, say 4-5 seconds could not sufficiently provide time and a predictable intercept for a turbofan powered aircraft to intercept. Now, an escorting CCA identifying the burning motor on an incoming hostile PL-10 or R-74 and attempting to dazzle its seeker head with a laser - yeah, okay, I can see that. The other CCA's would be shooting the hostile aircraft while that happens, theoretically.
Like it makes complete sense to bring the drone fighter up in the scedule as it can be completed cheaper and faster than the fighter and should be able to work with F-35s. I called this years bad. although at 20 - 30 million a shot it's a bit expensive atm hopefully unit cost will crash because right now you could build and F35 for the cost of 3 - 4 of them, what you really want is an order of magnitude difference, so ~10 million, meaning like there only an order of magnitude more expensive than a missile so they can be thought of as semi disposable.
I can’t wait for the US to declassify the programme so we can see what aircraft had the potential to become the NGAD. Lockheed probably won but I always love to see the competition.
It seems obvious that they should always go for cheap, easy to produce, easy maintenance weapon systems, possibly single use, expendable or modular designs. The opposite designs are nearly always obsolete in actual war.
ustralia is helping out with its own drone, the MQ-28 ghost bat. The ghost bat is an australian bat that hunts at night in packs.... pretty cool name huh
Ghost bat hunts it's prey in packs using their sensors ability and what Australia Ghost bat drone does. I would say USA studied our AI and other good tech in our Ghost bat drone and then kicked it to the curb. America steals a lot of tech then claim is theirs. We also helped USA develop their hypersonic missiles. Australia also has a scramjet powered hypersonic drone and Australia has world fastest scramjet at mach 12...
Quantity has its own quality, so the Anduril drone may be best in early stages to obtain at least minimal air superiority, while the GA drone may be best in maintaining that air superiority, since we will likely not be actively attacking deep into the homeland of a near peer adversary to avoid escalating to nuclear war.
I think it's good that we're looking at something that can be mass-produced. I worry some of our stuff is virtually irreplaceable within the time constraints of an actual war.
@WTA_ What i meant by bait is that the anduril drone is the one who will be engaged in a dog fight because the 6 gen fighter jet is way more expensive to be sacrificed
There is an Arthur C. Clark story about a space war where one side puts all its resources into developing expensive super advanced wonder weapons and the enemy focuses on mass producing cheap "good enough" weapons. You already know who won.
@@IFRYRCE difference is that germany had the entire world bearing down on them at that time, Russia won its battles at an insane price they couldn't have kept it up much longer than they did meanwhile the US produced some of the most technologically advanced equipment of the era and by comparison suffered few losses. reminder that having a gyro stabelizer on a cannon for a tank in the 1940s 20 years before they were common puts the US ahead of everyone else.
@@cynthiaherbst3909 If I recall correctly the foreword mentioned that it was inspired by conversations he had with a mid-century German military officer.
@@Baloo555 I wouldn't be surprised. Many surviving German officers were...unwilling let's say, to admit there was more to their defeat than just sheer allied numbers given the rather frequent, notable, and catastrophic tactical and strategic failures. Of course they knew it was the only way to then get advisory positions to NATO rather than have to answer for some unsavory and demonitizing activities.
I may have missed it in the video, but is there a reason they're not looking at pairing CCAs with F35s? It's a proven airframe, we already have them, already have a supply chain built for them etc. you could also see just how effective they are before buying the whole kit and kaboodle.
The problem with f35 is that there's only a single seat, so single pilot. He has enough to do flying the plane and fighting it so f-35 will not be able to manage many ccas. He mentions it in the video.
One of the reasons the F35 is not as fast as the other fighter jets was fuel economy, the estimation that it has shorter range than the famous fuel hog of the F16 is just silly.
I'm wondering if these new contractors have access to secret technology developed in earlier projects. Because of that's not the case, the lack of experience and tight deadlines mean basically any adversary can also develop the same systems.
When you got near peer defended airspace rxpect mash radars (better in detecting stealth vehicles) and massive AA network. In the end hypersonic and ballistic missiles will do most damage, while low cost suicide drones will be used to drain AA resources.
All that depends on destroying stealth assets, however we still have low cost remote wild weasel options today that are safer and able to totally blind EAD without risking personnel. We're good.
One thing I haven't heard anybody comment on is the possibility of using very long range stealthy drones to identify targets for very long range stealthy cruise missiles like the JASSM-ER. If we have are launched Christmases with a 600 to 1,000 mi range that can be launched out of the back of a C-130 are we really need drones to do is identify targets and relay coordinates
The big question not fielded here is what kind of drone technology China is developing!? Does anyone seriously think the Chinese are sitting on their hands in this respect?
China is undoubtedly working on this technology but it really doesn’t fit into their playbook the same way it does to the Americans. China knows their air force is inferior which is why they’ve focused so much on rocket technology, as discussed in the video. The whole reason why the US is moving to many cheap platforms instead of concentrating on few expensive fighters is because of Chinas defensive playbook. The real question isn’t if China is going to copy our offense and develop this technology, but what their new defense is going to be.
It is great with very advance weapons but I think US needs more weapons to counter cheap kamikaze drones and maybe developing advance with affordable kamikaze drones..
Look up the Perdix drone program and “loitering munitions.” They’re well on the way to such drone swarms. Also in terms of countering, that’s what the HEL weapons and microwave weapons are for.
They'll need different drones for different mission sets. If the cost is low enough, they'll be able to justify the increased demand on the logistics train. Though ideally, the parts list would be standardized across the fleet of different designs.
Quite likely they’d be modular, so parts can be swapped easily. The B21 is supposed to have an element of modularity for ongoing upgrades. The airframe isn’t really the challenge, keeping it relevant is.
I would love to see an air frame that is built modular, almost like a Lego set. So not only changing, say the nose, radar, electronics, and weapons but also changing the wings, fuselage, tail, engine, ect,... I know at some point in the future. It will go this way. That is ultimately what they're shooting for. Just imagine a theoretical "shelf" that has several fuselages, engines, tails (or tailless), wings, electronics, each and every part, and/or subsystem. So from speed to stealth to maneuverability, to virtually every mission, each and every single part can be mixed and matched in countless configurations. I believe this is the ultimate dream of the military.
How about putting recovery parachutes in the loyal wingman drones? They could fly at max endurance, then parachute to the ground for recovery. Maybe even a deployable recovery “balloon” cable, so the drone could be quickly recovered by a passing C-130 or helo. When you remove the human asset, many possibilities open up. One thing which does become problematic, is carrier recovery. When aircraft return to the carrier for recovery, they can be used to help locate the carrier group.
What about drone carriers?? CCA's will take up space on a carrier. Will the Navy want to reduce the number of aircraft?? Or, will they want smaller drone carriers of about 10000 tons to work with the carriers? Drone carriers make operational sense to me.
CATOBAR launch enables SIGNIFICANTLY greater payload, range, and basically everything in a design. Its just impossible to design as good of an aircraft when you have an insane weight constraint imposed by the need to takeoff under its own power on a ramp. Drones absolutely have their place on smaller ships but when it comes to the CCA specifically, you just can’t have that constraint if you need a drone that’s cheap and high capability at the same time.
@@jonathanpfeffer3716 Are you saying that drones must be on the large carriers then? If so, then many planes would have to be left off. Drones take up space. I do agree that CATOBAR designed drones would be best. I don't see why smaller drone carriers couldn't be CATOBAR.
@@craigkdillon I’m saying CCAs, not all drones, just those, either need to be on a airbase or on a large CATOBAR carrier, yes. They’ll take up space, but they’re significantly smaller than other aircraft. If you can store 4 CCAs for one Superhornet for example, that’s an overall increase in capability. You can’t really make small CATOBAR carriers, nor would it make sense to. It’s not possible just because CATOBAR systems and the arresting wires are very very big and can’t really be made smaller, and because they either take massive steam boilers, if they’re conventional, or nuclear reactors, if they’re electromagnetic. Small carriers just aren’t that great of an idea in general. The USN, every 3-5 years for like the last 3 decades has done a study checking out whether smaller carriers are worth it to invest in. The benefits are obvious: a more versatile, mobile carrier force that is more distributed and therefore more resilient to damage. The problem is sortie rates. With small carriers you might only be able to put 1-2 aircraft on the deck at once, then you need to bring more up from the storage deck on the elevator, which is a very slow process. With existing large carriers, they have enough room to store multiple times that number of aircraft on the deck, and they can launch aircraft constantly while bringing more up from the storage deck, without any delays. This makes a really really big difference in sortie rates. The USN really wants smaller carriers, that’s why they constantly conduct those studies, but the tradeoff is just too big. I don’t really see the need for a dedicated drone carrier personally.
@@jonathanpfeffer3716 If the drones were much smaller --- why couldn't the CATOBAR systems be made proportionately smaller? I do not accept your reasoning.
@@craigkdillon So if you made some kind of tiny CATOBAR system? Then you would have a small carrier literally only capable of launching and receiving extremely lightweight drones, with an abysmal sortie rate. I see zero application for that, it would essentially just be a significantly more expensive and complex ramp carrier, except it can’t even launch planes. I feel Iike you might be operating under the assumption that smaller = cheaper, which really isn’t necessarily true, and also neglecting to realize the sheer amount of stuff that a carrier needs to function basically. Radar, big engines, defensive weapons, mission-planning systems and fancy communications gear, the catapults and arresting wires, the heavy maintenance facilities and extensive weapons/aircraft storage facility. And then if you aren’t making it nuclear it’s gonna need massive fuel tanks. Steel and air are cheap. The expensive components are the ones above, and a small carrier will need all of them just as much as a big carrier. Also, a significantly greater proportion of the air wing will need to be devoted towards defensive operations since the enemy doesn’t care how big your carrier is, they’ll try just as hard to sink it. There’s a pretty small difference in cost and a very big difference in capability for the aforementioned sortie rate reasons and much more. There’s really no reason to make a small carrier unless you literally just don’t have the money for a bigger one, which is why the USN repeatedly doesn’t build small carriers. In summary, small carriers, including whatever kind of drone carrier you are thinking of, don’t ever make sense to build if you can make bigger ones. If you can articulate some advantage that I’m neglecting to think of let me know.
You should check out HD Hyundai's Tenebris next. I think the same strategy as CCA but for the boats. Also the Titan program for managing land operations, data center on wheels for low latency communication with autonomous equipment.
The US is rushing everything it seems. They are getting ready for something big. Automation and AI are a big thing and the Americans are clearly pushing that technology everywhere. They are partners in Nvidia's next generation AI accelerators, based on their all-new Blackwell architecture. Nvidia talked a lot about cloud-based AI infrastructure where you can have access to all the software and hardware needed to train a model. They even talked about AI-powered robots and humanoids. The US just materialized an AI-driven jet in the real world as well. It is very clear where the US military is heading. Swarm of small drones, loyal wingmen, robots and probably even humanoid robots to replace the human soldiers. The US also have problems finding people to fill the ever-expanding list of requirements from the soldiers in order to meet the demands of the future.
Yup, AI is definitely the way to go. The scalability is endless. Create 1 capable model and you can have an endless army of robots on the battlefield, all equally trained and capable.
@m.a3914 I do think it should be regulated if possible because it is kind of a slippery slope.... then again treaties only mean shit when people abide by them , war is never fair and if we got it you bet that other folks are right behind. As far as the Staffing problem goes, if it's automated automated you could have a single operator in control of a squad. Scary shit though. I feel like Militarys that don't have terminators would think twice before sending their actual people to be dismembered by machines. And then of course we'll lose control of it somehow and that's how you get Arnold Schwarzenegger showing up asking for your clothes your boots and your motorcycle
Unmanned aircraft are the future. Sad to say, for human pilots, no human can out-fly a computer chip. Decisions are made not in fractions of a second but in ten-thousandths of a second and reaction time is just as fast. And the weight savings from not having any humans on board are highly significant. The tons of weight saved from not having ejector seats, oxygen systems, and armor plate needed by a fragile human being, can be better used to increase payload, range, or top speed of the aircraft. Best of all when an unmanned fighter goes down, no humans have to lose their lives, or get taken prisoner and paraded around like a zoo animal!
its still important to have a human pilot loitering with command+control networks but let the drone fighter jets utilize g force maneuvers the human body cant widthstand.
I have wondered why they don't have unmanned tanks yet. Seems that would be an easier domain to work with than air, if the tank loses connection it can simply park and wait unlike an airplane or be programmed to return to base.
@@cyberfunk3793 Because it actually isn't. Most of the complexity of flight comes from handling the physics, but in the air, you mostly have unobstructed sight-lines (especially with radar) and military aircraft are normally distinguishable from civilian aircraft. On the ground, you might have all sorts of decision-making complexity due to the terrain, and from the perspective of the rules of war, any misidentification of civilians as enemy soldiers by the AI is going to be a major problem. Plus, the whole "terrain blocking connection" thing. Sure, it might be able to park and wait or return to preset coordinates, but that's still a pain if there were people relying on that robotank showing up where it's supposed to be going, or the contingency algorithm leads to it being destroyed, or if the enemy jams it and then follows it to find out where they're programmed to go back to. A lot of Western tanks also still have loaders for various reasons, although a custom-built robotank would probably come with a suitable autoloading system (you don't care so much if your tank enters the turret-toss-Olympics if there was nobody in it to begin with) That said, I think there is some work going into robotanks, it's just likely to be a case of very close operation with the manned tanks directing them. In the air, a loyal wingman could be tens of kilometres away and still be considered to be in fairly close support with the directing aircraft, due to the ranges of modern missiles. On the ground, the distances between a robotank and the operator would probably be measured in hundreds of metres at most. Possibly more if the operation is through the medium of an overhead drone, but that comes with the risk of "for want of a drone, a platoon of robotanks was lost" scenarios.
@@cyberfunk3793 Well, I've owned remote control toy tanks and even though they are on treads they get stuck anywhere and everywhere. Now imagine a fully automatic one that had to run loose. With nobody to come and get them unstuck. In WW2 the Germans tried making this small tracked contraption called Goliath. It was controlled by a long cable and stuffed full of explosives, to drive under an enemy tank and blow up. The cable part alone made it pointless, because how much cable are you going to use for your Goliath, a mile of it? lol
@@robertmaybeth3434 Why would a drone tank be any different from a recovery perspective? If you can go and recover a tank driven to a swamp by humans, you can go get a drone tank from the same place. Also, even the recovery vehicles could be drones at some point.
I think I would skip the NGAD and move forward with a Super F35 with larger wings and conformal fuel tanks. You need the airframe to control the loyal wingman
The wars of the future will not be fought on a battlefield or at sea, they will be fought in space...or possibly on the top of a very tall mountain. In any case, most actual fighting will be done by small robots, and as you go forth today remember your duty is clear: to build and maintain those robots.
Depending on how far they go with this, autonomous flight research might end up in civilian application as well - it's actually quite likely to happen if they can figure it out. I reckon the "adversaries" will invest in surface-to-air defense systems that have a better cost-efficiency.
@@ShadowPhoenixMaximusthe British, the US, Israel and several others yes. Don't know how Russia's laser aa programs are going but if they had a robust one before 2022 I'd imagine they'd have rushed it into service as soon as possible.
@@Antonio18677 Inflations is going down. It is 3.1% right now, a little higher than the 2% target but nothing compared to other countries with double digit inflation.
@@Antonio18677 these things are more or less the cost of a cruise missile, potentially much less in the case of the Anduril drone. Defense is something you can't skimp on, if you do, some other power will come and take what you have. The other side of that coin is the deterrence factor. The f22, for example, was a large deterrent for other people wanting to mess with the US, knowing that any air power struggle would be over in a matter of days.
I imagine AI is very important for least important things. For example, after spent its missile payload a B2B command can be issued and the CCA would fly autonomously home, no need for someone to fly it remotely.
For the whole modern autonomous aerial warfare equation were missing only stealth aerostatics AA mines controlled by AI system for area air space denial
Why not make drone versions of Legacy jets like F-16 and F-15? China is doing it to their J-6, and as far as I know, even the US modified a drone version of F-16, called the QF-16.
Doctrinal differences. Chinese would use uncrewed J-6's to soak air defenses' missiles, while US doctrine is to attack with decoy cruise missiles (like the ADM 160) and cruise missiles
I feel like we are too focused on building small numbers of super-expensive high-end weapons. Sure, they are good, but NATO also has to focus on cheap mass production of simple stuff like small drones and artillery shells.
Artillery? Yeah, that logic is sound, you just didn’t go far enough. We should make billions of crossbows (even though they’re easily defeated). FYI, if the U.S. gets into an attritional artillery war, the war is already lost.
Agreed world war 2 taught us that quite often the cheap mass produced equipment and tanks are superior to the advanced and overly complicated devices and vehicles a good example for this is the T 34 running circles round the Tiger tanks though they were more heavily armed and armoured they lacked the speed and had too many blind spots that could be exploited not to mention mechanically they were unreliable and complicated to produce
Lol no, we have a totally different war fight doctrine than ruZzia. We use professional highly trained professional soldiers NOT conscripts. Why on earth would we invest in a bunch of mavericks when we could use ONE expensive ass electronical warfare/jamming aircraft that prevents the use of enemy drones and IEDs? There's a reason why a US led coalition destroyed the 4th largest military in the 90s in like a week. And it WASNT because we use cheap crap. This is a flawed way to look at the situation when you're already Mike Tyson punching a toddler in a conventional war. Ukraine is highly resourceful and amazing fighters but they use those methods because they can't afford enough javelins and NLAWS. They absolutely would prefer to use Javelins instead of drones, trust me. Besides look up the US program SWARM if you want to see how we've already been planning to use AI mixed with cheap drones for years now. It's terrifying.
@@Matthew-is7zsyeah, that was true in a time where war tech was all mostly the same....why do you think the US then proceeded to invest SOOOO MUCH MORE into war tech R&D than literally every other country on earth? It was so we wouldn't need to fight attritional wars won on who has the best factories and logistics (which is still the US today regardless). We are literal space aliens compared to everyone else and when partenered with NATO in its entirety...then it's just unfair to a paper tiger like China or Ruzzia
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Id Like to see a vid bout this: NATO and EU should Send more Their old and new ww1 interwar ww2 COLD WAR etc equipment and tech to ukraine aswell As thousands to millions of volunteers
Good, it's Time to Stock Up at Scale, and any Programming that Still Needs to be Done to be Perfect can be Finished Later...
😅😅😅😮😮 6:19 6:19 😮 6:21 😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮😮
@@prezmrmthegreatiinnovative3235Cold War Era equipment should be the oldest vintage of weapons that we should consider sending to Ukraine. 🇺🇦 🇺🇸
Whoa whoa whoa.... Why are you so certain it's GA and Anduril competing?
Maverick: It’s not the plane it’s the pilot
Drone: What pilot?
Wanda: Hey! That’s my line!
Skynet is pleased.
Indeed... Give it some time tho it's still in its infant stage...
It makes sense the US government wants to give a company like Anduril a go. All the top 5 companies are known for overcharging the military for parts and they’re incentivised for delays and other things happening that increase their reasons to increase cost. A small company will just be happy to get their foot in the door as a military contractor and will keep their prices very low for repeat contracts.
Corruption in the US MIC is good for Russia and China.
I also think they are very suspicious of he big 5 for being compromised by chinese, russian, and iranian spy agencies. They don't want a repeat of the F35 leak.
We did it y'all, Ace Combat time!
now we just wait until USAF unveil their Arsenal Bird
So who's the belkan?
Yessss siiirrr 😂 Ace Combat it is 😂
Russia these days. They're the ones always going on about nukes. The Chinese are the Yuktobanians before Harling and Nikanor had their kiss and make up moment
I hope this new drone program from General Atomics doesnt delay the production of Liberty Prime or Mr. Handy.
I have been a Binkov fan from a few years back as we grow from Romans Versus the Marines to some of the best war content on RUclips
I was a designer on a DARPA driven project that explored exactly that problem. The attempt was to design the sensor suite and control for a FULLY autonomous cruise missile. It's requirement was to locate targets, using smart search algorithms that concentrated on tree lines, etc. It was to find, classify, map, and select targets to dispense munitions onto, and return to an area where it could be recovered, downloaded, and reused, at least the sensors and computer electronics.
The requirement on false foe was very high, needless to say, and I mean higher than manned fighters achieve, so the classification had to be VERY nearly flawless. Friendly fire is not a good thing, especially from a silicon driven selector. This was two and a half decades ago, and the hardware we had then, though designed from the IC chip design level up, was a joke compared to today's stuff. We didn't do that badly, and I'm surprised that level hasn't been reached by now. I know there is a lot of trepidation from letting weapons loose that are TOO smart, and I agree, but you don't need a silicon brain to perform that function, not remotely, any more than you do to drive a car or make medical diagnoses.
I would be interested to see the true level of autonomy of these vehicles, and that will change over time, obviously, but I no longer work in the industry, and as such am totally out of that loop.
when you started describing i
the project i was wondering how you got away with sharing information about new darpa projects... until i read "two ans a half decades ago" lol. fuck the mic tho
2 drones for radar and detection. 2 missile trucks. 2 countermeasure drones. 1 pilot capable of controlling airspace like 10 pilots. Yeah its a good concept.
The A.I needs to improve until it can do everything a pilot can do except make the decision for an offensive move
The Ukrainians are creating the future of the drones right now I think. Wars are many things, mostly bad, but they do push humans in extremis to create things out of desperation that otherwise would never see the light of day, or at least, they appear much sooner than ordinarily. The main example being, the atomic bomb.
Many of the physicists on Manhattan Project said they knew the Germans must have similar projects, and might somehow beat them to a nuke, and it terrified them. So this was their incentive and their motivation to fast-track their work.
Anyway, I'm certain the Ukrainians, probably with Americans right beside them, are doing and trying all sorts of things with drones that we won't know about for a long time.
The "man-hacks' from Half life 2 video game are old technology now. I've seen too many of the Ukraine war videos with the drone zooming up on a random Russkie soldier then literally blowing up in his face...
Non-stealthy CCAs may actually be an advantage. It means Ideally the mothership won't get targeted.
That was what I thinking as well. If they go first as the tip of the spear, with enough distance to the mothership, then the possible enemy needs to engage the drones first or be destroyed by the drones before the mothership is even in range of being spotted and targeted.
They **should** be rushing drones into production. You can never have too many drones.
Depends on the drones. Not all should be swarm.
I think it makes sense ATM to make a limited amount with technology moving so fast.
I think we are seeing a Cold War like arms race where new generations will be coming out way quicker than say... F 15 to the F 22 to the NGAD.
We need a stealth AWAC drones for sure.
The Roadrunner seems useless to me.
@@dianapennepacker6854 Cold War arms race, limited amount of arms. Got it. Perfect example.
@@FieryWACO Yes as in new iterations or generations will be rapidly developed unlike when the Cold War ended.
Not the best at reading comprehension are we?
@@dianapennepacker6854 It's not my reading comprehension that seems to be lacking. It's your intelligence.
Personally, I think we need some two-seater F-35s. The rear seater can operate the CCAs and/or manage the data generated by the CCA, to include EW and ECW. That or allow one F-35 to manage more CCAs. I am a firm believer in letting pilots focus on piloting, weapons deployments, and evasion.
What they need is for the B-21 to be a carrier for thousands of smaller drones it can deploy and rotate constantly. It would have a control center that can control all the drones and compile all the surveillance into useful information for ground forces, planes, ships and armed drones.
The Australian Ghostbat CCA/drone platform is a low-cost/end option worth consideration.
What is pretty ironic is that in the fallout universe, there is an actually company called General Atomics that specializes in making robots!🤣
I always thought it was a real company
It is
Maybe the company in game was named after the company in reality. Maybe the other way round. Depends on which one is older.
@@draggador It was founded in the 1950's, ironically.
Might wanna bring all the old fighters outta retirement.. can you imagine sending in a drone f4 with harm missiles. Or a drone F111
The USAF has F-16s that they have turned into drones. ruclips.net/video/dbsyfITResU/видео.html
Would be badass but the cost of bringing it back to service would equal to 2 or 3 drones so.... You're better off just getting the drones plus, stealth
they already they use old f4 f16 and crusader as target practice and testing for new missles if push come to shove the us could easily field 500 decoy drone plane to saturate enemy anti air imagine having hundreds of f4/f16/f5 planes firing old stock of agm harm missles at enemy anti air battary a nightmare situation where it not only have to stop the inomcing anti radiation radar but also the vast fleet of enemy planes now we can talk about the reliability of using out to date missle but thats not the point the point is the missle will at least fire and enemy cant be sure of how reliable or effective it will be so they will have to intercept with there precious and finite air defense missles and will need to be able to have enough left over to take down enemy planes i dont care how capable s300/400/500 is you can only shot 1 target down per missle so imagine 100 drone plane firing 4 agm harm each thats 400 missle thats 500 targets you have to acount for and the plane dosent give a fuck if its shot down or not it will carry its order and luanch regardless of weather its friends are being shot down or not all cordinated by stealthy 5gen aircraft at the back and awacs.
I can't help but think the B-21 will use these too.
From what I've seen most CCAs will have stealth features, the amount will vary. I expect we'll see some full stealth, some configured for Wild Weasel tactics, some as decoys, etc.
I can barely switch the radio station while driving at 50mph... hats off to pilots who can fly their own plane and 5 other planes at the same time at mach 2!
O_O Maybe consider taking the bus. I mean no disrespect but if you have that much difficulty with driving it's safer for everyone if you just don't.
Really? Haha
Sell the car, use Uber full time.
Not as much traffic
Excellent presentation!
The MQ-28 Ghost Bat aircraft also known as the Loyal Wingman, is what you were seeing with the red nose towards the end of the video, Australian made.
Now we need Arsenal Bird
Pretty much the new F15s
I think maybe you should look a bit further into the F-16 Venom program. They seem to be a lot more confident about what the AI can do than what was stated here.
I'm wondering if anyone is considering mid air refueling for some of these drone types. The Pacific is a very large theater, and mission deployment range is going to be critical.
Honestly a pretty good idea. Air tankers will likely be China's #1 target in the air and the main goal of their stealth fighters. Having a relatively cheap and unmanned fuel tanker could not only save lives, but allow for a higher degree of risk taking since if it's just drone refueling drone, there is much less of a risk than with their manned counterparts.
There is already an autonomous refueling drone and yes, it’s being done.
The mq-25 is supposed to specialize in that
Actually loyal wingman concept is popular in all advance country not only US but her advisory and partner nation working on same like Indian CATSA programs but as usual US leads the race.
Sooo Anduril (Aargon's sword) was founded with the help of the company Palantir (seeing stones). Just calling it now, wouldn't be surprised if the founders of Palantir help start up another LoTR named defence company, perhaps Glamdring (Gandalf's sword)?
How 'bout Elendil or Orc-Slayer.
It simply might not pan out and the project could get cancelled…
but. Really interesting to traditional giants aren’t leading. I see that as a positive especially in boings case…
heh then again I’m just an armchair guy
To be honest, the project does look legit. It just absolutely makes sense, and the US is capable ( in theory) of delivering a new gen jet (i. e. just get a YF23 program on steroids nad it can pass as a 6th gen jet). But, the only question is ofcourse it's cost and more importantly maintenance. So far it looks like they will have the moneyz for it for now... But if the Trump comes... Something tells me it might not get completed... with a cost of 300 to 500 million dollars per plane... It might be just easier for them to rely on advancing the old tech, like the F35 ( and even modernizing F22s)... If you modernize an F35A with modern avionics for 100 - 200 million, surprisingly it might end up being a better deal, than actually building a new gen jet...
No more top gun
:(
The opposite. They will still need real fighter pilots. In such threat environment means they will need more training which means higher top gun!!!!
That is if congress and navy brass can put two and two together
Not with DEI pilots lol
@@Howardliftswhat a joke
@@Paulftate truth though, look at what's happening now with commercial flying lmao, we wuz pilots n shiatt
Wow, this was awesome. Totally awesome. Outstating summary of NGAD and the dynamics surrounding it.
The comments are always entertaining on these videos
Usually full of trolls and Putin/CCP bots
@@HyzersGR I add this coment to the entertaining show of total weirdness. Thanx for the donation.
@@nikitatarsov5172Speaking of trolls and bots, look who's here! 😉
I love how you say NGAD as NGOD. Very funny.
pronunciation of english vowels are often indistinguishable for non native speakers
Anduril?? Someone's a fan of LotR 😁
Perfect example for a childish sense of humor like ... oh, wait, who are the competitors? Oh dammit.
I can almost feel the Elmo in the room^^
At least they don’t have to train a pilot to fly them. If this thing has a higher G rating than a man can stand it could be a good wingman.
I have a third proposal. By the time the 6th gen planes will be in the skies 4th gen fighters will be technologically obsolete, at least against major opponents. But they’ll probably still be flyable, and so, expendable, unlike human pilots. They have already fly by wire. So why not simply convert them in drones? No need for training, so they can stay on the ground until really needed, so minimal maintenance, huge payloads compared to these drones, supersonic, plus they have already onboard most of the sensors required. All already paid for and in huge numbers. They aren’t stealthy, just like these drones, but that also means that they would probably take the hit to save the mother plane. If AI can be made to fly these drones, it can also fly an F16. And by stripping all the needs for a human pilot also means quite a bit more payload.
Problem: the g4 fighters have their own logistical footprint wich will likely be much higher than the CCA drones
The USAF are already converts older F16s and F15s to drones for target practice.
AI is already flying F-16s. The Secretary of the Air Force recently rode in an AI piloted F-16 as it flew against a seasoned human F-16 pilot in a mock dogfight.
@@josephahner3031 so maybe they already have the drones to be associated with F35. And the program being developed can be brought into these old planes.
@@cmanlovespancakes well, from target practice to “loyal wingman” is quite a step.
Damn I didn’t know the future would be Gradius
It all boils down to cost of production it seems like, and not so much to latest tech and stealth. Wars of attrition count on economies of scale.
pasta boils
Takes engineering to achieve lofty goals.
The services have a difficult task: figuring out what they want. Bringing a small, young company into the competition might have the aim of developing an acquisition process that responds to changes quickly. The "primes" are good at what they do but large size and past success tend to make organizations less flexible.
Last June I put the greater part of a thousand bucks into Boeing Stock, telling Myself “They are powerhouses in both the military and civilian aviation industries, if one falls through they’ll still be on top.” I also bought 300 bucks into Raytheon, which promptly had a deal fall through with its P&W engines being shipped to Airbus.
Lockheed don’t miss
Do we know why Kratos didn’t complete for increment 1?
The Wingman drones can block incoming missiles to save the main fighter plane, if commanded
I don't think so. This isn't the 1990s movie Air Force One when a fighter sized aircraft can maneuver in front of an AAM, even with the additional maneuverability and smaller size that the CCAs would have. Air-to-air missiles in post-burn (so literally any conceivable opfor BVR AAM from the R-37M, R-77-1, PL-17, SD-10/PL-12, or PL-15) are incredibly difficult to detect; you will notice that on the F-15 EX, the USAF decided to omit the UV-based Common Missile Warning System that the highly advanced Qatari, Saudi, and Singaporean export F-15's have. The CCA's would be better suited to having a dedicated self-defense wingman with electronic warfare to counter BVR air-to-air missiles and DRCM for IR-guided shorter ranged missiles. Yes, IR-guided air-to-air missiles have burning rocket motors throughout the entirety of their short flight until they hit their target (or miss), but the time frame between launch and impact of, say 4-5 seconds could not sufficiently provide time and a predictable intercept for a turbofan powered aircraft to intercept. Now, an escorting CCA identifying the burning motor on an incoming hostile PL-10 or R-74 and attempting to dazzle its seeker head with a laser - yeah, okay, I can see that. The other CCA's would be shooting the hostile aircraft while that happens, theoretically.
The F16 has a pilotless version in testing. Lots of F16s out there.
Like it makes complete sense to bring the drone fighter up in the scedule as it can be completed cheaper and faster than the fighter and should be able to work with F-35s. I called this years bad.
although at 20 - 30 million a shot it's a bit expensive atm hopefully unit cost will crash because right now you could build and F35 for the cost of 3 - 4 of them, what you really want is an order of magnitude difference, so ~10 million, meaning like there only an order of magnitude more expensive than a missile so they can be thought of as semi disposable.
sort of the modern version of a million Arrows in the sky
I can’t wait for the US to declassify the programme so we can see what aircraft had the potential to become the NGAD. Lockheed probably won but I always love to see the competition.
It seems obvious that they should always go for cheap, easy to produce, easy maintenance weapon systems, possibly single use, expendable or modular designs. The opposite designs are nearly always obsolete in actual war.
I think that single-use and/or expendable designs for Loyal Wingman drones would be a mistake.
Palmer Lucky has such a crazy story arc.
ustralia is helping out with its own drone, the MQ-28 ghost bat. The ghost bat is an australian bat that hunts at night in packs.... pretty cool name huh
Ghost bat hunts it's prey in packs using their sensors ability and what Australia Ghost bat drone does.
I would say USA studied our AI and other good tech in our Ghost bat drone and then kicked it to the curb. America steals a lot of tech then claim is theirs.
We also helped USA develop their hypersonic missiles. Australia also has a scramjet powered hypersonic drone and Australia has world fastest scramjet at mach 12...
@@nedkelly9688Your jingoistic xenophobia has reached new heights. That is a shame since Australia and America are strong allies. 🇦🇺 🇺🇸
Quantity has its own quality, so the Anduril drone may be best in early stages to obtain at least minimal air superiority, while the GA drone may be best in maintaining that air superiority, since we will likely not be actively attacking deep into the homeland of a near peer adversary to avoid escalating to nuclear war.
I think it's good that we're looking at something that can be mass-produced. I worry some of our stuff is virtually irreplaceable within the time constraints of an actual war.
So we're doing the terminator 2 story line of the quest yet warning about being aware of the danger of AI... Super
“Collaborative Combat Aircraft” reminds me of the Options in Gradius.
Behold! The US DoD finally admits that cheaper is better. Well, better late than never.
this is good intel. thanks!
I, for one, welcome our Decepticon autonomous fighter jet masters. AIL HAIL STARSCREAM!!!!!
Remember when youd play top down video games and some powerups would feature little wingmen?
Also, the movie STEALTH
Would be nice to have the F-15E and F -15EX with the CCA
Would the CCA be able to keep up when the F15 speeds up to Mach Jezus? 🎉
@@Maginus-Samawould it have to?
Which begs the question how do you coordinate the different speeds (manned and unmanned) with all the different load outs and refuelings???
You can notice that anduril choose the design of a 4th gen fighter jet. It will be easy to detect and bait for the enemies
Even we know now. 😁
I'd imagine a use case is to serve as bait if it means more expensive aircraft and pilots survive
@WTA_ What i meant by bait is that the anduril drone is the one who will be engaged in a dog fight because the 6 gen fighter jet is way more expensive to be sacrificed
You would think AI drones could tell the difference between a column of tanks and aid trucks with skillets mounted on top
Topgun 3 but Goose’s ghost takes over a local wingman fighter
There is an Arthur C. Clark story about a space war where one side puts all its resources into developing expensive super advanced wonder weapons and the enemy focuses on mass producing cheap "good enough" weapons. You already know who won.
That story is also a work of fiction. Real warfare has a tendency very different from simplicity and numbers and those outcomes are tangible.
You could make an argument that is also what happened to Germany in WW2.
@@IFRYRCE difference is that germany had the entire world bearing down on them at that time, Russia won its battles at an insane price they couldn't have kept it up much longer than they did meanwhile the US produced some of the most technologically advanced equipment of the era and by comparison suffered few losses.
reminder that having a gyro stabelizer on a cannon for a tank in the 1940s 20 years before they were common puts the US ahead of everyone else.
@@cynthiaherbst3909 If I recall correctly the foreword mentioned that it was inspired by conversations he had with a mid-century German military officer.
@@Baloo555 I wouldn't be surprised. Many surviving German officers were...unwilling let's say, to admit there was more to their defeat than just sheer allied numbers given the rather frequent, notable, and catastrophic tactical and strategic failures. Of course they knew it was the only way to then get advisory positions to NATO rather than have to answer for some unsavory and demonitizing activities.
I may have missed it in the video, but is there a reason they're not looking at pairing CCAs with F35s? It's a proven airframe, we already have them, already have a supply chain built for them etc. you could also see just how effective they are before buying the whole kit and kaboodle.
Yes, you must have missed it.They're looking to add at least 2 for each f-35
@@raptorsean1464 thanks!
The problem with f35 is that there's only a single seat, so single pilot. He has enough to do flying the plane and fighting it so f-35 will not be able to manage many ccas. He mentions it in the video.
@@RobFomenko wow I missed a lot. Had it on in the background.
One of the reasons the F35 is not as fast as the other fighter jets was fuel economy, the estimation that it has shorter range than the famous fuel hog of the F16 is just silly.
Don't forget that an F35 is a lot heavier, and has an internal weapons bay.
Given how good the AI the usa just tested, i do think this will be better than what most realize
I'm wondering if these new contractors have access to secret technology developed in earlier projects. Because of that's not the case, the lack of experience and tight deadlines mean basically any adversary can also develop the same systems.
When you got near peer defended airspace rxpect mash radars (better in detecting stealth vehicles) and massive AA network. In the end hypersonic and ballistic missiles will do most damage, while low cost suicide drones will be used to drain AA resources.
All that depends on destroying stealth assets, however we still have low cost remote wild weasel options today that are safer and able to totally blind EAD without risking personnel. We're good.
General Atomics is also a robotics corporation in the fictional world of the Fallout games. =^[.]^=
One thing I haven't heard anybody comment on is the possibility of using very long range stealthy drones to identify targets for very long range stealthy cruise missiles like the JASSM-ER. If we have are launched Christmases with a 600 to 1,000 mi range that can be launched out of the back of a C-130 are we really need drones to do is identify targets and relay coordinates
The big question not fielded here is what kind of drone technology China is developing!?
Does anyone seriously think the Chinese are sitting on their hands in this respect?
China is undoubtedly working on this technology but it really doesn’t fit into their playbook the same way it does to the Americans.
China knows their air force is inferior which is why they’ve focused so much on rocket technology, as discussed in the video.
The whole reason why the US is moving to many cheap platforms instead of concentrating on few expensive fighters is because of Chinas defensive playbook.
The real question isn’t if China is going to copy our offense and develop this technology, but what their new defense is going to be.
China still can't build a commercial airliner to compete with Boeing and Airbus. They're not sitting on their hands, but they're stuck in the 1980s.
It is great with very advance weapons but I think US needs more weapons to counter cheap kamikaze drones and maybe developing advance with affordable kamikaze drones..
Look up the Perdix drone program and “loitering munitions.” They’re well on the way to such drone swarms. Also in terms of countering, that’s what the HEL weapons and microwave weapons are for.
Billions must fly!
Trollboys must keep trolling right?
Billions?!? LMAO! 🤣
They'll need different drones for different mission sets. If the cost is low enough, they'll be able to justify the increased demand on the logistics train. Though ideally, the parts list would be standardized across the fleet of different designs.
Quite likely they’d be modular, so parts can be swapped easily. The B21 is supposed to have an element of modularity for ongoing upgrades. The airframe isn’t really the challenge, keeping it relevant is.
I would love to see an air frame that is built modular, almost like a Lego set. So not only changing, say the nose, radar, electronics, and weapons but also changing the wings, fuselage, tail, engine, ect,...
I know at some point in the future. It will go this way. That is ultimately what they're shooting for.
Just imagine a theoretical "shelf" that has several fuselages, engines, tails (or tailless), wings, electronics, each and every part, and/or subsystem. So from speed to stealth to maneuverability, to virtually every mission, each and every single part can be mixed and matched in countless configurations. I believe this is the ultimate dream of the military.
Believe me, the Principality of Belka is behinding this.
Something something I don’t see any borders from up here something something
How about putting recovery parachutes in the loyal wingman drones? They could fly at max endurance, then parachute to the ground for recovery.
Maybe even a deployable recovery “balloon” cable, so the drone could be quickly recovered by a passing C-130 or helo.
When you remove the human asset, many possibilities open up.
One thing which does become problematic, is carrier recovery. When aircraft return to the carrier for recovery, they can be used to help locate the carrier group.
Aircraft carriers can't be hidden from modern radars and sonars anyway.
What about drone carriers??
CCA's will take up space on a carrier.
Will the Navy want to reduce the number of aircraft??
Or, will they want smaller drone carriers of about 10000 tons to work with the carriers?
Drone carriers make operational sense to me.
CATOBAR launch enables SIGNIFICANTLY greater payload, range, and basically everything in a design. Its just impossible to design as good of an aircraft when you have an insane weight constraint imposed by the need to takeoff under its own power on a ramp.
Drones absolutely have their place on smaller ships but when it comes to the CCA specifically, you just can’t have that constraint if you need a drone that’s cheap and high capability at the same time.
@@jonathanpfeffer3716 Are you saying that drones must be on the large carriers then?
If so, then many planes would have to be left off. Drones take up space.
I do agree that CATOBAR designed drones would be best.
I don't see why smaller drone carriers couldn't be CATOBAR.
@@craigkdillon I’m saying CCAs, not all drones, just those, either need to be on a airbase or on a large CATOBAR carrier, yes. They’ll take up space, but they’re significantly smaller than other aircraft. If you can store 4 CCAs for one Superhornet for example, that’s an overall increase in capability.
You can’t really make small CATOBAR carriers, nor would it make sense to. It’s not possible just because CATOBAR systems and the arresting wires are very very big and can’t really be made smaller, and because they either take massive steam boilers, if they’re conventional, or nuclear reactors, if they’re electromagnetic.
Small carriers just aren’t that great of an idea in general. The USN, every 3-5 years for like the last 3 decades has done a study checking out whether smaller carriers are worth it to invest in. The benefits are obvious: a more versatile, mobile carrier force that is more distributed and therefore more resilient to damage. The problem is sortie rates. With small carriers you might only be able to put 1-2 aircraft on the deck at once, then you need to bring more up from the storage deck on the elevator, which is a very slow process. With existing large carriers, they have enough room to store multiple times that number of aircraft on the deck, and they can launch aircraft constantly while bringing more up from the storage deck, without any delays. This makes a really really big difference in sortie rates. The USN really wants smaller carriers, that’s why they constantly conduct those studies, but the tradeoff is just too big.
I don’t really see the need for a dedicated drone carrier personally.
@@jonathanpfeffer3716 If the drones were much smaller --- why couldn't the CATOBAR systems be made proportionately smaller?
I do not accept your reasoning.
@@craigkdillon So if you made some kind of tiny CATOBAR system? Then you would have a small carrier literally only capable of launching and receiving extremely lightweight drones, with an abysmal sortie rate. I see zero application for that, it would essentially just be a significantly more expensive and complex ramp carrier, except it can’t even launch planes.
I feel Iike you might be operating under the assumption that smaller = cheaper, which really isn’t necessarily true, and also neglecting to realize the sheer amount of stuff that a carrier needs to function basically. Radar, big engines, defensive weapons, mission-planning systems and fancy communications gear, the catapults and arresting wires, the heavy maintenance facilities and extensive weapons/aircraft storage facility. And then if you aren’t making it nuclear it’s gonna need massive fuel tanks.
Steel and air are cheap. The expensive components are the ones above, and a small carrier will need all of them just as much as a big carrier. Also, a significantly greater proportion of the air wing will need to be devoted towards defensive operations since the enemy doesn’t care how big your carrier is, they’ll try just as hard to sink it. There’s a pretty small difference in cost and a very big difference in capability for the aforementioned sortie rate reasons and much more. There’s really no reason to make a small carrier unless you literally just don’t have the money for a bigger one, which is why the USN repeatedly doesn’t build small carriers.
In summary, small carriers, including whatever kind of drone carrier you are thinking of, don’t ever make sense to build if you can make bigger ones. If you can articulate some advantage that I’m neglecting to think of let me know.
You should check out HD Hyundai's Tenebris next. I think the same strategy as CCA but for the boats. Also the Titan program for managing land operations, data center on wheels for low latency communication with autonomous equipment.
The US is rushing everything it seems. They are getting ready for something big. Automation and AI are a big thing and the Americans are clearly pushing that technology everywhere. They are partners in Nvidia's next generation AI accelerators, based on their all-new Blackwell architecture. Nvidia talked a lot about cloud-based AI infrastructure where you can have access to all the software and hardware needed to train a model. They even talked about AI-powered robots and humanoids. The US just materialized an AI-driven jet in the real world as well. It is very clear where the US military is heading. Swarm of small drones, loyal wingmen, robots and probably even humanoid robots to replace the human soldiers. The US also have problems finding people to fill the ever-expanding list of requirements from the soldiers in order to meet the demands of the future.
Yup, AI is definitely the way to go. The scalability is endless. Create 1 capable model and you can have an endless army of robots on the battlefield, all equally trained and capable.
@m.a3914 I do think it should be regulated if possible because it is kind of a slippery slope.... then again treaties only mean shit when people abide by them , war is never fair and if we got it you bet that other folks are right behind. As far as the Staffing problem goes, if it's automated automated you could have a single operator in control of a squad. Scary shit though. I feel like Militarys that don't have terminators would think twice before sending their actual people to be dismembered by machines. And then of course we'll lose control of it somehow and that's how you get Arnold Schwarzenegger showing up asking for your clothes your boots and your motorcycle
@@mastathrash5609 I fear that governments might be more accepting to go to war if machines were used primarily instead of humans.
@@m.a3914 agreed, that's also a worrisome prospect also odd my origional comment was deleted...thanks YT or.. skynet 😅
Copying china now lol
Sounds like the Fury might be more suitable for the F-15EX. Wouldn't a non-LO/stealthy drone give away the F-35 or NGAD?
Equiped with Tom Cruise artificial intelligence chip ...
What happened to developing Boeing AUS MQ-25 Ghostbat? I had a interesting design.
The carrier-based drone? Plans are to deploy in 2027 I believe
Unmanned aircraft are the future. Sad to say, for human pilots, no human can out-fly a computer chip. Decisions are made not in fractions of a second but in ten-thousandths of a second and reaction time is just as fast. And the weight savings from not having any humans on board are highly significant. The tons of weight saved from not having ejector seats, oxygen systems, and armor plate needed by a fragile human being, can be better used to increase payload, range, or top speed of the aircraft.
Best of all when an unmanned fighter goes down, no humans have to lose their lives, or get taken prisoner and paraded around like a zoo animal!
its still important to have a human pilot loitering with command+control networks but let the drone fighter jets utilize g force maneuvers the human body cant widthstand.
I have wondered why they don't have unmanned tanks yet. Seems that would be an easier domain to work with than air, if the tank loses connection it can simply park and wait unlike an airplane or be programmed to return to base.
@@cyberfunk3793 Because it actually isn't. Most of the complexity of flight comes from handling the physics, but in the air, you mostly have unobstructed sight-lines (especially with radar) and military aircraft are normally distinguishable from civilian aircraft. On the ground, you might have all sorts of decision-making complexity due to the terrain, and from the perspective of the rules of war, any misidentification of civilians as enemy soldiers by the AI is going to be a major problem.
Plus, the whole "terrain blocking connection" thing. Sure, it might be able to park and wait or return to preset coordinates, but that's still a pain if there were people relying on that robotank showing up where it's supposed to be going, or the contingency algorithm leads to it being destroyed, or if the enemy jams it and then follows it to find out where they're programmed to go back to.
A lot of Western tanks also still have loaders for various reasons, although a custom-built robotank would probably come with a suitable autoloading system (you don't care so much if your tank enters the turret-toss-Olympics if there was nobody in it to begin with)
That said, I think there is some work going into robotanks, it's just likely to be a case of very close operation with the manned tanks directing them. In the air, a loyal wingman could be tens of kilometres away and still be considered to be in fairly close support with the directing aircraft, due to the ranges of modern missiles. On the ground, the distances between a robotank and the operator would probably be measured in hundreds of metres at most. Possibly more if the operation is through the medium of an overhead drone, but that comes with the risk of "for want of a drone, a platoon of robotanks was lost" scenarios.
@@cyberfunk3793 Well, I've owned remote control toy tanks and even though they are on treads they get stuck anywhere and everywhere. Now imagine a fully automatic one that had to run loose. With nobody to come and get them unstuck.
In WW2 the Germans tried making this small tracked contraption called Goliath. It was controlled by a long cable and stuffed full of explosives, to drive under an enemy tank and blow up. The cable part alone made it pointless, because how much cable are you going to use for your Goliath, a mile of it? lol
@@robertmaybeth3434 Why would a drone tank be any different from a recovery perspective? If you can go and recover a tank driven to a swamp by humans, you can go get a drone tank from the same place. Also, even the recovery vehicles could be drones at some point.
I think I would skip the NGAD and move forward with a Super F35 with larger wings and conformal fuel tanks. You need the airframe to control the loyal wingman
Never a good sign when we start rushing new weapons into production
The wars of the future will not be fought on a battlefield or at sea, they will be fought in space...or possibly on the top of a very tall mountain. In any case, most actual fighting will be done by small robots, and as you go forth today remember your duty is clear: to build and maintain those robots.
If you think ab it it’s a good idea not to let Lockheed or Boeing make the wingmen. Can’t put all your eggs in one basket.
Depending on how far they go with this, autonomous flight research might end up in civilian application as well - it's actually quite likely to happen if they can figure it out.
I reckon the "adversaries" will invest in surface-to-air defense systems that have a better cost-efficiency.
The British government is developing lasers to shoot down drones. So its already happening
Autonomous flight research started in civilian aviation.
@@ShadowPhoenixMaximusthe British, the US, Israel and several others yes. Don't know how Russia's laser aa programs are going but if they had a robust one before 2022 I'd imagine they'd have rushed it into service as soon as possible.
It seems the Americans are saying that quantity will have a quality all it's own.
The question is how the hell do we even afford this? Printing money like the Weimar Republic it’s only a matter of time before the economy fails.
@@Antonio18677US defense spending is 3.45% of gdp, plus we are the richest country in the world, we can afford it.
@@Jack-yv2xu for the time being surely but what about inflation?
@@Antonio18677 Inflations is going down. It is 3.1% right now, a little higher than the 2% target but nothing compared to other countries with double digit inflation.
@@Antonio18677 these things are more or less the cost of a cruise missile, potentially much less in the case of the Anduril drone. Defense is something you can't skimp on, if you do, some other power will come and take what you have. The other side of that coin is the deterrence factor. The f22, for example, was a large deterrent for other people wanting to mess with the US, knowing that any air power struggle would be over in a matter of days.
Those are super cool.
Drones will be cruise missiles too, if need be, and they are out of missiles. If the target is really valuable. Like S-400 ot S-500.
I’m love you your so smart
Does this mean the guidance of long range AA missiles by AWACS planes is no longer persued?
F35 will be the last manned purpose built fighter.
Built by the US.
Uh, NGAD exists lol
I imagine AI is very important for least important things. For example, after spent its missile payload a B2B command can be issued and the CCA would fly autonomously home, no need for someone to fly it remotely.
Anduril’s drone looks like the f100 super saber
There is already error in the beginning. Russia doesn't have 5th generation yet. Engines are still missing and they are not that stealth as should be.
For the whole modern autonomous aerial warfare equation were missing only stealth aerostatics AA mines controlled by AI system for area air space denial
Why not make drone versions of Legacy jets like F-16 and F-15? China is doing it to their J-6, and as far as I know, even the US modified a drone version of F-16, called the QF-16.
You answered your own question.
@@knowahnosenothing4862😂😂
Doctrinal differences. Chinese would use uncrewed J-6's to soak air defenses' missiles, while US doctrine is to attack with decoy cruise missiles (like the ADM 160) and cruise missiles
Dale Brown's Dreamland, "Strike Zone", 2003😐
I don't understand what's the number of 300 F-35 !!, the USAF is planning to acquire 1700 F-35, are these 300 F-35s optimized for air to air combat?!!
no they are optimized for both role air to air and air to ground.
It’s meant to be a jack of all trades. The f22 is still superior for air to air as that’s the only role it plays.
Blot out the sky, unable to target lock.
-the future
I feel like we are too focused on building small numbers of super-expensive high-end weapons.
Sure, they are good, but NATO also has to focus on cheap mass production of simple stuff like small drones and artillery shells.
Artillery? Yeah, that logic is sound, you just didn’t go far enough. We should make billions of crossbows (even though they’re easily defeated).
FYI, if the U.S. gets into an attritional artillery war, the war is already lost.
Agreed world war 2 taught us that quite often the cheap mass produced equipment and tanks are superior to the advanced and overly complicated devices and vehicles a good example for this is the T 34 running circles round the Tiger tanks though they were more heavily armed and armoured they lacked the speed and had too many blind spots that could be exploited not to mention mechanically they were unreliable and complicated to produce
Oh sweet summer child. That's not how money is made by Western politicians. Its one big scam.
Lol no, we have a totally different war fight doctrine than ruZzia. We use professional highly trained professional soldiers NOT conscripts. Why on earth would we invest in a bunch of mavericks when we could use ONE expensive ass electronical warfare/jamming aircraft that prevents the use of enemy drones and IEDs? There's a reason why a US led coalition destroyed the 4th largest military in the 90s in like a week. And it WASNT because we use cheap crap.
This is a flawed way to look at the situation when you're already Mike Tyson punching a toddler in a conventional war. Ukraine is highly resourceful and amazing fighters but they use those methods because they can't afford enough javelins and NLAWS. They absolutely would prefer to use Javelins instead of drones, trust me. Besides look up the US program SWARM if you want to see how we've already been planning to use AI mixed with cheap drones for years now. It's terrifying.
@@Matthew-is7zsyeah, that was true in a time where war tech was all mostly the same....why do you think the US then proceeded to invest SOOOO MUCH MORE into war tech R&D than literally every other country on earth? It was so we wouldn't need to fight attritional wars won on who has the best factories and logistics (which is still the US today regardless). We are literal space aliens compared to everyone else and when partenered with NATO in its entirety...then it's just unfair to a paper tiger like China or Ruzzia
personally i wonder if they'll make a ground /support variant.. based off of a-10 methodology.?
Subsonic, long rane, very few missiles. Sounds like sitting duck to me.
You want to add a 620 pound gun and its heavy ammunition to a drone? Not to mention that this gun has an average recoil force of 10,000 pounds?