The Drone Wars

[Morts]

*edit*
wrong thread

[MothBalls]

No different than looking through a periscope. If it takes our pilots out of harms way, it's a good thing. It doesn't get scary until they start to operate autonomously. Then you need to be afraid.

[CaptainHaplo]

Actually - having the "crew" back in the US is a positive in more ways than one. Of course - the first is the safety issue. Saving the lives of the soldiers.

But the second benefit is that these soldiers are not in theatre. Thus they can go home to their families, they have deep resources for any type of counselling their jobs may cause them to seek.

Lastly - and an often overlooked positive - is that keeping them out of a hot zone reduces stress and the "vengeance" syndrome. A strike is carried out by someone not in the zone, not under constant, 24/7 combat pressure. That alone makes the decisions have an additional safety factor. A officer on the ground, having just gotten shot at, might choose to risk civilian casualties to take out a suspected bad guy. A guy sitting in a building safe and sound with all the intel and a line to the big dogs handy can often make a "safer" decision.

Neither will be right 100% of the time - but taking the "hot" stress out of the decision means less civilian casualties.

[PeriscopeDepth]

Drones with missiles are perhaps the best weapon in the targeted killings against "leadership targets". Just 10 years ago we were looking at a minimum of what, 2-4 hours from approval to shoot TLAMs from a platform in the Indian Ocean to impact somewhere in Afghanistan/Pakistan. Now it's more like ten minutes from the drone. And the intel is way more solid not relying on locals with radios any more. And collateral, while still present, goes from what comes with a half ton warhead to a hellfire.

PD

[TarJak]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

Actually - having the "crew" back in the US is a positive in more ways than one. Of course - the first is the safety issue. Saving the lives of the soldiers.

But the second benefit is that these soldiers are not in theatre. Thus they can go home to their families, they have deep resources for any type of counselling their jobs may cause them to seek.

Lastly - and an often overlooked positive - is that keeping them out of a hot zone reduces stress and the "vengeance" syndrome. A strike is carried out by someone not in the zone, not under constant, 24/7 combat pressure. That alone makes the decisions have an additional safety factor. A officer on the ground, having just gotten shot at, might choose to risk civilian casualties to take out a suspected bad guy. A guy sitting in a building safe and sound with all the intel and a line to the big dogs handy can often make a "safer" decision.

Neither will be right 100% of the time - but taking the "hot" stress out of the decision means less civilian casualties.

The big kicker is that they don't get theatre pay either.

[CaptainHaplo]

I can see not paying them the Theatre offset.

Whats more in question - do they get the combat adjustment?

I would suspect not.

There should be SOME offset since it truly is more than a "video game training session".

[MothBalls]

So I wonder how long before someone decides a computer can fly the drones better than a human can. Eventually both sides will have computerized weapons, and soldiers and pilots will be removed from the battlefield.

This scenario reminds me of an old Star Trek Episode:

A Taste of Armageddon
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708414/plotsummary

On a mission to establish diplomatic relations, Kirk and Spock beam down to the planet to learn that its inhabitants have been at war with a neighboring planet for over 500 years. They can find no damage and no evidence of destruction. They soon learn that the war is essentially a war game where each planet attacks the other in a computer simulation with the victims voluntarily surrendering themselves for execution after the fact.

You can watch the episode on veoh:
http://www.veoh.com/collection/CBS-S...438381qXfQZhcF

[SteamWake]

Originally Posted by MothBalls

So I wonder how long before someone decides a computer can fly the drones better than a human can. Eventually both sides will have computerized weapons, and soldiers and pilots will be removed from the battlefield.

This scenario reminds me of an old Star Trek Episode:

A Taste of Armageddon
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708414/plotsummary


You can watch the episode on veoh:
http://www.veoh.com/collection/CBS-S...438381qXfQZhcF

I remember that one. The kicker was no one knew why the war had started in the first place.

[Ilpalazzo]

Originally Posted by MothBalls

This scenario reminds me of an old Star Trek Episode:

A Taste of Armageddon
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708414/plotsummary
Quote:
On a mission to establish diplomatic relations, Kirk and Spock beam down to the planet to learn that its inhabitants have been at war with a neighboring planet for over 500 years. They can find no damage and no evidence of destruction. They soon learn that the war is essentially a war game where each planet attacks the other in a computer simulation with the victims voluntarily surrendering themselves for execution after the fact.
You can watch the episode on veoh:
http://www.veoh.com/collection/CBS-S...438381qXfQZhcF

I saw that one. That was a great episode. Imagine how lame that would be in real life. Awww shooot. They got us. Ok they estimate that we lost about a million that time. Line up and step into the incinerator.

whoops bad quote. Thanks