41 replies to this topic

[tank50us]

As many of you know, many companies are experimenting with UCAVs, which remove the pilot from the bombs. To me, I think the future is not in UCAVs, since a UCAV that is capable of the same abilities of current fighters would cost as much as an F-15 or SU-27. Personally, I'd rather have a pilot in the 35million dollar plane who can think on his feat, faster then any computer can hope to match. However I do feel that drones can prove useful, as tiny escorts, they can 'piggy-back' on bombers in the event that intercepters rise to meet the bomber before it can reah its target. The Drones could then engage the intercepters and atleast distract them until the bomber can leave the area. I don't intend this to be a flame war, so just post YOUR oppinion on the topic.

[Eddy01741]

IIRC, UCAVs are pretty much piloted by pilots on the ground, so basically, no limitations of the human body (g forces) and yuo don't have another good man die by having the plane shot down. I think teh Raptor might be one of the last jet fighters, limitations of human beings are simply too much to overcome when missiles can pull 10+Gs as well as the planes themselves, but the human body can barely take 9 gs and only for a VERY limited amount of time.


I don't see any UCAVs being piloted by AI for a LONG time.

[Cuppa]

Eddy01741, on 13 Aug 2008, 12:39, said:

IIRC, UCAVs are pretty much piloted by pilots on the ground, so basically, no limitations of the human body (g forces) and yuo don't have another good man die by having the plane shot down. I think teh Raptor might be one of the last jet fighters, limitations of human beings are simply too much to overcome when missiles can pull 10+Gs as well as the planes themselves, but the human body can barely take 9 gs and only for a VERY limited amount of time.


I don't see any UCAVs being piloted by AI for a LONG time.

Don't forget how UCAVs have a longer life span and cost much less the maintain. I also think we'll see the implementation of microwave and laser weapons soon enough, those will definitely change dogfighting.

[CommanderJB]

I think what we'll see for UCAVs is their replacing all surveillance aircraft (I mean, they've already done that to some extent), as well as bombers. This is primarily thanks to their unmatched ability to loiter over target zones in a way that's simply unsafe and infeasible for manned aircraft. Whether or not they'll replace fighters I don't really know - they would actually be far more cost-effective and combat-effective than an equivalent piloted aircraft, because you free up so much weight and performance be removing the cockpit and all the associated life support gear etc., but as you say I doubt whether we'll see sensor technology that allows them to be controlled nearly as effectively from the ground (and, of course, if the enemy jams the control signals, you're completely screwed). I would say probably a mix between pilot aircraft like the Raptor and UCAVs, either as independent units or as 'Flighthawk' style plane-deployed weapons (though I don't imagine that Flighthawks - bomber-deployed mini-fighter UCAVs from the Dale Brown novels if you're wondering - per se will ever eventuate they're much to unwieldy and don't give you the force multiplication that you'd need to offset the huge loss in weapons carriage).
Once concept that I've always wondered about is the 'missile truck' idea. Why not just take an AWACS aircraft and/or an ECM aircraft and give it the longest-ranged guided missiles and best point-defence missiles you can design? If you actually build the plane and the missiles from scratch it's hard to see what could touch it from my point of view.

[Strategia]

Remote-controlled drone with nose camera and warhead > cruise missile IMO. They're likely cheaper, possibly smaller, and if that is true, much easier to deploy. Heck, if they get small enough, you could have mortar-launched guided weapons with greater accuracy than a cruise missile could ever hope to achieve.

tank50us, on 13 Aug 2008, 18:55, said:

To me, I think the future is not in UCAVs, since a UCAV that is capable of the same abilities of current fighters would cost as much as an F-15 or SU-27.

Which would mean..... that they would cost as much as current fighters.

Training a fighter pilot costs millions of dollars. Training a UCAV pilot - ok, it may be more difficult than completing the tutorial mission of the latest Ace Combat title, but it's certainly a lot cheaper than a full-blown fighter training. And, as has been said, safer; if a fighter goes down, you lose a fighter and likely also a pilot, if a UCAV goes down the pilot can fly another UCAV launched minutes later. Nothing short of a strike at the control centre would endanger the pilots.

Plus, UCAVs take up a lot less space - even if they're as big as current fighter planes, or maybe even bigger, you still save space on crew. You don't need one or two people to fly every UCAV, unless you want to be able to have them all in the air at once, which is unlikely and unreasonable. And since you can save so much space, future UCAV aircraft carriers, for instance, could be a fair bit smaller than the current Nimitz-esque monstrosities while retaining the same undiminished strike abilities. Or they could be built to the same size, and would be able to house even more aircraft and hence be even more powerful.

I for one accept the dominion of our remote-controlled robotic overlords

[Wizard]

Cuppa, on 13 Aug 2008, 23:00, said:

those will definitely change dogfighting.

Top Gun killed that method of combat. It won't happen again. Modern warfare just isn't what everyone has planned for.

I can UCAVs as being the way forward. Why put a pilot in a $2bn plane when you can have someone on the ground control 10?!? They can be smaller and harder to target via radar etc, use less fuel and ulitmately will be better. However I would be loathe to pass most of the control over to AI, for pretty much eternity. AI vs AI match ups are just boring

[The Wandering Jew]

UCAVs have electronic componentry.
Electronic componentry is susceptible to EMP.
Thus, UCAVs are suscpetible to EMPs.
Once EMPed, BOOM! Down goes the UCAV.

Human pilots are still viable. At least he/she can fly the 'craft manually.

[Wizard]

Current aircraft have electronic components. Hit an aircraft with an ECM field and it goes down and the pilot dies to. Therefore UCAVs have one up on the current method already.




PS is there even a currently an effective ECM weapon system employed anywhere?

[Waris]

The Wandering Jew, on 14 Aug 2008, 19:08, said:

UCAVs have electronic componentry.
Electronic componentry is susceptible to EMP.
Thus, UCAVs are suscpetible to EMPs.
Once EMPed, BOOM! Down goes the UCAV.

Human pilots are still viable. At least he/she can fly the 'craft manually.

You have greatly underestimate how much and how important electronics are, even to earlier-generation fighters.

All he/she can do then is to crash-land, if flight control surfaces are still controlled hydraulically.

It is also probable that EMP-hardened equipment be used to build today's aircrafts.

Edited by Waris, 14 August 2008 - 09:51.

[The Wandering Jew]

@^:
I was thinking of sensitive electronic components. To control a "drone" thousands of feet in the air, you need precise equipment. And precise equipment require sensitive electronics.

As to crash-land, point the 'craft on a, let's say, a barracks and in a split-second decision, use the ejection seat. That's a barracks less to worry about (just a theory, anyway).

[Strategia]

The Wandering Jew, on 14 Aug 2008, 12:05, said:

To control a "drone" thousands of feet in the air, you need precise equipment. And precise equipment require sensitive electronics.

To control a manned fighter thousands of feet in the air, you need precise and sensitive electronics too. Do you really think humans have it in them to just fly manually at twice the speed of sound, and engage enemy aircraft so far away they're not even visible as a speck?

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As to crash-land, point the 'craft on a, let's say, a barracks and in a split-second decision, use the ejection seat. That's a barracks less to worry about (just a theory, anyway).

I'd like to see you hit a barracks accurately with a crash-landing plane flying a couple thousand feet in the air. That is, even if the plane allows manual control without electronics. And then you eject; and since you can hit that barracks, means that you're over enemy territory.

[Wizard]

Fly-by-wire is electronic (in the main) so that would be a no-no. As the ejector seat is also electronically controlled, with a core of mechanical components, you'd be in the same trouble.

[The Wandering Jew]

(smacks forehead) Oh, yeah. Silly me. Enemy territory has AA batteries.

[Eddy01741]

Okay, if you hit an EMP field in a jet fighter, unless you are using vietnam/korean era jet fighters, your going down. THey don't even use hydraulic controls anymroe, its al electronic fly by wire. You hit an EMP, the controls stop responding, your engine control goes down, your HUD is gone, your radar goes down, you might be able to fly in a straight line lol. You better hope your ejector seat isn't too electronically based too, or your so screwed.

[CommanderJB]

An excellent example is the Eurofighter Typhoon - it requires seventy-two compunters just to keep it in the air. If these go down it's so aerodynamically unstable it will simply fall out of the sky. (It was designed this way so as to have the maximum agility while dogfighting.) But it is possible to shield electronics from electro-magnetic pulse effects by 'hardening' electrical connections and surrounding delicate components with heavy-duty conductive wire that will draw the energy of the pulse away from them. Air Force One, for example, has kilometres of copper wire looped throughout the fuselage and engines in order to protect it from an EMP. While much more difficult given the smaller and much more complex nature of fighter craft, it would still be theoretically possible to shield a fighter from EMP, but I still wouldn't be too keen on testing it at 10,000 ft.

[The Wandering Jew]

@JB:

That's the main reason why Russian MiG-25 Foxbats were not electronically upgraded. The 'planes still used "old-school" vacuum tubes.

[CommanderJB]

Yup, that and the fact that they were much easier to replace at remote airfields and more reliable in the temperature extremes at high altitude. And of course they were much cheaper. And they enabled the radar to have ridiculous power. But it would still have had enough electronics in it that if it got hit by an EMP at any sort if close range (within a few dozen kilometres) it wouldn't be flying much of anywhere a short time afterward. Still, it would have definitely helped protect the very vulnerable radar from EMP effects at longer distances. EMP is becoming a very fast growth area in weapons technology - the U.S. are extensively investigating it but Russia is already mounting EMP generators on its T-90s to make them invulnerable to magnetic mines.

[The Wandering Jew]

So we have a trend here. Aircraft, regardless of being UAVed or piloted by "fighter jocks", more or less have follwed it (but correct me if I am wrong):

1. Nuclear
2. Chemical
3. Biological
4. Thermobaric
5. EMP
6. Weather control?

What is this? Red Alert?

[Eddy01741]

When did aircraft use biological weapons? In fact, when did fighter planes even use nuclear weapons in anger (well, actually, nobody has ever used nculear bombs in anger besides in WWII)? Thermobaric is just an extension off of conventional bombs (HE). It's like a fuel air explosive, except it doesn't need as much oxygen to be effective (so it is more effective in tunnels, where terrorists might be hiding in Afghanistan).

[The Wandering Jew]

Biological/chemical weapons (like my all-time faves that killed thousands of sheep in Utah, the S-diemenethyl-laminoethyl phosphonothiolate, a.k.a. VX; and the "stored-in-cans-at-abandoned-Russian-warehouses" Soman) were created, deployed, but never launched against any target (except those poor hapless sheep perhaps )

[partyzanpaulzy]

Actually I've heard Soviet Union tested Earthquake weapon, but it ended with destruction of one their town on Siberia (doesn't mean they can't have it or not). Another think is Chinese tornado SW or US climatic weapon. These are speculations, but I won't wonder if they have something like it.

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1. Nuclear
2. Chemical
3. Biological
4. Thermobaric
5. EMP
6. Weather control?

You forgot on orbital weapons, meteorical weapons or "gay bomb". :chillpill1:

Back on topic: I think some fighters without electronics should be kept in servise (be built) for this cause.
Another way is using of minimal amount of electronic, more optotronical systems, EMP shields.

[Dutchygamer]

The Wandering Jew, on 16 Aug 2008, 3:10, said:

Biological/chemical weapons (like my all-time faves that killed thousands of sheep in Utah, the S-diemenethyl-laminoethyl phosphonothiolate, a.k.a. VX; and the "stored-in-cans-at-abandoned-Russian-warehouses" Soman) were created, deployed, but never launched against any target (except those poor hapless sheep perhaps )

Lol, and what about Agent Orange then? Ain't that a Chemical weapon?

Anyways, I think it's better indeed to use UAV's instead of human pilots. Reasons enough

[DerKrieger]

Dutchygamer, on 17 Aug 2008, 16:55, said:

The Wandering Jew, on 16 Aug 2008, 3:10, said:

Biological/chemical weapons (like my all-time faves that killed thousands of sheep in Utah, the S-diemenethyl-laminoethyl phosphonothiolate, a.k.a. VX; and the "stored-in-cans-at-abandoned-Russian-warehouses" Soman) were created, deployed, but never launched against any target (except those poor hapless sheep perhaps )

Lol, and what about Agent Orange then? Ain't that a Chemical weapon?

Anyways, I think it's better indeed to use UAV's instead of human pilots. Reasons enough

Agent Orange was designed as a defoliant, not a chemical weapon. Chemical weapons were used fairly extensively in WWI.

[Dauth]

You do miss all the other agents, some of which were designed as irritants to be used against the enemies of the US.

[Eddy01741]

Chemical warfare never used?

WWI they were used, I'd imagine WWII they were used, in conflicts with israel there was complaint of using hwite phosphorus, which is like a combo of chemical and incendiary, and oh yeah, the kurds were mustard gassed by Saddam Hussein for their opposition.

Anyways, i have NEVER seen boilogical weapons used via the air, biological is like anthrax, cholera, tuberculosis, influenza, the plague, etc. I don't know how you could spread that.... (drop bombs full of infected fleas/mosquitos? drop dead horses (with parachutes retarding their landing lol)? I mean, I know of biological warfare in the middle ages, ie, when defenders of a city/castle were killed, they were loaded into a trebuchet and launched to the enemy forces in hope of spreading plague, they also did the same with dead horses.