[HN Gopher] The future of air defense must be smarter, more affo...
___________________________________________________________________
The future of air defense must be smarter, more affordable, and
reusable
Author : ulrischa
Score : 69 points
Date : 2023-12-01 19:42 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.anduril.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.anduril.com)
| mlindner wrote:
| This is about the new release of Anduril's new Roadrunner drone
| that has multiple uses.
|
| Bloomberg article:
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-01/anduril-r...
|
| Video of a demonstration strike against a drone:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al9ITeP4fUA
|
| One way I could personally see this being used is pre-launching a
| bunch of the drones in an area to orbit and wait for incoming
| drones, or launch several of them per target. Only one is needed
| to actually destroy the target. Once the targets are destroyed
| they can return and land, refuel, and then launch again to try
| and target additional incoming objects.
|
| I can also see it having uses outside of attacking targets as the
| payload is generic and can be mounted with cameras or sensors
| instead of an explosive for mid-range target photography (the
| range is unspecified but just assuming based on size and speed)
| or as non-military use for surveilance of nearby areas for forest
| fires or weather investigation.
| corethree wrote:
| More efficient to have the drones launch from the ground rather
| then loiter.
|
| Eliminates the need for the vtol too which is just a lot of
| extra effort to get right.
|
| This is sort of like the segway, the loitering/vtol tech is
| more for marketing: https://maddox.xmission.com/segsuck2.jpg
|
| And cheap? I saw carbon fiber on that thing. The article says
| an Iranian drone might cost 10,000 right after it says that one
| of these things costs over 100k.
|
| It's def better than a patriot but still stupidly expensive.
| jsight wrote:
| I've seen some three wheeled segway-like devices. They
| compromise stability, because the third wheel lifts if one
| wheel goes over an object that is taller than the other.
| Similarly, they end up leaning backward or foreward over
| slanted terrain and are easier to tip.
|
| IMO, other two wheeled scooters were more practical, but the
| segway combined their benefits with the ability to be
| handsfree.
| RandomLensman wrote:
| (Automated) AA guns have been around for a while with low cost
| per intercept - no need for missiles.
|
| Edit: looks like Gepard ammunition is actually surprisingly
| expensive based on some contracts in the press, but still...
| foota wrote:
| I don't think they're cheap per installation though due to
| radar, are they?
| rocqua wrote:
| You need radar to detect incoming things anyway, and radar
| can be re-used.
| RandomLensman wrote:
| Before they were falling out of fashion, there were
| relatively "cheap" versions produced in larger numbers (like
| 400+ Gepards for Germany, for example, no idea how many of
| the 35mm guns were made), if I recall correctly, also, you
| don't need thousands of AA guns to protect an object. The
| current skyranger 30 system is $5+M I think, but I don't
| think you need necessarily luxury systems to defend against
| rather simple drones (and it has low production numbers, I
| believe).
| corethree wrote:
| Put a turret on a vehicle.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-propelled_anti-
| aircraft_w...
|
| Also the state of the art for this kind of thing is the
| phalanx I believe. They have it installed on carriers.
|
| https://www.armyrecognition.com/united_states_us_army_artill.
| ..
|
| It can definitely go on vehicles.
|
| I would say China can easily bypass this tech with hyper
| sonic missiles and even just launching 10 missiles at one
| carrier at the same time can probably fuck it up.
|
| Just even getting one missile with a system such as this is a
| miracle. Anduril is far away from having the know how of
| building any system to the level of the phalanx.
| NickNameNick wrote:
| There's a minimum size of vehicle you can mount a gun on.
| The mount needs to absorb the recoil without breaking or
| getting pushed around too much.
|
| The Swiss have been experimenting with recoilless chain-
| guns to try and reduce that footprint. Which might be
| interesting, but recoilless weapons are extremely
| unpleasant to be near due to the backblast. It still might
| make sense to mount such a weapon on a remote automated
| station, and stick it on the roof of any available truck or
| APC/IFV.
|
| The hype around hypersonic missiles is overcooked.
| Ballistic missiles are faster. The hypersonic's advantage
| is supposed to be its manoeuvrability, expecting an heavy
| anti-ship missile to be more agile than an interceptor is
| just silly.
|
| And It'd take way more than 10 missiles to overwhelm a
| carrier groups air defence. The combat system on an
| American destroyer can track "100+" targets. The carrier
| group has several destroyers.
|
| In order to overwhelm the systems, you'd be getting close
| to the point of exhausting their interceptors. So why even
| bother with the fancy missiles?
| koube wrote:
| Gepard has a range of 6km vs buk range of 50km or s-300 range
| of 120km. You would need a lot of them and they also don't have
| enough range to cover offensives.
| RandomLensman wrote:
| Yes, but the cheap drone stuff moves slowly and you could
| potentially even airdrop AA to litter the landscape.
| runjake wrote:
| _> you could even airdrop AA to litter the landscape._
|
| Sounds like a good way to equip the enemy. Have you
| considered that you might be outside your lane here?
| RandomLensman wrote:
| .
| runjake wrote:
| I have but then I quickly remembered I worked on and with
| such weapon systems, beginning during the Cold War.
|
| What was your MOS?
|
| Also, you're talking about conventional forces tactics
| which don't really apply to this submission much.
| RandomLensman wrote:
| The linked article is far broader than special
| operations.
|
| Sorry, not US, so no MOS. My impression was that the US
| took a somewhat different route to air defense than the
| Europeans back then (and not just in terms of continental
| air defense).
|
| I don't think we need to accuse each other of "ignorance"
| anymore, but rather we have had different experiences and
| a different read on the linked text.
| fabian2k wrote:
| Gepard has ~6 km maximum combat range. Guns are inherently
| short range weapons compared to missiles.
| koube wrote:
| Ah, the radar range is 15km, but the firing range is 6km.
| Fixed my earlier comment.
| jacoblambda wrote:
| AA guns have the following issues:
|
| 1. Everything you shoot into the air must come down.
|
| 2. Active radar is a loud target and stationary targets are
| difficult to relocate quickly.
|
| 3. Automated AA have a larger footprint and are more obvious
| installations.
|
| Considering the customer who this was designed for was US
| Special Operations Command, it makes sense that small, light,
| pinpoint, and easily relocatable were priorities.
| RandomLensman wrote:
| AA need not be stationary and the footprint is small (see a
| Gepard, and there were smaller AA systems, I believe).
|
| Anything that has a successful intercept has stuff falling
| down. For unsuccessful, only laser etc. have nothing falling
| down.
|
| Edit: the link doesn't specifically talk about niche special
| forces, but rather broader air defense.
| runjake wrote:
| 1. Gepards are big and not suitable for special operations
| roles. You can't throw one in a truck and haul it through
| rough terrain.
|
| 2. The Roadrunner system doesn't "fall down", it's designed
| to land if the intercept is unsuccessful.
|
| 3. Roadrunner is designed to be "cheap", compact and re-
| usable, as much as possible.
| RandomLensman wrote:
| A large part of the Gepard weight/size is armor, not the
| AA, but yes, not man portable by any means (edit: the gun
| assembly is still many tons, I'd guess).
|
| The linked text talks about defense against cheap drones
| and cost curves - not about niche special operation air
| defense.
|
| If you have to defend an installation against a hundred
| cheap drones a week or so, not sure roadrunner is that
| cost efficient.
|
| On 2), yes, but only if the intercept fails kind of
| completely.
| hn_throwaway902 wrote:
| @RandomLensman - would be very interested to speak with
| you. I work with some folks in Ukraine to support
| defensive tech. chris at ukrainedefensefund dot org
| jacoblambda wrote:
| I don't really think that's remotely comparable. The
| Roadrunner is around the size of a person and can launch
| unsupported from the ground (i.e. sit it upright and press
| a button on a tablet).
|
| The roadrunner nest installations are marginally larger,
| containing just enough space for a fuel tank (to refuel
| unsuccessful or cancelled intercept attempts) and power to
| keep them operating.
|
| So in the space that you can fit a Gepard, you can fit lets
| say 20 roadrunner nests. You can take those in a truck,
| drive around and scatter them around the site with some
| camouflaging. If you are only expecting occasional
| missile/rocket attacks, you can build a net for intercepts
| that is far wider than you can realistically with
| stationary or even mobile AA guns.
|
| But the real value of it for the customer (special
| operations) is that you can realistically have 2-4 people
| carry one in a box by hand or in the back of a jeep and in
| a matter of minutes, set it up, and shoot down an aircraft
| (or any other moving target).
| RandomLensman wrote:
| I get the special operations need. However, 20
| roadrunners is 20 successful intercepts at best - if you
| want to go down cost curves you need really cheap
| intercepts.
| jacoblambda wrote:
| I think there are different cost curves though.
|
| If you are expecting mass swarms of drones, rockets,
| and/or missiles, then traditional AA installations make
| more sense.
|
| But if you are expecting only intermittent intercepts
| then the cost per intercept is probably going to be lower
| with something like the what Anduril is offering as
| cursory searches suggest the Roadrunner is going to be
| priced around 100k-300k per unit. And this fits in nicely
| with their far cheaper Anvil-M interceptors (low speed,
| quadcopter interceptors) where anvil would take the ultra
| cheap drones while Roadrunner takes the high altitude or
| jet/rocket powered targets.
| luma wrote:
| All great points and I'll add one - the operator will be
| far away from the weapons, so even if they are sighted
| and targeted you minimize human casualties and it won't
| give up the teams' position.
| bluGill wrote:
| AA must be stationary. Even if you can move it you cannot.
| If your country is at war we know small drones can cheaply
| reach pretty far in. That means you need AA covering every
| place anywhere near the front. If you move the AA you risk
| enemy spies finding out what place is not covered and
| attacking there. Maybe you can move from my backyard to my
| neighbor's backyard, but that is about all you can
| realistically do.
| foxyv wrote:
| > 1. Everything you shoot into the air must come down.
|
| This is why they use self destructing ammunition. It's part
| of what gives some systems the "Firehose" look because every
| round is a tracer.
| adolph wrote:
| See CRAM: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter_rocket,_art
| illery,_and...
|
| _C-RAM uses the 20mm HEIT-SD (high-explosive incendiary
| tracer, self-destruct) ammunition, originally developed for
| the M163 Vulcan air defense system. These rounds explode on
| impact with the target, or on tracer burnout, thereby
| greatly reducing the risk of collateral damage from rounds
| that fail to hit their target._
| jjk166 wrote:
| AA guns can only hit relatively low altitude targets. Gepard
| for example is limited to altitudes of 3 kilometers (~10,000
| ft). Good for local defense against attack helicopters and
| fixed wing close air support, but no where near cruising
| altitude for modern jet aircraft.
| rightbyte wrote:
| So the Occulus guy, after selling his soul to Zuckerberg, pivoted
| into making weapons?
| mlindner wrote:
| After he got fired by Zuckerberg you mean, after the media lied
| about and dragged his name through the mud.
|
| He's recently called that company his "life's work"
|
| https://twitter.com/PalmerLuckey/status/1729781270572413123
|
| > Palmer you're above seeming paranoid about reporters all the
| time
|
| > > I am not, I promise you!
|
| > > Getting fired from your own life-work company after
| egregiously false reporting from hateful journalists really
| changes your perspective.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Ye well honestly I feel he was crushed. The "no need for
| Facebook login" and things. I don't think I had realized
| exactly how bad for humanity Google, Facebook et alii was in
| 2015, so I shouldn't be to judgemental about working for
| Facebook at the time.
| dylan604 wrote:
| i hope you were only a teenager in 2015 to feel this way.
| if not, i guess better late than never! welcome to the club
| ignoramous wrote:
| Got fired for his _alt-right_ affiliation, apparently:
| https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/facebook-reportedly-...
| (unsure if it was a defamation / cancel-culture campaign
| against him, tbh)
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Discussion earlier today:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38483353
| xnx wrote:
| Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38483353 (215
| comments)
| brindlejim wrote:
| It's hilarious that Anduril is proposing "more affordable"
| defense gear.
|
| They are a prime wrapped in VC funding, and like most defense
| contractors, they are egregiously overpriced compared to the cost
| of materials.
|
| I can see them capturing US DOD budgets, but predict that much
| more cost effective competitors emerge internationally.
| inamberclad wrote:
| The DoD will never go overseas for their most important
| equipment, that's what these primes are based on.
| bluGill wrote:
| The DoD often goes overseas. Most navy ships are built in
| Italy (the big ones are built in the US, but most are
| smaller). Even when things are built internally, the DoD
| often looks to various allies for critical parts.
| GoRudy wrote:
| If they don't use cost plus pricing it would probably be a win
| compared to the entrenched defense contractors who are using
| cost plus pricing.
| alsodumb wrote:
| I mean it's not like it's saas where you can expect cheaper
| alternatives to emerge from anywhere in the world to capture
| the market.
|
| Building tech for DoD takes a lot of things (i) access to ITAR
| restricted tech, (ii) access to capital, (iii) and DoD actually
| willing to work with you, where being a domestic player helps.
|
| There is nothing hilarious about Anduril claiming to be more
| affordable gear when it's actually much cheaper than the
| current players that supply DoD.
| brookst wrote:
| "Cost of materials" is a terrible basis for pricing and for
| evaluating value.
|
| The ultimate gaming PC has maybe $20 worth of sand, plastic,
| and metal.
|
| I'm not defending defense spending or contractors, just saying
| that a criticism of their pricing should be based on value
| received, not materials.
| beambot wrote:
| "Cost of materials" is small relative to the R&D costs of
| cutting-edge solutions with military-grade operating
| parameters...
| Arrath wrote:
| And then requisite QC processes during serial manufacturing
| to ensure that the system will stand up to storage in some
| bunker for decades before being shipped across the world,
| abused by late teenaged soldiers as they hump it around some
| forlorn battlefield and, finally, maybe, used in anger.
| indymike wrote:
| I'm not sure this is "more affordable" in total, it's just more
| affordable per projectile. It's a lot like a 5" gun on a
| destroyer. If you ignore the cost of the ship, it's about
| $1,200 per shot. A bargain compared to a Tomahawk or SM3.
| nostrademons wrote:
| The issue with all peacetime weapon systems is that they
| necessarily have to work within the peacetime procurement
| system. They become optimized for capturing contracts, not
| capturing battlefields. Anything that's actually optimized for
| capturing the battlefield, in the absence of a real battlefield
| to capture, fails to win the contract and languishes in some
| bankrupt startup.
|
| Usually the way wars go is that the first 2 years are spent in
| utter chaos as the belligerents realize that all their plans
| don't survive contact with the enemy, and then you get rapid
| technological development, usually from _outside_ firms that
| were initially part of non-defense industries, once the
| belligerents actually get serious about winning the war.
| bluGill wrote:
| The US has been at war for a long time though. Iraq,
| Afghanistan, Somali pirates... Ukraine and Israel are some of
| the proxy wars we have a hand in (how much is up for debate).
| While what you say is true, weapons do get tested in the
| field and that wins.
| nostrademons wrote:
| Against adversaries whose industrial base and social
| structures are 200 years behind us. That gives us weapon
| systems that are adapted to fighting adversaries whose
| industrial base and social structures are 200 years behind
| us.
|
| We've been very lucky (in a sense) that ambitious leaders
| who actually _can_ get technologically-savvy workers to
| follow them generally prefer to work within the American
| system and fight over ad clicks, purchases, and management
| fees rather than physically making war. I 'm not all that
| confident that the U.S. military would win vs. say SpaceX,
| Amazon, or Google. Moot point as long as it's more
| profitable to sell things than take things, but we would be
| very screwed if we fought an adversary with peer-level
| technology, population, and manufacturing base.
| jjk166 wrote:
| The weapons get tested, but there isn't the existential
| threat that drives people to actually change their
| behaviors in response to that data. If the Ukrainians jerry
| rig a $5k drone to work as well as a $50k missile, the US
| congress isn't going to cancel their contract for $50k
| missiles. If we were facing a peer adversary directly
| though, being able to get 10 times the firepower with the
| same resources might be a much higher priority.
|
| Further, not everything gets tested when all you're facing
| are non-peer adversaries. For example the only US Navy ship
| currently in service that has ever sunk an enemy ship in
| combat is the USS Constitution, which did so more than 200
| years ago.
| mlindner wrote:
| > I can see them capturing US DOD budgets, but predict that
| much more cost effective competitors emerge internationally.
|
| The selling point of Anduril according to one of its founders
| has always been "Make billions of dollars while saving the US
| government tens of billions of dollars."
|
| I don't think people really understand how much money is thrown
| around willy-nilly within the Department of Defense. Anduril's
| offering to sell drones here with individual purchase prices in
| the $100k-$500k range here. Compared to the alternatives used
| for this role it's 1-2 orders of magnitude cheaper.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I imagine little laser equipped bots that zoom up and down rows
| of crops on little rails, blasting caterpillars and other pests.
| When a military target shows up, they point at the sky instead.
| Sure, atmospheric abberation means that you can't hit easily hit
| a plane with a single beam, but I expect the situation changes
| when you've got millions of beams to command.
|
| Of course this fails if you're the occupying force, rather than
| the defender, but maybe that's for the best.
| dylan604 wrote:
| just cover your plane in mirrors so the lasers are sent back to
| where they originated. boom! it's the high tech version of "I'm
| rubber your glue". that just means we need to research how to
| make radar absorption materials reflective in laser
| wavelengths.
| FredPret wrote:
| Radiation weapons don't have to radiate visible light - we
| could pick any practical wavelength
| dylan604 wrote:
| who said visible light?
| FredPret wrote:
| You said "laser wavelengths". Any wavelength can be a
| "laser wavelength" if we understand a laser to be a beam
| weapon.
| dylan604 wrote:
| right, but laser wavelength does not mean visible
| wavelength. that's why i specifically didn't use visible
| in the comment. microwave weapons don't have the same
| meaning as laser. pew pew. nobody has ever said "friggin'
| microwave" as they point their pinky to corner of their
| mouth.
|
| not sure why you feel the need to get to whatever
| pedantic level you're trying to go when the conversation
| was clearly talking about lasers. we can redirect lasers
| with mirrors. covering a military plane in mirrors to
| deflect lasers is clearly something in jest. but sure,
| let's turn it into a pedantic conversation.
| adolph wrote:
| > covering a military plane in mirrors to deflect lasers
| is clearly something in jest
|
| Are you sure?
|
| 0. Stealthy 'Son Of Ares' Jet Seen Covered In Mirrors
| During Mysterious Test Flights
| https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/34225/stealthy-son-
| of-...
|
| 1. F-35 And F-117 Spotted Flying With Mysterious Mirror-
| Like Skin https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-
| zone/43938/f-35-and-f-117-s...
| renewiltord wrote:
| This is good stuff. I wonder if there's going to be some startup
| that's like "M795-compatible shells but mass-produced rather than
| constrained by one factory in Stranton". I suppose the DOD
| contacts must have been through Peter Thiel. Very cool stuff.
| voz_ wrote:
| Weapons are a good thing, in the hands of our liberal democracy.
| Any leg up we can get on the evil regimes of Iran, China, and
| Russia, along with the rest of their pathetic "axis" (self
| named), is a good thing.
| zabzonk wrote:
| i take it there was a /s missing here?
| berserk1010 wrote:
| what? are you not aware of the Russian invasion of Ukraine,
| supplied by China and North Korea? (Ukraine JUST blew up a
| supply railway between China and Russia today) And Iran
| supported Hamas distracting that war effort?
| briantakita wrote:
| Before act 3, there was act 1 & act 2. These conflicts were
| at least decades in the making, if not over a century. Best
| option is to seek peace & seriously understand & respect
| the terms of the "enemy". Better than perpetual conflict
| that only seems to benefit the Billionaire class. Trade >
| war
| analognoise wrote:
| What? You're not seriously saying to make peace with the
| Russians who invaded Ukraine?
| bigfudge wrote:
| Vietnam in the 60's, South America in the 1970s and 80s, Iraq
| in the 90s, Afghanistan and Iraq in the 2000s .. would all like
| a word. Liberal democracies have looked much less liberal away
| from home. I'm not saying the "other guys" are better or the
| same, but the capacity to kill people at lower cost and less
| risk doesn't seem like a net win for humanity if it lowers the
| bar for anyone.
| bluGill wrote:
| The world is constantly changing. Vietnam is starting to look
| to the US for defense against China. Not too hard because the
| past is still remembered, but they are seeing the US as their
| best option for the concerns they have today.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Off topic question about the site vs linked content, but is there
| a defined description for the style used so that the last
| sentence in a graph is double spaced like this? The markup does
| not have any tags to spread them out. I'm at a loss for how it's
| even done, let alone why one would want it this way.
| alienasa wrote:
| This looks to me like the effect of a non-technical user using
| a CMS and hitting "enter" twice in the edit box after each
| paragraph. There's no "style" being used - it's probably a
| purely human enforced convention.
|
| (there are tags, there are <br>'s between each paragraph inside
| the <p>)
| dylan604 wrote:
| but those <br>s are in between the graphs, and they line up
| with the layout. the last line of the graph does not have
| those breaks.
|
| i just looked at the site on a different browser, and the
| anomaly i'm seeing in FF does not appear in the Safari. in
| Safari, it just has double spaced graphs. in FF, the last
| line in each graph is also separated by a double space.
|
| in 2023, and we still can't have consistent layouts across
| browsers. FML
| zabzonk wrote:
| have they cleared this with the tolkien estate?
| adolph wrote:
| Probably have the same law firm as Palantir. Just take the
| accent off and its all good.
| RecycledEle wrote:
| This was all proposed when DARPA first looked into Network
| Centric Warfare. It was rejected, which was a mistake.
|
| When defending against small drones, the scaled down equivalent
| of a combat air patrol (CAP) would work.
|
| That CAP can be extended over enemy positions as well, like air
| superiority with scaled-down aircraft.
|
| I can imagine one side having air dominance in the large & manned
| air domain, while the other side has air dominance in the small &
| unmanned air domain.
|
| These small jets are also a great way to keep track of enemy
| activity. Having a payload on it makes sense for the same reason
| it makes sense for a forward observer to also be a sniper.
| briantakita wrote:
| The war of attrition involves bleeding out the empire with cost
| differentials. The MIC needs to provide more value for its
| weapons or the imperial outposts will become cost &
| geopolitically prohibitive.
|
| The US has lost much stature among the global south. As the so
| called "adversaries" understand how to effectively drain imperial
| status & resources. The exceptionalism position does not help in
| light of regularly bombing civilians & making the world a more
| dangerous place by flooding weapons into conflicts.
|
| And the quality of life of the people in the US & Europe is
| falling...fast.
| bluGill wrote:
| The future of air defense is made in Ukraine or Israel. Buy their
| systems - both are under attack and so have reason to innovate in
| ways that matter. Better for other countries to focus on things
| that are not needed in those particular conflicts (or are needed
| but not as critical a priority and so they are not putting
| limited resources on).
| justinator wrote:
| I was under the impression that Ukraine's air defense is just
| our air defense, just 20 years out of date. And I'm also under
| the impression that what needs defending from isn't going to
| look like what Russian does now, as Russia is essentially a
| failed state, using tech that's _even older_.
| phero_cnstrcts wrote:
| Spending will be the same or more but they want more bang for the
| buck.
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