US Army cancels FARA-program!

[zerO_crash]

This is a pretty serious decision to make, considering that the two main designs, were about to start practical tests. Also, the sheer money that has went into this program, is pretty staggering. This points to a shift in strategy and tactics, with main emphasis being put on extending the use of existing helicopters (AH-64D/E, UH-60, etc...), and diverting the main attention towards drones. The current situation in Ukraine (and to some extent middle east), has apparently set new priorities and plans for future US programs, with more countries to follow (speculation, albeit informed).

 

https://www.twz.com/air/army-cancels-hight-speed-armed-reconnaissance-helicopter-program

[Dragon1-1]

Given that Ukraine had done a number on conventional helos, it does make sense to instead develop a VTOL, which has the range and speed to hopefully be a bit safer on a modern battlefield.

[Pilotasso]

I have been wondering about use of helicopters in highly contested areas for many years, as drones have been increasingly taking charge since the 90's.

That being said I hope Sikorsky manages to find a client for the Defiant troop transport version despite the loss against the V280 for the US army tender. I think there is a place for a high speed long range and low footprint hello. I can see those embarked on ships smaller than LHD's.

 

 

Edited February 12 by Pilotasso

[zerO_crash]

On 2/10/2024 at 10:11 PM, Dragon1-1 said:

Given that Ukraine had done a number on conventional helos, it does make sense to instead develop a VTOL, which has the range and speed to hopefully be a bit safer on a modern battlefield.

Generally, current combat suicide drones are mostly propeller driven (has to be cheap, if it is a "suicide"-weapon), thus they cannot really catch a helicopter flying at speed. About the fastest drones used in Ukraine will do 150km/h in level flight. However, if that helicopter is realitively slow, or near the frontlines (current UAV's have funny long ranges 300km+ - talking about relatively small 25-100kg), then it has a problem.

 

The UH-60 replacement, Bell V-280 VTOL (part of "Future Vertical Lift"-program, not FARA), has longer range and faster travel speed, however it is not a front line aircraft. It presents a bigger target, and is more fragile than a helicopter. The point is however, that suicide drones are effectively nullifying the ability to fly in troops/equipment in a contested area, if that area doesn't have significant AA presence. It's an interesting shift in battlefield dynamics. It seems like US has realized it. Russians/Ukrainians did so too, and this can be seen based on the flight/attack profile of these nations, particularly Russia. Close-in attacks, have become a thing of pure opportunity, while guided munitions are the norm now. Same goes for air force. Now, it's all about keeping 7-8+km of distance, while engaging, depending on situation, mission and weapon.

 

37 minutes ago, Pilotasso said:

I have been wondering about use of helicopters in highly contested areas for many years, as drone took charge since the 90's for recon missions.

That being said I hope Sikorsky manages to find a client for the Defiant troop transport version despite the loss against the V280 for the US army tender. I think there is a place for a high speed long range and low footprint hello. I can see those embarked on ships smaller than LHD's.

 

 

Depending on the strategy and tactics that US Air Force has envisioned for the future, a Raider/Defiant & V-280 composition would allow for much versatility. Raider (being smaller and more nimble) is definitely a helicopter which could disembark troops/supplies at the front. Defiant can carry more, albeit with increased risk of loss and not as practical (physically bigger target, noisier, fewer opportunities for landing, etc.). Still, war studies do show that helicopters in the mid-size 11-14 tons, are the most universal and practical (utility airframes). In either case, those, supplemented by the extended range V-280, would allow to cover the short/medium range tactical operations effectively. With Chinooks/CH-53 being the heavy-lifter, one could make this branch very streamlined, compared to today. 

 

Sadly, there are many factors at play which would make such an effectivisation process difficult to pull through. Consider how datalink is only now becoming a unified standard... Until now, neither Army, Air Force or Navy could agree on a common standard, because human factors (everyone wants to be the lead and claim that they had the best system). In the end though, it does signal an interesting shift in perception on what future wars will be like.

Edited February 12 by zerO_crash

[Dragon1-1]

37 minutes ago, zerO_crash said:

Generally, current combat suicide drones are mostly propeller driven (has to be cheap, if it is a "suicide"-weapon), thus they cannot really catch a helicopter flying at speed. About the fastest drones used in Ukraine will do 150km/h in level flight. However, if that helicopter is realitively slow, or near the frontlines (current UAV's have funny long ranges 300km+ - talking about relatively small 25-100kg), then it has a problem.

Where did I mention drones? Helicopters are being given trouble by effective MANPADS, ground fire and tactical SAMs. Drones have nothing to do with it, and are hardly the only lesson to be learned from Ukraine. Speed and range are good because they let you dodge SAMs better and make you harder to hit while on the ground (because your base is further back), respectively. Nothing whatsoever to do with drone warfare.

40 minutes ago, zerO_crash said:

The point is however, that suicide drones are effectively nullifying the ability to fly in troops/equipment in a contested area, if that area doesn't have significant AA presence.

They don't, however you do need to make it fast. Suicide drone are not a magic wand, in fact, they're quite slow. If the enemy doesn't have a drone launcher right next to the LZ, the drone would take its sweet time getting there. If a VTOL can get in, drop its payload and get out before a drone can get near it, it's got nothing to worry about. You do need to be careful choosing the LZ, though, because there are other threats that helos are vulnerable to.

[zerO_crash]

16 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Where did I mention drones? Helicopters are being given trouble by effective MANPADS, ground fire and tactical SAMs. Drones have nothing to do with it, and are hardly the only lesson to be learned from Ukraine. Speed and range are good because they let you dodge SAMs better and make you harder to hit while on the ground (because your base is further back), respectively. Nothing whatsoever to do with drone warfare.

They don't, however you do need to make it fast. Suicide drone are not a magic wand, in fact, they're quite slow. If the enemy doesn't have a drone launcher right next to the LZ, the drone would take its sweet time getting there. If a VTOL can get in, drop its payload and get out before a drone can get near it, it's got nothing to worry about. You do need to be careful choosing the LZ, though, because there are other threats that helos are vulnerable to.

 

I mentioned drones, and for a good reason; they have become a very prominent tool in this war, as compared to before. Drones are used in a whole different role, and on a completely different scale, than what they used to be. I never stated that they are the only lesson to be learned, but they are among the main lessons. This is further confirmed by multiple other projects being cancelled in e.g. US and change in warfare mentality. Check this: Drone Boat Swarm Vision Laid Out By DoD | The War Zone (twz.com) It is mainly drones, which have been able to hold the Black Sea Fleet at bay, attacking targets of opportunity (granted, Moscow was sunk by R-360 Neptune). US Navy has realized the danger of many small targets swarming a ship/unit, built originally to fight other "big" contenders.

 

The fact that a completely new type of use of drones on the battlefield are being pioneered in Ukraine (Ukraine/Russia), is further solidified by the complete lack of effective means to deal with them. US is testing right now a vehicle for dealing with them somewhat effectively, built with parts off the shelf (it uses the M230 gun that AH-64 uses, a very rarely used weapon outside of the Apache): U.S.-Made Counter-Drone Trucks Head for Ukraine (nationaldefensemagazine.org).

 

While many new concepts emerge in Ukraine, few are as eye-opening as drones in the context of their effect on the battlefield. This is also what seems to drive the new changes in US structures, with more countries to follow. China is no different in terms of its focus on drones, with specific offensive systems relying solely on the concept of swarming a target/area with suicide drones. That's my point, and you can clearly see that multiple bigger projects have been doubted in the light of recent events in Ukraine.

 

As to drones denying helicopters, well, nothing is ever definitive (either/or). The truth is that it all depends, but whilst both sides used transport helicopters more daringly in the first phase of the invasion, currently, transport helicopters are pulled further back, with cars/trucks perform the last part of transport. Attack helicopters have also changed their tactics on both sides, in order to grant survivability. This is just a natural evolution of tactics, when you operating in a high-threat environment. As to what systems actually pose the greatest danger to army aviation/air force (helicopters/planes), it is no doubt dedicated AA systems (SAM/MANPAD/AAA). Those are the hard workers. Still, this conflict proves that drones emerge as a new threat to be reckoned with. We are not talking about a single MQ-9, or two, operating roughly in the same area. We are talking about a solid coverage of man-portable observation/combat drones that will more often than not, notice a helicopter coming in. It takes little more than 5-10 minutes for a fire mission to be passed along to the artillery units. If it doesn't get the helicopter, it will get the infantry. That's really the big game changer. This is assuming the drone being a non-combat one. If you have the air saturated with suicide-drones (which in Ukraine is often the case - you can often see low battery status on different types of drones, before they attack. That means that they often stay more than 20-30 minutes in the air, scounting for targets.), then a helicopter coming in for landing, unloading troops/cargo, taking off, will total a minimum of 7 minutes before the helicopter is back up to safe speed (faster than drone). Looking at the videos and information coming from Ukraine, I certainly see a natural shift in tactics with regards to use of different types of units in this environment.

 

To me, it's amazing that there are currently no know ECM jammers strong enough, to block drone operation in a given area (notice - area, not targeting a specific drone). Certainly an interesting discussion though.

[Dragon1-1]

Drones have limitations, though. Notice what kind of targets they hit. They've proven their worth against static or near static ships and vehicles, not against mobile targets like helicopters or even ships under sail. A drone is guided by a human, meaning the target not only has to be much slower than the drone, but also that the drone can't be moving too fast. Of course, solutions exist, but such drones are more properly called "missiles". Sure enough, Moskva was sunk by Neptune missiles, not drones. Also note that at least at sea, these drone tactics are, technically, not new. Italian torpedo boats worked more or less the same during WWII, swarming expensive battleships with small boats carrying powerful explosives. Drones are simply a less risky take on the same concept. Accordingly, ships are already equipped with rapid fire cannons capable of countering speedboat swarms. Places like the Black Sea were always a challenge for large combatants optimized for high seas operations.

Also, thus far, we're hardly seeing "drone swarms". Yes, there are drones doing observation duties, but that's not the only innovation. Tracking helicopters was never the problem thanks to a surveillance radar. What drones did so far was expand the scope of combat. It's getting difficult to set up a safe area, and even positions behind deep behind the lines can be attacked with considerable frequency. This means that concentrating defenses along a front line no longer works, and you have to assume a drone attack could be targeted anywhere. They also represent a low cost way of destroying high value assets with insufficient anti-drone protection.

1 hour ago, zerO_crash said:

To me, it's amazing that there are currently no know ECM jammers strong enough, to block drone operation in a given area (notice - area, not targeting a specific drone). Certainly an interesting discussion though.

Blanking all drone control signals in an area would require a ridiculous amount of power. You'd basically have to jam all frequencies in a fairly wide range all around the jammer. It would also make regular comms difficult. It's probably better to build an ECM system capable of jamming a lot of specific drones, coupled to a radar capable of tracking that many. This type of warfare will no doubt evolve, and we can expect to see countermeasures make the drones much less economical than they are now, due to a need for expensive ECCM systems.

[Pilotasso]

Not all drones are made equal, many have some autonomous modes, they can be guided by an operator or have pre-planned routes, but they can track and attack moving targets as they have guidance systems (a countermeasure to prevent the radios signals from being jammed during final phase). Switchblade, and Lancet are examples. Many other countries also have in house analogues.

 

Besides we are talking about scouts and loitering units rather than expendable munitions.

Edited February 13 by Pilotasso

[zerO_crash]

12 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Drones have limitations, though. Notice what kind of targets they hit. They've proven their worth against static or near static ships and vehicles, not against mobile targets like helicopters or even ships under sail. A drone is guided by a human, meaning the target not only has to be much slower than the drone, but also that the drone can't be moving too fast. Of course, solutions exist, but such drones are more properly called "missiles". Sure enough, Moskva was sunk by Neptune missiles, not drones. Also note that at least at sea, these drone tactics are, technically, not new. Italian torpedo boats worked more or less the same during WWII, swarming expensive battleships with small boats carrying powerful explosives. Drones are simply a less risky take on the same concept. Accordingly, ships are already equipped with rapid fire cannons capable of countering speedboat swarms. Places like the Black Sea were always a challenge for large combatants optimized for high seas operations.

Also, thus far, we're hardly seeing "drone swarms". Yes, there are drones doing observation duties, but that's not the only innovation. Tracking helicopters was never the problem thanks to a surveillance radar. What drones did so far was expand the scope of combat. It's getting difficult to set up a safe area, and even positions behind deep behind the lines can be attacked with considerable frequency. This means that concentrating defenses along a front line no longer works, and you have to assume a drone attack could be targeted anywhere. They also represent a low cost way of destroying high value assets with insufficient anti-drone protection.

Blanking all drone control signals in an area would require a ridiculous amount of power. You'd basically have to jam all frequencies in a fairly wide range all around the jammer. It would also make regular comms difficult. It's probably better to build an ECM system capable of jamming a lot of specific drones, coupled to a radar capable of tracking that many. This type of warfare will no doubt evolve, and we can expect to see countermeasures make the drones much less economical than they are now, due to a need for expensive ECCM systems.

Drones are far from perfect, but they have their strengths. While drones have existed since thd end of WWI. Based on inadequate technology (albeit maturing), and a certain delay of seeing the advantages, they have really been neglected. They haven't been the main focus of development, until possibly now. Make no mistake, it isn't an accident why drones are so popular in Ukraine, vs. other conflicts. Part of the explanation lies in geology, specifically, the black soil located in these parts of the globe. It is the highest quality of soil on earth, the absolute best when it comes to minerals and for farming. It is however, naturally, very delicate. During spring, and precipitation, it becomes incredibly muddy. As such, Ukraine is a very demanding terrain to operate in with heavy equipment, highly problematic to say the least. Drones, are a good compromise here.

 

You claim that radars can find helicopters and drones, but that is not quite right. Again, there are no absolute terms. A radar positioned on the ground, or low enough, will have a significant level of masking from the terrain. A low flying aircraft (helicopter/drone), can slip by unnoticed. Remember earth's curvature for linger ranges as well. An airborne radar (AWACS) does a better job at finding low level targets. Consider how Israeli EWR never warned (officially) about the paragliders and smaller number of drones from Hamas. Now that is a very level terrain compared to Ukraine (woods, high-rise buildings, etc) and targets are bigger. The point is, there is a significant deadzone thst radars cannot fill (mostly a cost/benefit question, technically, it's possible). Drones are allso capable of hitting moving targets (sucide drones), there is a fair amount of videos showing that online. Have a look:

 

The point is, the ways that these drones are targetted, are very rudimentary. Given frontline schedule, and price/benefit ratio, they are decent, yet do a significant work. Taking out an armored vehicle, is a significant success. Consider now, that this technology will synthesize with AI in the near future, in the aspect of a military product. Consider also that other than dedicated AA platforms, a vehicle/object/helicopter, has really no countermeasures or even a way of systematically countering this threat. That's the danger.

 

Drones are far from the only "new" concept to come out from the war in Ukraine. However, with regards to multiple US military programs and FARA, it is a significant factor driving change. FARA-program stipulated a light gunship as a forward scout aircraft, operating at or behind the enemy lines. For multiple reasons, this has proven to be a high-risk tactic. The same task can be done by a drone, with higher efficiency and far lower risk (no danger to human life). You mention warshios and AA/AG cannons. Well, these are first and foremost the last barrier in the defense architecture of a battleship. A battleship has no other bareiers to effectively attack small drone-boats that stick up 50cm above the surface, and measure the size of a river dinghy. Second, there aren't many of such systems inboard a ship, as it's considered last resort defence (tactics don't build on testing this barrier). Thus, one such system will have a hard time with a coordibated attack from multiple sngles. Once the drone is close enough, the elevation restrictions prohibit further engagement - the unit is done for:

 

 

[Dragon1-1]

5 hours ago, zerO_crash said:

You claim that radars can find helicopters and drones, but that is not quite right. Again, there are no absolute terms. A radar positioned on the ground, or low enough, will have a significant level of masking from the terrain.

That's why Russians routinely put theirs on masts, and some Western ones come with one already attached. This is not a new problem and it has known solution.

Quote

Make no mistake, it isn't an accident why drones are so popular in Ukraine, vs. other conflicts.

They are popular in other conflicts, too, they just don't get the same kind of coverage. Another reason is that Ukraine is the big state vs. state conflict, with both sides having considerable funding and resources. Every other currently ongoing conflict is an insurgency, where one side has to scrape by with whatever resources they can get, and the other has enough conventional forces not to need to innovate (or they don't think they need to), on top of the fact that even the state in question is typically smaller and has less money than Ukraine. Hence, the drones used there are less advanced and the press is less interested in them. Insurgents use them all the time in Myanmar, for instance, and Hamas nailed a few Israeli tanks.

6 hours ago, zerO_crash said:

Consider how Israeli EWR never warned (officially) about the paragliders and smaller number of drones from Hamas. 

It did, they just won't officially admit they ignored it. For all their reputation, Israelis were about as bad as the Russians early on. This was a human failure, not that of equipment.

6 hours ago, zerO_crash said:

The point is, the ways that these drones are targetted, are very rudimentary. Given frontline schedule, and price/benefit ratio, they are decent, yet do a significant work. Taking out an armored vehicle, is a significant success. Consider now, that this technology will synthesize with AI in the near future, in the aspect of a military product. Consider also that other than dedicated AA platforms, a vehicle/object/helicopter, has really no countermeasures or even a way of systematically countering this threat. That's the danger.

That's because they've been designed in the pre-drone era. Now that the drones are a threat, countermeasures will be developed. The US already has the DUKE IED jammer, which could probably be improved, and they've demonstrated THOR, which is an energy weapon that can take out entire swarms. Russia is fielding a variety of anti-drone systems, some of which have already been countered by Ukraine. It's only a matter of time before drones, except the most sophisticated ones, are rendered practically useless against a peer enemy. Of course, protecting against drones has a cost of its own, but they're not the wonder weapon some people think they'll be.

AI can help with target recognition and identification, but for guidance, you don't need it. In fact, a drone is remarkably close to a MITL missile system like SLAM-ER, except slower, smaller and fully dependent on its datalink, but cheaper. You can use any old guidance algorithm, such as a contrast seeker, running on the control unit. However, while this could occasionally allow you to hit a slow moving helo, it still won't turn the drone into an AA missile.

[zerO_crash]

On 2/14/2024 at 10:11 AM, Dragon1-1 said:

That's why Russians routinely put theirs on masts, and some Western ones come with one already attached. This is not a new problem and it has known solution.

There are a lot of AA-radars/systems which do not have a mast-hoisted radar for low altitude penetration. It's mainly the more elaborate, division-level SAM sites, which possess such an infrastructure. They theatre defense systems, meaning that they are typically relatively far behind the front, compared to many of the more imminent AA/SAM-sites (2K12 Kub, 9K33 Osa, 9K37 Buk, 9K331 Tor, 2K22M Tunguska, etc...). The SAM types you are talking about, are S-125, S-200, S-300, S-400, etc... There are far fewer of those in a theatre (depending on the size), and they again, are mainly meant for medium-high altitude targets. You will have a decent curvature over the range of 100-500km+. Taken into consideration all systems at hand (aerial, space (EKS - really meant for ICBMs), naval, land (immobile)), there will be loopholes around. Russia has one of the most elaborate EWR-systems in the world, and yet, it is far from perfect.

 

On 2/14/2024 at 10:11 AM, Dragon1-1 said:

They are popular in other conflicts, too, they just don't get the same kind of coverage. Another reason is that Ukraine is the big state vs. state conflict, with both sides having considerable funding and resources. Every other currently ongoing conflict is an insurgency, where one side has to scrape by with whatever resources they can get, and the other has enough conventional forces not to need to innovate (or they don't think they need to), on top of the fact that even the state in question is typically smaller and has less money than Ukraine. Hence, the drones used there are less advanced and the press is less interested in them. Insurgents use them all the time in Myanmar, for instance, and Hamas nailed a few Israeli tanks.

Here is where we won't agree in any case. I do economy (business), and semi-professional military analysis (interest). Ukraine, as per fiscal year 2021 (before war started in February 24th, 2022), was the poorest country in Europe! Bulgaria, being the poorest country in EU, had a GDP per capita of approximately 33,845$ in 2022¹, compare that to Ukraine with its approximately 4827$²! I reckon you compare a "country" to an "insurgency", however that is a flawed comparison at hand. The reason being that a country, has far more financial and logistical burdens, than an insurgency would ever have. A whole country has to consider the civilian population, infastructural prosperity and future perspectives. This topic is worth its own research paper, however know that this a completely invalid argument. 

 

Popularity of drones considered - I have access to Russian, Ukrainian and even middle-eastern closed channels on Telegram/Whatsapp, etc... They do tend to post a myraid of material (mostly visual) from around their regions. I can genuinely say that in no modern conflict (since WWII, as per common historical terminology), have drones been used enmasse on a scale anything resembling Ukraine currently. I have not seen anything from Africa, Asia, Middle-east, etc... And mind you, I do not take news outlets too seriously (quite the opposite), I rely mostly on local residents posting what they see and experience. While some of these conflicts have been within the confinements of a single country, e.g. US being in Afghanistan for over 20 years, this does grant time to use drones nevertheless. I will also point out to you, that many of the drones that Ukraine uses (smaller type, not Bayraktar-size), are actually hand-made or from toy stores. Some are of the more advanced Mavic-type (if you can call it that), but a lot are simply made from scrap. This is particularly true for land/sea drones, which are pure Ukrainian products made in provisional workshops. Again, there is very little "standard" here.

 

On 2/14/2024 at 10:11 AM, Dragon1-1 said:

It did, they just won't officially admit they ignored it. For all their reputation, Israelis were about as bad as the Russians early on. This was a human failure, not that of equipment.

I don't mind personal points of view, especially if they are well argumented and reasoned for. I am however very specific and strict as to what is a "fact" (confirmed knowledge), vs. "suspicions" (personal POV, with a possible detachment from reality). I will have to ask for a source, or in the very least a solid (!) reasoning for that statement. 

 

As to who's "bad", that is an insane oversimplification, and too general, to describe anything as professional as a military initative/campaign. As we all know, militaries often have to adhere to politicians, they are also often a product of the society they serve and the common mean, thus throwing blame on one single institution in such a complex environment, isn't too realistic. Russians are as competent as Americans (US specifically), and so are most other super powers. The difficulties that proved a troublesome beginning in Ukraine (obviously, Russians are retaking Ukrainian soil every day and Avdiivka about to collapse, are a multitude:

1) Corruption in military and society, causing military units to be underprovisioned, most of all in manpower. Further, acts of stealing and trechery, all in the name of private gain.

2) Overconfidence in geopolitical agenda, hoping world would abandon Ukraine in order to solve the conflict quickly. Let's not forget that Russians have been fighting western hardware and intelligence, as well as an incredibly determined enemy (Ukrainians). This has backfired on Russians, resulting in absolutely horrendous losses, and generally poor intial-mid term combat efficiency.

3) Overconfidence in their ability and might, compared to a nation they viewed as "slaves" (for a lack of a better term, sadly...). Russians saw a reprise from Ukraine 2014, in the form of 2.0. Fill the streets with "green men", fly in special forces in a spectacular show of determination, resolve and might, record the capture and resetting of Ukrainian government - show the world how a proper superpower deals with its territorial issues. Again, this never happened, due to Ukrainians, proving through action, lessons learned from that year. Also, their will to stand up and fight.

4) Military system being focused around a small professional (read - fulltime) force, with the sheer might relying on conscription (read - few and seldom trainings, mostly semi-schooled reservists that have been off-duty for a long time). With Russia attempting a swift action in Ukraine, this model of military build has been instrumental in proving that they are a country with strength not in the short term, but prolonged war. By design, a conscription model suggests severe losses in the early stages of an armed conflict, with gradual buildup of experience leading to potentially expotential increase in combat efficiency (more experienced soldiers, teach recruits how to deal with different aspects of local warfare). 

5) Insansely poor timing with regards to when the operation (war) was started, considering the weather factor. A common understanding here is that this is due to the Russian military high-command expecting a swift and short opeation (again), taking no precaution for a proglonged one. As you can imagine, from what I mentioned earlier in my posts, Ukraine has a really beautiful and high-quality black soil, which turns butter and mud upon precipitation or contact with water. Well, when spring came (2022-2023), you could see just how the long columns of Russian hardware were stuck, with no way to move, due to the adverse weather conditions and the local flora and fauna. This aspect alone, has cost Russians far more in losses, than they should ever have paid. Consider how history repeats itself, with Germans making the same mistake (over a 5 year period, you cannot avoid it, you can only mitigate it).

 

There are many more aspects, and this is a very general outline, which does indeed point out some of the most severe reasons for why the operation (war) started so poorly for Russians.

 

On 2/14/2024 at 10:11 AM, Dragon1-1 said:

That's because they've been designed in the pre-drone era. Now that the drones are a threat, countermeasures will be developed. The US already has the DUKE IED jammer, which could probably be improved, and they've demonstrated THOR, which is an energy weapon that can take out entire swarms. Russia is fielding a variety of anti-drone systems, some of which have already been countered by Ukraine. It's only a matter of time before drones, except the most sophisticated ones, are rendered practically useless against a peer enemy. Of course, protecting against drones has a cost of its own, but they're not the wonder weapon some people think they'll be.

AI can help with target recognition and identification, but for guidance, you don't need it. In fact, a drone is remarkably close to a MITL missile system like SLAM-ER, except slower, smaller and fully dependent on its datalink, but cheaper. You can use any old guidance algorithm, such as a contrast seeker, running on the control unit. However, while this could occasionally allow you to hit a slow moving helo, it still won't turn the drone into an AA missile.

From the systems you mention; DUKE IED attacks the radio communication of a drone (this only blocks direct control - autonomous functions (TV-Contrast/IR/etc...) mitigate this), and THOR, while being very much experimental, still really works by targetting a single drone at a time and hoping for a burnthrough. Still, let me give you a reference to what this system has to handle, if it indeed ever starts being produced (not being produced as of february 2024): 

 

"Russian electronic warfare (EW) remains potent, with an approximate distribution of at least one major system covering each 10 km of front. These systems are heavily weighted towards the defeat of UAVs and tend not to try and deconflict their effects. Ukrainian UAV losses remain at approximately 10,000 per month. Russian EW is also apparently achieving real time interception and decryption of Ukrainian Motorola 256-bit encrypted tactical communications systems, which are widely employed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine."³

 

With 1o.ooo drones lost on average per month, it sounds like a serious problem, that there really is no good solution to right now. Much of the problem posed by such cheap drones, is also the fact that in designing a weapon system countering drones, you need to make sure that it doesn't cost more to take down the drone, than its off-shelf price. If you are using weaponry which costs more to use, than the actual price of its intended target, you are doing a poor trade, and actually working against yourself. Imagine that a couple of 30mm bullets (even if of the "flak" type), will cost more than the actual drone (a 30mm bullet will quickly cost 20$-30$ - only 10 round will typically cost more than what is flying in Ukraine, and thats few rounds to defeat a highly dynamic and unpredictable system). Again, this issue will only get worse with AI being applied to such systems. At that point, jamming a drone will have very little to no effect, on a fully autonomous systems. There are already autonomous drones out there, making use of highly advanced algortythms, with clever programming, as well as initial implementations of basic AI. Putin, in a recent display, has voiced AI as being among the main projects that the Russian industry is working on. US and China are also pumping resources into R&D of AI, as they recognize what impact it will have on the battlefield. With all due respect, you are wrong. Drones come in many shapes and sizes, and to mention one - look at the Poseidon. Officially, little is know about it, other than it being an autonomous system. It is already a system for which no navy in the world has any counter to. You definitely need AI for guidance, as that AI will then be capable of avoiding maneuvers, pretty much the same functionality that current ICBM's have with their MIRVs, and cruise/hypersonic missiles/glide vehicles have as well. Unpredictable flight-tracjectories make them incredibly hard to intercept (read - practically impossible), and that isn't even AI yet, for all we know. Again, superpowers are recognizing the potential, I do so too. I'll disagree on that point entirely. I'll also point out that the reason why the drones used in Ukraine generally don't strike helicopters, aircraft and other high-performance systems enmasse, is exactly because of the limited bandwidth between the operator (human) and the drone. If the drones were more autonomous, particularly AI, the would have all the metrics to perfectly calculate a flight path anticipating an intercept point. The same concept is used in modern AA-missiles, where they are actually drones themselves, albeit still not categorized so, because programming gives no ability to control past weapons release. Still, those weapons are "clever".

 

¹GDP per capita, PPP (current international $) - European Union | Data (worldbank.org)

²GDP per capita (current US$) - Ukraine | Data (worldbank.org)

³Meatgrinder: Russian Tactics in the Second Year of Its Invasion of Ukraine | Royal United Services Institute (rusi.org)

[Dragon1-1]

11 minutes ago, zerO_crash said:

From the systems you mention; DUKE IED attacks the radio communication of a drone (this only blocks direct control - autonomous functions (TV-Contrast/IR/etc...) mitigate this),

The rest of your points merit a longer response (and some slogging through Google Translate-mangled Hebrew), so I'll address just this one at the moment, with a simple question: how is that any different from a missile? If you have a "drone" with long range, a jet engine, an autonomous seeker and an autopilot, then you have, basically, a SLAM-ER. It will perform like one, cost like one, and probably even look a lot like one. All you can do is vary the size of the warhead, SLAM-ER is a pretty big missile, so if you shrink that, you'll shrink everything (warheads on FPV drones in Ukraine are small by missile standards). However, that will not reduce costs as much as you'd like, although there certainly is merit to an idea of huge swarms of small missiles.

One of the major differences between drones and missiles is the control link. A DUKE-style jammer basically mitigates the drones' major cost advantage, which is remote control. It's overcome easily enough, by a more sophisticated MITL system, but sophisticated=expensive. This is also why onboard AI will never be used by cheap drones. In order to run anything that could be called "AI", you need a decent CPU. Which, as you know if you were looking for a computer upgrade recently, costs a pretty penny. If you want autonomous, you need to put a reasonably powerful chip on every drone, and that will run up costs, up to the point where you could ask, why not a missile swarm instead. The form of drone warfare that's most likely to revolutionize anything comes from the realization that you don't have to do that. Instead, all fancy equipment, even AI, can be located at a control station that doesn't get expanded with every shot. This, of course, has limitations of its own, notably vulnerability to jamming.

Also, this single quote makes me question whether that article from which it comes from is worth anything:

Quote

If you are using weaponry which costs more to use, than the actual price of its intended target, you are doing a poor trade, and actually working against yourself.

This is patently untrue. We are talking defensive weaponry, therefore, we have to weigh the price of defensive weaponry against the value of the attacker's intended target, not against the weapon used to attack it. If your burst of 30mm rounds costs less than the apartment building that would otherwise be hit, you're still coming out ahead, even if the drone that would have hit it is cheaper. Wars are not spending contests, although they sometimes look like they are. Spending more on defense than your attacker spends on offense is certainly suboptimal, but this is not "working against yourself" and is in fact quite tenable if you're not planning on winning the war on pure attrition (or you do, and have a vast reserve of resources you can only use for defence).

Honestly, this whole quote reeks of the usual "AI glasses" and SF-like predictions about how it will revolutionize things. It is not a realistic assessment. AI is certainly going to be useful for target recognition, but that's about it. In fact, given the record in recent conflicts of human ability to tell between enemy command posts and schools or hospitals, I can see it improving on that. Well, either that, or we'll have war criminals hiding behind thoughtless machines. In fact, that is a good argument to preemptively ban autonomous weapons and unambiguously designate who are we going to drag into the Hague in case the ban gets violated. Just to make it clear that using a robot to commit war crimes doesn't absolve whoever ordered them.

For missile guidance, you don't need AI. Poseidon and HGVs both have one thing in common: they're fast. Faster than most similar weapons, which accounts for the difficulty intercepting them. They do not use AI for anything. AI isn't magic (no matter how much techbros try to sell it as such), nor is it particularly superior to a well designed algorithm, or when it comes to evasion, to a simple random walk. Stick a microphone in the pitot tube and you'll have a perfectly serviceable hardware RNG to use for completely unpredictable evasion. There's no need for AI for strategic weapons, just going very fast towards the target coordinates, possibly with some random dodging before getting there. The article seems to be desperately trying to shoehorn AI into military uses that it is not suitable to. Conflating missiles and drones is just icing on the cake (and no, missiles aren't "clever", they use a straightforward, but highly optimized algorithm).

[zerO_crash]

1 hour ago, Dragon1-1 said:

The rest of your points merit a longer response (and some slogging through Google Translate-mangled Hebrew), so I'll address just this one at the moment, with a simple question: how is that any different from a missile? If you have a "drone" with long range, a jet engine, an autonomous seeker and an autopilot, then you have, basically, a SLAM-ER. It will perform like one, cost like one, and probably even look a lot like one. All you can do is vary the size of the warhead, SLAM-ER is a pretty big missile, so if you shrink that, you'll shrink everything (warheads on FPV drones in Ukraine are small by missile standards). However, that will not reduce costs as much as you'd like, although there certainly is merit to an idea of huge swarms of small missiles.

One of the major differences between drones and missiles is the control link. A DUKE-style jammer basically mitigates the drones' major cost advantage, which is remote control. It's overcome easily enough, by a more sophisticated MITL system, but sophisticated=expensive. This is also why onboard AI will never be used by cheap drones. In order to run anything that could be called "AI", you need a decent CPU. Which, as you know if you were looking for a computer upgrade recently, costs a pretty penny. If you want autonomous, you need to put a reasonably powerful chip on every drone, and that will run up costs, up to the point where you could ask, why not a missile swarm instead. The form of drone warfare that's most likely to revolutionize anything comes from the realization that you don't have to do that. Instead, all fancy equipment, even AI, can be located at a control station that doesn't get expanded with every shot. This, of course, has limitations of its own, notably vulnerability to jamming.

Also, this single quote makes me question whether that article from which it comes from is worth anything:

There are big differences in terms of employment, where a drone can often loiter, and even return, whereas a fired off missile (be it SLAM, SLAM-ER, or anything with a jet/rocket thrust) is already expended. There are differences in application, and while some of the technologies blend in with each other (e.g. a SLAM and AIM-120 are both rockets in physical design, but one is closer to a drone (allows direction control) while the other one is fully autonomous...), therefore they have their uses, depending on the mission. That is also exactly where the difference lies, and pretty obvious one at that, the mission. A scout/combat drone can perform the a whole mission on its own, starting with reconnaissance and ending with final trigger pull on an enemy (suicide attack/direct forces/artillery strike/air strike/etc...). A SLAM-missile, is only a link in the chain, due to price and complexity, plus ranges involved, it is a weapon for purely pre-planned use. It is therefore less dynamic of a weapon (a target of opportunity is a incredibly rare scenario, if viable at all ($$$)), it involves an expensive system to use it (ground or aerial) and finally, it puts a human being in potential harms way (granted, this depends on many factors like launch range, etc... It is a greater topic with more detail to consider). A drone on the other hand, is expendable but with the capability to return back if need be (no target found), the operators are often, albeit not always, out of harms way (depends on drone range and terrain, plus many other factors - e.g. jamming) and finally, the costs are incredibly low, while allowing to take out much more expensive targets. A drone vs. a armored vehicles is effectively 200$-1000$ vs. a vehicle for multiple million $. Additionally, a operator can operate a multitude of drones and targets, while the pilot has to return and rearm/refuel and often rest. On top of that, a drone operator can often operate solo, in addition to directed fire (by forward observers), whereas an aircraft will mostly be bound to CAS-style missions in such contested areas. Strike missions are mostly behind enemy lines, or otherwise in places where no collateral can take place.

 

Finally, onto the main aspect, which indeed separates the two from each other (besides mission) - cost. You can count cost in many ways, however the way you mention, is not a proper one. Here´s why; you cannot judge what averted getting destroyed, because quite honestly, you don´t know what that unit could destroy. For example, while an average tank of the battlefield might destroy on average 8-12 vehicles before it itself gets destroyed statistically, there will be fluctuations where one could destroy nada, while another shot at a nuclear power plant and rendered the whole region uninhabitable. While an extreme comparison, it hits the spot. You would never know what that unit could or would do, thus, it´s not a reliable way of measuring efficiency of a given weapon. Instead, a normal way to calculate cost in the trade, is indeed by comparing the cost of what hits, vs. what is getting hit. Look at this example, where Israel is looking at the opportunity to swap out Iron Dome with Iron Beam, and for what reasons:

 

Specifically "1:43" and onwards, but the whole video is worth watching. That´s a statement by a senior member of JISS (The Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security)

 

US, Russia, China, whoever you wish, compares efficiency of a weapon, in this matter. It is also logical, because when was the last time you saw a multi-million dollar weapon used on a rather small unit, armored or not?! In a few cases, you might notice a combat pilots using for example more expensive Hellfires on 1 - x terrorists, however that is not as expensive of a weapon as some of the other more costly ones (looking at SLAM), and secondly, we don´t know whether they are out of ammunition and/or the Hellfires are close to their expiration date. Maybe it´s a tactical decision to reduce the risk rendered on the crew/aircraft. Again, in such "daily" instances, it a case-by-case basis, and such "artefacts" (detractions from common tactics) will occur. However, when it comes to designing a weapon, and what the mission predicts, then you consider such aspects with very much care, as overall, there is a lot of money to be either saved, or burned. I will add here: Notice how with F-35 and its stealth characteristics, there is still the major project of building and fielding the "Loyal Wingman". What is that, if not a drone, albeit autonomous and most definitely AI?! Multiple countries are developing such systems now, which are to augument combat aircraft (primarily fighter aircraft). If a drone will risk less, and will do the job cheaper (lighter, less fuel burned, less chance of downing the more expensive aircraft, etc...), then it´s a good trade to do.

 

With regards to AI and cheap drones, it depends. If an AI is developed, I imagine that inline with modern standards, it will be a modular build. Essentially, applicable to any machine, albeit with different specification which would dictate what that machine is capable of, and what not. If you develop an AI for a really expensive project, say the Loyal Wingman, then it would really only require stripping it of certain functionality, and possibly some other minor tweaks, to ready it up for a drone. It isn´t really worse than that. Again, it depends on how the software is developed and designed. I am not too worried about processing power either, as chips the size of your phone would be more than enough to run a simple OS and AI with decent capabilities. And if we are to consider Moore´s Law, which isn´t failing us so far, then minaturization will permit exponential growth of power density within chips. Again, I wouldn´t worry about that. Price-wise, with big batches being bought by the military, the prices are still far lower than many current systems operating.

 

1 hour ago, Dragon1-1 said:

This is patently untrue. We are talking defensive weaponry, therefore, we have to weigh the price of defensive weaponry against the value of the attacker's intended target, not against the weapon used to attack it. If your burst of 30mm rounds costs less than the apartment building that would otherwise be hit, you're still coming out ahead, even if the drone that would have hit it is cheaper. Wars are not spending contests, although they sometimes look like they are. Spending more on defense than your attacker spends on offense is certainly suboptimal, but this is not "working against yourself" and is in fact quite tenable if you're not planning on winning the war on pure attrition (or you do, and have a vast reserve of resources you can only use for defence).

Honestly, this whole quote reeks of the usual "AI glasses" and SF-like predictions about how it will revolutionize things. It is not a realistic assessment. AI is certainly going to be useful for target recognition, but that's about it. In fact, given the record in recent conflicts of human ability to tell between enemy command posts and schools or hospitals, I can see it improving on that. Well, either that, or we'll have war criminals hiding behind thoughtless machines. In fact, that is a good argument to preemptively ban autonomous weapons and unambiguously designate who are we going to drag into the Hague in case the ban gets violated. Just to make it clear that using a robot to commit war crimes doesn't absolve whoever ordered them.

For missile guidance, you don't need AI. Poseidon and HGVs both have one thing in common: they're fast. Faster than most similar weapons, which accounts for the difficulty intercepting them. They do not use AI for anything. AI isn't magic (no matter how much techbros try to sell it as such), nor is it particularly superior to a well designed algorithm, or when it comes to evasion, to a simple random walk. Stick a microphone in the pitot tube and you'll have a perfectly serviceable hardware RNG to use for completely unpredictable evasion. There's no need for AI for strategic weapons, just going very fast towards the target coordinates, possibly with some random dodging before getting there. The article seems to be desperately trying to shoehorn AI into military uses that it is not suitable to. Conflating missiles and drones is just icing on the cake (and no, missiles aren't "clever", they use a straightforward, but highly optimized algorithm).

Partly answered above, but let me elaborate further. Wars, are ALL about economy. It´s a truth that is seldomly discussed, because few high-standing personalities would want to admit that human life matters (and it does too), but that money is a challenger that cannot be understated. Let me quote you a couple of famous sayings, and you can decide for yourself if you agree or not:

 

Alexander the Great - “My logisticians are a humorless lot… they know if my campaign fails, they are the first ones I will slay.”

Napoleon Bonaparte - “An army marches on its stomach.”

Sun Tzu - “The line between disorder and order lies in logistics…”

Generally attributed to General Foch - “Behind every great leader there was an even greater logistician.”

Attributed to General Omar Bradley “Amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics.”

Earnst King - “The war has been variously termed a war of production and a war of machines. Whatever else it is, so far as the United States is concerned, it is a war of logistics.”

Tom Peters - “Leaders win through logistics. Vision, sure. Strategy, yes. But when you go to war, you need to have both toilet paper and bullets at the right place at the right time. In other words, you must win through superior logistics.”

 

Understand, that logistics, while often only being thought of as the service of timely delivery, is actually far more than that. It is the service of supplying through meeting demand, in other words, industry - economy. Without money, you don´t produce. Have you noticed how the west is trying to supress Russia by implementing financial sanctions? See a pattern? Someone is trying to cut the supply line from the rear, without ever having fired a bullet. The fact that Ukraine still exists on a map, is due to funding from mainly US. Furthermore, there is the concept of war economy, that stresses price-adjustments based on given demand in the region. Example: Ukraine fights a war with many vehicles, Ukraine uses a lot of fuel. Ukraine, needs a lot of fuel. Norway (in the region) produces fuel, Norway sees the opportunity to increase export ($$$). Norway, choses to supply less fuel to itself and regulate consumption by setting market prices, and exports thus more fuel to Ukraine. The same arithmetic works for weapons, ammunition, even who will get the golden ticket to rebuild Ukraine post war, which is being sold to the highest bidder. Trust me, the system is that focused on making money. War, is one of the best places to make money (for some). Therefore, when Ukraine/Russia (or whoever) engages in war, they consider very much their expenditure, as loans do not come cheap. That´s why, for example Israel, is wondering how to shoot down unguided S-5 rockets fired by Hamas/local insurgents, for less than 5o.ooo$ (that´s the cost of the interceptor missile.). How much do you think an old S-5 rocket costs, 3000$? If Israel continues with its Iron Dome, they´ll be poor before they lose the war...

 

I´ll add that with regards to war economy, you wouldn´t believe how crazy it is. Within the same theatre of war, wherever there is a fight going on, the prices actually do move up. With individual budgets to adhere to (the military is too big to have one common budget. They have a unified budget structure, where each service, and even separate parts of the army, have a budget for spending that they themselves have to adhere to. Right now, an AK/M4, is more expensive in Avdiivka, and regions where war is going on, than places where it is relatively little action. Governments generally trade on different terms between each other, however if a private contractor (Lockheed Martin, Colt, Heckler & Koch, etc...) was to make a specific contract with Ukraine, they would be interested in selling according to the prices where demand is the highest, meaning where there is more exchange of fire. In principle, it is no different than for example food being more expensive in places, where it is harder to deliver (mountains, remote regions, etc...), than to deliver it to a metropolis. The rules are different, but the game is the same.

Edited February 16 by zerO_crash

[Dragon1-1]

8 hours ago, zerO_crash said:

There are big differences in terms of employment, where a drone can often loiter, and even return, whereas a fired off missile (be it SLAM, SLAM-ER, or anything with a jet/rocket thrust) is already expended. There are differences in application, and while some of the technologies blend in with each other (e.g. a SLAM and AIM-120 are both rockets in physical design, but one is closer to a drone (allows direction control) while the other one is fully autonomous...), therefore they have their uses, depending on the mission. That is also exactly where the difference lies, and pretty obvious one at that, the mission. A scout/combat drone can perform the a whole mission on its own, starting with reconnaissance and ending with final trigger pull on an enemy (suicide attack/direct forces/artillery strike/air strike/etc...). A SLAM-missile, is only a link in the chain, due to price and complexity, plus ranges involved, it is a weapon for purely pre-planned use. It is therefore less dynamic of a weapon (a target of opportunity is a incredibly rare scenario, if viable at all ($$$)), it involves an expensive system to use it (ground or aerial) and finally, it puts a human being in potential harms way (granted, this depends on many factors like launch range, etc... It is a greater topic with more detail to consider). A drone on the other hand, is expendable but with the capability to return back if need be (no target found), the operators are often, albeit not always, out of harms way (depends on drone range and terrain, plus many other factors - e.g. jamming) and finally, the costs are incredibly low, while allowing to take out much more expensive targets. A drone vs. a armored vehicles is effectively 200$-1000$ vs. a vehicle for multiple million $. Additionally, a operator can operate a multitude of drones and targets, while the pilot has to return and rearm/refuel and often rest. On top of that, a drone operator can often operate solo, in addition to directed fire (by forward observers), whereas an aircraft will mostly be bound to CAS-style missions in such contested areas. Strike missions are mostly behind enemy lines, or otherwise in places where no collateral can take place.

Almost all that can be applied to the SLAM-ER, except the ability to RTB. It's not a weapon for purely preplanned targets, though you need to designate the target area. It does not put the pilot in harms' way (the whole point of ER part, and why Ukraine can't do much about Russian cruise missile bombers). Also, the older SLAM is very much not a rocket. It looks like one, but it has a jet engine. It uses a rocket booster for launch. SLAM-ER doesn't even do that, being air launched. Tomahawk, admittedly a much larger missile, can even loiter and search for targets on its own, acting almost like a typical drone. Also, aircraft very much can operate solo, this mission profile is called Battlefield Air Interdiction (BAI) and it is well known to the USAF. A TGP and an advanced radar go a long way.

Again, you're stating that you can get a 1000$ drone, but not addressing the fact that such a drone is basically a toy modified for combat use. That works, fair enough, but is it going to stay that way? I don't think so. They are used in Ukraine right now, because they work. This doesn't mean that there will be no technologies similar to THOR in the near future, able to rapidly burn through multiple drones. This price point will likely not hold for a tactically useful drone in future conflicts. Missile and drone technology will likely continue to converge, as we're seeing in the Shahed line, and so will costs.

8 hours ago, zerO_crash said:

With regards to AI and cheap drones, it depends. If an AI is developed, I imagine that inline with modern standards, it will be a modular build. Essentially, applicable to any machine, albeit with different specification which would dictate what that machine is capable of, and what not. If you develop an AI for a really expensive project, say the Loyal Wingman, then it would really only require stripping it of certain functionality, and possibly some other minor tweaks, to ready it up for a drone. It isn´t really worse than that. Again, it depends on how the software is developed and designed. I am not too worried about processing power either, as chips the size of your phone would be more than enough to run a simple OS and AI with decent capabilities. And if we are to consider Moore´s Law, which isn´t failing us so far, then minaturization will permit exponential growth of power density within chips. Again, I wouldn´t worry about that. Price-wise, with big batches being bought by the military, the prices are still far lower than many current systems operating.

This is not how what you know as "AI" works at all. Modular is one thing they are not. You also seem to be conflating "game AI" with the recent developments in LLMs, (which are mostly irrelevant to drones except for image recognition). Those two are completely different terms. In short, a "game AI" is actually a purely deterministic, algorithmic decision making system, which, given conditions, will take an appropriate action. You can use machine learning to do this, but this loses you the modularity. Any ML algorithm is a black box, you train the AI, but you don't really get to look inside its "brain", because it grows organically, and there are no clear "modules" you can separate. It's still deterministic, except it also becomes unpredictable, a very undesirable component in a weapon. Outside marketing buzzwords, Loyal Wingman will use algorithms that a human can understand, although it might be called AI because that's what games use to control NPCs. Nothing wrong with that, either, a good algorithm will take you a long way, and human pilots also follow them to a large extent. They could use limited ML routines for when the (human) leader commands them to engage.

As an aside, Moore's Law has failed us quite a while ago:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/moores-laws-dead-nvidia-ceo-jensen-says-in-justifying-gaming-card-price-hike-11663798618
Gordon Moore himself predicted, in 2006, that (paraphrased) "we have about 10-20 years before we hit physical limits". He was right. You can no longer double the number of transistors  (not performance, that stopped being linear even earlier) on a chip as easily as you used to. You make them too small, you get quantum tunneling effects between logic gates. The "2nm" architecture currently in development doesn't actually mean transistors will shrink by 50%, there'll be only a small reduction in gate pitch, from 48 to 45nm. Moore's law is over. Keep that in mind both when talking AI and planning your next PC.

8 hours ago, zerO_crash said:

Understand, that logistics, while often only being thought of as the service of timely delivery, is actually far more than that. It is the service of supplying through meeting demand, in other words, industry - economy. Without money, you don´t produce. Have you noticed how the west is trying to supress Russia by implementing financial sanctions? See a pattern? Someone is trying to cut the supply line from the rear, without ever having fired a bullet. The fact that Ukraine still exists on a map, is due to funding from mainly US. Furthermore, there is the concept of war economy, that stresses price-adjustments based on given demand in the region. Example: Ukraine fights a war with many vehicles, Ukraine uses a lot of fuel. Ukraine, needs a lot of fuel. Norway (in the region) produces fuel, Norway sees the opportunity to increase export ($$$). Norway, choses to supply less fuel to itself and regulate consumption by setting market prices, and exports thus more fuel to Ukraine. The same arithmetic works for weapons, ammunition, even who will get the golden ticket to rebuild Ukraine post war, which is being sold to the highest bidder. Trust me, the system is that focused on making money. War, is one of the best places to make money (for some). Therefore, when Ukraine/Russia (or whoever) engages in war, they consider very much their expenditure, as loans do not come cheap. That´s why, for example Israel, is wondering how to shoot down unguided S-5 rockets fired by Hamas/local insurgents, for less than 5o.ooo$ (that´s the cost of the interceptor missile.). How much do you think an old S-5 rocket costs, 3000$? If Israel continues with its Iron Dome, they´ll be poor before they lose the war...

You do not need to lecture me about the importance of logistics. You do, however, fail to actually consider the whole picture. However, consider this: Israel's military has a budget of 23.4 billion USD. That means that 20 interceptors, which cost 50k each, make up about 0.00004% of it. It has been estimated that Hamas had an annual military budget of about 350 million. Let's assume an S-3 rocket costs 3k, so 20 of them would cost Hamas 0.00017% of their budget. So you can see that in a 1:1 exchange, Israel easily comes out on top, despite their missile costing more. A more realistic 3:1 exchange (it takes about 3 Iron Dome interceptors to kill one rocket) makes it almost even, but still, you can't make Israel poor that way, because while Hamas is mostly its military, Israel could vote to increase its budget. Given that any rocket that gets through can make way more than 50k in capital loses (all it needs to do is take out one high end workstation, or block a major road for a day), Iron Dome is, therefore, perfectly economical, given the context it's used in.

Israel needs a way to deal with masses of several thousand rockets at a time, without covering half their territory in Iron Dome launchers. Also, it's obviously better to do the interceptions cheaper, because they're not going to go away. They also need to consider other kinds of threats, because your enemy isn't going to want to keep up a fight they're certain to lose. As it stands, the limitations of the system had been laid bare. Therefore, finding a system to overcome those limitations is presumably high on Israel's list.

Wars are not beancounting contests, simply because you can't shoot the money. To do so, this money has to be turned into bullets, artillery shells and fuel, which need to be delivered to the front. This takes time, and time can also be quite valuable. Attacking any part of this chain has strategic value far beyond the numbers game - it's not just about what physically got blown up, but about the capability you lose, and the time that it takes to fix or get around the damage. Hence, an "uneconomical" defense can still be worthwhile, if it prevents you from taking a hit to something you can't replace. See Russia, which can handily outproduce EU while being pummeled by sanctions, while EU is sitting on gobs of money, but they can't actually buy any artillery shells because they don't exist, and neither do factories to make that many. Sure, you can pay money to expand manufacturing capability, but that's the long game (notably, EU pledged to make one million shells, and failed to do so, despite clearly having the dough). Ukraine won't need shells next year if it gets overrun right now. 

Also consider that cutting the supply lines by sanctions had not, so far, worked on Russia, simply because they're able to get by without our money. They have reserves, they have material stockpiles, the have unpaid convict labor. In fact, Putin had decreed, by fiat, that workers can be made to do extra, unpaid hours, that they can't refuse, or be fired. In other words, forced labor. Sure, I think we can see what this will do to quality and worker motivation, but first, see what it does to your nice and clean dollar figures. If pressed, a nation at war can run on empty, though it will have long term consequences. The only sure way to disrupt enemy supply lines is to blow them up, even slave labor can't do much if your fuel refinery is a burning pile of scrap and the ammo factory has just been spread over half the country.

As Napoleon said, an army marches on its stomach. Good luck feeding them dollar bills, but if they run across an enemy food storehouse, they'll gladly help themselves. The point is, you can't reduce military problems to bare dollar values, you have to consider how and when those dollars are used.

FYI, this discussion seems to be growing exponentially, so assume any points left unaddressed were due to lack of time on my part.

Edited February 16 by Dragon1-1

[zerO_crash]

2 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Almost all that can be applied to the SLAM-ER, except the ability to RTB. It's not a weapon for purely preplanned targets, though you need to designate the target area. It does not put the pilot in harms' way (the whole point of ER part, and why Ukraine can't do much about Russian cruise missile bombers). Also, the older SLAM is very much not a rocket. It looks like one, but it has a jet engine. It uses a rocket booster for launch. SLAM-ER doesn't even do that, being air launched. Tomahawk, admittedly a much larger missile, can even loiter and search for targets on its own, acting almost like a typical drone. Also, aircraft very much can operate solo, this mission profile is called Battlefield Air Interdiction (BAI) and it is well known to the USAF. A TGP and an advanced radar go a long way.

Again, you're stating that you can get a 1000$ drone, but not addressing the fact that such a drone is basically a toy modified for combat use. That works, fair enough, but is it going to stay that way? I don't think so. They are used in Ukraine right now, because they work. This doesn't mean that there will be no technologies similar to THOR in the near future, able to rapidly burn through multiple drones. This price point will likely not hold for a tactically useful drone in future conflicts. Missile and drone technology will likely continue to converge, as we're seeing in the Shahed line, and so will costs.

I explained it very clearly before, but I'll repeate myself. You have to understand the difference between what capabilities a weapon offers (software weighs nothing, so why not include a TO (Target of Opportunity) mode?), what army/air force/navy/marines/space forces doctrine allows strategically and tactically, what each squadron promotes as their further refinement of tactics (based on the squadrons speciality), and finally, what a single isolated situation might need. Each service in pretty much any competent army, operates based on the principle of predictability and battlefield control. They do NOT just send pilots with their TGPs in the air to search for their own targets. This is not efficient, and logically so. If you compare how pilots found their targets in WWII for example, they used MK.I eyeball, which has a much broader peripherial than a TGP has (point observation). You are living in a fantasy, if you believe there is any military doctrine claiming that to be a SOP. The one exclusion, again - what is referred to as "single isolated situation", is Operation Desert Storm. It was a pure "out of neccessity"-situation. The same concerns the use of radar in AG operations. Ask a pilot how many missions he's ever done where he even used this functionality. This ability is mostly for intelligence gathering, and an eventuality, but NOT something that a doctrine builds on. In military circles, there is the concept of combat effectiveness and cost of operating a platform (both mentioned before). You do not get any good factor out of a pilot looking for his own targets. That's not how military works. I will further compare here the use of AH-64 (same airframe), in two different squadrons; Air National Guard and Air Cavalry Brigade. They use the same helicopter, in completely different ways, not really utilizing some of the capability used by the other. In the same way, just because it was used to neutralize a EWR-/SAM-site in the opening of Desert Storm, doesn't make it a SEAD-platform. That is why you seem not to understand, by stating what capabilites a SLAM/SLAM-ER has (which I am fully aware of). The pinnacle of the discussion is the prerogative that drones are currently used in a way, which advanced expensive weaponry (e.g. SLAM-ER) "could" be used in, but will never be for the reasons of doctrine/economy/effectiveness/etc... That is what I'm trying to explain to you, and apparently lecture you on. Yes, most users who use DCS are categorically ineffective (looking for targets through TGP/radar due to a currently lacking infastructure of air controllers), not considering the cost of such weapons (flying in low-threat environments with highly advanced weapons not making any sense in the aspect of economy) and with no pre-briefed flight plans. Again, there are far more misunderstandings and private projects about what's what, rather than informed knowledge, even in these forums. I am however questioning why you are mentioning BAI (Battlefield Air Interdiction) in this context, when indeed it has been removed from doctrinal manuals after 1990?!¹ This doctrine doesn't even exist anymore... and for a good reason.

 

As to what future brings, that depends on how technology matures. Here, we might have opinions, however as I initially stated, no country really has any "effective" means of handling such drones in the capacity that they are operating at in Ukraine. That is a fact. What THOR becomes down the line, or if it even becomes something, time will show.

 

2 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

This is not how what you know as "AI" works at all. Modular is one thing they are not. You also seem to be conflating "game AI" with the recent developments in LLMs, (which are mostly irrelevant to drones except for image recognition). Those two are completely different terms. In short, a "game AI" is actually a purely deterministic, algorithmic decision making system, which, given conditions, will take an appropriate action. You can use machine learning to do this, but this loses you the modularity. Any ML algorithm is a black box, you train the AI, but you don't really get to look inside its "brain", because it grows organically, and there are no clear "modules" you can separate. It's still deterministic, except it also becomes unpredictable, a very undesirable component in a weapon. Outside marketing buzzwords, Loyal Wingman will use algorithms that a human can understand, although it might be called AI because that's what games use to control NPCs. Nothing wrong with that, either, a good algorithm will take you a long way, and human pilots also follow them to a large extent. They could use limited ML routines for when the (human) leader commands them to engage.

As an aside, Moore's Law has failed us quite a while ago:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/moores-laws-dead-nvidia-ceo-jensen-says-in-justifying-gaming-card-price-hike-11663798618
Gordon Moore himself predicted, in 2006, that (paraphrased) "we have about 10-20 years before we hit physical limits". He was right. You can no longer double the number of transistors  (not performance, that stopped being linear even earlier) on a chip as easily as you used to. You make them too small, you get quantum tunneling effects between logic gates. The "2nm" architecture currently in development doesn't actually mean transistors will shrink by 50%, there'll be only a small reduction in gate pitch, from 48 to 45nm. Moore's law is over. Keep that in mind both when talking AI and planning your next PC.

In this discussion, I am not considering anything with regards to a simulated environment (DCS). This is a specific discussion with regards to what is going on right now and in the near term future, with respect to military operation. The last major concept being applied to industry operation (generally), is the concept of modularity, which allows to develop a product (software/hardware), which uniformly conforms to a wide standard of application, and by that, allows to cover a plethora of sectors under one trademark. This is financially, time-wise, manpower-wise and application-wise viable. As such, it is logical to think that a truly capable AI, would be built in this aspect, especially in a industry concerning such a wide range of applications, as military uses (drones, aircraft, vehicles, strategical-/tactical-systems, logistical administration, plus many more). Right now, AI is in pure infancy. We really don't know what AI will look like, and what it'll be down the line, simply because there is no one way of going about it. If anything, we know just how much we don't know about it. An AI can be just about everything, starting from the aspect of whether it should be connected to a unified network (with possibility to administer more than one unit), or whether it should be disconnected completely and administer only one physical unit. Maybe a hybrid of the two.

 

Let me elaborate on what I mean by a modular AI. The learning process and decision making, might be the same across the different variants. However, when implemented in a combat vehicle, it doesn't need to know economy or logistics, neither does it need to know strategy. The modules the "core"-build (if you will) will need, are related to the functionality of the vehicle. When it comes to aircraft, those are then tailored to what specific capabilities the aircraft has (weapons, systems, aircraft performance, other metrics), and not needing the ones from before-mentioned applications. This is just an example. Generally, one can argue that you'd want a unified AI administering a wide range of applications (war efforts, strategy, decision making, etc...) from one mainframe. I however, find many reasons why a purely connected system, has evident shortcomings - what about imparired connectivity in a environment with significant ECM/jamming? What about a potential hacker attack? (one mainframe is easier to target, than a plethora of individual units), plus many more design specific ones. Ultimately, this all gets irrelevant in the event of a EMP. Again, it is essentially a much wider discussion. Still, any sizeable use of EMP, is really created from the use of atomic power, and that is a different domain altogether. This topic is mostly centered on conventional warfare.

 

As to Moore's Law, it's difficult to say. I can bring Intel's CEO with a counter-statement - Intel's CEO says Moore's Law is slowing to a three-year cadence, but it's not dead yet | Tom's Hardware (tomshardware.com). Still, I'd agree that this technology is slowly reaching its limits. If anything, a fundamentally new technology has to be invented, to overcome the different issues that wafers pose. With that said, we do currently have enough computing power for even basic applications of potential AI, depending on the scope and refinement level. Software is further behind than hardware, and that is a issue which requires time and commitment. 

 

3 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

You do not need to lecture me about the importance of logistics. You do, however, fail to actually consider the whole picture. However, consider this: Israel's military has a budget of 23.4 billion USD. That means that 20 interceptors, which cost 50k each, make up about 0.00004% of it. It has been estimated that Hamas had an annual military budget of about 350 million. Let's assume an S-3 rocket costs 3k, so 20 of them would cost Hamas 0.00017% of their budget. So you can see that in a 1:1 exchange, Israel easily comes out on top, despite their missile costing more. A more realistic 3:1 exchange (it takes about 3 Iron Dome interceptors to kill one rocket) makes it almost even, but still, you can't make Israel poor that way, because while Hamas is mostly its military, Israel could vote to increase its budget. Given that any rocket that gets through can make way more than 50k in capital loses (all it needs to do is take out one high end workstation, or block a major road for a day), Iron Dome is, therefore, perfectly economical, given the context it's used in.

Israel needs a way to deal with masses of several thousand rockets at a time, without covering half their territory in Iron Dome launchers. Also, it's obviously better to do the interceptions cheaper, because they're not going to go away. They also need to consider other kinds of threats, because your enemy isn't going to want to keep up a fight they're certain to lose. As it stands, the limitations of the system had been laid bare. Therefore, finding a system to overcome those limitations is presumably high on Israel's list.

Wars are not beancounting contests, simply because you can't shoot the money. To do so, this money has to be turned into bullets, artillery shells and fuel, which need to be delivered to the front. This takes time, and time can also be quite valuable. Attacking any part of this chain has strategic value far beyond the numbers game - it's not just about what physically got blown up, but about the capability you lose, and the time that it takes to fix or get around the damage. Hence, an "uneconomical" defense can still be worthwhile, if it prevents you from taking a hit to something you can't replace. See Russia, which can handily outproduce EU while being pummeled by sanctions, while EU is sitting on gobs of money, but they can't actually buy any artillery shells because they don't exist, and neither do factories to make that many. Sure, you can pay money to expand manufacturing capability, but that's the long game (notably, EU pledged to make one million shells, and failed to do so, despite clearly having the dough). Ukraine won't need shells next year if it gets overrun right now. 

Also consider that cutting the supply lines by sanctions had not, so far, worked on Russia, simply because they're able to get by without our money. They have reserves, they have material stockpiles, the have unpaid convict labor. In fact, Putin had decreed, by fiat, that workers can be made to do extra, unpaid hours, that they can't refuse, or be fired. In other words, forced labor. Sure, I think we can see what this will do to quality and worker motivation, but first, see what it does to your nice and clean dollar figures. If pressed, a nation at war can run on empty, though it will have long term consequences. The only sure way to disrupt enemy supply lines is to blow them up, even slave labor can't do much if your fuel refinery is a burning pile of scrap and the ammo factory has just been spread over half the country.

As Napoleon said, an army marches on its stomach. Good luck feeding them dollar bills, but if they run across an enemy food storehouse, they'll gladly help themselves. The point is, you can't reduce military problems to bare dollar values, you have to consider how and when those dollars are used.

FYI, this discussion seems to be growing exponentially, so assume any points left unaddressed were due to lack of time on my part.

Actually, it doesn't at all, and again, you fail to understand economy at its core. Budget, is not an isolated situation, it is the cumulative product of a given system. While the interceptor-missiles "seem" cheaper to Israel than S-5s to Hamas, it isn't that at all. Hamas does not have to care for the civilians, and they don't (proven). They will have very few factors affecting their expenditure outside of military means. Israel, on the other hand, has to deal with a whole society, which is very expensive. The downing of one aircraft/vehicle/building will alter what additional costs will arise, and this how the budget for military expenditure will shrink. Handling civilian, government and other expenditures, will ultimately alter the final calculus to the point where Israel is paying much more for its interceptor missiles, than Hamas for their S-5s. This is a fact. That is also, why military doesn't compare it that way, because they themselves, cannot guarantee what budgets they will be granted each year, and how they'll change. Consider how much food prices have risen up, due to the war in Ukraine. Hamas doesn't care for civilians, thus it affects them very little. Imagine however the percentage readjustment in the budget, based on that factor alone. I already showed you an example, thus you are not only arguing against me, but the whole defense sector apparently. Also, a country is nothing more than a huge institution, many of the same rules apply. Of course countries have defaulted financially. "Israel could vote to increase its budget." - Uhm, and the money is supposed to come from where? It can adjust it, but it cannot input what it doesn't have. Again, you have elementary lacks of knowledge in economy and finance. Israel as a country, is especially in a difficult situation, as there are countries in Europe now (Germany and Sweden), who are considering to implement light restrictions for exports to Israel (one that is discussed, is the acquisition of more F-35s by Israel - Germany wants it halted). That is only the hardware side, now consider the implications of trying to push Israel from the outside on exports?! (Israel is a country that doesn't possess a single mineral to extract, their economy builds solely on export of technology and certain locally-made goods/equipment). Again, you are not thinking of it properly.

 

By default, the thought-process you present here, means that a country can essentially compete on the percentage of the cost of a weapon vs. their contender. That would actually bring a bigger country, to less effectivity and level it out with a smaller more effective one. That is the essence of what you preach, and it is simply not correct. I showed you one example, I can show many more. You are at wrong here.

 

I am saying that money (economy), is the main and initial resource, which grants initative to build an arms industry and perform in combat (a well paid soldiers is typically more engaged in what he does, than one that is poorly rewarded). There are other factors as well, but this is the basis of it. Nowadays, rebuilding a factory, does not take very long, if the relevant resources are in place. This is a technical question, but on the strategic level, money matters in more aspects, than you are willing/capable of seeing. Sure, there are examples of where a superpower loses against a small guerilla group (e.g. US - Afghanistan), but this is rather rare, and points to other faults at hand, not logistics. The point is, if you have the backbone of logistics in place, you have all means to potentially succeed in a armed conflict. If you don't, then you've failed other places (poor strategy, use of time, capability, manpower, morales and determination of troops, etc...). 

 

With regards to what I marked red, I'll have to ask for a source. While forced convict labor is a thing (cultural), and logically so, "forced labor" is something else, and that is not the case in Russia. Incentives are made for the workers to provide more, but not in the sense that they are given an ultimatum. With regards to unpaid, that is simply not true. There is no decree granting unpaid work/hours with regards to citizens (convicts is a different discussion altogether - no free meal, as they say). There have been delays in payments, and in some cases they have not been regulated yet by the employers yet, since the start of the war. Consider that as you wish, it is a special situation in the country. Still, there is no decree that gives a ultimatum, neither does it grant the employer a chance to not pay their workers (how does it even make sense to threaten with firing, when there are labor shortages...). As to why little was achieved in trying to suppress Russian war initative economically, well, that is a matter that is far wider in aspect, than what we can conceive on a forum, much like the war efforts and analysis of each side. In very basic terms; Russia doesn't depend on the west much at all. There are still below-the-radar trades being done with Russia and European countries, even US. Russian society has a sense of brotherhood, and while some disagree on the current situation, many are willing to sacrifice their own benefits, for the greatness of their country. World more or less dividing itself into two again, where Russia and China are establishing a more self-sustained trade system in Asia. Russia still having a lot money, and what they don't have, they'll mobilize for less.

 

No worries, as we pull in more topics, fewer will be discussed in detail. The notion of the topic is of a global effect, as such, it would be incomplete to try and isolate this topic from whatever is happening around the globe. Indeed the change in US posture (and more countries considering the same), is due to what is happening on the other side of the globe for them - Europe and Asia.

 

¹ADA575998.pdf (dtic.mil)

[Dragon1-1]

7 hours ago, zerO_crash said:

They do NOT just send pilots with their TGPs in the air to search for their own targets. This is not efficient, and logically so. If you compare how pilots found their targets in WWII for example, they used MK.I eyeball, which has a much broader peripherial than a TGP has (point observation). 

OK, so my procedures might be a bit dated, blame me being primarily interested in ODS-era combat aviation. I'm not living in a fantasy, but I might be used to flying around in a reality of about three decades back. However, this doesn't actually address my point. Fast FAC was a thing in Vietnam, where F-4s spotted targets for other F-4s. Sometimes, they went "shopping" on their own, as did A-10s in ODS (notably, this is a USAF-only brevity code, other countries never did this). They can do this kind of thing, and had, for a long time. They just don't, because, guess what, drones are better at it. This I never disputed. What I do dispute is that having a drone do it is some kind of massive revolutionary leap, as opposed to an evolutionary progression from manned FACs. Likewise, SLAM-ER isn't suited for loitering, but it is suited for striking a target the location of which isn't known to the meter. However, as you pointed out yourself with the ODS example, sometimes accommodations are made with regards to necessity. There's no such thing as "never" in a competent military, although there are things that are pretty darn unlikely.

You do appear to have missed my point, though: there is an overlap between capabilities of drones and missiles, and what they bring to the battlefield is not some new, miracle capability, but a change in economics, a change that could be reversed by technological development forcing more expensive equipment onto the drones.

7 hours ago, zerO_crash said:

While the interceptor-missiles "seem" cheaper to Israel than S-5s to Hamas, it isn't that at all. Hamas does not have to care for the civilians, and they don't (proven). They will have very few factors affecting their expenditure outside of military means. Israel, on the other hand, has to deal with a whole society, which is very expensive.

Which is exactly why I used their current budgets. I assume both of them are spending as much on the military as they comfortably can, with Hamas spending pretty much everything not eaten up by admin costs, and Israel spending as much as they can without going into war economy and inviting hardship. While assuming that the current Israeli government is particularly competent at anything including budgeting might be a stretch, it's reasonable to assume that those levels are representative of what each group can put towards the daily, low intensity rocket war.

In addition to that, countries routinely spend money that they don't have (balanced budgets went out of fashion long ago, in case you didn't notice). Loans and treasury bonds, in short, increasing the national debt is very much something that a generally solvent nation like Israel is capable of doing. It has costs, but those costs tend to be long term. Also, you missed the fact that Israel can normally generate more money by going to the US with a begging bowl in hand. The current state of it being bogged down in Congress is extraordinary. Before judging others' understanding of economy, do refresh your own knowledge of how they actually work at this level.

8 hours ago, zerO_crash said:

By default, the thought-process you present here, means that a country can essentially compete on the percentage of the cost of a weapon vs. their contender. That would actually bring a bigger country, to less effectivity and level it out with a smaller more effective one. That is the essence of what you preach, and it is simply not correct. I showed you one example, I can show many more. You are at wrong here.

I consider the first example you showed to be refuted. Now, before you provide another, try to understand what I'm saying, because "essence of what I preach" is not what you misunderstood it to be. It does not imply that smaller countries are more efficient at war than large ones, quite opposite - it shows that a larger, richer side has the advantage. It uses the sheer size of its budget to be able to afford expensive, but ultimately more effective weapons than the smaller country. Finally, my example says nothing about the prospects of turning the tide. It's a fixed scenario with one side attacking and the other defending. Now flip the scenario, Israel attacks, Hamas defends. You'll see what anyone can see, Hamas has no defense comparable to Iron Dome, nor would it be capable of supporting such a system even if they did. If it wasn't for their tunnel network, they'd all be long dead.

To win in this scenario, Hamas can't just shoot rockets - they have to take the fight to Israel, and they have to do it in an asymmetric way, because with such a budget disparity they can't exactly win in line combat. This is what they did, the purpose of their entire operation was to destroy Israel's carte blanche and cut off their flow of foreign money. This is working, too. You mentioned earlier the West attacking Russia's logistics by imposing sanctions. Well, Hamas is trying to do the exact same thing. They know Israel is terminally dependent on foreign donations, and they're trying to reduce its international support so that their source is cut off.

7 hours ago, zerO_crash said:

With regards to what I marked red, I'll have to ask for a source. While forced convict labor is a thing (cultural), and logically so, "forced labor" is something else, and that is not the case in Russia. Incentives are made for the workers to provide more, but not in the sense that they are given an ultimatum. 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/15/rate-of-russian-military-production-worries-european-war-planners
They are very much given an ultimatum, see the final paragraphs of the article. The article doesn't say whether it's paid overtime or not, but even if it is, it's still basically forced labor, because, as the union leader said, there's no option to refuse those extra shifts. There, you'll find a detailed description as to why Russia is doing better than how you'd think it should be. The more decoupled a country is from the rest of the world, the less you can trust the raw dollar values. 

7 hours ago, zerO_crash said:

Nowadays, rebuilding a factory, does not take very long, if the relevant resources are in place. 

Demonstrably wrong. "Relevant resources" often being tooling and machinery, which in some cases might be unique, and has to be remanufactured to order. Heaven help you if your tooling factory has also been hit. Under peacetime conditions, I've seen people talk about two or three years to build a new factory, and I've seen construction of a large chemistry institute take about that long. To rebuild a destroyed facility of that sort, you first have to clear the site of debris (some of which may be explosive) and then build the factory anew. This is not going to improve matters. If some of it survived, it can be better, and you can probably cut some red tape from the process because you're at war, but in the end, it will always take time, during which you're without a chunk of your production. War in Ukraine has so far lasted less than it can take to build a factory from ground up, although if you hurried up with construction and started right as Putin marched in, you could be bringing the first factories online around now. 

7 hours ago, zerO_crash said:

This is a technical question, but on the strategic level, money matters in more aspects, than you are willing/capable of seeing.

You seem to have fallen into a sort of "equilibrium thinking" - it pretty much does come down to money if you've got infinite time. Sure enough, the longer a war goes on, the more things hinge on money, but at the same time, many wars do not last that long anymore (those that do tend to be insurgencies, see below). I never said that money doesn't matter. I've said that money is not omnipotent. You can lose a war by running out of money before the other side, and running them out of money is a viable strategy in some cases. However, there are other strategies that also work. 

Also, it's incorrect to dismiss Afghanistan as "failure of other things", when it's exactly what proves my point. Afghanistan wasn't won by Taliban out-beancounting the US. It was won by them simply outlasting the US' will to continue the war. You seem to imply that logistics only are what's required to win a war. Except the US had a better logistics than Taliban, and they still lost. They had better logistics than Vietnam, and still lost. This is not rare. Superpowers in general routinely lose to Afghanistan, and they also lose more and more often in guerilla wars. By your logic, Afghanistan should be an anomaly, but it isn't, because sometimes, wars are decided by other things than money. Drones did not save the US in Afghanistan, and AI would not have done so, either.

I do take time to read and understand your walls of text (even if I don't quote in full, for compactness' sake), the least you can do is read and understand mine, because you misrepresented several of my points. You frequently spend several paragraph arguing against a point I did not make.

[zerO_crash]

On 2/16/2024 at 11:16 PM, Dragon1-1 said:

OK, so my procedures might be a bit dated, blame me being primarily interested in ODS-era combat aviation. I'm not living in a fantasy, but I might be used to flying around in a reality of about three decades back. However, this doesn't actually address my point. Fast FAC was a thing in Vietnam, where F-4s spotted targets for other F-4s. Sometimes, they went "shopping" on their own, as did A-10s in ODS (notably, this is a USAF-only brevity code, other countries never did this). They can do this kind of thing, and had, for a long time. They just don't, because, guess what, drones are better at it. This I never disputed. What I do dispute is that having a drone do it is some kind of massive revolutionary leap, as opposed to an evolutionary progression from manned FACs. Likewise, SLAM-ER isn't suited for loitering, but it is suited for striking a target the location of which isn't known to the meter. However, as you pointed out yourself with the ODS example, sometimes accommodations are made with regards to necessity. There's no such thing as "never" in a competent military, although there are things that are pretty darn unlikely.

You do appear to have missed my point, though: there is an overlap between capabilities of drones and missiles, and what they bring to the battlefield is not some new, miracle capability, but a change in economics, a change that could be reversed by technological development forcing more expensive equipment onto the drones.

It seems to me that you do not know the basics of operation within the FAC-role. FAC, is a controller mission, directing aircraft, based on information and demand recieved from an observer. Here is an excerpt:

 

"Forward Air Controllers, or FACs, in the Southeast Asia conflict were rated pilots whose job it was to coordinate air-ground operations.   FACs could be ground-based with the troops they were supporting or airborne above the battlefield.   The key to success for this air-ground team was and remains today a close relationship between the FAC and the supported unit.   For this reason, FACs usually were assigned to support specific units and live with them.   This arrangement has been used in every U.S. military operation since World War II when airpower has supported ground forces.

Placing the FAC in an aircraft above the battlefield has proven most effective and has been used whenever the tactical situation permitted.   In Southeast Asia, Air Force FACs used three main aircraft: the Cessna O-1 Bird Dog, the Cessna O-2 Skymaster, and the North American OV-10 Bronco.   These aircraft provided the low-speed maneuverability and long endurance required for locating and maintaining visual contact with targets over the battlefield.   They also possessed the short, unimproved airfield operating capability needed to live close to the Army.   Each FAC aircraft was equipped with three different radios to coordinate with all the players in the air-ground battle.   An FM radio was provided for communications with the ground forces, a UHF radio to talk to the fighter aircraft, and a VHF radio for contact with the Air Force Tactical Air Control Party (TACP) to coordinate approvals and requests for air support. 

The low performance O-1 and O-2 worked reasonably well during most of the Vietnam War when the threat consisted primarily of small arms and light machine guns.   Later in the war the threat increased with the introduction of larger caliber guns and man-portable surface-to-air missiles, and the higher speed OV-10 became the aircraft of choice.   In higher threat areas in Laos and southern North Vietnam, jet aircraft (the two-seat F-100F Super Sabres, call sign Misty, and later the F-4 Phantom II, call sign Wolf ) were used as fast FACs to direct air strikes against trucks and other targets of opportunity.   The Army used spotters in the O-1 and helicopters, and the Marine Corps employed FACs in the O-1 and OV-10 to control their air assets."¹

 

The observer role, is not a mission for a fast jet. In theory, everything can be done, but let´s not dwell into that. Instead, as per today, there are no fast jets acting as observers. Also, as I already pointed out multiple times before, you need to understand the difference between capable of (you call it "suited" this time around), and used according to established SOP. In a general discussion, we can overlook the odds, and focus on what is common practice or not. Let me tell you this; a SLAM-ER will not get loaded on a jet, unless strategic command have the exact coordinates of a HVT (high-value target). There are no "ifs" here. If you still want to tell me otherwise (which you are), then I will request some sources for a situation where this has ever happened. (You won´t find it). Drones (depending on mission, size and capability) however, are being sent up every day with little to no pre-planning. Purely operationally, that is really a revolution. If you consider that drones are also a framework ready for implementation of AI down the line, reducing the required manpower, or eliminating it entirely, then it is a futuristic product. Its benefits outweigh its shortcomings, and that, by a long shot.

 

On 2/16/2024 at 11:16 PM, Dragon1-1 said:

Which is exactly why I used their current budgets. I assume both of them are spending as much on the military as they comfortably can, with Hamas spending pretty much everything not eaten up by admin costs, and Israel spending as much as they can without going into war economy and inviting hardship. While assuming that the current Israeli government is particularly competent at anything including budgeting might be a stretch, it's reasonable to assume that those levels are representative of what each group can put towards the daily, low intensity rocket war.

In addition to that, countries routinely spend money that they don't have (balanced budgets went out of fashion long ago, in case you didn't notice). Loans and treasury bonds, in short, increasing the national debt is very much something that a generally solvent nation like Israel is capable of doing. It has costs, but those costs tend to be long term. Also, you missed the fact that Israel can normally generate more money by going to the US with a begging bowl in hand. The current state of it being bogged down in Congress is extraordinary. Before judging others' understanding of economy, do refresh your own knowledge of how they actually work at this level.

Again, I need to school you in the subject. I mentioned before the ability to leverage loans from outside (which indeed is a common practice, and fundamental to sustained economical growth). The reason why I don´t mention Israel with regards to that practice, is that when a country gives another country a loan, they introduce risk into their calulcation. If US is lending Germany money, the risk of defaulting on that load, is realtively low (if we consider geopolitical matters, there are many to consider overall). If US (private investment banks by default) would consider giving Israel a loan, then they have higher concerns with regards to having their loan paid back plus interest rate. That due to the instability in the region. While US has generally always helped Isreal (for reasons concerning many Jewish-members besitting high-end positions in the US system (private/governmental)), this is not something the Israeli government can blindly rely on. Furthermore, with recent socioeconomic development in the world, and crisises like on the US border with Mexico, and even worse, Ukraine, this becomes even more evident. With regards to any other country (other than US), and private investment bank, Israel has a headache trying to guarantee any potential foreign investors. Generally speaking, there are few investors who are willing to risk having investments/assets in what is commonly percieved as the most unstable region in the world. It is apparent to me, that you do not know the economic situation of Israel. This is not something you can research within minutes or hours between responses going back and forth. To be quite honest, I´ll let you in on one more secret. Ukraine, while showing determination, and success early on in the war, had a lot easier job taking foreign loans/support to finanance their war efforts. However (!), with recent developments on the battlefield (Russians pushing the frontline west on a daily basis, and more efficiently so), Ukraine is starting to have problems with securing cash flow. The main reason being the same as Israel - risk was low when Ukraine was performing better than Russia, however the risk of losing it all (including the ability to return the financing), is becoming more evident. This was considered a potential rehearsal before, and sadly, has become the reality now.

 

Simply put, Israel relies on foreign investments in the times of peace (still riskier with lower potential return, than other places around the globe), however when war/conflict emerges, that ideology goes to the trash bin. (Btw. have you heard of any other country finance Israel during the times of war, other than US, being pressured by them?! A country can obviously NOT rest the notion of its survival on that one point alone!).

 

On 2/16/2024 at 11:16 PM, Dragon1-1 said:

I consider the first example you showed to be refuted. Now, before you provide another, try to understand what I'm saying, because "essence of what I preach" is not what you misunderstood it to be. It does not imply that smaller countries are more efficient at war than large ones, quite opposite - it shows that a larger, richer side has the advantage. It uses the sheer size of its budget to be able to afford expensive, but ultimately more effective weapons than the smaller country. Finally, my example says nothing about the prospects of turning the tide. It's a fixed scenario with one side attacking and the other defending. Now flip the scenario, Israel attacks, Hamas defends. You'll see what anyone can see, Hamas has no defense comparable to Iron Dome, nor would it be capable of supporting such a system even if they did. If it wasn't for their tunnel network, they'd all be long dead.

To win in this scenario, Hamas can't just shoot rockets - they have to take the fight to Israel, and they have to do it in an asymmetric way, because with such a budget disparity they can't exactly win in line combat. This is what they did, the purpose of their entire operation was to destroy Israel's carte blanche and cut off their flow of foreign money. This is working, too. You mentioned earlier the West attacking Russia's logistics by imposing sanctions. Well, Hamas is trying to do the exact same thing. They know Israel is terminally dependent on foreign donations, and they're trying to reduce its international support so that their source is cut off.

I understood you clearly, but you didn´t understand my reply. You have to put more thought to semantics. I didn´t claim that you said "smaller countries are more efficient at war, then large ones". I stated that from the outset of a situation where a richer country has better financial capabilities compared to its poorer contemporary, with the logic your present, the richer country won´t feel the need to compete on proper terms, thus LEADING to a situation where the richer one will lower its expectation. It´s a psychological aspect; if you are so much better than your peer, then why not take a day off or two. Again, I consider this case closed, as I have demonstrated to you how the military sector looks upon this. Again, there are many more examples. Let me give you one more:

 

Afghanistan had a GDP of just under $14 billion as per 2021². US had at the same time above $23 trillion³. Due to the recent conflicts around the world, you have to estimate a price of around $1000 for an AK-47/AMK and a small amount of ammunition (90rnds - 3 magazines). The price of a Hellfire missile per 2023 was approximately $150.000 per unit. According your idea of caluclating efficiency in warfare, the AK-47 with 3 magazines would amount to approx. 0.0000071% of Afghanistan´s GDP. Equally, a Hellfire missile, would account to 0.00000065%. I´m sure, that if you proposed using a hellfire on each terrorist in Afghanistan, you would get popular in the military circles.

 

Again, I proved to you that this point is dead, we will never agree on your way of calculating it. It is a fallacy. I haven´t even mentioned how the numbers would fluctuate if you were to include the size of each force into the arithmetic. According to your counting, if US would meet a bigger force (Russia or China), they would have to go down to less expensive weapons, because now you are losing out on economy. In real warfare, that is exactly when you want to go opposite, to more expensive weapons, due to the complexity of the theatre and a more capable contemporary. You are simply wrong in your thinking here. If a target is considered HVT (for example Zelensky for Russians), they will use a cruise missile on him. However, anything outside of the aspect of HVT, falls under the "who gets the job done cheaper considering all things equal"-game.

 

For the red marked text, I´ll need a source. We know the price of the interceptor missile, we don´t however know how much the system costs to drive, and what other external support it might need. One can assume that Hamas would never get their hands on a system like this, thus making this notion fantasy to discuss. If you consider this system being on the more expensive side, then for all intents and purposes, this is not a capability which is imminent to them. However, if you state that this would be too expensive for Hamas, tell me: a) How much money does Hamas have? b) How much does the whole system cost including a projected lifetime cost?

 

On 2/16/2024 at 11:16 PM, Dragon1-1 said:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/15/rate-of-russian-military-production-worries-european-war-planners
They are very much given an ultimatum, see the final paragraphs of the article. The article doesn't say whether it's paid overtime or not, but even if it is, it's still basically forced labor, because, as the union leader said, there's no option to refuse those extra shifts. There, you'll find a detailed description as to why Russia is doing better than how you'd think it should be. The more decoupled a country is from the rest of the world, the less you can trust the raw dollar values. 

That is not by a decree, that is a wartime schedule. You also have to set this in context to what is written three paragraphs above. Kurganmashzavod is not meeting the deadlines for production which it already has signed with the government. This is one factory, which for whatever reason, is not meeting the obligation it set on itself. Therefore, they themselves are pushing their workers, albeit not above what the law permits for workers. You cannot read about one production plant, and automatically assume that this a situation concerning the whole Russian state. Obviously, this is "just a story" for the news papers, not something that is common ground. While under war schedule, there will be more pressure on the industry of a given country, it is still more civil than what you initially want it to be. Part of my family is from Russia, Moscow, thus I can tell you that what you pulled out there, is a similar comparison to claiming that just because California has a serious problem with water supply (as in, worse than some 3rd world countries), that means that the whole of US is automatically Africa... In essence, don´t generalise, that tends to bury the truth.

 

On 2/16/2024 at 11:16 PM, Dragon1-1 said:

Demonstrably wrong. "Relevant resources" often being tooling and machinery, which in some cases might be unique, and has to be remanufactured to order. Heaven help you if your tooling factory has also been hit. Under peacetime conditions, I've seen people talk about two or three years to build a new factory, and I've seen construction of a large chemistry institute take about that long. To rebuild a destroyed facility of that sort, you first have to clear the site of debris (some of which may be explosive) and then build the factory anew. This is not going to improve matters. If some of it survived, it can be better, and you can probably cut some red tape from the process because you're at war, but in the end, it will always take time, during which you're without a chunk of your production. War in Ukraine has so far lasted less than it can take to build a factory from ground up, although if you hurried up with construction and started right as Putin marched in, you could be bringing the first factories online around now. 

 

On 2/16/2024 at 11:16 PM, Dragon1-1 said:

You seem to have fallen into a sort of "equilibrium thinking" - it pretty much does come down to money if you've got infinite time. Sure enough, the longer a war goes on, the more things hinge on money, but at the same time, many wars do not last that long anymore (those that do tend to be insurgencies, see below). I never said that money doesn't matter. I've said that money is not omnipotent. You can lose a war by running out of money before the other side, and running them out of money is a viable strategy in some cases. However, there are other strategies that also work. 

Also, it's incorrect to dismiss Afghanistan as "failure of other things", when it's exactly what proves my point. Afghanistan wasn't won by Taliban out-beancounting the US. It was won by them simply outlasting the US' will to continue the war. You seem to imply that logistics only are what's required to win a war. Except the US had a better logistics than Taliban, and they still lost. They had better logistics than Vietnam, and still lost. This is not rare. Superpowers in general routinely lose to Afghanistan, and they also lose more and more often in guerilla wars. By your logic, Afghanistan should be an anomaly, but it isn't, because sometimes, wars are decided by other things than money. Drones did not save the US in Afghanistan, and AI would not have done so, either.

I do take time to read and understand your walls of text (even if I don't quote in full, for compactness' sake), the least you can do is read and understand mine, because you misrepresented several of my points. You frequently spend several paragraph arguing against a point I did not make.

I read all of your points, but you seem not to be noticing the semantics. I have not quoted/answered you, in any way that missrepresents any of your points. If you belive so, point it out.

 

"I" am stating that economy and logistics, are a cornerstone of any armed warfare. I never stated that it is the only point to consider, only that it is among the main ones. Consider that economy grants the ability to fund supplies (food, medicine and ammunition), increase the will to fight among the population, etc... When you state that those other aspects are important, it is money that is funding it. As to Afghanistan, I avoid taking the discussion into a new theatre, as that will most likely evolve into one page-long posts. Since you ask about it, well again, you are oversimplifying again. There are many reasons why Afghanistan was lost by US. One major one, was for example the politics of carrying out the war. Rules of engagement, often hindering any possibility of effectively (time-wise) going after the insurgency. Ultimately, you could see upon US pulling out, that politically, a claim was made mentioning one of the main points with War on Terror, which was to neutralize Al Qaeda. Well, what is the point of going in and erasing Al Qaeda, if ISIS and other smaller groups with the same capability, albeit more determination, exist when you pull out?! That proves some of the difficulties with running a military operation, that is constantly used by the politicians to grant them a new cadence in their political career. That´s just one of many points, which you make no mention of, however is just as relevant. By default, guerrilla warfare is a reactionary one, unless you have reliable intel to strike where it hurts. Afghanis were, are and will be poor, however they always found money (collective initative, support from equal-thinking countries/groups in the world) to fund war. When Russians went into Afghanistan (´79-´89), they had the same situation, albeit with some level of corruption in their military. As in any war, some made money by selling arms/supplies to their contemporary. If Afghanis didn´t have money, they wouldn´t have weapons to fight with. That tells you however nothing about their determination/initative/capability/etc... Just know, that with regards to any war that has ever occured, there are none, which you can define the losing condition of, in a paragraph or sentence.

 

¹https://sites.cc.gatech.edu/fac/Thomas.Pilsch/AirOps/facs.html

²https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=AF&start=1960

³https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=US

 

Edited February 18 by zerO_crash

[candle eatist]

 

On 2/16/2024 at 3:04 AM, zerO_crash said:

A scout/combat drone can perform the a whole mission on its own, starting with reconnaissance and ending with final trigger pull on an enemy (suicide attack/direct forces/artillery strike/air strike/etc...). A SLAM-missile, is only a link in the chain, due to price and complexity, plus ranges involved, it is a weapon for purely pre-planned use.

Comparing a scout/attack drone which is for all intents and purposes like any other UAV against a weapon created for the sole purpose of impacting a target and destroying it is a terrible comparison. This is like comparing an F-18 to a SLAM. Not throwing shade, just saying.

 

On 2/16/2024 at 3:04 AM, zerO_crash said:

If an AI is developed, I imagine that inline with modern standards, it will be a modular build. Essentially, applicable to any machine, albeit with different specification which would dictate what that machine is capable of, and what not. If you develop an AI for a really expensive project, say the Loyal Wingman, then it would really only require stripping it of certain functionality, and possibly some other minor tweaks, to ready it up for a drone. It isn´t really worse than that. Again, it depends on how the software is developed and designed. I am not too worried about processing power either, as chips the size of your phone would be more than enough to run a simple OS and AI with decent capabilities. And if we are to consider Moore´s Law, which isn´t failing us so far, then minaturization will permit exponential growth of power density within chips. Again, I wouldn´t worry about that. Price-wise, with big batches being bought by the military, the prices are still far lower than many current systems operating.

I am not sure what you are referencing when you mention modern standards, but incorporating a modular AI into multiple different combat systems would be a nightmare of Lovecraftian proportions. Let's take the Loyal Wingman program for example. How would one go about incorporating Loyal Wingman's AI which flies a fast jet, makes tactical decisions based off of lead command, the various onboard and datalinked sensors, and fast jet tactics into a small suicide drone that is designed to accomplish a completely different task? What would you strip? How would you tweak it? Why should two systems with different construction, missions, and tactics of employment share a modular AI base? How basic even is the base? If you think about it, all algorithms like machine learning already share base concepts.

Modularity as a buzzword has sold and will sell many more things to the military. The idea that making things the same across different variants of the thing sounds great, absolutely. Take a look at the F-35. It's an incredible aircraft, dreamed up to share a lot of the same parts across the services. The results? 20-25 percent commonality, way short of the 70 percent they had in mind, just because some of the parts had different requirements for what they needed to accomplish. Doesn't mean that the F-35 isn't capable, it just means that whatever modular joint AI comes out of this hypothetical program would probably just end up being mostly different things altogether, the way it usually goes.

[zerO_crash]

On 2/23/2024 at 1:02 AM, candle eatist said:

Comparing a scout/attack drone which is for all intents and purposes like any other UAV against a weapon created for the sole purpose of impacting a target and destroying it is a terrible comparison. This is like comparing an F-18 to a SLAM. Not throwing shade, just saying.

If you backtrack the discussion, you'll notice that I'm not the one who mentioned the SLAM/-ER to begin with. However, since it was mentioned, I'm making arguments as to why these weapons are simply not comparable at all. A SLAM/-ER is an irrelevant comparison mainly due to it not being needed on such a scale, neither in technical aspect, nor in the amount required for operation. 

 

I have however been comparing drones to armed scout helicopters (E.g. FARA as the latest acquisition program in US. Also, not to be confused with assault/combat helicopters.), and that is a very credible comparison. These units are fully interchangeable, and as electronics/sensors/software/tactics have evloved, so has the viability of using drones. Apparently, these are the conclusions the US military and industry have arrived at too. 

 

On 2/23/2024 at 1:02 AM, candle eatist said:

I am not sure what you are referencing when you mention modern standards, but incorporating a modular AI into multiple different combat systems would be a nightmare of Lovecraftian proportions. Let's take the Loyal Wingman program for example. How would one go about incorporating Loyal Wingman's AI which flies a fast jet, makes tactical decisions based off of lead command, the various onboard and datalinked sensors, and fast jet tactics into a small suicide drone that is designed to accomplish a completely different task? What would you strip? How would you tweak it? Why should two systems with different construction, missions, and tactics of employment share a modular AI base? How basic even is the base? If you think about it, all algorithms like machine learning already share base concepts.

Modularity as a buzzword has sold and will sell many more things to the military. The idea that making things the same across different variants of the thing sounds great, absolutely. Take a look at the F-35. It's an incredible aircraft, dreamed up to share a lot of the same parts across the services. The results? 20-25 percent commonality, way short of the 70 percent they had in mind, just because some of the parts had different requirements for what they needed to accomplish. Doesn't mean that the F-35 isn't capable, it just means that whatever modular joint AI comes out of this hypothetical program would probably just end up being mostly different things altogether, the way it usually goes.

There really is no defined specification for what an AI architecture will look like. If anything, we'll use our knowledge of current trends and systems in the broader fields, and model an AI by those standards. With time however, boundaries will be extended, and new concepts will arise. While looking far into the future is somewhat abstract in this context (many possibilities and what-ifs), the near-term aspect of the matter is much more predictable. What I deduce, is based on what is currently/near-future available technology-wise, as well as taking into consideration the aspects of economic viability, strategical-/tactical-necessity and historically conventional contenders.

 

Let me first mention, that in modern world, the cost of design and procurement of software, is among the biggest factors that have to be taken into account. Consider how the single most expensive and cost-driving factor of the F-35 program, is in fact the software. That is also the part of the program, that is furthest behind the schedule. Taking a note from this example, it is reasonable to deduce that in the near future, we will not want to have individual F-35 equivalent programs, that all have their issues, mostly with software. Consider that creating a system based on commonality, is not only a solid concept with regards to financial matters, but most importantly time and manpower. With todays unrest world, time and manpower are among the most imporant resources, rest assured. This is also the basis for why I believe that AI, will be the next big (and expensive) venture alas that of the invention of the wheel, only more major in its effect. While a wheel has many applications, imagine now how many AI will have.

 

What I stipulate for a modular AI, is the following structure:

 

CORE:

Basic logic based on learning, reasoning, decision making, problem solving and perceptions. This is really what an AI is in the public domain. Here, the AI is capable of acquiring knowledge through deep learning algorithms, and expanding its library (experience if you will) through interaction with a verified remote library. At this point, the AI can be a venture between the military and public sector, without any threat of intrusion into classified material. There would certainly have to be a high level of encryption, in order not to give away the construct.

 

MODULES:

What you'd expect to find here, are further extensions in the form of "libraries" available for the AI to use. We are assuming that at this point, the military-use AI is shared with public (obviously). The modules make use of either one common AI mainframe, or most likely, individual unit AI (early stages). The libraries, are handcrafted and specialized libraries that contain information on different types of units (aircraft, vehicles, drones, etc...), with information such as movement metrics, armament (and the respective specifications regarding that armament - definition of use, blast power, range, TOF of projectile, etc...). You'd have such libraries (modules) categorized by different subjects; what unit they will serve on, whether the AI is to have a strategic/tactical subset of laws, rules of engagement, basic/advanced laws of calculating risk, theatre related topics relevant for employment (weather conditions, description of civilians/hostiles, with more) and so on. Think of the core as the operating system, and the modules corresponding to an "app store" which allows the military to tailor the AI with regards to what unit it will be used on. What that unit must know, what it should know, what it could know, and what it shouldn't know. Based on these extensions, you are directing the power capability of the CORE (can be stripped off only-public use knowledge) along with the libraries into what is effectively an AI which has effective means of dealing with a situation/threat, based on what it was taught. 

 

I want to point out, that we are still far off such a level of autonomy with regards to artifical intelligence. Even the next big thing in the field (military and AI), the Loyal Wingman, is a primitive iteration, which will be submissive to basic commands from a human platform (lead aircraft/HQ). The initial uses of AI, will really be in closed systems, mostly as articulation to the given operator (allow to control the functions of a vehicle/aircraft based on input from driver/pilot), wargaming scenarios meant to find even more efficient ways of organizing strategy/tactics based on provided intel and factors, aspects of logistics and other non-harmful means of support, etc... It will take some time, before we "put a weapon into the hands of a intelligence capable of its own reasoning and conclusions". With that said, I do believe that we'll see it in our lifetime.

 

Finally, the subject is far more expansive, than we are giving it credit for. That also relates to the initial discussion of strategy/tactics surrounding drones alone (no AI). What limits us, is really the means of communication (writing). There is for example the notion of connectivity (internet/NET/SAT), which reamins untouched. That is to keep it as short, and on point as possible.

Edited February 28 by zerO_crash