[HN Gopher] Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop ...
___________________________________________________________________
Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned
fighter jets
Author : dcgoss
Score : 222 points
Date : 2024-04-25 01:11 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (breakingdefense.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (breakingdefense.com)
| xenospn wrote:
| Can you imagine the size of the spreadsheet used for this RFC?
| Dear Lord
| ranger_danger wrote:
| NixOS imploding in 3 2 1
| geor9e wrote:
| That term isn't in the article, and it's Wikipedia page doesn't
| have anything about military. It just says it's a Linux distro.
| I'm out of the loop.
| ordinaryradical wrote:
| Some of the more leftwing NixOS contributors hate that
| Anduril is using their technology and are trying to keep them
| from contributing/sponsoring/etc. via code of conduct
| changes.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| They should hold the next conference in Kyiv.
| vkou wrote:
| Only if their warhawk counterparts hold their next
| shindig somewhere in Gaza (So they can see first-hand
| what the consequences of their work and advocacy look
| like).
| relativ575 wrote:
| Kyiv would still be the right location. Russia want
| anything that may distract the world's attention from the
| crimes they commit everyday in Ukraine.
| vkou wrote:
| Russia's aggression against Ukraine, started a decade
| ago, the war on Palestinians has been going on for ~55
| years.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| I don't think it's right to make comparisons like this.
| But if you really want to go there, have you tried
| comparing the death toll? In Ukraine, it's likely around
| three quarters of a million dead in two years.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| This comparison is irrelevant to the conversation. But
| even otherwise it is misleading and leaves out lots of
| history. The modern state of Israel has existed for that
| long - but if anything, it's a war for Jewish people's
| existence in land that was historically Jewish. And it
| wouldn't be a "war" if Israel could exist peacefully and
| not constantly be threatened by terrorists. Most people
| don't see a problem with a war of self defense in
| response to October 7, so I'm not sure what you think
| would happen if "warhawks" saw the "consequences" of
| their work. If anything, this is a low casualty conflict
| compared to most.
| vkou wrote:
| I'm referring to the settlement land grabs and
| displacements that happened after 1967, not to its
| existence of either 1947 or 1967 borders. (Which have
| their own humanitarian problems, but that's something
| else.)
| ordinaryradical wrote:
| If you don't want to build weapons because you don't like
| the variety of ways they may be wielded, that's a valid
| and reasonable ethical stance.
|
| If you don't want to build anything that could ever
| potentially be used in the manufacture of those weapons,
| you probably shouldn't be building open source software
| or contributing anything to do with any programming
| language at all.
| vkou wrote:
| I will point out that I am well aware of, and respect the
| stance that bad things done multiple-degrees-removed-
| from-you are not, like, entirely your responsibility. Or
| even necessarily your responsibility at all.
|
| I did, however, have to expand on the concept that it's
| very easy to have strong opinions about war when you
| yourself are sheltered from the consequences of it.
| klausa wrote:
| I think there's a big difference between "being used by"
| and "being active members of the community".
|
| Open Source means you can't really prohibit Anduril from
| using your projects; but _welcoming_ them and their money
| is a different matter altogether.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| When the defense industry funds things they tend to go
| for architectures without a single point of failure and
| have the resources to create new things if the existing
| things are insufficient or adversarial. DARPA funding
| created the internet etc.
|
| Meanwhile if you were to get the defense industry to not
| use your product, they're not going to go out of business
| or do less of whatever you didn't like. They're going to
| bring the same money to someone like Oracle or Microsoft
| with no qualms about taking it -- or bring even more
| money to them, which is your tax money, as those
| companies charge quite a lot.
|
| This makes me suspicious that the people agitating for
| "don't take their money" are being subtly or not so
| subtly encouraged to do so by the people who want to take
| their money instead. After all, the historical norm is
| the opposite. Not just TCP/IP but Tor and SELinux and
| microprocessors and, considering that AT&T has long been
| a major defense contractor, transistors and lasers and
| solar panels and C and all the rest of it. Are the same
| people who want to refuse their money also inclined to
| refuse all of the other things it paid for?
|
| Would we be better off if the University of California
| never took a Unix license or created BSD because of where
| it came from?
| ranger_danger wrote:
| Computers, Internet, GPS, weather satellites, Tor, I
| wonder where all that came from.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| Honestly I think military is just a scapegoat for these
| people, their real mission (like many before them) seems to
| be using the lack of CoC acceptance as their own weapon to
| justify bullying them for having opinions they don't like.
| That has always been the MO.
|
| They want the CoC to be able to silence undesired speech in
| the first place, and if they refuse, it becomes their
| strawman to allow them to keep arguing the same thing all
| over again.
|
| To me this reeks of the "paradox of intolerance" e.g. "you
| cannot be inclusive without allowing people to say things
| you don't like".
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| While the phenomenon you describe certainly exists, it is
| vital to separate it from the phenomenon of not wanting
| to support the US "defense" sector.
|
| I do not identify as a leftist, and would not be
| considered one, but as an aerospace engineer I would
| never work for something that aids the US war machine.
|
| Those weapons are never used in "defense". Do they defend
| an unsustainable way of life ? Sure.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| The last time I saw one of these weapons in use was when
| I was standing in my kitchen in Ukraine and through the
| window I could see a missile take down a russian suicide
| drone.
|
| How is that not defence?
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_
| Uni...
|
| Ukraine is the only case. And let's not forget that the
| US is indirectly responsible for the Russian invasion.
|
| I know that it is very hard for you to see things
| objectively, and I am sorry for what you and your country
| is experiencing.
| jagger27 wrote:
| The objectives of a land grabbing tyrant are what's
| objective. You can't be serious.
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| As you might be aware, which I cannot be certain of given
| your insubstantial reply, international geopolitics are
| usually a bit more nuanced than an aggressive "land
| grabbing tyrant".
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| And as you might be aware, sometimes they aren't.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Are you asking what the nuance is in this case?
|
| Ukraine is a strategically important region to Russia.
| They don't have to invade as long as they can threaten to
| invade, and thereby get concessions without armed
| conflict.
|
| If Ukraine joins NATO then Russia could no longer
| credibly threaten to invade because it would put Russia
| at war with NATO. Ukraine about to join NATO is thereby
| destabilizing, because then Russia has to choose between
| invading immediately before they join, or doing nothing
| and permanently losing their leverage. This does not make
| the invasion _justified_ but it makes it _expected_. US
| diplomats knew this perfectly well and pushed for Ukraine
| to join NATO anyway.
|
| It's like telling your friend to corner a vicious dog.
| The dog is not innocent, the dog is going to bite them
| and you knew that and told them to do it anyway.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| It would be nice if this story more often were told from
| the perspective that the friend _also_ has agency. Maybe
| the friend eyed the odds and thought:
|
| _Yep, better deal with this damn dog once and for all._
|
| _Can 't live in uncertainty like this, never knowing
| when the dog will break in to the back yard and bite the
| kids_
|
| Ukraine is stuck between a rock and hard place, but they
| also have agency.
| mopsi wrote:
| > US diplomats knew this perfectly well and pushed for
| Ukraine to join NATO anyway.
|
| The initiative for joining NATO came from Ukraine and not
| the US diplomats. Prior to 2014 the public support was
| too weak for it to happen. Popular support first shifted
| almost overnight from the majority opposing NATO
| membership to supporting it after Russia invaded Crimea
| and Eastern Ukraine in 2014, and shifted even more
| towards support after Russia launched the full-scale
| invasion in 2022: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E
| 2%80%93NATO_relations...
|
| Neither invasion had anything to do with NATO. In 2014,
| Russia correctly judged that the international response
| would be too weak and made a successful land grab. After
| the spectacular American retreat from Afghanistan that
| mirrored the last days of Saigon, Russians again sensed
| weakness and thought Biden was too weak to intervene in
| Ukraine and decided that the climate was suitable for
| taking the next step in restoring their former empire in
| 2022. Planning for the 2022 invasion began around the
| time of US retreat from Afghanistan.
|
| > It's like telling your friend to corner a vicious dog.
| The dog is not innocent, the dog is going to bite them
| and you knew that and told them to do it anyway.
|
| This is a narrative propagated by Russians, and sounds
| convicing on the surface, but has little actual
| substance. Nobody's cornered. Russia's threats are
| bluffs, intended to paralyze you with fear and guide you
| into inaction, which Russia will then exploit, as they
| have done in Ukraine.
|
| To continue your dog analogy, they are a dog that barks
| and barks, and bites only if they sense fear and weakness
| and see an opportunity to bite. Show strength and they'll
| back down. (And this is how you deal with actual dogs
| too; they smell fear from sweat.)
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| Russel Brand? Is that you?
|
| It doesn't make one an intellectual to shroud their own
| tenuous grasp on reality with a cover of "ooohh!!!
| Nuaaannce!!!"
|
| The international geopolitics here are very simple.
|
| The russian federation aims to rebuild the former russian
| empire. They're prosecuting this by first trying to
| exterminate Ukraine as a population, as a nation, as a
| culture, and as an identity.
|
| It has nothing to do with NATO expansion, or sob stories
| russia has published about them needing to defend
| themselves.
| mongol wrote:
| There is not any meaningful nuance to apply here. In
| February 2022 Russia launced a full scale military attack
| on a soverign neighbouring country. Ukraine defends
| itself with western military weapons. That is clear use
| of defense and no "nuance" changes that.
| pineaux wrote:
| I will never say that the NATO is an innocent
| organisation; however, to say that the US/NATO is
| indirectly responsible is a stretch. It would imply that
| the US invading Mexico would be justified if they were to
| become allies with Russia. I would as strongly oppose
| that as well.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| Why do you feel that you are able to see things
| objectively?
|
| To me, it looks like you are repeating kremlin
| propaganda. It looks like you're another victim of the
| Chomsky school of propaganda.
|
| The USA isn't responsible for russia's invasion of
| Ukraine (or Georgia, earlier). If they are, it's only
| responsible insofar as allowing useful idiots to apply
| political pressure to their governments and force them
| into pacifism, thereby enabling russian aggression.
|
| If you want to have a discussion about this, could you
| start by not being so patronising?
| ranger_danger wrote:
| > not wanting to support the US "defense" sector.
|
| Better stop using computers and the internet then.
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| I think it's entirely valid for a community to decide
| they don't want participation and funding from a defence
| contractor. That isn't a scapegoat - it's the actual
| goal.
|
| You may or may not agree with this stance and that is
| totally fine. You're still free to use the software for
| whatever you want; you can also go ahead and fork it, or
| create a new community endorsing this use. If enough
| people agree then it will thrive. That's the beauty of
| it!
|
| A specific community has the freedom--within the bounds
| of legality--to decide who is welcome to participate.
| mongol wrote:
| The problem is, there is not a community that is in
| agreement about this. There is a subset of the community,
| that like to pretend they are and speak for "the
| community", and when they get pushback from those that
| disagree they call it concern-trolling.
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| I'm confused about what the problem is then - why are you
| paying attention to those people?
| mongol wrote:
| How could I not? They are incredibly loud.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| > I think it's entirely valid for a community to decide
| they don't want participation and funding from a defence
| contractor.
|
| Be that as it may, we wouldn't have computers or the
| internet if everyone acted like that.
| pxc wrote:
| Nobody is trying to stop them from using Nix or
| contributing code. The only objection is to their use of
| Nix community events for advertising through sponsorship of
| those events.
| klausa wrote:
| Anduril was supposed to be a sponsor for a Nix conference; it
| was then dropped after community reacted negatively to having
| a weapons manufacturer being a sponsor.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37418351
| neonsunset wrote:
| "Outraged community" were about 30 people with few to no
| project contributions but a lot of political slogans and of
| likely questionable state of mind.
| colinsane wrote:
| https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/commits?author=neon-
| sunset
| neonsunset wrote:
| It doesn't take being a chef to know when something is
| shit :)
|
| (on the off chance that some HN audience members have
| reading comprehension issues - this is aimed at
| politically driven non-contributing participants behind
| the anti-anduril outrage, Nix and its creator are
| absolutely fine)
| pxc wrote:
| Signatories to the letter against Anduril sponsorship of
| NixCon include contributors with thousands of Nixpkgs PRs
| each, like Infinisil, wegank, and Ma27, plus many other
| recognizable names with PR counts in the hundreds. Some
| of those people are also committers who have helped many,
| many contributors get their code in.
|
| If you can't tell that from a glance at the signatories
| list, you shouldn't be commenting on 'non-contributing
| participants'.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| yet when I posted a verbatim profile page screenshot of
| the author while saying absolutely nothing about them
| myself, it was downvoted as "arrant bigotry" lol.
| srid wrote:
| The submission you linked to is 7 months old, but the NixOS
| drama is ongoing:
|
| https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nixos-foundation-event-
| sponsor...
|
| https://discourse.nixos.org/t/major-nixpkgs-contributor-
| leav...
|
| https://twitter.com/sridca/status/1767602500461375721
| colinsane wrote:
| please, don't. whatever this announcement changes, we don't
| need the paparazzi.
| dralley wrote:
| It's nice to see a contract go to someone that isn't Lockheed
| Martin, Northrop Grumman, or Boeing every now and then.
| throwup238 wrote:
| And to a new-ish company like Anduril, too! Palmer Lucky and Co
| founded it in 2017 which is baby years for a lead defense
| contractor on a major project like this.
|
| IIUC this is the Wingman program for the F22 and F35 so these
| aren't "slow" drones like predators, these are going to be high
| performance jets. This is a serious contract!
| bglazer wrote:
| Their website says .95 Mach and 9Gs... in simulation. It's
| definitely going to be high powered.
| bugbuddy wrote:
| What kind of airframe materials will they need for 9Gs?
| That sounds like too much for even aerospace Titanium.
| throwup238 wrote:
| F22 rated load is 9g continuous (~13g burst) and it's
| made with mostly Ti64, thermoset composites, and aluminum
| [1].
|
| It's much lower than it can be because there's no point
| in investing in a stronger airframe when the sustained
| acceleration would kill any pilot. These unmanned drones
| can easily be designed to withstand much more.
|
| [1] https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircr
| aft/f-2...
| alluro2 wrote:
| 9G shouldn't be a problem at all, from a material
| standpoint. Missiles go to 100G, and F1 engine pistons
| withstand 8.600G
| (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-force).
| mkl wrote:
| To clarify, that's 8600g, not 8.6g.
|
| Also in that table: Acceleration of a nematocyst: the
| fastest recorded acceleration from any biological entity.
| 5,410,000 g!
| ahazred8ta wrote:
| The F-16 avionics are limited to 9G, but the fuselage is
| able to handle much more when not carrying a full load of
| fuel. 9Gs is standard for a fighter.
| luma wrote:
| The major failure point in a 9G-capable airframe is the
| meatbag that is traditionally placed inside.
| mrpippy wrote:
| The Fury program being sold here was developed by Blue Force
| Technologies (founded in 2010), which Anduril purchased last
| year.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Why General Atomics? They are also yet another defense incumbent
| that needs to be disrupted. They make the Predator and other
| current UAVs, which are all expensive and uninteresting:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_Aeronautical_S...
|
| In general I think the government needs to move contracts away
| from older companies and fund young innovative ones. Partnerships
| between young and old simply sustain the incumbents and
| everything that comes with them (price structure, leadership,
| lobbying, etc). I would rather see many smaller companies in
| healthy competition for contracts.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Because try to come up with a cooler name than "General
| Atomics," and I'll bet you can't.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| North Central Positronics
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| I assume andruil is doing the controller and consults on
| design, while GA largely does the aircraft. Building big
| aircrafts takes huge facilities, so it's not unreasonable to
| have a big incumbent doing this.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| My point is we should be redirecting some funds to also
| support startups for those pieces, rather than resigning
| ourselves to the status quo.
| modeless wrote:
| No, Anduril and General Atomics will work separately on
| competing prototypes and at the end likely only one of them
| will win a final order for production aircraft.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Because that's how the government operates. Same with the
| initial COTS and Commercial Crew awards to SpaceX: it was
| paired with a similar contracts to Orbital and Boeing, to make
| sure that if the untested startup failed there would be a
| traditional contractor ready to take up the slack.
| modeless wrote:
| Hopefully this time the incumbent doesn't get paid twice as
| much for a worse outcome, as happened with Commercial Crew...
|
| NASA paid Boeing 4.5 billion and counting, SpaceX 2.6
| billion. SpaceX launched astronauts to ISS 7 times,
| completely fulfilling the original contract, and continues to
| launch on new contracts with NASA. Meanwhile Boeing has yet
| to fly a single astronaut and required NASA to pay them extra
| for their own delays and failures.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Oh that's pretty much guaranteed.
| wmf wrote:
| If those are the two lowest bids what else are you going to
| do?
| adastra22 wrote:
| Tried this kind of contract they don't award to the
| lowest bids. There are 3-4 other factors that take higher
| priority.
| shantara wrote:
| From what I recall from NASA Artemis contracts selection
| process, all bids are weighted with two parameters in
| addition to the proposed cost: technical merits of the
| proposal and the confidence score based on the company's
| management and previous performance.
| renewiltord wrote:
| That's just one contract. SpaceX will win the rest. ULA is
| dead. They're being sold for parts.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Boeing not ULA. But yeah Starliner isn't flying any more
| missions than they are contractually obligated to fly.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| >They are also yet another defense incumbent that needs to be
| disrupted.
|
| The first and arguably only mission of the Department of
| Defense is to win wars. Diversifying the economy is none of
| their concern beyond having _a_ economy with which to fuel
| their war machines.
|
| If you want diversification of the economy, look towards the
| Department of Commerce.
|
| Or to put it another way: Thumping your diversity drum doesn't
| win you wars.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Diversifying the economy is a pathway to winning wars.
| Limiting themselves to a few expensive and stagnant vendors
| is a way to lose in the future. Other countries make these
| things much more efficiently because they don't have lazy
| governments captured by old companies.
|
| Also I have no idea what this has to do with "diversity" or
| what you even mean by that.
| nytesky wrote:
| What country has more efficient and effective military
| aircraft?
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> Other countries make these things much more efficiently
| because they don't have regulatory capture by old
| companies._
|
| This contract is for cutting edge unmanned fighter jets.
| Other countries don't make them at all!
| modeless wrote:
| Probably because it's way better to make swarms of dirt
| cheap drones
| throwup238 wrote:
| No one makes swarms in any real sense of the word,
| either.
|
| These unmanned Wingman jets will be the first in the
| world to do that too.
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| Look up Rogozins comments about how Ukrainians operate
| drones for a Russian loyalist perspective
| throwup238 wrote:
| Those are cheap consumer drones not "swarms", cheap
| airplanes, and drones from other countries.
|
| If they could make an F16 equivalent combat drone, they'd
| jump at the chance.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| I meant other countries make the plane portion (not
| Anduril's unmanned controls) that General Atomics is
| responsible for. Predators and Reapers are very
| expensive.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| >Also I have no idea what this has to do with "diversity"
| or what you even mean by that.
|
| Diversity, or "the condition of having or being composed of
| differing elements"[1], in this case a wide variety of
| suppliers.
|
| I assume most of us are speaking English here.
|
| [1]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/diversity
|
| >Limiting themselves to a few expensive and stagnant
| vendors is a way to lose in the future.
|
| You win wars by buying your equipment from the most capable
| suppliers. If that happens to be a centralized cabal of
| suppliers (this stuff is expensive, after all), then it is
| what it is. It's not the mission of the DoD to diversify
| the economy, its mission is to win wars as effectively as
| possible at any cost.
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| ...and at the level of the DoD your goals include
| ensuring that there ARE as many capable suppliers as
| possible, using your commercial power, to increase your
| chances of "winning wars as effectively as possible".
|
| Wars are won on logistics; a corrupt, stagnant, or under-
| innovating market is a barrier to successful defence.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| You aren't going to win wars by procuring from second and
| third rate suppliers just to keep the market diverse. You
| have to ask for proposals from across the market, but
| it's natural that suppliers will become centralized given
| how much money, time, and expertise is required.
|
| The mission of keeping the economy healthy lies upon the
| Commerce and Justice Departments, whose missions are to
| manage the economy and keep industries within the
| confines of the law respectively.
| gantron wrote:
| Optionality, even for a monopsony like the Defense industry,
| is good for the consumer (Pentagon). They still want
| suppliers to compete.
|
| What incentive is there for a company to innovate if the DoD
| allows their competitors to die out? When it's time to buy a
| new fighter jet (or whatever else) those acquisitions chiefs
| want several options, same as any consumer.
|
| The OUSD for Acquisition & Sustainment publishes lengthy
| analyses on competition within the industry and how to stoke
| it. [0]
|
| [0] https://media.defense.gov/2022/Feb/15/2002939087/-1/-1/1/
| STA...
| renewiltord wrote:
| Competitive procurement is intentional US military method
| expressly for military purposes. Saying the DoD shouldn't
| care about it because it needs to win wars is a meaningless
| statement. Part of how it wins wars is by having effective
| equipment and part of how it has effective equipment is that
| it has a competitive process. Cultivating supplier diversity
| is intentional.
|
| Honestly, quite an absurdity of a comment. Just says words
| without any coherent meaning.
| bandrami wrote:
| DoD wants a high level of confidence that your company will
| still be around and delivering the exact same product to the
| exact same specs 20 years from now. It's why startups are
| basically never the primes on defense acquisitions.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| Macross Plus
| mulmen wrote:
| This is for the next phase of the project that involves building
| flying prototypes. Later stages include mass production which
| could go to a Boeing or Lockheed. I wonder how much of the
| decision to give this to a smaller player is based on a desire to
| maintain diversity among defense contractors and the competitive
| advantages that come with.
|
| In other words the US Military continues to be a successful
| centrally planned socio-capitlaist organization.
| qp11 wrote:
| Probably overthinking. The Europeans signed deals with Helsing
| and Palantir recently for similar projects. That must have lit
| a fire under someones ass.
| mulmen wrote:
| Sorry I don't follow. What did I overthink?
| bogtog wrote:
| Around the globe, I think militaries regularly give contracts
| beyond just to the lowest bidders to maintain a strong base
| dcgoss wrote:
| Anduril's Fury aircraft: https://www.anduril.com/fury/
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| Marketing. Trust me... it's not that cool. They hire artists to
| design this stuff. Not kidding. The exterior is made by an
| industrial designer more so then an actual engineer. I would
| know, I worked at the company previously.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| He's stated they have a no renders policy so would be weird
| if they had that then did what you suggest.
| jpgvm wrote:
| Well they may have physically made the shell and thus not a
| render.
|
| As for if it does what it says on the tin I have no idea,
| maybe the commenter that suggests they have insider
| knowledge can clarify.
| hn_20591249 wrote:
| A startup founder lying to get juicy government contracts?
| Say it ain't so!
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| I dunno, this was pretty impressive and real, maybe OP
| knows better and it is a ruse.
|
| https://twitter.com/anduriltech/status/173045190879472038
| 8/v...
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| That's a marketing video. Cut and edited using only good
| HD footage. You think that's realistic?
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Umm... this product was acquired into the company via Blue
| Force. It was pretty much fully designed prior to Anduril
| getting its hands on it. It sounds like you don't know what
| you're talking about despite having "worked at the company,"
| which could mean anything.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| I left before this was "acquired". So I won't know
| specifically for this product.
|
| I do know that Anduril has done this for many of their
| products including the single rotor drone. Additionally it
| has all the hallmarks of industrial design. That shell
| looks way too over the top with those lines.
|
| So I was exaggerating a bit. My mistake. I should say "very
| incredibly likely an industrial designer was involved to
| the point of obviousness due to my previous experience with
| the company"
| SushiHippie wrote:
| Even though I never heard about Anduril before, this is now the
| second time in a day that I 'hear' about it.
|
| The first time was a post about the latest Mark Rober video
| 'promoting' Anduril/military technology to a child/teen audience.
|
| https://lemmy.ca/post/19761360
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrGENEXocJU
| strictnein wrote:
| I mean, it's not some secret company. It's been featured here
| plenty and the founder was the guy behind the Oculus VR stuff
| which was sold to Facebook.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?q=anduril
| justrealist wrote:
| I don't want to be rude but you're just not paying attention
| and you shouldn't treat that as a conspiracy theory.
| labrador wrote:
| In case you haven't noticed, there's a pretty serious drone war
| going on right now and Anduril makes drones. With the new US
| defense package they stand to get some business, among other
| reasons for them to be in the news.
| SushiHippie wrote:
| Okay sorry, I'm not from the US and sometimes I think I live
| behind the moon.
|
| Do you mean with drone war, the usage of drones in a war
| (like they do in Ukraine and middle east) or a 'war' between
| manufacturers?
| labrador wrote:
| All of the above. Drones have changed the face of war, like
| the introduction of the machine gun or airplane changed
| war.
| anyfactor wrote:
| Is Anduril really that good? I am trying to figure out what is
| the potential of Anduril is. Their first phase product was in
| observability towers for border protection, then they made drone-
| ramming drones and now unmanned fighter jets.
|
| I am genuinely curious. I was in the whole retail investor space
| since early 2010s which saw the EV hype. Workhorse was supposed
| to supply vans for federal postal vans, Nikola had that GM deal
| going on etc.
|
| Hanging around retail investor space helped made me be very
| skeptical about the idea of enterprise led innovation. Contract
| like this in my opinion requires seasoned engineering managers
| who have survived decades of bureaucracy but never forgot the
| essence of no-BS engineering. I believe SpaceX was able to bring
| some of these people in before they had a functional rocket.
| Where does Anduril stands with their management and innovation?
| torginus wrote:
| The problem in the US defense industry is, that since the end
| of the cold war, defense companies have consolidated into just
| 5 huge conglomerates and the lack of competition wasn't great
| for the pace of innovation, affordability or timely
| development.
|
| And the Cold War ended more than three decades ago, about the
| time we went from piston aircraft to the teen series jets
| making up the bulk of US inventory even today. Imagine that
| there isn't a single engineer today at Boeing who has gone
| through a clean sheet fighter aircraft development cycle
| throughout his career.
|
| Boeing and LM, 2 of the biggest manufacturers of aircraft, have
| spotty reputations.
|
| I'm pretty sure the US gov. is absolutely eager to create more
| competition of the space.
| dralley wrote:
| There's definitely more than one problem with defense
| procurement, one of the biggest problems is simply having
| straightforward, acheivable goals in the first place and not
| fucking with them halfway through the process.
|
| And honestly at this point the Air Force is handling this
| much better than the other branches. Despite all the delays
| and cost overruns on the F-22 and F-35 projects, at least we
| ended up with really fantastic and capable platforms. The
| B-21 is also basically on time and budget, which is nice.
|
| Compare that to the Navy's LCS program, a massively expensive
| clusterfuck with very few redeeming qualities.
|
| The Army is somewhere in the middle.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| The LCS situation is embarrassing. What is the navy working
| on now? Replacements to the Arleigh Burke destroyers?
| relaxing wrote:
| Depends on what you mean by "working." DDG-1000 is still
| kicking around trying to figure out what to do with
| itself. DDG(X) is in a requirements development phase.
| FFG-62 is actually getting built. There are various
| autonomous surface and sub efforts that may turn into
| something.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| They're also upgrading some Arleigh Burkes (and
| everything bigger that will stay in service) with SEWIP
| Block III (EW).
| iraqmtpizza wrote:
| The new hotness is the Constellation-class frigate which
| chose a mature design to keep costs down. That was until
| feature creep completely consumed it in record time:
|
| "At one point the Constellation design shared about 85
| percent commonality with the original FREMM design, but
| the alterations have brought that commonality down to
| under 15 percent, a person familiar with the changes told
| USNI News."
|
| https://news.usni.org/2024/04/02/constellation-frigate-
| deliv...
| 7thaccount wrote:
| Every single time.
| mesofile wrote:
| "Starve before doing business with the damned Navy. They
| don't know what the hell they want and will drive you up a
| wall before they break either your heart or a more exposed
| part of your anatomy."
|
| -- Kelly Johnson
|
| Shocking that this quote still rings true a half-century
| later.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Johnson_(engineer)#Kell
| y...
| justin66 wrote:
| Ben Rich expanded on Johnson's advice regarding the Navy
| in his book, although I think he also conceded that the
| Navy has some pretty good engineers.
| ToDougie wrote:
| Skunk Works is such a fantastic book. Would recommend to
| all engineers.
| eropple wrote:
| _> Compare that to the Navy 's LCS program, a massively
| expensive clusterfuck with very few redeeming qualities._
|
| Which, to be fair to the Navy, is as much Congressional
| meddling and military procurement seeding--if you stop
| paying your contractors, they stop being military
| contractors and the knowledge you'd like walks out the
| door, which doesn't excuse the LCS program but does explain
| some of it--as anything else.
|
| When we say that _we 're_ bad at procurement in the United
| States, there's a lot of targets for blame. (I think you're
| right that the Air Force tends to have the best project
| execution of the service branches though.)
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Imho, the service branches are defined by and structured
| around the type of equipment required to complete their
| missions.
|
| The Navy builds years-long expensive ships, then sends
| them halfway around the world under command of someone.
| It has a structure to facilitate that.
|
| The Army (at best) efficiency organizes a huge amount of
| people and material, and it deploys and sustains it
| wherever needed. It has a structure to facilitate that.
|
| The Air Force procures, operates, and sustains the most
| technical platforms. So it's gotten halfway decent at
| doing that, or at least learned some lessons from
| repeated mistakes. It has a structure to facilitate that.
|
| (And the Marines scrounge through everyone's trash bin,
| cobble something together, and come out armed to the
| teeth)
|
| Point being, if you look at the people who have risen to
| the ranks of power, they've been moulded to fit their
| service culture. Which means some services might not be
| as good as procurement...
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> The Air Force procures, operates, and sustains the
| most technical platforms.
|
| Space force. It is like flying a billion-dollar fighter
| jet that you will never be allowed to repair after it
| takes off for the first time.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Space Force is still mostly Air Force though, and I'd
| expect it to take awhile to form it's own culture.
| anyfactor wrote:
| Thank you very much. I feel like engineering innovation has
| been concentrated on technology and not in defense
| engineering at all.
|
| Immigrants have helped a lot in building the tech sector's
| innovation in the last half of the century. But the defense
| industry often requires naturalized citizens to work on these
| projects. I think there is a difference between immigrants
| coming to North America to work and eventually settling down,
| and offshoring work outside of North America. Immigrants
| cannot work in the defense sector while private companies are
| more than glad to have them work on their projects. The
| challenge is that the current framework for innovation may
| not qualify for the defense industry.
|
| In the pre-Cold War era, the concept of American innovation
| was largely fueled by industrialization and academic
| participation in government sectors. Post-2000s, I feel like
| American innovation is rooted in the idea of diversity and
| America's ability to bring talent from across the world and
| concentrate it in major cities.
|
| My thesis is that the US wants one or two American companies
| with monopolistic nature to build their future defense
| sector.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| Innovation has not been in defense engineering lately
| because the US has lost A LOT of public trust when it comes
| to the defense industry in the wake of Vietnam, Iraq, and
| Afghanistan.
|
| The US is not the country, nor do they have the reputation
| in front of the public that led to the Manhattan project,
| where the greatest minds would willingly work on defense
| projects, not just willingly but eagerly.
|
| The breakthroughs are also less than they used to be. We
| have the nuke. We have reached space. We've hit the peaks.
| Everything else is just automatic turrets and AI to choose
| who to kill.
|
| I remember being in college. I went to a top CS school
| (perhaps the top CS school), and it was often considered a
| black mark if you went to work for a defense company (even
| Palantir). It was also a different time, when we had our
| pick of companies to work at, not like today. But that
| sentiment is hard to shake off. I'm not convinced it is not
| still large in academia and the CS world today
| dash2 wrote:
| I think you're probably right, and to those who share
| that anti-US government sentiment here, I'd like to say:
| "wake up"! If you think the US is bad, wait till you try
| Russia or China. I have three refugees in my house. They
| may never now return home.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| Generally the people critical of the US are trying to
| improve it, not saying "we should be more like Russia"
|
| If nobody stands up for our rights and freedoms at home
| they could easily be eroded, or lost entirely.
| dash2 wrote:
| Sure, I'm fine with that. What I object to is people
| using the US's flaws or past mistakes as a reason for
| isolationism or surrender to far worse actors.
| basil-rash wrote:
| I also went to a/the top CS school. When I graduated I
| would have never considered working at a defense company.
| Now, after bouncing around big tech and startups for a
| few years, I am a few days away from accepting a position
| at one. What changed? Appreciation for how entirely
| insignificant to downright harmful the rest of the
| industry is, perhaps. I made changes that impacted tens
| of millions of users in... no significant way whatsoever.
| Certainly not anything they'd remember on their deathbed.
| And what else is out there? Finding better algorithms to
| keep people hooked on their phones watching ads for
| longer, making more bullshit "AI" products to strip
| communication of all personality, and hundreds and
| hundreds of healthcare startups begging me to help them
| "cut out the middleman" in X healthcare system and
| replace them with... themselves! Idk. If I can make one
| anti-drone system take down one more suicide drone than
| it'd be able to without me, I'm 100% sure whoever would
| have been on the other end of that kamikaze will
| appreciate my efforts a hell of a lot more than the 2^25
| people I fed a slightly different arrangement of pixels
| than they'd have gotten without me.
| anonymousDan wrote:
| That 'cut out the middleman' angle always makes me
| chuckle. I remember seeing an ad on the tube for Made.com
| offering to cut out the middleman in furniture purchasing
| - what are you if not a middleman I thought!
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Cut out the middle and you're just dealing with The Man.
| smallmancontrov wrote:
| That, and Poorly Targeted Revenge for 9/11 was not the
| most inspiring mission. Great Power Competition, however?
| I can get my blood pumping red, white, and blue for Great
| Power Competition.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| I still think the defense industry is the greater evil
| (since nearly everything that starts out as "defense"
| ends up being used for "offense"), but I 100% agree with
| your argument against the modern tech industry.
| potatoman22 wrote:
| The defense industry isn't just "defense" against bad
| people. Is it better to optimize the colors of buttons,
| or work on projects that could potentially kill innocent
| civilians?
| psunavy03 wrote:
| Wars suck. But sometimes the result of not fighting a war
| sucks more. Sure, military projects could POTENTIALLY
| kill innocent civilians. But that's not a guarantee,
| modern Western militaries go out of their way to minimize
| that, and again sometimes the result of not fighting a
| war would cause even more innocent people to suffer or
| die.
|
| The idea that "this one bad thing could happen, therefore
| I will do nothing that could remotely cause this one bad
| thing" is childish reasoning.
| nyolfen wrote:
| "cars don't just transport you, they also kill people in
| wrecks sometimes"
| bmitc wrote:
| There are lots of things in the public sector that also
| kill people, unfortunately. While often less indirect or
| over time, companies simply trying to make a buck (be
| capitalist) have led to products, processes, trends, etc.
| that have killed a lot of people over time.
|
| I think the conclusion is that there is very little
| justified technology development that actually betters
| society, except for things that actually save people from
| dying. Things like healthcare, utilities, civil
| engineering, defense, etc. However, almost all of those
| industries are mired in bureaucracy and are the ultimate
| examples of such.
| basil-rash wrote:
| The catch with all those things that "actually save
| people from dying" is that they happen to be the same
| things that "could potentially kill innocent civilians".
| Any pharmaceutical researcher, surgeon, civil engineer,
| utility worker, and yes - defense contractor, has the
| ability to kill innocent civilians. But they by and large
| continue to do their work on a belief that by doing X job
| to the best of their ability, they will have a positive
| impact on the world that will leave it in a better place
| than if either nobody did the job, or someone with less
| experience than themselves executed it poorly.
|
| Regarding defense specifically, there is no shortage of
| ways for maniacal dictators to raze entire cities to the
| ground under the justification that "bad guys were in the
| tunnels". That is, in effect, a solved problem - many
| times over. Accordingly, that is not where the research
| money is being spent. Rather, the goal of most new
| "Defense" is to achieve those same mission goals (kill
| the bad guys) with as little civilian casualties as
| possible, or to protect our own assets against such
| attacks as well as possible.
| gantron wrote:
| I'd argue that working on the right projects reduces the
| likelihood of collateral damage.
|
| Take for example the R9X [0]. Instead of an explosive
| warhead it has a set of blades on the tip. The US has
| used it to assassinate single people in the passenger
| seat of a car while leaving the driver untouched. I'd
| rather this than dropping bombs on terrorists that come
| with a blast radius that takes out everyone else nearby.
|
| This seems net-good to me. There are certainly people
| alive today because of the R9X team's work.
| avar wrote:
| > I made changes that impacted > tens of millions
| of users in... > no significant way whatsoever.
| > Certainly not anything they'd > remember on
| their deathbed [...]
|
| Going into defense to directly contribute to someone's
| deathbed experience is certainly one way to guarantee
| that you'll make it memorable.
| basil-rash wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40160961
| ng12 wrote:
| > and it was often considered a black mark if you went to
| work for a defense company (even Palantir)
|
| Yeah, this always tickled me. Obviously smart people
| should just go work somewhere innocuous like Meta or
| ByteDance.
|
| Also FWIW this is Palantir and Anduril's bread and
| butter. They get to vacuum up all the wrongthinkers.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| "I'll make products that cause civil unrest, poison the
| political systems of entire countries, and give young
| girls mental issues, but I'll be damned if I work for
| that nasty military-industrial complex; I'm too moral for
| that!"
| psunavy03 wrote:
| And it's frankly a childish sentiment. Go look at what's
| happening in Ukraine today. Why did that occur? Because a
| dictator woke up on the wrong side of the bed and said
| "you have, I want, I take." Military force and military
| innovation is the only thing stopping him from literally
| committing genocide against the Ukrainian people. Not
| "genocide" as in faculty lounge hyperbole . . . actual
| genocide.
| edgyquant wrote:
| It's wrong and, frankly racist, to imply Americans are
| incapable of innovation. Immigrants are used to suppress
| wages, that innovation you describe is a key aspect of
| American culture and can be replicated in defense by
| Americans. One big problem is that the politics of the most
| innovative areas has been pretty anti-defense tech until
| very recently
| adampk wrote:
| I did not notice any implication of Americans being
| incapable of innovation. It is wrong and, frankly racist,
| to imply immigrants are used to suppress wages.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| You are both wrong, frankly. It's probably somewhere in
| the middle.
| rapsey wrote:
| > I'm pretty sure the US gov. is absolutely eager to create
| more competition of the space.
|
| The DOD actually is the reason the defense companies
| consolidated. They literally told them to do it. I think they
| explained it in the Acquired episode on Lockheed Martin from
| a year ago.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| After you retire from politics or government it's much
| easier to be a highly paid board member of one company than
| a badly paid member of five companies.
| relaxing wrote:
| That seems misleading. The DOD was the reason inasmuch as
| the budget to pay contractors was slashed, and the
| alternative was letting the smaller companies go out of
| business and losing the knowledge and manufacturing
| capabilities altogether.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Post-USSR, the DoD literally met with defense companies
| and told them that (a) there was going to be less money
| so (b) they needed to consolidate to survive.
|
| It was pretty explicit.
|
| That said, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing.
|
| Everyone forgets that system complexity increases
| generation by generation: an F-35 is not an F-111 is not
| an F-86 is not a P-51.
|
| The unconsolidated, smaller defense companies of yore
| likely _couldn 't_ have managed a project of F-35 A+B+C
| complexity.
| relaxing wrote:
| That's what I'm saying. But without the added nuance it
| sounds like the DoD _wanted_ a duopoly of companies
| capable of building a 5G fighter.
| gantron wrote:
| It's actually exactly correct. That comment is referring
| to 1993's "last supper" in which the SECDEF gathered the
| defense CEOs at the time and literally did tell them to
| consolidate/merge.
|
| https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2023/03/01/the-last-supper-
| how-...
| willcipriano wrote:
| You know how you hear a lot of complaints about private
| prisons?
|
| How it creates perverse incentives that result in more people
| being imprisoned?
|
| We have a private war apparatus.
|
| We have been at war for 30 years without even a clear
| objective.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| The objective is the same for every superpower in the
| world: to try and establish military hegemony and retain it
| for as long as possible.
| willcipriano wrote:
| I'd believe that if we won the wars instead of losing
| them all.
|
| This is just looting.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| South Korea's doing pretty well.
|
| Germany's in one piece.
|
| The Balkans aren't on fire.
|
| Granted, the Middle East is still its perpetual
| religious/sectarian/ethnic clusterfuck...
| willcipriano wrote:
| How's America though?
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Still democratic and #1/#2 in the world, by most
| measures. Was there something specific you were looking
| for?
| willcipriano wrote:
| We pay a european level of taxes (and rising) in order to
| receive a "safety net" thinner than Cuba, mostly so we
| can drop bombs on brown people and shadowy
| "communists"/"terrorists"/"freedom haters"/"yellow cake
| enjoyers"/"nazis that arent Ukrainian". What's the metric
| for that?
| chaostheory wrote:
| You'd have a point if you made this comment 15 years ago,
| but Russia invaded Ukraine 10 years ago. Around the same
| time, China started to make outlandish claims on the South
| China Sea.
|
| You can make a lot of complaints about the defense industry
| like waste and corruption, but a lack of a clear objective
| is no longer an issue.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| Hopefully I'm beyond the draft age of it comes to it but
| I don't want a shooting war in my lifetime.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| This is an absurdity. The US did counterinsurgency brush
| fires and that's it since major combat operations ended in
| Iraq. Go look at Ukraine. THAT is what "being at war" looks
| like, and you should be thankful we haven't been forced to
| do that for 30 years.
| greedo wrote:
| Your timeframe is a bit off. Piston powered aircraft were not
| in use in the US military 30 years ago. 30 years ago was
| 1994. We had B2 bombers, and the F22 was in full development.
|
| Also Boeing was developing the F-32 (which lost out to the
| F-35) in the mid 90's, so it's conceivable that an engineer
| on that program might still be around in some role.
| thejohnconway wrote:
| I think you misunderstood, 30 years from piston powered to
| jets that are still being flown today. The F15 was
| introduced 27 years after the end of WW2, where all the
| fighters of consequence were piston powered.
| defrost wrote:
| As a minor point of no real consequence the Cessna T-41
| Mescalero has been in service in the US airforce and army
| from 1964 until today, and I've been told the Diamond DA20
| Katana is in _indirect_ service via a through a civilian
| contract that screens prospective pilots.
|
| Weird nitpick, I know.
|
| There's also a slew of drones that may or may not use
| efficient small piston engines or rotary varients which may
| or may not count as piston.
|
| On the data aquisition side I'm willing to bet there's
| still a place in the US military for low, slow, ground
| hugging piston engine craft that run radiometrics or EM
| mapping.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| There's also stuff like the super tucano where it's got a
| sorta warbird vibe but with a turbo prop (not technically
| a piston engine plane but performs a similar role to
| older types that did have piston engines)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embraer_EMB_314_Super_Tucan
| o
| mrguyorama wrote:
| SOCOM allegedly uses :
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L3Harris_OA-1K_Sky_Warden
|
| It looks like someone is abusing a small prop plane
| that's normally used for crop dustin and just duct taping
| some cheap weapons to it.
|
| Because that's exactly what it is
| ycombinete wrote:
| This FT long piece on Palmer Lucky, and Anduril has some good
| context:
| https://www.ft.com/content/ce6f96f8-6ab8-4089-b7db-f99db22c2...
| qarl wrote:
| WHOAH.
|
| Is this article really equating Palmer Lucky to Oppenheimer?
| beastman82 wrote:
| I don't know about equal but Luckey has achieved some
| pretty impressive things by age 31. I think people are
| blinded by his political activity.
| qarl wrote:
| > I don't know about equal but Luckey has achieved some
| pretty impressive things by age 31.
|
| Having interacted with Luckey in a number of unpleasant
| ways, I think we'll just have to agree to disagree.
| putridmetal wrote:
| Don't tease me with that cliffhanger. Throw me some
| breadcrumbs. Do tell.
| beastman82 wrote:
| So you disagree his achievements are impressive? That's
| my only assertion.
|
| And if so, you are saying his achievements are nullified
| by his behavior?
| mrguyorama wrote:
| What achievements? Is productizing something we figured
| out in the 90s (you can do VR with a headset using some
| form of magnetic tracking) really comparable to splitting
| the goddamned atom?
|
| The dude's a hacker, not a god.
| qarl wrote:
| I do disagree his achievements are impressive.
|
| As near as I can tell, he is successful for advocating
| for VR headsets.
|
| I do not believe that's equivalent to splitting the atom.
| But hey, I guess we all see things our own way.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| I worked there. Think: budget defense contractor and you'll be
| really accurate.
|
| Their whole thing is to move fast and produce shit that breaks
| often and a lot. Pretty unreliable overall.
|
| Their major success is marketing and B2G (business to
| government) and funding. Ultimately it is these three things
| that will make them successful. You iterate on crap long enough
| (which defense contracts tend to allow) eventually there's a
| good chance it will get good.
|
| I would say anduril can't hold a candle to any chinese company
| in the same space. That being said Chinese companies can't yet
| hold a candle to the old US defense contractors.
|
| The hype for anduril is through the roof though. Many people in
| the company and outside have drunk the koolaid and will
| vehemently deny what I'm saying here.
|
| to sum it up:
|
| When I was there, there was a story of this general who
| suddenly (off schedule) told anduril to test their drone
| ramming system to see if it worked. The startled field operator
| turned it on, and the entire thing fucking failed. And Anduril
| STILL won the billion dollar contract. Oh yeah this is supposed
| to be "classified" but I could give a flying shit. Very
| flagrant misuse of government secrecy protocols to hide
| incompetency.
|
| It's probably better now, but I'm positive Even to this day, if
| you launch 8 cheap ass drones simultaneously at their defense
| system you WILL overwhelm it.
| possiblelion wrote:
| Interesting perspective. Coming from the perspective of a
| non-US defence executive, I will have to say that failing
| demos are quite normal in defence applications. It happens,
| and you still win contracts, because the end client sees the
| value prop and trusts you to sort out the issues. Still nerve
| wrecking though.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Not to mention an _unscheduled_ demo. How often do software
| engineers have a reliably working local state of a
| repository that they could just start up and demo whenever
| someone walks by their desk?
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| Makes sense. The Chinese government will never launch an
| unscheduled attack. It's always on my calendar.
| abenga wrote:
| One would hope all hiccups are worked out by the time the
| systems go into production.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| This was a demo of a "production ready" system lol.
| dehugger wrote:
| That is information you probably should have included in
| your original comment.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Was the system in operational readiness at this point in
| time? Sounds like it was in the middle of a sales
| process, based on the fact that you described it as part
| of the sales process.
| RealityVoid wrote:
| > Oh yeah this is supposed to be "classified" but I could
| give a flying shit.
|
| Oh, never change Hacker News. Got to love the casual breach
| of classified information.
| shitlord wrote:
| He was even kind enough to point out exactly how to defeat
| such a system!
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| Drones are so cheap you can send a full constellation of
| drones waaaay cheaper than the cost of one sentry tower
| and it will defeat it. These systems have limited
| handling capacity. With enough drones you can get through
| anything.
|
| The main problem is, there are more than enough drones.
| All I'm saying above is you probably just need 8 of them
| to get through Andurils system.
|
| Also, the method to defeat such systems is not
| classified. It's quite obvious and china can even easily
| overwhelm carrier defenses using this method.
| RealityVoid wrote:
| My only disagreement with your position is that you seem
| to evaluate it in a void. Compared to other systems out
| there, is Anduril really that bad? I suspect if you're in
| a trench you'd much rather have a system that can down
| "just" 8 drones at a time than one that can down zero.
| leoqa wrote:
| I also worked at a new defense company that partnered with
| Anduril and other newer defense companies. It's the same
| experience: unreliable software built week over week,
| thrashed by contract demands, and frankly mediocre engineers
| that make simple things complicated.
| surfingdino wrote:
| It doesn't have to be good. What matters is that near peer
| adversaries see these developments and spend some of their
| resources on trying on R&D efforts to match ours. An arms race
| is a non-kinetic way to weaken your enemies before hostilities
| start. Unfortunately, AK-47s are cheap to produce at scale and
| our enemies have millions of people to give them to, so
| regardless of the fancy toys, the military still needs ammo,
| mines, grenades, rockets, bombs, and napalm to disable enemy
| soldiers at scale.
| pantsforbirds wrote:
| I think their biggest differentiator is the way they sell their
| products. They haven't made a habit of winning big research
| contracts, blowing past the budget, and then blowing past the
| original per-unit manufacturing price estimates.
|
| It's probably much easier to make a deal with a company that is
| able to meet pricing and delivery dates
| wbl wrote:
| You've forgotten blow past the previous state of the art in
| those contracts. That's part of why overruns happen is the
| goals tend to be ambitious.
| caeril wrote:
| > I think their biggest differentiator is the way they sell
| their products.
|
| They still sell their products in the same way the other
| contractors do, though. Specifically, you have to flash a
| badge to even get in the door.
|
| Civilians, if they have the resources, should be able to
| procure these systems and vehicles if they so choose.
|
| I'd much rather protect my property perimeter with one of
| their Lattice systems than with the hodgepodge array of
| Ubiquiti cameras and PIR sensors I use now.
|
| I'd love to play with an ALTIUS out in the desert, even if
| I'm limited to civilian munitions.
|
| But they won't even talk to you unless you are a Pig, a Fed,
| or a Glowie.
| nikolay wrote:
| I like Anduril, but it seems that their stuff is overcomplicated
| and expensive compared to what we see on the battlefield in
| Ukraine where hundreds of drones are downed daily.
|
| An unmanned fighter jet is a whole different ball game for them.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| AFAIK Anduril capabilities go quite a bit further. From their
| marketing materials I understand that devices are networked
| sensor data is shared. All drones sees what any given drone
| sees and so do soldiers on the ground and the commanders. IMO
| this can be a massive advantage over the slow, fairly dumb
| drones in use in Ukraine.
|
| That said, I agree, we also need lots of cheap drones.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| >From their marketing materials I understand that devices are
| networked sensor data is shared.
|
| This hasn't been innovative in a military context since at
| least Desert Storm.
|
| Actually a shared battlespace run by computers managing
| contacts and sharing the data with tens of platforms
| including sending specific intercept data to specific in air
| interceptors and relaying data those interceptors get back to
| the rest of the fleet and managing tasking for tens of
| different surface combatants to intelligently and efficiently
| task hundreds of incoming threats was rolled out to American
| fleets in the 1960s
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Tactical_Data_System
| some_random wrote:
| It's the difference between peacetime preparation and wartime
| expediency. If the Ukrainians were able to spend the time and
| money to move the drone supply chain home, improve sensors,
| implement electronic warfare workarounds, etc they absolutely
| would. But right now there are Ukrainians losing hands
| disassembling conventional warheads to mount on FPV drones
| because they are needed right now on the front in the fight for
| the nation.
| Animats wrote:
| It's impressive how much hardware they've been able to develop.
|
| Their "Fury", which they acquired from Blue Force, is "a single
| engine business jet with no cabin." It was originally intended as
| a target drone, something for fighter pilots to practice against.
| Anduril repurposed it as an autonomous weapons system.
|
| They do mean autonomous. Their slogan is "Autonomy for Every
| Mission".
|
| We're seeing the future of warfare in Ukraine. The grunts are
| pinned down by drones and artillery, while the mobile forces are
| unmanned. Zipping around in helicopters is over, once the
| opposition has anything that can shoot them down. The expensive
| fighters are more agile and survivable, but they are few.
|
| [1]
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/erictegler/2022/03/30/a-drone-w...
| ethbr1 wrote:
| > _future of warfare_
|
| Color me skeptical. It feels like what we're seeing now is a
| local optimum: new systems (drones) designed to asymmetrically
| win ($) against legacy systems (mechanized vehicles) designed
| for very different goals.
|
| We'll see what things look like once the post-drone evolution
| cycle has turned on the armored side.
|
| That said, I do think the Marines are right, in that
| distributed agility/logistics from temporary and frequently
| relocated basing is going to be the new normal.
|
| Russia doesn't have particularly advanced long range fires and
| Ukrainian inventory is limited.
|
| But conflict against China or the US would be dominated by
| cruise or ballistic missile strikes against any concentrated,
| persistent target.
| epolanski wrote:
| As always war is a rock paper scissor.
|
| As we have seen, the russians have been very good at
| electronic warfare and have increased their capabilities in
| fighting and jamming drones from sensible distance.
|
| This doesn't change what a mess "modern" war is when both
| sides have relatively good equipment and none can claim air
| superiority: symmetrical war of attrition.
| threeseed wrote:
| Ukraine is constantly inventing new techniques that are re-
| thinking what drones can do.
|
| Recently they have been using them to drop spikes to slow
| vehicles which are then hit by a second set of drones.
|
| At some point soon these drones will have specialised
| capabilities and will go out in swarms to autonomously figure
| out how to take down objects.
| chasd00 wrote:
| Aren't these drones regular cots drones with some
| modification? Wouldn't taking the door off a microwave and
| pointing it at the drone cause it to fall to the ground?
| Surely it's more complex than that and I'm missing
| something.
| sandos wrote:
| Obviously Russia is already doing massive amounts of
| radio interference, that has always been a problem, which
| Ukraine has partly overcome. Partly. Googling for it you
| can see that it is massively diminishing the usefulness
| of drones for Ukraine.
| Log_out_ wrote:
| Jammer hunting drones already exist. In fact that was the
| idea behind the Shaheed predecessors in the first place.
| Set a course, then home in on strong em devices.
| stackedinserter wrote:
| Frontline on both sides is saturated with electronic
| warfare system which are essentially microwaves with open
| doors. Both sides put them on trucks, armored vehicles,
| set up near trenches and even carry on their backpacks.
| There were absurd cases like this
| https://imgur.com/a/4LqgLED
|
| Drones evolve under this pressure. Dynamic frequency
| changes, computer vision, maneuvering (like "go up when
| lost signal") and many more counter measures are adopted
| on both sides.
| mig39 wrote:
| Consumer drones already deal with a hostile RF
| environment well. Finding the frequency with the least
| interference, using a wide bandwidth for control, and a
| different one for video, and programmable signal-loss
| behaviour.
|
| Cities are hugely hostile to low power transmission,
| especially in the 2.4 and 5ghz frequencies.
|
| The effective range of cheap DJI "mini" drones in cities
| is measured in kilometres. If you get away from the city,
| you can double and triple your effective range.
| Gud wrote:
| We are not talking "interference", but an enemy actively
| looking for your signals and overpowering it with massive
| high powered RF.
|
| Flying your drone around in a city is not the same as
| flying it against an opponent skilled in electronic
| warfare.
| RealityVoid wrote:
| Most drone RC systems use FHSS. Those make them resistant
| to naive jamming. You can get fancy with jamming, but so
| can the way the FHSS works.
| solatic wrote:
| > We'll see what things look like once the post-drone
| evolution cycle has turned on the armored side
|
| I'm not convinced this is feasible in the short term; drone
| warfare is predicated on launching not just cheap drones but
| many of them. The new armor isn't steel or iron to survive
| the blast, but to shoot down attacking drones before they can
| explode. Most current defenses are ground-based missile
| batteries that can't really be directly protected by armor.
| Long-term, the most promising options are laser-based
| batteries, which today have insufficient power sources to
| stuff into mobile armored platforms.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Shaped charge warheads begat reactive armor begat tandem
| charges begat active protection systems.
|
| I could see microwave-based APS (probably powered by a high
| energy consumable?) proliferating.
| njarboe wrote:
| It's already being done. Check out these Russian improvised
| "Turtle Tanks"[1]. A big, light, metal canopy to keep
| drones from exploding next to the tank.
|
| [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDfkwlMaK7g
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| It's the evolution of the 'cope cage' that grew out of
| the shortage of active armor plates.
|
| Ukraine hunted that tank down and destroyed it by drone,
| btw.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| They're using drones as killbots against individual
| infantrymen, actively chasing them down rather than taking a
| lucky grenade drop. That changes everything about force
| deployment on the ground.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| While this does create dramatic videos, it does not
| represent much of an actual change. Most of these small
| drone operate well within the range of traditional
| infantry-killing weapons such as mortar shells. The tactics
| have changed, but the idea of an infantry unit killing
| another infantry unit at a couple miles distance isn't a
| revolution.
| nradov wrote:
| The impact on logistics is at least somewhat
| revolutionary. Previously it probably took several cases
| of mortar shells to inflict one casualty. Now that can be
| done with a couple of drones. Much lighter.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Yes and no. Ammunition is important, but from a logistics
| standpoint it will be much less burdensome than the
| food/water/fuel that must be provided to men on the
| field. Even in a hot war, an infantry unit is not engaged
| in full combat 24/7. But it never stops eating.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| But autonomy explicitly decreases the human logistics
| burden too, by multiplying the effectiveness of each
| human.
|
| Where in Civil War times you would need to clothe, feed,
| camp 100 people, now you have that firepower in a single
| soldier's weapon.
|
| And when you remove the need for even a single human, you
| also remove their logistics footprint.
| wildzzz wrote:
| Firing traditional artillery makes you vulnerable to
| counter-battery radar. Since rockets, mortars, howitzers,
| etc all fire in a predictable ballistic trajectory, you
| have to quickly move or risk being shot at before your
| rounds even hit their target. An anti-personnel drone can
| move in any direction and can operate much lower to
| ground to avoid radar so no one will know exactly where
| it came from. You don't get as much of a bang but it's
| much more stealthy.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Ya, but the drone operators emit radio. So too the
| drones. They are visually stealthy but are more visible
| electronically than an oldschool motor team. From what I
| have seen, the Ukrainian drone teams have to "shoot and
| scoot" in much the same way as the motor/artillery teams.
| unclebucknasty wrote:
| Part of the exposure is also due to the limited range of
| some smaller drone control systems, meaning those drone
| operators have needed to be much closer (a few km) to
| their targets than artillery crews (several dozen km).
| fancyfredbot wrote:
| There can be a long wire between the (cheap) radio and
| the person operating it. You probably don't mind if you
| lose the radio or the drone.
|
| This is very different to artillery which is too
| expensive to lose to return fire and even more expensive
| if you try and make it operable remotely.
| lukan wrote:
| "Ya, but the drone operators emit radio. So too the
| drones. They are visually stealthy but are more visible
| electronically than an oldschool motor team."
|
| Which is why it is very unlikely, that we can avoid fully
| autonomous killer drones.
|
| (if they are not already deployed in experimental
| settings)
| justin66 wrote:
| This seems just completely wrong. The trend for drones is
| that features and capabilities are increasing and costs
| are decreasing because they're based on cheap software
| and cheap consumer hardware. The trend for unguided
| mortar rounds or artillery shells is that they're as
| cheap as they're ever likely to be at thousands of
| dollars a round, plus the cost of the gun and its
| replacement barrels and crew. (guided artillery shells or
| missiles are so expensive they're a separate
| conversation)
|
| If these small drones provide capabilities that are, as
| your comment implies, not new but they do it with a cost
| effectiveness that blows away anything that came before,
| that's a pretty big deal.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Capabilities are not the same thing as effects. A drone
| represents different capabilities at different price
| points, but the net result observed on the battlefield
| are not all that different that past infantry
| engagements. If enemy infantry knows your position, they
| can today reach out and kill you at similar ranges as
| they did in wars past. The how has changed, not the what.
| kube-system wrote:
| Aren't these "cheap" drones tens to hundreds of thousands
| each?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HESA_Shahed_136
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| in Ukraine the FPV infantry killers are modified hobbyist
| drones, in the ~$500 range
|
| the economist:
| https://www.economist.com/interactive/science-and-
| technology... https://archive.is/nJYJ0
| 0x457 wrote:
| There are also modified commercial drones that just drop
| explosives, and that is what is mentioned here. Those
| drones drop their payload and may return to reload if not
| shutdown. Those drones aren't "hundreds of thousands
| each", but around $500 each.
|
| As for the drone you linked - we don't know how much it
| cost Russian to produce Geran-2, but definitely less than
| you imagine.
| gantron wrote:
| Even this is almost certainly an underestimate. Open
| source intelligence that just the bill of materials for a
| Shahed is more than the tens of thousands previously
| estimated. These are probably more on the order of ~$400k
| [0]
|
| [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/erictegler/2024/02/07/37
| 5000the...
| drawnwren wrote:
| This isn't really correct. Blue Force had already repurposed it
| as an autonomous weapons system and it was originally developed
| as a sparring partner for fighter jets (it was far more capable
| than just being a target).
|
| https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/unmanned-flying-te...
| RandomLensman wrote:
| The idea that everything would be small and with little
| momentum to overcome doesn't strike me as stable situation -
| someone might just start to throw (large) rocks from space, for
| example.
| dgroshev wrote:
| I don't think we as laypeople should even attempt to draw
| conclusions from Ukrainian battlefields ourselves, seeing how
| strong the survivorship bias is.
|
| Take FPV drones. In [1] Michael Kofman estimates (based on
| talking to a number of frontline units) that on average <10% of
| FPV drone strikes on armour are successful. The success being a
| mission kill, not a spectacular turret toss we see on
| twitter/reddit/telegram. Every strike requires a large support
| team, strikes can't be massed (because of radio interference
| and EW), the efficiency is dropping over time because of cheap
| adaptations (EW, nets/cages, smoke), and the drones aren't that
| cheap and much less suppressive than 155mm shells. A layperson
| relying on stuff on social networks would have no way of
| knowing this, and think of FPV drones as this incredibly
| effective weapon making tanks (and helicopters) obsolete.
|
| Or TB2s. Remember how they were the future of warfare after
| their success in Nagorno-Karabakh and the first few weeks in
| Ukraine? Few months later TB2s completely disappeared from the
| media, and I don't think many people are aware of how useless
| they became.
|
| More generally, I think we're seeing a repeat of the century
| old debate over torpedo boats. People saw how torpedo boats
| were much cheaper than battleships and thought "hey we can have
| many of those boats, it'll be cheaper and more lethal". Turns
| out that range, coordination, sensing, targeting, and logistics
| are so difficult a smaller number of more capable platforms in
| well trained hands is both more effective and efficient.
|
| In that analogy, those CCA drones are [torpedo boat]
| destroyers, not torpedo boats. A small number of somewhat
| cheaper, but still expensive platforms dependent on the
| exquisite core of the fleet (battleships, carriers, F-35s, or
| AH-64s) that doesn't go anywhere.
|
| [1]: https://warontherocks.com/2024/04/mike-kofman-and-rob-lee-
| on...
| v8xi wrote:
| One of the advancements against EW is having on-device
| mapping systems (this goes back to the Tomahawk in the 70s)
| so that the projectile can adjust its flight in the absence
| of GPS. This is what one of the real advances of AI promises
| to be - a vehicle that can identify and change targets fully
| autonomously. Will especially apply to unmanned underwater
| vehicles which (as far as I know) haven't been deployed but
| will surely change the dynamic on the seas
| isatty wrote:
| Ah yes let me put some non deterministic garbage on my
| killing machine.
| dgroshev wrote:
| We had pretty smart weapon systems for a while now! P-700
| Granit and Brimstone missiles were doing cooperative
| engagement and target selection for decades. BONUS rounds
| fit target recognition into small pucks. If we squint just
| a bit, many naval mines, especially something like CAPTOR,
| are "vehicles that can identify and change targets fully
| autonomously".
|
| AI is not the limiting factor as much as sensors, energy,
| datalinks, logistics, and costs are. Yes we can miniaturise
| TERCOM now, but then where would the vehicle get maps from
| (battlefields change!), how would it see the terrain (at
| night? on a foggy, rainy day? deliberately dazzled/blinded
| with a cheap laser?), how far can it travel, how much
| payload can it take, where does it launch from, and how
| does it get to the launch point? Working through those
| questions and anticipating cycles of adaptation, I think
| it's easy to end up with a $1m JASSM-ER or a $3k 155mm
| shell (neither of which Ukrainians have in sufficient
| numbers).
|
| For example, if you know there's an enemy platoon in that
| forest, why would you fly a swarm of autonomous tree-
| avoiding hunter drones there if you can drop some 155mm
| instead? The enemy can't blind a 155mm shell, EW wouldn't
| work, shells don't care about fog or darkness, payload-to-
| weight ratio is ~100%, and they're cheap. Of course if you
| don't have shells you have to be creative, but that doesn't
| mean the creative solutions are better.
|
| On the other hand, according to the episode I linked,
| humble unarmed non-AI DJI Mavics have a very persistent and
| systemic impact. They provide 24/7 eyes in the sky over the
| entire front line, which makes tactical surprise
| impossible. This is very much not "AI swarming
| slaughterbots" many seem to imagine and invisible to folks
| on the sidelines like us, but that's why I'd be cautious of
| making inferences from the media we get to see.
| Log_out_ wrote:
| Cost goes down rapidly if you can reuse cellphones for
| targeting.
| nyolfen wrote:
| quadcopter manufacturing has been dramatically increasing
| over the last year to the order of 10k+/mo on both sides with
| no sign of slowing down (i believe it's actually much higher
| than this but can't find the source i saw a few weeks ago);
| your argument seems to butt up against this reality
| dgroshev wrote:
| Can you please elaborate which part of the comment you are
| refuting?
| nyolfen wrote:
| if it was not more effective than existing options, both
| sides would not be scaling production and deployment at
| an unparalleled rate
| dgroshev wrote:
| Both sides suffer from shell and ATGM shortage and
| inability to suppress/destroy air defences, which drives
| suboptimal adaptations. An FPV drone assembled in a
| garage from aliexpress components and a tesla battery [1]
| with a submunition extracted from a cluster shell [2] is
| more effective than a single old howitzer with 10 shells
| per 2km of frontline [3], but it's a pretty low bar.
|
| The 10% estimate is not mine, it's from a legitimate
| expert who regularly goes to the frontline in Ukraine.
|
| [1]: An amusing anecdote from that podcast: Tesla battery
| packs are a big source of batteries for FPV drones. The
| packs can be sourced for next to nothing from totaled
| Teslas, and individual cells are very reliable.
|
| [2]: https://www.twz.com/ukrainians-are-cutting-open-u-s-
| cluster-...
|
| [3]: https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/04/17/ukraine-
| frontline-ammo-...
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > More generally, I think we're seeing a repeat of the
| century old debate over torpedo boats. People saw how torpedo
| boats were much cheaper than battleships and thought "hey we
| can have many of those boats, it'll be cheaper and more
| lethal".
|
| And that was mostly right; that's why fast attack craft, the
| modern evolution of torpedo boats, are still a thing, while
| battleships have been relegated to the graveyard of history.
| dgroshev wrote:
| They are only a thing for navies that can't afford anything
| better. We just call our battleships "destroyers" now,
| Burke Flight III and Type 45 are almost exactly the size of
| HMS Dreadnought and half the displacement (we don't do
| armour anymore).
|
| The top end of course got much bigger, CVNs displace almost
| twice as much as Yamato.
| constantcrying wrote:
| A 10% success chance seems incredibly effective. I would have
| estimated the chances quite a bit lower. Tanks are million
| dollar devices, which are expensive to replace and require
| significant training. If they can be effectively attacked by
| infantry without putting themselves in significant danger,
| that drastically lowers the value of a tank.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| Just remember that, unless your goal is just to kill everyone
| and scorch the earth, the aim of warfare is to occupy and
| control territory, which at some point necessitates humans to
| do the occupation. Nobody is yet trying to create permanent
| wastelands inhabited only by robots. It may become increasingly
| dangerous, but whether it's helicopters or some other means of
| transportation, you have to get humans into the land you're
| trying to take.
|
| There are limits to autonomy as well. Presumably they mean
| these things can find targets and maneuver in real time without
| continual human intervention, but they still have human
| operators and someone has to give them a target. My brother-in-
| law works for Anduril, as a forward-deployed trainer of the
| drone operators. There are very much plenty of humans involved
| here. They can't just ship you a pallet of machines that you
| turn on and then they go fight a war for you.
|
| Also remember that exactly what you're describing (all the
| grunts are pinned down by artillery and can't move) is exactly
| what happened in WWI. That didn't mean it was the future of
| war. Offensive forces adapted. Heavy armor, airborne troop
| insertion, long-range counter-battery. Having the upper hand in
| an arms race is never enduring. The other side always adapts.
| mezentius wrote:
| >> Nobody is yet trying to create permanent wastelands
| inhabited only by robots.
|
| On the contrary-- I think that capability would be
| enthusiastically adopted by a state like Ukraine, which is
| fighting an asymmetric defensive war against a larger
| aggressor with logistical advantages. Keep in mind that a
| "permanent wasteland" as a buffer was in fact the status quo
| in parts of the east prior to the Russian invasion in 2022,
| except the wasteland was maintained by human beings at a high
| political and economic cost. Today, both Russia and Ukraine
| create permanent wastelands in the form of extensive
| minefields, passing those costs on to posterity.
|
| The autonomous No Man's Land--a relatively low-cost
| deployment of a buffer zone along a state border, in which
| nothing human may move and live--is likely to be the future
| of warfare in a world increasingly defined by ethnic
| conflicts, unchecked inter-state rivalries, and migratory
| pressures.
| thexumaker wrote:
| Drones have changed warfare at a local tactical level. But your
| drones and smaller autonomous systems aren't helping if you
| have overwhelming firepower superiority, ie in Gaza drones
| haven't inflicted too much damage if you can just drop a couple
| thousand JDAMS and level out a territory.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| Gaza is urban warfare. Most of the drone videos are tanks
| being attacked in open roads or fields.
| pupileater wrote:
| What's with defense and militech companies using Tolkien
| nomenclature as branding?
| rhaps0dy wrote:
| I think it's a feature of followers of Peter Thiel Thought
| (and, in this case, Peter Thiel was one of the early
| investors).
| season2episode3 wrote:
| The name Anduril means "Flame of the West", which sounds cool
| as hell. But it feels a little icky to me given the
| ideological proclivities of Palmer Luckey and Thiel.
| ein0p wrote:
| I find it remarkable how the readers of this site are at the same
| time "worried about LLMs", and totally enthusiastic towards what
| will inevitably become a no-human-in-the-loop Skynet. Sure, we'll
| all get smashed with drones if we stop paying taxes or otherwise
| disobey, but at least our LLMs won't accidentally praise Hitler
| or something.
| brunoqc wrote:
| We are on a venture capital website. Don't be surprised that
| when people read an article about killer drones, they just
| salivate at the sweet pentagon money.
| Aeolun wrote:
| If we don't end up needing it: enjoy the sweet pentagon
| money. If we do end up needing it: enjoy the adoration of the
| people _and_ the money. Win-win.
| ein0p wrote:
| You're missing a couple use cases there. Particularly the
| ones when these weapons, which can't refuse an order like a
| meat sack soldier would, shoot at _you_. I'm not saying
| "don't build weapons", btw. By all means do. I'm saying as
| far as risk is concerned, this is by far the riskiest
| direction imaginable
| ajmurmann wrote:
| IMO with defense the prisoner dilemma is out in full force.
| Ideally nobody would build autonomous weapon platforms like
| this. I'm under the impression though that out opponents are
| already working on these as well. Building these ourselves
| turns the situation from a lose/lose (we lose because our enemy
| has these weapons and we don't or we lose because the weapons
| kill us) to a potential win/lose (we win or avoid way because
| we have solid weapons or we may lose because the weapons turn
| against us)
| some_random wrote:
| I think it's entirely coherent for someone to be worried about
| losing their place in the world but not worried about
| autonomous jet fighters.
| Symmetry wrote:
| Any rogue AI, if it proves to be a danger, will still need to
| maintain its servers somehow. So to be a danger it either needs
| to get humans to do what it wants, in which case it can bomb
| things just as well with manned fighters, or develop its own
| robots and manufacturing, in which case it can build its own
| fighters.
|
| We ought to worry that these will let General Ripper go rogue
| more easily or an adversary hack them, but I don't think this
| moves the needle at all one whether advanced AIs could be
| dangerous.
| nurbl wrote:
| If the movie "the Cube" has taught us anything (and I guess
| it hasn't) it is that it's possible work on something without
| knowing what it's actually for. With some misdirection, an AI
| could probably run in a data center that is on paper doing
| something completely different. Do most people maintaining
| cloud servers today even know what they are running?
| nbzso wrote:
| The problem you have, dear Americans is called MIC. Just quoting
| one of your presidents: >"In the councils of government, we must
| guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether
| sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The
| potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and
| will persist."
|
| So many wars for profit. History knows best that there is no free
| lunch. But I suppose consuming propaganda without a critical
| thinking and effort for facts is good for the business. By the
| way Zala Aero is the current leader in this space. That's why
| Ukrainian counteroffensive was a failure.
| wavefunction wrote:
| What a smug greasy post. I can't tell if you're in favor of MIC
| or not, what a failure on your part.
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| > zala aero
|
| I'm not following the war but thanks to your comment just read
| about them.
|
| They are a subunit of Kalashnikov and the latest drone uses PET
| bottles for fuel tank and a plywood fuselage and a banal model
| airplane engine found at hobby shops.
|
| It's almost like some 90s game designer is writing the plot for
| this.
| nbzso wrote:
| Yep, you can check a thousand videos of those bottles with AI
| burning tanks, BMP's, m777, etc. Or you can continue living
| in the Hollywood Metaverse.
|
| My country is part of NATO. Nobody asked us. No referendum.
| No voting. Nothing. The political class is filling their
| pockets with money, while propaganda is beyond the level of
| USSR and Nazi Germany.
|
| Some of us have military service behind our backs. Some of us
| lived under a communist dictatorship, and we know the smell
| of leftist bullshit.
|
| Live in your tech bubble, but know that East Europeans see
| clearly who is the reason for this bloodbath. And when the
| time comes, we will not die for your corporations as
| Ukrainians.:)
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| > but know that East Europeans see clearly who is the
| reason for this bloodbath
|
| Eastern European here.
|
| The putin regime is the reason for this bloodbath.
| nbzso wrote:
| So you have the facts, kid? Are you sure?
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| Yes, I am absolutely sure.
|
| Each of the propagandists I mentioned in this comment[0]
| made assertions that are demonstrably false, _e.g._ ,
| russia isn't going to invade Ukraine; this is just a
| western conspiracy theory.
|
| They each insisted that Ukraine has no chance, like you
| do. They each insisted repeatedly that Ukraine was just
| about to collapse. They said that several times in 2022.
| They said that several times in 2023. They're saying that
| now in 2024, like you are.
|
| Tell us vatnik, how did the Moskva sink?
|
| [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40158660
| nbzso wrote:
| I have a thick skin, kid. I have seen things and done
| things in my life to know something about the military.
| Aside of stupidity of the Rada to prohibit any form of
| negotiation. Aside of almost perfect peace negotiations
| with Russia, ruined by MIC and Boris Johnson.
|
| This is the historical reality of war. There is no
| technology who will remove the need of a soldier on foot
| to put a flag on a territory. War is logistic. War is
| human resource intensive. Those who have more well-
| trained, organized and supplied soldiers win. Currently,
| there is no meaningful air-defense in Ukraine.
|
| The Russian army has a calculated approach in which they
| bomb with FAB's, FPV's and artillery before ground
| operation. There is no adequate way to replenish the lost
| soldiers for Ukraine. Russians are plenty.
|
| War must be stopped by Ukraine suing for peace. "Suing
| for", in this older sense of the phrase, means "pleading
| or petitioning for".
|
| > General Christopher Cavoli, the commander of European
| Command, told the House Armed Services Committee on April
| 10 that the severity of the situation in Ukraine "can't
| be overstated" as troops on the battlefield run short of
| ammunition and as the country's air-defense capabilities
| are depleted.
|
| Ukrainian troops have been rationing ammunition as
| Russian forces outfire them at a rate of about 5-to-1, he
| told the committee.
|
| "That will immediately go to 10-to-1 in a matter of
| weeks. We are not talking about months. We are not
| talking hypothetically.... We are talking about weeks,"
|
| He obviously forgot the most important part. WELL TRAINED
| SOLDIERS. Money and weapons will not change the outcome.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| Khvatit pizdet', vatnik.
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| you're both right. but in true east European traditions
| will fight on who's more right and completely miss the
| point.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Russia getting its ass kicked by 40 year old American equipment
| is the strongest argument I've yet seen for the military-
| industrial complex :)
| nbzso wrote:
| With shovels and washing machine chips I see:) Please open
| any map and see. Easy way: Check Weeb Union channel. But
| please, be seated.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Do you speak obliquely because directly expressing yourself
| would be too funny?
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| I've checked Weeb Union. I have been checking for years
| now.
|
| He's a vatnik, of the same ilk as [thankfully deceased]
| Gonzalo Lira, convicted sex offender Scott Ritter, or the
| disgraced Douglas Macgregor.
|
| Why are you promoting a kremlin propagandist on this
| website?
| nbzso wrote:
| Other Kremlin propagandists: Judge Napolitano. Lt. Col.
| Tony Shaffer. Prof. Jeffrey Sachs. Larry Johnson. Ray
| McGovern. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Lt. Col. Karen
| Kwiatkowski. Go arrest them, kid. It is democracy or
| freedom. According to the always great Joe Biden. So
| everyone who follows facts is a "vatnik"? Ukrainians
| cannot renew their passports when abroad. This is
| winning, I suppose. PEACE IS WINING. PEACE. War is always
| a loss. And when you have no chance is the only way
| forward.
| paganel wrote:
| Let these Westerners drive directly into a ditch, they deserve
| it. It's like they've learned nothing from the current war in
| Ukraine. Some people are even mentioning dog-fights, like this
| is a freaking _Top Gun_ movie or some such (there 's no dog-
| fight against a S-300, I can tell them that).
|
| The best thing that they could do would be to "import" a few
| dozen Ukrainian drone operators and engineers, people who have
| actively and directly fought against a near-peer US adversary,
| and let them design whatever they think will win the next war.
| But that won't make the current ghouls in the US the buttloads
| of money they are betting on, so that will never happen.
| dralley wrote:
| The counteroffensive failed because of mines, mines, mines and
| more mines and a woefully insufficient quantity of demining
| equipment.
|
| Yet, even that "failure" (I do agree that it failed) was still
| more successful than Russia's post-summer-2022 offensives.
| bandrami wrote:
| I wonder how much the Tolkien estate is getting from them and
| Palantir
| Aeolun wrote:
| They're hardly trademarked are they?
| bandrami wrote:
| As original names they're under copyright in the US and UK,
| and in the UK the estate also retains right of publicity.
| chaostheory wrote:
| Just realized that the last copyright for LOTR will end in
| 2050
| bandrami wrote:
| It's a patchwork. In some countries the Hobbit is already
| in the public domain; in others it will take another
| decade.
| seydor wrote:
| "The war was aborted after a DMCA takedown request"
| p0w3n3d wrote:
| I don't know what weapons World War III will be fought with, but
| World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
| api wrote:
| Einstein was referring to the hydrogen bomb of course.
|
| If high tech superpowers went at each other full bore with H
| bombs we'd probably be LARPing Mad Max, but so far that hasn't
| happened and seems unlikely. All leaders in all these powers
| know that any such exchange would be mutual and thus suicidal
| (MAD) so the only way it happens is if you get someone truly
| insane in power.
|
| What has happened since the bomb was developed and what's
| likely to continue are skirmishes and proxy wars. Drones are
| the modern weapon of such conflicts with Ukraine and the
| Israel-Iran skirmish being heavily drone based.
|
| This is ugly because it's often not the soldiers of the
| superpower puppet masters dying but those of puppet states, and
| drones allow more technological powers to beat up on less
| technological people like it's a video game.
|
| If nukes are used in conflict in this century it will probably
| be just a few in one of these conflicts, followed by an
| overwhelming condemnation.
|
| But the silver lining is that since the bomb was developed the
| overall per capita number of humans dying in war globally has
| fallen dramatically. As long as we continue to avoid huge scale
| conflict this number will probably stay low. Without the bomb
| it's likely that a WWII style conflict between the US and USSR
| would have erupted and killed many millions more.
|
| Some argue based on this that the bomb was a peacekeeping
| invention. So far that's been true but we will see how the
| future goes.
| jpgvm wrote:
| It's been going on much longer in places like Yemen. Obama
| was the first to recognise that by switching to drones you
| basically don't have to face any domestic political
| opposition to combat.
| croon wrote:
| He certainly ramped up from W Bush, but I think it was more
| due to timing in technological advancements and reduced
| overall cost of life (American primarily, others distant
| second), compared to deployments. This[0] passed just a
| week after 9/11 (7 years before Obama).
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_
| Milit...
| Aeolun wrote:
| > sticks and stones
|
| Sticks and drones?
| dralley wrote:
| (NSFW) https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/1bd9vt
| z/russ...
| Garvi wrote:
| It's hard to believe, but the times of "If I won't do it, someone
| else will." are back and it seems people forgot the lesson. It is
| my honest opinion that anyone who works on such weapons is a
| monster.
|
| 3 years ago this topic would be full of people protesting this.
| Pointing out the inhumanity, the potential for abuse, the
| hypocrisy, the dangers of desensitizing war. Censorship changed
| the game entirely.
| merman wrote:
| let's all be diplomats instead. That will save our allies!
| ajmurmann wrote:
| Let's also focus on telling our allies to always restrain
| themselves when fighting their enemies.
| merman wrote:
| Yes, in a historic war of civilization versus the opposite,
| against a foe that uses your humanity as a weakness, it
| becomes very confusing who is right and who is wrong.
| mistercheph wrote:
| C'mon, man!
| galangalalgol wrote:
| That is indeed a horrible excuse for any action. But having
| been here for well over 3 years I think there has always been a
| diversity of opinions on such things. This is very far from an
| echo chamber, which is a good thing! I just hope ycombinator
| never tries to monetize that diversity of thought the way /.
| did by feeding in tangentially techincal topics they knew would
| be controversial. Not everyone here thinks pacifism is a good
| idea, not everyone here thinks the MIC is just a jobs program,
| not everyone here is even on the human's side in the Butlerian
| jihad. I'm glad they post because I am never completely sure of
| any of my views and they may have good arguments. And if we
| talk to each other it moderates the polarization.
| some_random wrote:
| It wasn't censorship, it was the Invasion of Ukraine that woke
| up most of your fellow pacifists. They saw civilians being
| butchered in a pointless, egotistical invasion of a peaceful
| country. They saw protests in Russia being brutally and quickly
| crushed. So they realized that there are in fact threats in the
| world that aren't going to be defeated through self sacrifice
| and empathetic dialogue and instead needs to be subdued with
| firepower.
| gcanyon wrote:
| I'm hearing that dogfighting is a thing of the past because
| weapons systems operate at large distances anymore. Drones should
| do (at least?) three things well: dog fight, since they can make
| decisions in an instant and tolerate higher g-forces than a human
| can; prevent a human death if they get shot down; and be
| smaller/lighter/carry more/have greater range because they're not
| designed around carrying a pilot.
|
| Any ideas on what the driving factors are for this?
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| I think the amount of space and weight a human and their
| required hardware need is pretty low on a jet. However the
| aerodynamics probably benefit a lot from not needing a high up
| bulbous cockpit with really good visibility
| jaysonelliot wrote:
| One important distinction, though - lethal drones should not be
| making decisions.
| michaelt wrote:
| Arguably you're right.
|
| But the makers of lethal autonomous drones would probably
| claim their product is really more like a cruise missile or
| fire-and-forget missile, where there's only a human in the
| loop at the moment of launch and things are autonomous
| thereafter.
| nyolfen wrote:
| this consensus will last until the first actor defects
| mrguyorama wrote:
| This consensus doesn't exist. Computers have been
| designating targets and commanding attacks since at least
| the 60s. The Phalanx CIWS for example is designed to be run
| in fully automatic mode, choosing which radar contacts to
| engage and when to open fire on them. There's even already
| been friendly fire incidents from the system.
|
| Modern anti-ship missiles, torpedos, and BVR missiles also
| are designed with the ability to "go to this point in space
| and then find yourself a target and kill it"
|
| We automated target selection and tasking in warships
| shortly after the second world war, to combat the fact that
| we expected the soviets to send 200 missiles at a task
| force at once, and didn't think humans could manage that
| kind of task load.
|
| If you turn the right keys in an Arleigh Burke, every
| single human can leave the command part of the ship and it
| will still shoot planes out of the sky, all automated.
| daedrdev wrote:
| Say some human decides have the drone attack a target, and
| the drone takes care of the entire fight itself
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Dog fighting requires much more situational awareness from a
| sensor perspective. One reason the recent VISTA demonstration
| had the adversary feed its own position via data link to the
| autonomously flown plane.
|
| Magazine depth and endurance/range seem to be the initial
| goals.
| Wohlf wrote:
| Unmanned fighters are a force multiplier, a single F-35 can
| coordinate its own squadron of drones (loyal wingman program).
| More ordnance, more coverage, more capabilities, more
| flexiblility, and less risk for lower relative costs.
| Balgair wrote:
| I hate to be the downer here, but we said the exact same thing
| with the F4. And then the F4 got hosed over Vietnam. So we went
| back to having a gun onboard.
|
| Things are appreciably different this time, yes. But how
| different, and how that will shake out in the fog of war, the
| friction [0], is another thing to be seen.
|
| All I guess I'm saying is that caution is warranted before we
| declare the dog fight dead, again.
|
| [0] Clausewitz, drink!
| hollerith wrote:
| The VTOL and the Navy versions of the F-35 lack a gun.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Wait how are these representative of a 5th gen fighter if they
| have a max speed below mach 1?
| nradov wrote:
| Efficient supersonic capability is only one minor aspect of 5th
| generation fighters, and not even particularly useful for most
| missions. It's less important than low observability, data
| links, and sensor fusion.
| bearjaws wrote:
| TIL there is a LOTR themed company that is making weapons, neat.
| qarl wrote:
| It's closely related to Palantir.
|
| Both are by right wing Silicon Valley libertarians sucking on
| the government teat.
| adampk wrote:
| In your view, does any company that does business with
| government organizations count as sucking on the government
| teat?
| qarl wrote:
| Pretty much, yes. Personally I don't mind the idea of
| sucking on the government teat - seems pretty reasonable.
|
| But when you're a libertarian doing it - I just have to
| laugh.
|
| Ditto Tesla. It's not a coincidence that all these guys are
| suffering the same hypocrisy.
| justrealist wrote:
| Defense/military is one of the few government functions
| that libertarians endorse as totally necessary. To many,
| it's the only legitimate government function.
|
| I don't think you've thought about this very hard.
| qarl wrote:
| Ah then - so in your mind it's only Elon who's the
| hypocrite?
| justrealist wrote:
| What specifically do you think Elon has said which is
| hypocritical?
| qarl wrote:
| Are you not following our conversation?
| seti0Cha wrote:
| Libertarians aren't anarchists. They don't generally
| believe that there should be no government (although you
| can find people who believe just about anything). I don't
| think there's anything hypocritical about libertarians
| taking government contracts for defense. If they were
| taking government contracts or jobs around regulating
| markets or building public housing, then that would be
| closer to hypocritical, but I'm not sure that even
| qualifies. Hypocrisy isn't benefiting from something you
| disapprove of, it's engaging in it, so arguably, they'd
| have to be the ones issuing the laws they disapprove of
| for it to be hypocrisy.
| qarl wrote:
| Maybe.
|
| But they almost certainly don't just take this work. They
| advocate for more work. They lobby for more funds.
|
| I'm not a libertarian, so I don't know the details, but I
| believe advocated for larger government must be contrary
| to their beliefs, no?
| seti0Cha wrote:
| Maybe, but not necessarily. It really depends on what
| they actually believe (or say they believe) specifically.
| If their belief is "societies work better when
| governments don't interfere with markets", then their
| beliefs say nothing about what individual people should
| do in situations where a government does interfere with
| markets. They may also believe that if you can't fix
| something, taking advantage of it is justified, in which
| case they are not being hypocritical. That's not to say
| you can't regard such a position as unethical. However, I
| think many if not most people use systems they are in
| favor of dismantling. For example, people who believe
| housing is a human right don't typically donate their
| houses when they move, they sell them on the open market.
| qarl wrote:
| > They may also believe that if you can't fix something,
| taking advantage of it is justified
|
| Yes, but you're ignoring my central point. They aren't
| merely taking advantage of something, they are pushing to
| expand and enlarge it.
| literallycancer wrote:
| You can argue for changes while still recognizing that
| the current rules make it more optimal to do the things
| you argue against. There is no contradiction.
| qarl wrote:
| But you cannot advocate to extend the current rules for
| the profit of your company.
| drngdds wrote:
| >libertarians
|
| Palmer Luckey got kicked out of Meta for funding Trump ads, I
| don't think you can classify him as a libertarian lol
|
| (though there are many other self-described libertarians who
| are even more right-wing-authoritarian, so maybe nitpicking
| isn't worthwhile)
| qarl wrote:
| Pretty sure it was the fact that he paid trolls to harass
| Clinton's online forums.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| They are pilotless. Ok. That is one job that has been removed
| from the equation, but take a look at any airforce base. Not
| everyone is a pilot. The _vast_ majority of personnel are not
| pilots. These things will still need the engine techs, the
| avionics people, the ground crew, fuel people, air traffic
| controllers, all the way down to the guy driving the mule. The
| net change in manning between an "autonomous" drone and an
| oldschool drone driven by a pilot in a trailer will be minimal.
|
| And many old fighter jets retire as target drones, going on to
| fly unmanned for perhaps decades. New purpose-build designs might
| have lower operating costs but their purchase price will always
| be higher than slapping radio controls onto already-purchased
| jets.
| iamthirsty wrote:
| > The net change in manning between an "autonomous" drone and
| an oldschool drone driven by a pilot in a trailer is minimal.
|
| Well the whole point is not to reduce headcount totally but
| reduce the amount of people put directly in harms way, for
| example a pilot flying in a direct combat scenario.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| An "unmanned" drone still has a pilot. That pilot is on the
| ground, flying the drone remotely. An "autonomous" drone is
| one that has no pilot anywhere. In neither case is anyone in
| harm's way.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| Yeah, a MQ-9 Reaper for example has a ground-based pilot
| and payload specialist, working in conjunction with a
| command and control team and others.
| chasd00 wrote:
| downing a drone doesn't require the kind of response that
| killing a pilot does. It's easier to deescalate from a bunch of
| drones being shot down vs coffins coming home to families.
| jessriedel wrote:
| Why do you think anyone else thinks that eliminating the job is
| the valuable thing bere? I have always heard the benefits to be
| things like less risk to life (vs piloted), quicker reaction
| (vs piloted and remote), can't be jammed (vs remote). Literally
| never heard anyone mentioned salary saved ever, and indeed
| everyone expects it to be more expensive.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> never heard anyone mentioned salary saved ever
|
| When it comes to fighter pilots, salary is irrelevant. The
| few pennies paid in salary is absolutely nothing compared to
| the millions of dollars a year it takes to train and maintain
| an active combat pilot. Those costs are at the center of
| nearly every discussion re military drone tech. An autonomous
| pilot, a computer program, doesn't need check rides. It
| doesn't need to re-qual its AAR ticket every month. And it
| doesn't retire or get promoted out after five years.
| jessriedel wrote:
| You're not responding to my question. You're listing
| reasons the elimination of the job valuable, which
| partially undermines your original comment (because some of
| these reasons do not apply to drone pilots) but does not
| answer why you think other people consider the eliminated
| job to be the key benefit.
|
| Like is any of this mentioned in the article or this
| comment section? Or are you just complaining about bad
| arguments you heard elsewhere?
| KineticLensman wrote:
| Getting the pilots out of the aircraft reduces the number
| of people killed in action, which has a significant
| effect on a war's support and popularity.
| jessriedel wrote:
| Yes I mentioned this in my first comment.
| nradov wrote:
| A lot of the support staff on those airbases exist to support
| training flights by human pilots (both in the cockpit and
| remote). If training flight hours can be cut then that will
| tremendously reduce ground personnel requirements. The
| autonomous flight software only has to be "trained" once; new
| copies don't have to spend years in the pilot training
| pipeline.
|
| (I am aware that current autonomous piloting technology is very
| limited and can only accomplish a small subset of Air Force
| missions.)
| Havoc wrote:
| Unfortunately it's also the coolest job of those you lost that
| got killed
| daedrdev wrote:
| The point is the maneuvers can be much more extreme because the
| done doesn't need to prevent a bag of meat from rupturing due
| to high g forces.
| nradov wrote:
| I don't know why people keep bringing that up. It's hardly
| relevant. Extreme maneuvers at high G forces are mostly only
| useful in very limited circumstances for evading a missile in
| the terminal phase of an engagement. In the real world it's
| far less important than low observability, data links, sensor
| fusion, EW, decoys, fuel fraction, and stand-off range.
|
| Building an airframe strong enough to handle G forces beyond
| what a human can endure also comes at the price of greater
| weight and reduced range. It's not worth the trade-off.
| 0x457 wrote:
| I'd say it's a huge change. Yes, it still needs all the same
| support personnel, or maybe even more. However, those drones
| that are controlled from a container suffer huge latency that
| make them useless for most air combat.
|
| Those aren't meant to fly high and send missiles at weddings on
| the ground, those are maneuverable wingmen for F-35s.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| The introduction of autonomous flying killer robots reduces human
| species longevity estimates by ~50%, at least.
| gnatman wrote:
| I guess autonomous platforms are exciting to defense procurement
| and war planners because they can use them much more aggressively
| in theatre without risking expensive pilots. It's hard not to
| think of the recent reporting on the "Lavender" AI targeting
| system and how these two ideas combined will lead to more
| indiscriminate killing of civilians. What's the calculus for
| human American pilot lives to collateral civilian lives? 5:1 or
| 40:1?
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Collateral damage should be at historic lows with an ai army.
| Fly a swarm like birds over a city, identify your target, and
| you can selectively eliminate that target with a single bullet
| from the drone.
|
| Sure beats filling the sky with bombers and flattening a city
| overnight as was done in wwii.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| The problem is how you define your "target". In Israeli
| _Lavender_ program it seems they are killing people for
| _belonging to the same Whatsapp group_ as someone identified
| as a terrorist. And that 's because Israel has a long time
| policy of "punishing" family members of "terrorists" (the
| term includes both legit terrorists but also people who are
| just political opponents).
| gnatman wrote:
| Exactly. Simply "identify the target"! It's an incredibly
| broad handwave that ignores all the unsolved problems in
| computer vision and warfare fire control.
| bugglebeetle wrote:
| It's the height of irony to respond to this comment with some
| techno-utopian BS, when the parent is describing how AI is
| actually being used, right now, to inflict mass casualties on
| a civilian population. At what point to people abandon their
| Panglossian hypotheticals and stare reality in its face?
| lossolo wrote:
| Read this https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-
| gaza/
|
| It's not as simple as you say and it doesn't work currently
| as you say.
| adhamsalama wrote:
| Israel did flatten Gaza. They don't care about killing
| innocent civilians.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Well they tried to wait for the civilian population in the
| north to evacuate before they advanced, unlike the
| Americans to say the Japanese, Germans, Vietnamese,
| Cambodians, Laotians, and scores more who they bombed
| indiscriminately. I'd say that this conflict is a huge step
| in the right direction in terms of the treatment of
| civilians in war. War is ugly especially when the adversary
| embeds their infrastructure with their civilian population,
| in order to maximize collateral damage and shift
| international sentiment.
| darknavi wrote:
| If you haven't read Kill Decision by Daniel Suarez, it's quite
| good (especially the audio book) and is related to unmanned
| killing drones. Near future sci-fi.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| Shouldn't they be just trying to get the unit cost of a cruise
| missile down to like 100K. Seems a lot more effective TBH.
| acjohnson55 wrote:
| Reading the comments here is giving me the disturbing realization
| that the war in Ukraine is extremely valuable to the US because
| the US gets to collect immense amounts of data to inform
| perspectives on how modern technology is revolutionizing warfare
| with minimal risk to American troops. And that's with technology
| in the hands of an extremely motivated ally against one of our
| top rivals. This opportunity doesn't come very often, and I can
| imagine there are a lot of parties interested in it persisting at
| least until the value in the observational data starts to tail
| off. Along with other concerns, this may be a reason to parcel
| out exactly what tech gets given to Ukraine at which times.
| kornhole wrote:
| I have been watching the warfare via several Telegram channels
| and observe how important drone warfare now is. I watched 5
| $10M Abrams tanks destroyed by $500 FPV drones. Close combat on
| troops is also conducted with drones with remarkable precision.
| We don't know how much of the targeting and execution by Russia
| is automated verses manual, but many experts in this field
| agree that Russia's technical capability is at parity and
| sometimes exceeds NATO's such as hypersonic missiles.
| exhilaration wrote:
| I thought Russia's hypersonic missiles were a failure, with
| the Ukrainians shooting them down with 30 year old Patriot
| missiles? There were a lot of articles about it last year,
| here's one:
|
| https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2023/09/what-
| ukraines-...
| jjk166 wrote:
| It's worth considering that while the equipment in use in the
| ukraine conflict is obviously relevant, the nature of the
| conflict is radically different from what the US would face.
| Ukraine is literally on Russia's doorstep, allowing Russia to
| send its units in and pull them back for repairs with
| relatively limited logistical strain. This allows it to use
| massive numbers of cold war surplus assets that would not be
| viable anywhere else on earth. Ukraine started the war with an
| extremely small air force and has received only very limited
| support in that regard, meaning it has spent the entire war
| without air control. This both limits Ukraine's capacity to use
| tactics which rely on air support and gives Russia the ability
| to operate its air forces in relative safety. US doctrine is
| completely based around air superiority. Ukraine had an
| extremely limited standing army and military industrial
| capacity prior to the war, and has relied heavily on non-
| professional troops who volunteered or were conscripted after
| the war started and received only moderate training, and it is
| dependent on foriegn support for advanced arms and munitions.
| The US has both the strongest standing army and the most
| advanced military industrial complex in human history. The
| issues Ukraine is struggling with now - pushing into areas
| Russian troops have spent months fortifying while having to
| conserve artillery shells, holding off an unending trickle of
| 60 year old soviet tanks, and having to jerry-rig long range
| drones to attack targets in Russia - are challenges that simply
| wouldn't exist if the US were fighting a war. If our goal was
| really to get useful data that would be applicable to US
| conflicts, we'd be giving the Ukrainians the means to fight the
| way we fight.
| Balgair wrote:
| It was always going to be a terrible tragedy with Ukraine. Vlad
| committed something much worse than a crime, he committed a
| mistake (to paraphrase Talleyrand).
|
| NATO+ countries aren't fighting him, they are using Ukraine as
| a proxy, while Vlad is fighting with his own army. NATO has
| been waiting nearly 80 years to attack Russia directly. They
| very motivated to make sure that Vlad continues making errors.
| As such, the longer this war takes, the better for NATO. And,
| unfortunately, the worse for Ukraine.
|
| I think data collection is for sure one aspect, but I think
| Russian casualties is the largest motivator
| sangnoir wrote:
| > And, unfortunately, the worse for Ukraine
|
| In what way would having the whole of Ukraine annexed like
| Crimea be better for Ukraine?
| attentive wrote:
| I have an impression that no modern technology is tested there
| but rather supplied with ready to be decommissioned 50 year old
| antics.
| gantron wrote:
| You're mostly correct that the older tech is the bulk of
| what's been sent, but there have been lots of batches of
| newer tech that the US has delivered. [0]
|
| These newer companies (Anduril, Skydio, etc.) do it for a few
| reasons. Some are obvious: they get paid and their systems
| have a chance at influencing real-world events that the
| leadership & rank-and-file employees might care about
| personally.
|
| But from a pure product development perspective, fielding
| these systems is a valuable test opportunity. You've built a
| great drone but you're not sure how it'll perform in a GPS-
| denied environment with S-band radio completely unusable?
| Russian Electronic Warfare teams are happy to curate that
| environment for you.
|
| [0] https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2024-01
| -08...
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| Did you get the disturbing realization that Russia gets data on
| the materiel too?
| bmitc wrote:
| How does a company like Anduril come out of nowhere to scale so
| fast, get so much money, and so many contracts in a very
| entrenched field of government defense contracts? Yes, they're
| bringing modern industry experience to these things, but I don't
| see that as enough to break through all the barriers that are
| there. How have they done it?
| mingus88 wrote:
| Andruil is a bunch of ex-Palantir folk.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| Go find any GUR operator in Ukraine and ask them what they think
| of Anduril
|
| Their proprietary controller doesn't work with TAK or qgc and
| they keep everything closed with no interop with the actual FPV
| or other systems in use daily
|
| Unusable in actual war
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