The Last Manned Fighter?
Mike Mullen thinks the F-35 may be the last manned fighter. Various stakeholders don’t like that idea, but Robert Farley thinks it’s right:
I guess I’m with Mullen; there are currently jobs that manned warplanes can do that drones can’t perform (human pilots are more visually capable than even the best drones, for example), but a) drones are getting better, b) drones are so much cheaper, and c)taking the pilot out means that you can do a lot of funky, interesting things with an advanced airframe. This isn’t to say that the F-35 (or even the F-22) have no role; they’ll continue to be useful frames for the jobs they’re intended to do for a substantial period of time. But I don’t think there’s a next “next generation” of fighter aircraft. And in any case, it appears that the A-10 will remain the platform of choice for fighting the giant robots that undoubtedly will afflict us in the future…
I’m with Farley on this. The point about cost savings is not totally intuitive and I don’t think it’s widely appreciated in the broader political/policy universe at this point but it’s extremely compelling. Given the long-term budget outlook it’s going to be really vital to start taking a real look at ways to get more bang for our defense buck and shifting to more reliance on unmanned aircraft is a very appealing way of accomplishing that goal. The cost differential is large enough that drones don’t need to be “as good” as human pilots before the fact that you could just have a bunch more of them starts to weigh more heavily.
72 Responses to “The Last Manned Fighter?”
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July 9th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
The defense budget will NEVER be rationalized. Congress would vote to eliminate Social Security before killing manned fighter planes.
July 9th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
How much of this analysis is based on the fact that all of the U.S.’s recent wars have been against third world countries or non-state entities that didn’t have the technology to jam, let alone subvert, communications between the drone and the operator?
Because that might or might not be the case for the U.S.’s *future* wars, if any.
P.S. Another interesting question: can a drone be built to withstand more G-forces than a pilot? If so, what effect if any does that have on its uses?
July 9th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Honest question — are unmanned aircraft more likely (mission being equal) to cause collateral casualties than putting a pilot in the plane?
If so, wouldn’t that constitute a strategic reason to continue using and making manned air bombers?
July 9th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Actually the Navy is well on its way in developing a carrier-based, un-manned attack aircraft. The Navy doesn’t seem to be resisting this the way the Air Force has been.
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/12/navy_x47b_121708w/
I don’t know if the F-35 will be the last, but it’s coming soon.
And to answer at #2 – yes drones can withstand higher g-forces than a pilot can. That’s another one of their advantages.
July 9th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Funky? Interesting? I’m sure that’s just what the mountain villagers are thinking when the drones appear on the horizon.
July 9th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
When the B25 was designed/built/used during WWII, Doolittle’s raid on Tokyo necessitated the B25 taking from aircraft carriers (which it wasn’t intended to do, but could) – however the B25 was not designed to LAND on them. So all the planes were ditched in the ocean, pilots picked up, and returned home. The raid didn’t destroy much of Japan’s industry but it put the Japanese on notice that their homeland was not impregnable
Imagine the strategies that we could invent when we don’t have to worry about the pilots….
July 9th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
But haven’t you seen Top Gun? Fighter pilots rule!
July 9th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
One day a drone will shoot down a manned fighter and the whole world will change. I want it to be a US drone and an enemy fighter.
July 9th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
And remember just how miraculous it is that the A10 wasn’t allowed to be killed off years ago.
July 9th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
I agree with Chris (#2). Drones will be the answer for the wars we’re fighting now. Whether they’ll be the answer against a technologically capable foe we’ll find out the hard way.
July 9th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
A friend of mine works in the drone industry. He has told me, just matter-of-factly, that the last generation of manned combat aircraft is being designed now.
July 9th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Why are drones limited to just flying things? What about drone ships? Drone submarines? Drone tanks, anyone? And finally drone soldiers. The day is not far when our geek-controlled drone army conquers the world without spilling one drop of blood.. American blood, that is.
July 9th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
A friend of mine works in the drone industry. He has told me, just matter-of-factly, that the last generation of manned combat aircraft is being designed now.
So what you’re saying is, he’s hyping his own employer? Not that that’s never unreliable or anything…
July 9th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
JMG @1, Campesino @4, right @7: You all have pieces of the puzzle. The current top brass in the Air Force got their start as fighter pilots, so manned fighter programs will be kept going longer than rational. I also agree with Jim @8, and hope that it doesn’t take a bunch of U.S. losses to end the program.
July 9th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Until someone proves conclusively that interfering with the communication between drones and controllers is a technological impossibility, I’m not buying any of it. However, it is about time we got some full-sized drones flying so we can find out.
July 9th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Drones = netbooks?
July 9th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
And drones are not limited to ~9g maneuvers.
But good luck flying that past the Air Force brass. They’re all ex-fighter jocks.
July 9th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
The thing about drones is that they’re cheaper since they don’t have all the materials invested in keeping the pilot alive. Then, since you don’t have a pilot, you also don’t mind much when you lose one. So they’re even cheaper because they can afford to be less survivable. So that makes it much easier to overwhelm your opponent with numbers. It’s a pretty obvious direction to go. But I’m surprised these defense contractors are so unenthusiastic since I doubt the total budget will be dropping.
July 9th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
@Ashok
Most Doolittle pilots wound up in China. Some didn’t make it home. But your broader point is well-taken.
July 9th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
As long as the drones look like this and the Chairman of the JCS walks around in a black cape.
Also, all of our admirals need to change their names to Afrikaaner-sounding ones, and speak in Received Pronunciation.
The best thing about this is that the Neocons who want us to be an Empire would fall over themselves to support this, ensuring the demise of expensive toys for the seminarians of Colorado Springs.
July 9th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Until someone proves conclusively that interfering with the communication between drones and controllers is a technological impossibility, I’m not buying any of it.
I think the solution is that drones would be capable of some degree of autonomy, cue obvious Terminator joke. Jamming a signal, however that works, wouldn’t matter if the thing had been programmed with the coordinates to drop bombs on before it left the ground. There’s still a risk of something sending false signals and countermanding the drone’s orders, but that’s no easier to do to a drone than to a manned machine. Peace on earth/Purity of essence.
July 9th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
The only way the U.S. goes to all unmanned fighter planes is if we develop effective, high capacity space based weaponry.
We have experience with enemies developing alliances in North and South America. Think Cuban missile crisis is such an example.
History repeats itself. We just saw a redux of 1929 in the 2008 Wall Street implosion. State actors are spending more on arms, China, Russia and India.
July 9th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
The controls on state of the art aircraft is fly-by-wire anyway.
Sooo….
Top Gun?
July 9th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
I think drones should look like this.
July 9th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
The primary obstacle to development of fighter drones is coming up with some way to convince hot blonds to screw computer game players.
Which in turn requires a way to ensure that an Air Force Captain guiding a Global Hawk all day doesn’t put on 40 pounds or so.
You will Need some tanning beds as well.
July 9th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
The stopping point preventing drones from being used was the inability to have remote human operation. The current status of computers, radios, and telemetry makes drones human-operable.
Why put the pilot in the plane when you can put the pilot in your base? This is in fact how the best modern drones operate; and it eliminates *most* of the increased danger of “collateral damage”.
Jamming’s a serious issue; proper design would generally cause a safe abort on jamming. Keeping a fairly short distance from the operators is the usual first response to that. Hacking into drone controls can now be prevented by proper secure design. (Who knows if the US military actually uses secure design, of course.)
July 9th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
If the drones had the right communications equipment it would be extremely hard jam them.
July 9th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
This is only true if you don’t count the cold war, which is probably a more accurate baseline for future great power struggles then WWII (which is the basis for all these air superiority doctrine fighters). Struggles between great powers are unlikely to be decided by air superiority fighters.
Are there conceivable situations where such a fighter would be useful? Sure, and Lockheed would love it if that was our standard for justifying half trillion dollar projects, but I’m a long way from convinced it’s in our national interest.
July 9th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
Midland is correct, you need a unbreakable link between the operator and drone. China just shot down a satellite. This alone will warrant the need for manned fighter jets but it does not rule out drones in an air to air role.
July 9th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
AIRCRAFT INSANITY!
Now, during (WWI) World War One, they started out with bi-planes that carried a (2) two man crew, (1)One guy flew the crate, the other guy had a machine gun. Well that cost fuel and (2) Two dead at a time when they were shot down. So, the Germans came up with a better idea, a machine gun that fired rounds between the propellers and they didn’t shot themselves down, lowered the cost in fuel and lives.
Then came the Nam so what did these idiots do, put (2) two crew members in a fighter once again more instruments and more fuel, and the (NVA) North Vietnamese were getting two for the price of one. The MIG’s never have more than one pilot.
Then leave it up to the brains in the Empires Aircraft Manufacturing Industry to come up with another brilliant idea a Space Shuttle with what (7) Seven at a time to lose and sure enough we lose them (7) Seven at a clip, we act like we are sorry about their loss and just send more up in aging craft, WITH NO PLANS TO REPLACE THEM in sight, Cost you know.
So, now these super nut engineers are going to have unmanned aircraft and how are they going to be controlled by computer of course, and we have what Iran, North Korea, and only a Diety would know Hackers just Hacking away just for the fun of it into every so called no hackable site their little hearts desire. And, what happens when they hack into one of these non hackable Aircraft without a pilot, with a fully armed weapons system? Does anyone remember the Movie War Games?
July 9th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Also, all of our admirals need to change their names to Afrikaaner-sounding ones, and speak in Received Pronunciation.
The three Imperial admirals whose names we learned in the original three movies were Motti (”You don’t frighten us with your sorcer’s ways, Lord Vader.”), Ozzel (choked by Vader), and Piett (replaced Ozzel). Other than Piett, I’m not sure how “Afrikaaner-sounding” those are.
July 9th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Actually the Navy is well on its way in developing a carrier-based, un-manned attack aircraft. The Navy doesn’t seem to be resisting this the way the Air Force has been.
Except the surface Navy itself is quickly becoming obsolete. It’s my understanding that long-range missiles can be fired from shore with such accuracy that all boats on the water are sitting ducks. The future Navy is subsurface. We need submarine-based un-manned attack aircraft.
July 9th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Few points.
#1 As noted, these days drones are generally remote control, with autonomy limited to autopilot.
#2 AI progress is much slower than we’d expect, full autonomy or high-level commanding is very far off.
#3 An enemy “hacking” our drones and taking control of them is essentially impossible.
#4 It would be possible to interrupt our commands to drones, although it would be very difficult.
$5 As noted by Yglesias, we can use a *lot* of drones to counter command interruption.
#6 The lifecycle costs associated with pilots are gigantic:
a. Pilots have college degrees->higher salaries and recruitment costs
b. Pilots are officers->higher training costs
c. Flying requires specialized training->higher training costs
d. Pilots receive benefits-> retirement, funeral, death benefits
e. Pilots require rescue->operations expenses
f. Pilots require food & housing-> logistics expenses
g. Pilots get tired,can’t work all day->expense multiplier.
#7 The costs associated with drones are high during development/design/R&D/procurement, but manufacture and maintenance costs are minimal
So to conclude. Drones are the future of military technology. Autonomous drones, are a long way off. They may not be available in our lifetimes, but as autonomy increases, costs in #6 will decrease.
July 9th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
BEHIND THE CURVE (THE NAVY)
Now, prior to (WWII) World War Two, the one after the one to end all wars, they had some German Battle Ships they wanted to sink and the boys from the Navy were going to use them as target practice, but there was this guy who had been watching the Japanese, and he figured that he could do a better job of sinking those German Battle Ships and sure enough thats just what the boy did, a kid called Billy Mitchell, did he get a promotion, NO, he got a Courts Marshall, you can’t be showing up those Zero’s in the Wardroom you know all blue blood types. And, what happened Pearl Harbor.
We forgot Korea and the straight wing Star Fighter now there was a get target plane for the Sweep Winged MIG-17.
Two good old boys in South Carolina got the Empire into the era of flight and since then the Empire has pretty much been behind the curve. Who invented the Helicopter? The Russians, Who has the largest Plane in sevice? The Russians! Who has the largest Water Tanker in the World? The Russians! Who is India and other countries buying aircraft from? The Russians! Who was first in space? The Russians!
Sorry, not impressed with The Empire when it comes to its record in Flight, it seems to always be a day late and a dollar shy. Unmanned Bad Idea!
July 9th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
#3 An enemy “hacking” our drones and taking control of them is essentially impossible.
IMPOSSIBLE! It is impossibe to leave a point on the globe walk to the right and return to the same point from the left, go around the world its flat, to that was impossible.
IMPOSSIBLE! The Sun travels around the Earth, you any other theory is IMPOSSIBLE!
IMPOSSIBLE! to talk to someone thru a wire, Come Here Watson I Need You! IMPOSSIBLE!
An enemy “hacking” our drones and taking control of them is essentially impossible. (You Want to Bet on that)?
July 9th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
Plus, going all-drone allows the military to market some killer video game simulators, training entire generations of kids to “fly” them from the ground with a joystick. At a profit!
July 9th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Except the surface Navy itself is quickly becoming obsolete. It’s my understanding that long-range missiles can be fired from shore with such accuracy that all boats on the water are sitting ducks. The future Navy is subsurface. We need submarine-based un-manned attack aircraft.
No! You have to have a Navy, it can be a stink boat sailors Navy, but you have to have a Navy, someone has to deliver the Marine Bullet catchers, Tanks and equiptment to those countries that the Empire needs the raw materials that it needs for its market economy. And Stink Boats don’t come in the Flat Bottom Type. Besides you have to have something for the Bubble heads to do, sit under the Bird Farms, and run fore, aft, starboard and port patrol fast attack duty.
Those Blue and Gold Crews need a purpose, and you can’t launch fighters from stink boats. You got to understand that without the Navy you would not had (FDR) Secretary of the Navy, or Senator Kerry Brown Water Navy, or third Generation Navy Johnny McCain.
Give the Navy a break there are SIX girls to every one Sailor in port, somebody has got to do it, and its the Navy to the rescue, arriving in Brazil with a pier of NOTHING BUT WOMEN! Its was hard to deal with but, in the Navy!
July 9th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
I don’t see the communications thing as a slam-dunk argument against drones. Yeah, maybe drones are slightly more vulnerable to such an attack (although I’m not exactly sure how effective manned fighters would be for very long if you jammed all their communications). But manned fighters are more vulnerable to other attacks, like fast-turning (aka high-g) missiles. But no one is saying things like:
In other words, “impossible” isn’t really the standard, with merely “difficult” often having to suffice.
July 9th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
I don’t see the communications thing as a slam-dunk argument against drones. Yeah, maybe drones are slightly more vulnerable to such an attack (although I’m not exactly sure how effective manned fighters would be for very long if you jammed all their communications). But manned fighters are more vulnerable to other attacks, like fast-turning (aka high-g) missiles. But no one is saying things like:
OK! I will buy into that DIFFICULT does not mean IMPOSSIBLE, but they over-ride my como, they don’t over-ride my brain, a missle is mindless, thats when you head for the deck, a missle heading toward the sea is hard to turn out of its dive, and over land, tree top flight is a pilots advantage, its a game of Chess a Master against a drone. Pilots cost money, so ONE TO AN AIRCRAFT! Do I want Drone Aircraft flying hundreds of people in an out of airport, NO thank you it bad enough when one with pilots drops into the neighborhood or one with a fighter lands in your community do to bad judgements.
Manned fighter attacks with Drones attack weapons in the formation, a mixed bag unit now that would work the enemy gains control of a drone the manned fighter can take it down. Mixed Bag Operations would work, Solo Ops, not comfortable with that idea.
July 9th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
Mind you, if you’re not that fussy then a generation in fighter terms can be quite a long time even without game changers like drones. Australia is just about to phase out the F-111, which we originally ordered in 1965 and which entered service in 1967. It’s still good enough to take down any airforce other than the Americans and the Europeans. That’s a 43-year lifespan, which would take the F35 to 2049, time for another 21 iterations of Moore’s Law and four years after the Singularity, which might itself affect the issue.
July 9th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Mind you, the turnover time for modern fighters isn’t necessarily that fast. Next year Australia is retiring its last F111, the first of which came into service in 1967 – that’s a 43-year lifespan, which would take the F35 to 2049, four years past the Singularity, drones or no drones.
July 9th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
fighter jets are highly overrated be they manned or remote operated
July 9th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
The point about cost savings is not totally intuitive and I don’t think it’s widely appreciated in the broader political/policy universe at this point but it’s extremely compelling.
I think it’s probably pretty intuitive to anyone whose played, say, Starcraft. S’all about producing a million guys and throwing them at the opponent, disrupting their production, etc. And you can’t produce a million guys if they don’t come cheap…
July 9th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
its a game of Chess a Master against a drone.
Perhaps an unfortunate analogy, given how things are going in the human versus computer chess matches these days.
a mixed bag unit now that would work
So if the first thing that happens in a conflict between such units, or a conflict between such a unit and an all-drone unit, is that the drones kill all the manned fighters, that will be the end of that.
July 9th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
By the way, although I understand the point about entrenched resistance in the U.S. armed forces, eventually even the 1st Cavalry Division gave up the horses.
July 9th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Give the Navy a break there are SIX girls to every one Sailor in port, somebody has got to do it, and its the Navy to the rescue, arriving in Brazil with a pier of NOTHING BUT WOMEN! Its was hard to deal with but, in the Navy!
Okay, calm down. Don’t break into a Village People song or anything.
No! You have to have a Navy, it can be a stink boat sailors Navy, but you have to have a Navy, someone has to deliver the Marine Bullet catchers, Tanks and equiptment to those countries that the Empire needs the raw materials that it needs for its market economy. And Stink Boats don’t come in the Flat Bottom Type. Besides you have to have something for the Bubble heads to do, sit under the Bird Farms, and run fore, aft, starboard and port patrol fast attack duty.
I agree that we’ll need some transport ships, but those are much cheaper and easier to build than aircraft carriers. You’re right that a drastic reduction in surface warships would mean a drastic reduction of Bubble heads needed. We could give the jarheads to the Army and teach them to jump out of airplanes and turn the Navy into the Coast Guard. That would save a ton of money.
July 9th, 2009 at 10:15 pm
fighter jets are highly overrated be they manned or remote operated
I have to wonder if a former general of the Iraqi or Syrian air forces would agree with you. They seem to have worked out pretty well for their foes. The whole “air superiority” doctrine touted by the Air Force is way over blown, but that doesn’t it’s all worthless.
I have a feeling that manned fighter jets will be around for a long time. In the ’50s they were predicting “push-button wars” by the time we know live in. Who’s doing do the fighting now? Twenty year-old kids with assault rifles in the slums of Sadr City, that’s who. Not too much different than Hue in ‘68 when you get down to it. They may have advanced communications, infra-red goggles and gunships to help them out, but it’s hard to take the human element out of war.
July 9th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
By the way, although I understand the point about entrenched resistance in the U.S. armed forces, eventually even the 1st Cavalry Division gave up the horses.
Yes! Around 1935, so never loose hope in the Army waking up to find out how hopelessly out of touch they are!
Fun factoid:
There were still cavalry units in the Phillipines when the Japanese invaded in 1941, so the last U.S. Army cavalry battle (more like a skirmish) occurred midway into the 20th Century. Pretty amazing when you think about it.
July 9th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
I’d wager that a ‘drone army’ would almost certainly usher in an era of nuclear proliferation.
What other recourse would most nations have? You can’t win a war by killing enough of the enemies soldiers anymore. You would have to win by nuking the other sides civilian populations to such a degree that they would no longer be capable of making drones.
I never thought it would be nukes themselves that really did in humanity. Instead, it will be a dozen other technologies that force humanity to use nuclear weapons. There is no such thing as war without death or bloodshed. Every attempt to obtain such a possibility using the overwhelming power of technology has just resulted in ever greater amounts of bloodshed. a War without humans would be the end of humanity.
July 9th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
There’s one obvious advantage to not having a pilot. You don’t have to keep the pilot alive. In theory, we could make planes that do 20G turns. The problem is it would kill the pilot. Without the pilot, we can make our planes perform much better. We also wouldn’t have to supply oxygen at high altitudes. There was a time when control systems couldn’t match the performance of a human being. But we’re past that now. As an added benefit, you can do Kamikaze missions and don’t have to worry about whether the pilot will actually do it.
July 9th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
I never thought it would be nukes themselves that really did in humanity. Instead, it will be a dozen other technologies that force humanity to use nuclear weapons.
I really wish I could think of a more sarcastic way to phrase this, but aren’t you just passing the buck here? I mean, you’re saying that everyone else is wrong to fear nuclear weapons, they should actually fear the stuff that will inevitably lead to nuclear weapons just because they will lead to nuclear weapons? Well, OK then.
July 10th, 2009 at 12:47 am
So if the first thing that happens in a conflict between such units, or a conflict between such a unit and an all-drone unit, is that the drones kill all the manned fighters, that will be the end of that.
So if the first thing that happens in a conflict between such units, or a conflict between such a unit and an all-drone unit, is that a basic EMP pulse or jamming signal renders all the drones inoperative, that will be the end of that.
Automated control systems for various vehicles, machines, etc., have been speculated about, developed, and even used for a couple of centuries. They seldom take over completey from humans because that incredibly complex human sensor system and that infinitely adaptable software package packed in the human cerebrum are better than any general purpose back-up control system we’ve been able to create.
I will point out that, while Billy Mitchell was correct in thinking that the right airplane with the right bombs could sink a battleship, every other Big Idea he had about aerial warfare was dead wrong.
1) Mitchell got control of the American planes supporting the Argonne offensive in 1918 and became the first “strategic bombing” fanatic to seriously hinder an American army on the battlefield. Outraged American doughboys saw American planes so rarely that they habitually shot at every plane in the sky, trying to get a jump on the Germans who were freely strafing and bombing them every day. Mitchell sent all of his planes after “strategic” targets in the German rear areas, where they accomplished little by way of supply interdiction and hindered the Germany bombers even less.
2) Mitchell thought that a fleet of big horizontal bombers would be the key to cheaply defending the United States against foreign invaders. By the end of 1942 the Army Air Force realized that high or low level horizontal bombing was useless against ships in motion. The B-17s serving in the Pacific were sent to Europe and the B-24s that replaced them were utilized entirely against land targets.
3) Mitchell and the other air power advocates who followed him have spent oceans of blood and treasure over the last 90 years trying to show that strategic bombing could defeat a competent, committed enemy power on its own, with only nominal help from other services. Never happened, probably never will.
4) Mitchell’s concepts for strategic bombing involved building aircraft so powerful they could penetrate and defeat enemy defenses on their own. The B-17, the ultimate expression of this concept, was originally intended to make multiple attack runs over a target, dropping bombs one at a time until the target was destroyed. The arms race between bomber and defender never came close to being so far in the bombers favor, and no aircraft could have survived such a mission. Even operating en masse and dropping entire bombloads on one attack run, the B-17 could not accomplish its original mission. After losses in World War II bombing raids over Germany starting running to 10% per day, the 8th Air Force gave up on them for a time until better planes and better fighter protection could be organized.
The advantages of a well-made drone are likely to be substantial, but they are liable to be vulnerable to unforeseen hi-tech defensive for decades to come. We need to keep other options available.
July 10th, 2009 at 1:49 am
TRIATHLON is right. If we let machines fly our planes, then someday an insane old robot will run for president with a hooker-bot, just because he malfunctioned in flight.
July 10th, 2009 at 2:17 am
[...] it would reduce costs by reducing the number in manpower. But, I would caution anyone who thinks America’s wars will be fought by cyborgs or Rambots. That includes future aviation. The need for human intelligence, planning, expertise and decision [...]
July 10th, 2009 at 2:42 am
Hi:
And remember, Matt and all you war and killing lovers, drones can’t say “no”.
ab
July 10th, 2009 at 4:12 am
All these comments miss the point. The true discontinuous innovation is not drones, but anti-grav technology, which I suspect is already a reality.
July 10th, 2009 at 7:43 am
[...] that the aircraft companies and the Russians might have something to say about that and several of Matt Yglesias‘ commenters point out that the cultural affinity of the military, particularly the Air Force, [...]
July 10th, 2009 at 8:00 am
Drones have many advantages, but also significant vulnerabilities, so much so that we’d be foolish to rely on them exclusively. For example, if an enemy can jam the communication link between the drone and its ground controller, then it’s completely useless.
July 10th, 2009 at 8:22 am
In response to the earlier comment “By the way, although I understand the point about entrenched resistance in the U.S. armed forces, eventually even the 1st Cavalry Division gave up the horses.”
Kropotkin responded at 48:
“Yes! Around 1935, so never loose hope in the Army waking up to find out how hopelessly out of touch they are!”
———
Actually, the US Army Special Forces were riding to battle on horseback in Afghanistan in 2002. See “Horse Soldiers” by Doug Stanton at
http://www.amazon.com/Horse-Soldiers-Extraordinary-Victory-Afghanistan/dp/1416580514/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247228328&sr=1-1#reader
July 10th, 2009 at 8:33 am
The communications questions doesn’t kill drones but it makes them a a big pain in the ass to modern civilization. Drones take a huge amount of bandwidth to operate (and we won’t get fully automated drones until the drones literally are people). So this leads to war in space over communications satellites. Which leads to space being unusable for everybody due to all the shrapnel floating around.
Militarily this could be got around by using things like AWACs, but for the rest of the world life is not going to be as easy with no low orbit satellites.
July 10th, 2009 at 10:25 am
I suspect that the future of manned combat aircraft will be machines that are rather high-performance (see the Panavia Tornado) but not totally pushing the limit, but able to control several hyper-performance drones; the best stealth it might be noted is small size.
July 10th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Actually, the communications thing is an even bigger deal than I thought the first time. If a remote human operator is in the drone’s decision loop it has to maintain real-time *two-way* communication with the operator. This means it’s transmitting all the time, which makes it vulnerable to an anti-drone SAM that homes in on the telemetry signal. No such weapon exists today, but a technologically advanced opponent faced with a drone-using military would surely develop one.
Furthermore, the control site also has to transmit all the time, so you can forget about control from submarines (which are fragile and survive mainly by stealth). The vulnerability of surface ships has already been noted, so that leaves ground-based control. (Hopefully not mediated via satellite, see comment 29.)
Even assuming the human operators are in a hardened bunker, the antenna still needs to be on the surface, where it could potentially be knocked out by a bombing run, cruise missile, artillery, etc. – making the whole drone fleet inoperative until it is repaired. (A lot like what happens to the droid army at the end of Star Wars Episode I, in fact.) Centralized control makes *all* the drones vulnerable to an attack at the same one point.
For all the shortages of manned planes, everything needed to make real-time decisions is physically inside the plane, which gives it a lot fewer points of vulnerability.
July 10th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
The drones should look like this
July 10th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
The biggest barrier to drone deployment in the USAF is idiots posting blog comments under the impression that they understand the issues involved due to repeated re-reading of Red Storm Rising and re-watching of Wargames and Stealth.
As an example, look at all the people concerned about enemies ‘hacking’ the drones and taking control of them. Hint: it’s nearly trivial to make the drones hack-proof.
July 10th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
It’s almost impossible to jam communications signals nowadays, if the target is trying to avoid jamming. You can use frequency hopping, burst communication, complex waveforms and multiple forms of modulation to avoid interception. It’s hard to even intercept and identify such signals. Jamming requires doing so and broadcasting an appropriate jamming signal before the communications paradigm changes.
It becomes hard on a fundamental level. Given equal technology, the people communicating with the drone can alter the communication method just as fast as you can alter your jamming method, but you have the added delay of identifying the signal and formulating what the jamming signal will be.
Jamming isn’t impossible, but it does require a significant technological advantage.
July 10th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
As an example, look at all the people concerned about enemies ‘hacking’ the drones and taking control of them. Hint: it’s nearly trivial to make the drones hack-proof.
Hint: if you want to take part in a discussion like this as anything other than a troll, don’t piss on the opposition, make a coherent, informative argument like Njorl does.
If avoiding hacking, interference, and jamming is such a trivial problem, explain why this is so. And you better have a pretty strong argument, because there is a lot on the line, here.
July 10th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Midland: You’re really going to ding me for that and let TRIATHALON’s comments pass without, well, comment?
July 10th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
If we let machines fly our planes, then someday an insane old robot will run for president with a hooker-bot, just because he malfunctioned in flight.
But John McCain has already run for president, why is this anything new?
July 10th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
ropotkin responded at 48:
“Yes! Around 1935, so never loose hope in the Army waking up to find out how hopelessly out of touch they are!”
———
Actually, the US Army Special Forces were riding to battle on horseback in Afghanistan in 2002. See “Horse Soldiers” by Doug Stanton at
http://www.amazon.com/Horse-Soldiers-Extraordinary-Victory-Afghanistan/dp/1416580514/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247228328&sr=1-1#reader
Don, you are correct, I totally forgot about that.
July 10th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
Midland: You’re really going to ding me for that and let TRIATHALON’s comments pass without, well, comment?
Sorry, I started to read his stuff and skipped over it when I realized he was typing stoned out of his gourd.
I should point out that, not only are horse cavalry still useful today in close terrain, they were effectively used by the Poles, Germans, Soviets, Yugoslavs, Japanese, Chinese, and French armies in World War II.
July 11th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Well, ok, that’s fair.
Njorl already handled the jamming issue. The control security issue basically comes down to ‘cryptography works’.
It’s possible that, if they were designed by very, very stupid engineers, we could end up with drones that are vulnerable to being ‘taken over’. And given the track record of the US’ military industrial complex, I suppose I have to admit that there’s a real concern there. But the solution isn’t ‘no drones’, the solution is ‘reform the military industrial complex, because if we don’t, we won’t get any solution that works’.
July 11th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
Njorl already handled the jamming issue. The control security issue basically comes down to ‘cryptography works’.
Yo. I also wanna hear about source jamming, end jamming, EMP, sensor quality, sensor blinding, transmission lapse time, AI adaptability, etc. It seems obvious that you should be able to build a drone aircraft that could outfly a piloted aircraft, but match the mental agility of a human pilot in real time, with electronics that can’t be tripped up by cheap interference processes?
The whole electronic warfare thing has been going on for 105 years and nothing ever seems to work as magically as its inventors think it will. Of course, for the past half century, every speculation about AI and and electronic mimicking of neural systems has been either dead wrong or off for decades at a crack. Remember how, for all those years, people kept thinking chess programs were going to teach us something about AI? And it turned out that software for running Dungeons & Dragons computer games actually had more to do with actual cognitive process? There ain’t anything certain in this field, not even close to it.
But the solution isn’t ‘no drones’, the solution is ‘reform the military industrial complex, because if we don’t, we won’t get any solution that works’.
Yo, again.