/k/ - Weapons

Hell, I question the use of bombers too if you have a fleet of artillery ships/vehicles.

Drones are all well and good until someone takes down the satellite network in a real war.

>>672168

If that happens, fighter planes are fucked too though.

>>672169

Maybe but a plane with a pilot can still fly around and shoot and bomb stuff even if the guy in the cockpit doesn't have much of a bearing on what to hit. A drone on the other hand would just keep flying on it's last heading until it crashes.

>>672170

You can still remote control a drone without sat support.

>>672165

Fighters shoot down bombers and other fighters. They're not generally for recon. We have drones and other assets for that. Their missiles are stubby hellfires that are designed for helicopters. Aircraft missiles of various kinds are big fuckers that are designed to shoot down other aircraft and explode good when they hit things on the ground.

Now, consider what a fighter can do. Let's take the part where you gotta go fast. This is particularly important when you have to not get shot down by SAMs. You're flying at the speed of sound or better. Literally as fast as some pistol rounds fly out of the fucking barrel. Any amount of input lag is too much at this point. This is why we have pilots.

>>672165

A Reaper costs almost as much as an F-16C B50. A MiG-29 would probably be even cheaper.

The Reaper can carry four 100lbs ATGMs or a pair of 500lbs bombs. The F-16 can carry four 500lbs ATGMs, six 500lbs bombs or four 2000lbs bombs.

The Reaper is dead if it encounters even the most rudimentary of air defenses. The F-16 can hold its own against pretty much any other aircraft, flies high and fast enough to ignore AAA and MANPADS, and has a decent chance of evading heavier SAMs.

If the Reaper encounters competent ECM, it's effectively crew-killed and will probably either attempt to RTB or crash. If the F-16 encounters competent ECM, it's still capable of dropping bombs provided it can find its way to the target.

The first problem is fixable, but not without massively increasing costs. The other two are inherent weaknesses of UCAVs that probably won't be solved for decades to come.

>>672171

Signal jammers

>>672174

>Any amount of input lag is too much

>This is why we have pilots

For now. Talk to any pilot, and they'll tell you about how fast a computer can perform the same maneuvers they can. The only reason people are leery of AI controlling planes is the question of 'decision making.' Should AI wait on input from an outside observer before taking lethal action? As soon as someone says 'Yes,' then the game changes.

Electronics simply don't care about G-forces the same way a human body does. Doing constant flips and spins is just what they're designed to do - otherwise missiles wouldn't be able to function. A true cockpit-less aircraft could perform in ways no human ever could.

>>672176

Make the drone out of plywood and shrug if it gets shot down.

>Lower cost

>Fewer fucks

>More willingness to use

It's a perfect solution.

>>672181

Signal jammers emit signals. You can target that with a single pilot and clear the way for the superior drones.This is the entire idea behind HAARMs, although purposed for a different task.

>>672210

I'm dubious about how effective SEAD operations would be against anyone with tech parity.

>>672212

Then reduce tech parity.

>Everyone worried about rogue nations getting nuclear weapons

>Nukes have the capability of frying electronics and key infrastructure without a direct hit

>Terrorists can get into a country and wreck key points to reduce tech capabilities

>Large nations fall back on the tried and true nuclear option

>Capabilities required: 1950's technology and rocket science/physics knowledge

>Use of nuclear weapons as a deterrent renders this moot for large state actors

There is no reason for anyone with 'tech parity' to ever start a war in the first place. The end result is always nukes. Only crumbling empires like the United States would ever consider the idea.

>If I'm going down I'm taking you with me

>making the military even more lame and pussy-tier just because of muh costs and muh technology advancements

Boots on ground, pilots in aircraft, sailors in ships and gunpowder-based weapons are the peak of war. Lasers, gay turbo-super deluxe missiles and drones are faggot shit

>>672213

If the satellites are gone and you start using nukes the Em spectrum is going to be so saturated with junk emissions that you won't be able to remote pilot anything anyway. The other thing is when you launch an ICBM all bets are off because they have no idea at what altitude it's going to detonate so they have to treat it as a first strike. I still think drones will never replace manned vehicles unless they become fully automated and that's still a big no no for obvious reasons.

>>672216

>All bets are off when nukes are used

That's kind of the point. Nothing else matters in that instance. If a rogue state gets a nuclear power to respond with nukes, they have already won due to MAD (just because you said you're shooting at the rogue nation with nukes, doesn't mean that it's true - you could target anyone in the area before they knew what was happening). It's also why I stated that large state actors simply won't attack each other, and that the only people concerned with bringing down technological parity are terrorists and rogue nations. The people with 1950's nukes already have the weapons to end all wars, and the 1950's were pretty damn primitive in comparison to today.

>>672176

>A Reaper costs almost as much as an F-16C B50. A MiG-29 would probably be even cheaper.

A russian reaper probably would be even cheaper.

>If the Reaper encounters competent ECM, it's effectively crew-killed and will probably either attempt to RTB or crash. If the F-16 encounters competent ECM, it's still capable of dropping bombs provided it can find its way to the target.

Sound like complete bullshit. An F-16 pilot is just as blind as the RC controller if it got ECM.

>>672218

ECM doesn't work against onboard fire control projection systems and the human eyeball.

>>672248

In all seriousness, how much do you see in the cockpit that isn't digital imaging?

>>672249

Half of everything. Wanna see more? Rock your wings and check out that view.

>>672250

In mach 5 or whatever?

I doubt that. In fact, I think he's gonna crash.

>>672251

>Aircaft

>Mach 5

>Rocking wings = nose towards mother earth

Bruh with this level of understanding why on earth do you think you're in a position to doubt anything?

>>672252

I'm not an aircraft man.

>>672253

Then why the fuck do you have a fucking opinion about something you have no clue about, you subhuman retard.

Goddamn it, I want to wring your fucking neck and drill out your eyeballs.

>>672256

I asked a question.

A QUESTION.

>>672257

THEN BE LESS RETARDED NEXT TIME YOU ASK A FUCKING QUESTION.

>>672258

Nothing wrong with asking a question, I want to learn.

>>672210

>g-force

from what i've read this seems to be the correct answer, because humans can only take that much before blacking out or even dying.

and that drones don't require to be built around the cockpit/life-support seemingly opening all kinds of physical configurations that would be otherwise impossible.

>>672214

i asked grudd and he says anything past a club is faggot shit.

my take on this is that the next big thing in drones will be kyriels.

there has been a number of civilian project revolving around this idea with "no real practical reason" for civilian use.

I may be retarded, but it seems fairly obvious as to whom could be benefitting from this and why.

>>672259

>not asking it in Questions That Don't Deserve Their Own Thread

>>672210

>>672264

Will we be able to fuck the plane AI?

>>672267

>restoring traditional Imperial Japan will bring us AI aircraft pilot qts

Make this true, Nip brothers.

>>672249

ECM isn't a magic anti-technology beam, all it can do is fuck with your radio, GPS and radar. INS and optical sensors are completely unaffected.

>>672272

OK, I concede on the point that human pilots would be more reliable in case of electronic warfare.

But electronic warfare doesn't happen all the times, so just use drone until you need human pilots? Human pilots cost more to train than a computer program.

>>672210

Its gonna be a REALLY long time to literally never depending on how right Newtonian physics are before better latency is made. The split second it takes for light to catch up to the drone with a vital command is life and death in a dogfight. This is why until they are made autonomous, which is a very risky thing indeed, they will only be good for shooting things on the ground.

>>672217

But all that means is drones are expensive paperweights in any real conflict.

>>672401

Define "real conflict".

If it's actually total war, nukes mean none of the aircraft mean shit.

>>672404

High intensity conventional conflict with someone of tech parity or close to it. Usually there's some actual shooting before everything goes nuclear. I really think drones at the moment are for policing goat herders from half a world away and maybe some recon but that's about it.

>>672406

And aircrafts nowadays are about bombing shit, that can be done with drones, missiles or artillery.

The only difference is that they don't cost as much as aircrafts.

>>672407

But aircraft aren't as reliant on advanced infrastructure that's the first to be taken out, is my point. Also aircraft have more utility than that and can be more versatile in the role of just bombing shit than a missile or artillery anyway.

>>672408

>But aircraft aren't as reliant on advanced infrastructure that's the first to be taken out, is my point.

Airfields are usually the second target to be bombed next to satellite. And a bombed airfield renders most aircraft hard to take off.

>Also aircraft have more utility than that and can be more versatile in the role of just bombing shit than a missile or artillery anyway.

Well, that's the question of this thread, what exactly does the aircraft can do that missile or artillery cannot do? I can only think of bomber escort.

>>672410

Deeper reach than arty and re-usability over a missile and other forms of strike options and again a drone is just as useless as an aircraft that can't take off but at least the aircraft can still be used once moved, you aren't replacing a sat network as easily as you're pushing your aircraft onto straight bits of road.

If we're talking fighters suppressing the enemy air power is the big one I can think of. I also wonder if aircraft might have better chance of penetrating defences than a cruise missile but then again some of the more modern ones have countermeasures and evasive abilities and they don't have to make a return trip. Then again you'd hit the same problems using missiles that you would with drones in that most of your guidance is going to be destroyed or jammed for much of the time.

>>672413

The point of an aircraft is to shoot missiles.

So might as well skip the middle man and use missiles.

>in that most of your guidance is going to be destroyed or jammed for much of the time.

So manned aircraft can still accomplish their highly precise bombing with just purely human eyeball? I doubt this.

>>672416

missiles have a range if you're passively waiting for them to come to you, you're letting your enemy have all the maneuvering room which is just bad practice.

>>672417

OK, thanks for the information, but this human element still means you waste millions on training the guy who pushes the button, and if the plane goes to waste, so does him.

>>672418

There is mobile missile launcher?

>>672420

Yes but you're not going to move a tracked missile platform into every flight lane as fast as they're opening them are you.

>>672421

I'm on VPN right now so excuse me.

But mobile missile launcher augmented by SAM sites are going to wonder about that.

The enemies can strike at many places, but their target is stationary, they are not going to strike random patches in the desert.

>>672422

Yes but now you're passive again and allows the enemy to fly in unmolested which allows them to focus on suppressing AA and getting the bombs away. I also want to point out I think a drone would have worse survival odds in this sort of strategic interdiction as well.

>>672423

From the lesson in the Vietnam war, even when the US air force literally clouds the sky, they cannot stop the ground force from massing SAM.

Yes, Soviet SAM might not be effective in stopping the actual bombing, but it's still gonna cause significant casualties in the bomber fleet, which cannot be readily replaced as SAM.

>>672424

yes but the soviets still provided air cover

>>672424

You should also take into account that bombing bits of jungle or small bridges in an attempt to cut supply lines isn't the same as having an industrial centre flattened. The Vietnamese were in no danger of running out of material supplied. It's just not strategically similar.

>>672267

>Then the air services of those two branches will compete with each other in every possible way

They didn't fly so good the last time they did that.

Because a single jammer truck renders them useless. They are only ever useful against unsuspecting enemies like syrians, dumb enemies like pakistan, and stone age enemies like afghanistan.

>>672210

>Signal jammers emit signals. You can target that with a single pilot and clear the way for the superior drones.

Yeah except signal jammers are cheaper than the drone or even the missile launched to take them out. It's literally just a generator hooked up to a satellite dish, you can make one in your garage. Also more sophisticated ones can create phantom signals for ARM to home in on and have a full suite of decoys as well.

>>672427

Well, Rolling Thunder is about bombing Hanoi and pretty much every major infrastructure in Vietnam.

>>672440

Which only works against a conventional army.

>>672450

The NVA was a conventional army and it didn't work against them.

Making rubbles does not disable an army.

>>672461

Don't need to dogfight you when they can just mass SAM.

Dogfighting is dead in the era of cheap and accurate missiles.

>>672463

>what is Terrain masking

The biggest reason is probably institutional inertia. Big militaries don't like change, especially when they're not losing a war. Some even resist it when losing. You have to redo all your logistics, training and so forth. Plus a lot of people's jobs will lose prestige so they don't like it. If a certain batch of drones happens to be shit and causes a major screw up, faggots will drag your ass through the mass and try to claim that you should've known drones in general are bad. Even though the problem was that specific model or whatever, retard public will crucify you because hurr ai scayree.

>planes capable of higher g maneuvers than pilots can handle

>electronics that take up less spaces than cockpit

>ability to transmit video and commands

>pussy pilots that would get demoralized by dying

>electronics that are cheaper than pilots to replace

Are all critical points where drones become better than manplanes. For fighters, the starting point should be a drone that knows basic maneuvers, so that instead of micromanaging every movement the remote pilot is just making high level strategic decisions. The pilot can pick a strategy like "boom and zoom" and the drone does it on its own. This way latency is less important and if the link is lost due to EMP, the drone is not helpless. Then gradually iterate and improve drones autonomy, until you get to the point where you just set up the mission parameters like you would in a briefing for pilots, and cut em loose.

Although why have drones when you can have missiles? For recon or support you obviously need something that loiters around, but for offense why not just make all drone kamikaze drones?

>>672176

That's kind of a dumb comparison since Reaper is not designed for F-16C's role. Nor could an F-16C do what the Reaper does. Reapers have 14h endurance for instance, can F-16C do that?

>>672611

>>pussy pilots that would get demoralized by dying

Has that ever happened? In World War 2 didn't airmen die every other day and they had to deal with it?

>>672611

>dude it's more efficient so let's use drones lmao

Imagine the day when wars boil down to pussy-tier pathetic and laughable video game matches. The country with more robots wins, not a single drop of blood, it's all just plastic, metal and batteries.

Disgusting. Wars need to be fought by men, not machines. Drones are for pussy faggots, aircraft need to have a human pilot inside of them.

>>672620

Meh, just put the man controlling the drone.

>>672616

In ww2 they also didn't have women, gays and sharp training in the military. But even if you invalidate that point, so what? There's still the other things I mentioned.

>>672620

I agree that it's not very poetic, but when has that stopped military progress? War is about beating the enemy, not making a pretty story. You can write all the pretty stories you want when the enemy is beaten, he won't be in any shape to contradict them.

If we're talking about about soft scifi settings here, sure, fuck drones. But if the discussion is actual future of war, of course it will take the most efficient path. Which is drones by a slight margin, but the margin will only get bigger as software improves but humans don't.

>>672266

>>672267

Digits say yes.

>>672401

Funny how that works…except most countries understand that already. That's why there are proxy wars. Going forward, the proxy wars will be China in Africa/Australia, Africans in Europe, and Mexicans in the US/Canada. That is where you will see drones operating, and they will all be used by nations that are 'nuke tier.' As long as the combatants are not in uniform, and no one has the will to actually use nukes, drones will remain in use.

Essentially, what >>672618 said.

>>672394

>>672461

Except as >>672264 agreed with, an AI can make those decisions past any human limitations. An aircraft making making 180 degree turns at 80g's will completely invalidate any human reaction speed, as humans will simply be unable to keep up. Have you ever seen an a fighting anime where one guy is simply so fast, that their opponent can only watch as they are beaten? That is the position humans will be vs. drones in the future. Human brains may register things faster, but they are made of chemicals, and chemical signals require the re-uptake of physical resources before they can act again. Drones simply generate heat in their circuits, and have to dump it. Dumping heat at Mach 10 is much easier for a drone than it is for humans to transport salts through their brains at the same speed. Humans are, simply put, physically limited.

>>672437

>Jammers are simple!

>Jams his own comms with wide band noise

Good job Jamal. You've won the war. For the enemy.

>They no longer even have to bomb your comms

>>672655

I'm sorry, guys at the top, the waifus are hostile.

>Embed

>>672210

>Make the drone out of plywood and shrug if it gets shot down.

OKAY TOJO CALM DOWN, WE ARN'T BUILDING KAMIKAZI PLANES

>>672723

Just put in landlines, also I never understood this idea that all national open confrontation is dead, just wait till someone high up enough reckons they have a viable ICBM shield.

>>672740

>>672745

Whoops. Sent the top one to the wrong guy.

>Apologies, no bump

>>672461

Try playing counter strike with bots on the highest difficulty and claim you can out perform them. They will headshot you the moment they see a pixel of your head. Instant reaction and you're dead before you even spot it's there.

The only reason we're not using AI is because we don't have good enough AI to do it and we can't trust computers not to fuck up. Consider how unstable many simple devices are, now put that OS inside a death dealing machine and you have big problems. Your pilots not going to BSOD mid air and crash your plane, but your AI might.

>>672745

It's going to be pretty fucking static when no one can talk anymore anyway.

the most successful attack, by political success, as well as perceived combat ability (nil) VS results) in history, as well as arguably the most precise maneuvering, the Israeli attack on 9/11, was done with ground control auto-pilot.

>>672785

9/11 type attacks would be alot more fun if supersonic air travel was commonplace.

>>672752

>CS with bots is comparable to real life

>>672785

9/11 was done by jewish fundings, arab terrorists and white traitors opening the airspace.

>>673009

Except those arab terrorists were not in the planes. They were remote-controlled, hence their perfect flying into the towers.

>>673073

Evidences actually DO suggest that they were on the planes, and they were saudi trained by saudi:

https://911truth.org/911-misinformation-flight-passenger-lists-show-no-hijacker-names/

(they were actually found on the passenger list)

https://911truth.org/remains-of-the-day-nineteen-hijackers-died-on-911-what-should-be-done-with-whats-left-of-them/

(their remains were identified with some missing)

https://911truth.org/moussaoui-saudi-prince-paid-911-pilots-learn-fly/

(A jihadist claimed that saudi prince gave him pilot lesson)

>>673009

FBI says "we don't know who was on the planes" (because the Israeli security firm wont release boarding video for any of the 4 flights).

For all we know it was nothing but Elvis Impersonators on all 4 jets.

It is actually possible that the jets were all empty, and all passengers had been taken aside on some pretext, and later vanished. I'm not saying that is what I think happened, but it just shows the total info blackout surrounding the whole event.

We know who is working on A-bombs in North Korea, but not who was on the planes on 9/11.

When 7 of 19 9/11 hijackers turned up alive and well, and "attempting to contact US authorities" no one in US Govt was interested in "well, if they weren't the hijackers, who was???".

Its like asking a History Professor about certain inconsistencies in The Holocaust.

>>673083

>>>673073

>

>Evidences actually DO suggest that they were on the planes, and they were saudi trained by saudi:

>

>https://911truth.org/911-misinformation-flight-passenger-lists-show-no-hijacker-names/

>

>(they were actually found on the passenger list)

>

>https://911truth.org/remains-of-the-day-nineteen-hijackers-died-on-911-what-should-be-done-with-whats-left-of-them/

>

>(their remains were identified with some missing)

>

>https://911truth.org/moussaoui-saudi-prince-paid-911-pilots-learn-fly/

>

>(A jihadist claimed that saudi prince gave him pilot lesson)

sir, "911truth.org" is obviously a Jewish strawman/shill op that puts out the purely Jewish narrative that "Arabs did 9/11, and it was dumb Goyim fault for letting them, so I guess dumb Goyim better get learn how to fight Arabs".

Gee, I wonder who can "teach America to fight Arabs"?

>>673094

911truth's story is saudi pilot, with jewish funding and cover-up by the US government.

They have never implied that the Iraqi deserve the sins of some saudi/jewish terrorist niggers..

>>672752

A game where the AI knows literally everything about the map already pathed out for it is not the same as real life. Even then the CS:GO bots get fucking stuck on open doors and can't get around it until they shoot it to pieces leaving them vulnerable to attack as they reload even if they were set to an instant head shot. AI will only work if the entire playing field is set up absolutely perfectly for them. If one cone is out of place they will crash and burn 100% of the time. They cannot adapt and they cannot identify anomalies in their way. The most advanced machine vision systems will shit the bed and not know what the fuck they are looking at if the ambient lighting changes or the part its supposed to identify is at an angle. There's much more in the way of an AI singularity than hardware instability.

>>672165

>the point of modern fighter planes that cost billions?

Drone master.

There hasn't been a publicly disclosed fighter that does this though.

>muh jammers

Line of sight laser communication.