The Drone Wars

[Dowly]

Surprising indeed. Wouldnt there be issues with lag? Not a big lag, but surely there must be somekind of delay between orders being received by the drone and info being received by the operator?

[SteamWake]

Well its not like they are dogfighting, there just cruising around at 10,000 feet dropping bombs on bad guys.

[Platapus]

And not all that different from long range artillery or the more modern stand-off air to surface weapons we have.

We are moving the fighter further from the fighting. This may be a good idea or a bad idea.

On one hand it is good to make it easy for the military member to kill the enemy.

On the other hand is it good to make it easy for the military member to kill the enemy?

Especially when it is not always the enemy that ends up being killed.

[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.