Drone Drivers

[GoldenRivet]

Well... truth to that indeed, but in the old days they would have sent in these to hit that building where the truck was initially parked.

[Weiss Pinguin]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

Well... truth to that indeed, but in the old days they would have sent in these to hit that building where the truck was initially parked.

Nah, more than likely a couple of these:

[Oberon]

Heh, if it were Bomber Harris he'd have sent a fleet of these:



And taken out the truck, the building next to it, the building next to that, and about five blocks around it.

C'est la guerre

At least strategic bombing in its WWII form is a thing of the past.

[Skybird]

That is the one, polished side of the coin. The other is this:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...8314-4,00.html

The unmanned assassin can fly for more than 20 hours and kill at lightning speed. But they are not always reliable. According to official reports, 38 Predator and Reaper drones have crashed while on combat missions in both Afghanistan and Iraq, while a further nine have crashed during test flights on military bases in the US. Each crash costs the government between $3.7 million (€2.8 million) and $5 million.

The US Department of Defense accident reports show that system failures, computer glitches and human errors are common occurrences during drone missions. It seems that serious problems were ignored because of the need for the drones to be deployed as quickly as possible. The new weapon was urgently in demand following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and the hasty start of the invasion of Afghanistan.

"The drones were not ready for going into combat," says Travis Burdine, manager of the Air Force Unmanned Aircraft Systems Task Force. "We had no time to iron out the problems." Burdine's statement is backed up by reports in the war logs. Indeed, the quiet killers seem to have a lot of defects.

Before we have fully automatted combat drones that not onyl do recce missions and ground attacks, but one day maybe also fly against enemy fighterplanes, many more years will pass by. They are no wonder-weapon, and possibly never will be.

I am not against drones in principle. I am just not enthusiastic about them, and I am against fielding them when they are in a state where their technology still is not reliable even in normal flight conditions, not even mentioning combat situations.

Other reports in that set of leaked documents seem to hint at the igh number of occasions when drone intel was unreliable, or led to misidentification of targets or bad targetting, resulting in aimed killing of civilians/non-combatants. the number of incidents when civilians/non-combatants ket intentionally targetted, obviously is much, much higher in Afghanistan than has become known to Wetsern public and media in the past years.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Skybird

but one day maybe also fly against enemy fighterplanes, many more years will pass by.

They already have with limited results. IIRC in one incident the MiG failed to hit the drone because it was so slow and the Drone miss with its missile. The second the MiG got the drone.

The new Reapers can carry AIM-9 sidewinders in addition to their air to ground stores.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

They already have with limited results. IIRC in one incident the MiG failed to hit the drone because it was so slow and the Drone miss with its missile. The second the MiG got the drone.

The new Reapers can carry AIM-9 sidewinders in addition to their air to ground stores.

Yes, but that is experimental so far. Before they dare to fly these thing sin regular war scenarios aginst enemy bombers that would threaten own troops if the drones fail, or navigate them with civilian traffic close by, sokme more years of developement are needed. Like the drones in Afghanistan: they do their job, but not always, and the failure rate is quite high, for my taste. as the article says, they got fielded although their develoepment still is not competed - they got fielded too early, in other words, that'S why there are so many losses of drones.

I would not like to sit in a civilian airplane if aircombat drones are flying in the area. Considering the hugh density of air traffic in some modern parts fot he world, reliability must be the major concern in drone technology. Especially if the technology is aiming at shooting down planes. Here again the leaked documents teach a lesson on ground attack drones. Obviously they cause much higher civilian losses, and on more opportunities, than gets known to the public. and due to the sensible technology and the unreliable deletion procedures of sensible data in the drone's computer brain, each time one of them goes down means that own troops must be put at risk to retrieve them, inviting the enemy for setting up ambushes.

I suspect the drone war option still is not as shiny an option as the military wants to make us believe. It is the future, most liekly, and yes, it has advanatges already now. But there are deficits, costs and unreliabilities as well.

[TLAM Strike]

I would not want to be in a Civilian aircraft when any air combat is going on whether it be between drones and manned jets or jets and jets. The surveillance and targeting systems of current drones are just about equal to what is found on current manned aircraft (Some cases better with ones equipped with ISAR). Only real diffrence is that the manned jet has a guy looking at the picture on a 5x5" screen while the guy flying the drone has a nice 26" monitor.

Reliably is a problem yes. That can be solved by either increasing the quality of drones (work out the bugs) or increase the number of drones.

I think our drones really need a "Self Destruct" for when they go down. Screw retrial. Remember the Probe Droid in The Empire Strikes Back? No Stormtroops when looking for him/it. It was comprised so it destroyed its self beyond salvage- useful in a war zone.