chris talpas

And just to give a sense of how early we are in this iteration of warfare, my great-great-grandfather witnessed the early use of proto machine guns at the Battle of Gaines Mill more than 150 years ago. Imagine where drones will be in 30. 

I read the doc and RUSI actually hits some pretty salient points.  The mainstream thinking is that unmanned systems as we are talking about here are an addition to conventional warfare.  An emerging capability to be added to our extant capability portfolios and expenditures. Unmanned systems are an undeniably part of the future warfare military algorithms and focus should be on how to combine them best within our current approaches to create advantages.
I think this does not go far enough.  I believe that unmanned autonomous systems will emerge as the core pillar of a future military operational system.  We will then build the remaining systems, some legacy others also new, around these new unmanned capabilities.  We will fund and equip the unmanned forces first, along with C4ISR and PGM strike.  We will then need to figure out from the money left what to resources with respect to heavier conventional manned systems.  This takes the entire approach to force development and generation and flips it. More plainly, tanks will survive if they can demonstrate that they can shape, support and/or exploit the main unmanned battle…not the other way around as RUSI and others suggest.
This era we are in reminds me of the introduction of machine guns. Militaries of the day immediately brigaded them like cannons and relegated them to a support-to-infantry role.  The reality is that within a few short years the role of infantry was to protect the machine guns while they exerted firepower effect, and then the infantry would exploit that effect by taking and holding ground…so they could move up the machine guns.

We're all arguing this on a board that's dedicated to a wargame that has implemented at least some level of autonomy at the small unit level for 20 years.  And made it work in reasonable compute times for battalion sized swarms on computers that were nothing special.  The only thing it doesn't have is the physical sensor inputs, and those are pretty straightforward.  And it was all implemented by Charles and maybe a helper (I haven't kept up).  Charles himself might even count as an autonomous biocomputer, since he's really just a brain in a jar.

If I may attempt to summarize, you have to win the war to earn the privilege of making the rules. And if rejecting a new technology means you lose....

The issue with fully autonomous is that it offers superiority for a deterministic system.  That driver will pretty much ensure any attempts at regulation/proliferation are going to fall apart.  Now if autonomous systems achieve the level of a WMD with a MAD component, perhaps.  But the best counter to stop fully autonomous weapon systems...are other fully autonomous weapon systems.  We already have this in maritime warfare with missiles and point defence systems.  The CWIS is entirely autonomous once someone flips the switch.  They can target and engage on their own.  Why?  Because a machine can react far faster than a manned gun.
I don't think it is a question of Warhawk shrugging, it is the recognition that the odds of regulation that 1) we can agree upon and 2) sticks, is simply very unlikely.  Nuclear proliferation is a bad example because the morale imperative is not why the major powers did it.  They did so they could exclusively remain the major powers.  The other examples really are somewhat historical anomalies that we are also likely to walk back from as wars become more existential in nature.  Probably the best example is bio or chemical weapons, but we also know that neither of these really stuck either.
Trying to outlaw weapons is like trying to outlaw warfare.  We believe we can because we think that war is solely a political extremity and we can use political legality to control a political mechanism.  The reality is that the nature of warfare we currently subscribe to is the 2nd generation.  The 1st generation was "war is an extension of survival by violent means." That is the older darker nature of warfare that Clausewitz all tried to forget...right up to the point it throws itself in our faces.  In reality, we live in a third generation nature of warfare - "viable violence to achieve political ends."  The introduction of nuclear weapons put us all in a box whereby we can only really wage warfare in a constrained manner.  Go too far and one faces mutual annihilation.  The problem is when 3rd generation collides with the first one. 
So I fully believe in and adhere to the Law of Armed Conflict.  I think we should definitely aspire to be better than we really are.  But I know an existential capability when I see it. And fully autonomous weapon systems are definitely on that list.

Guidance will certainly be the challenge. Not only detection and target discrimination but how do you prevent fratricide?  Does that then require some IFF since you aren’t going to launch singletons against a swarm.  The aforementioned bats have solved the target discrimination problem in a swarm setting.
Do different models of drones have significantly different acoustic signatures?  If so, could they home on that?
Then again a bunch of dpicm armed drones sent into a swarm to explode could do substantial damage.  All depends on how dispersed the swarm is.  Widely dispersed until final targets probably makes sense.

When EU parliament is doing better than the House of Representatives, I hope Speaker Johnson looked at the eclipse without protection. What a ridiculous mind boggling genuinely bad look for the Republican Party, Congress and the U.S. At this point, a pure Ukraine bill should be able to pass. The fact it cannot, despite a majority of republicans, democrats, a bipartisan majority in Congress, alongside a majority of the American people, due to one man, the speaker, and I suppose, one presidential candidate, how can any ally of the U.S have faith in us? I mean, let’s be blunt, support for Ukraine is bipartisan and popular and not a fringe position. The fact that despite this, we are unable to pass the bill will not reassure any American allies, nor our enemies, nor neutrals to trust us.

But here and good news. After despearted interview of UKR Foreign Affairs minister about "Patriots", something moved in Eurpore
 

I think two things need to occur with UAS before we may see an end to offensive deadlock:
-  Scale.  Despite a massive growth in FPV usage, the numbers are still nowhere near the levels we saw for artillery in this war.  This makes sense from both an operator and production standpoint.  We discussed how one would need offensive drone waves at higher scales in order to suppress and corrode at rates needed to set conditions for viable operational offensives.
- Autonomy.  The greatest weakness drones have right now is that each one needs a link back to a human operator in order for maximum effect.  We know the clock is ticking on this one.  Once drones become fully autonomous (or even “more” semi), EW protections start to fail because there are no links back to an operator to cut. This is why EW does nothing against a Javelin missile.
Add these two together and one has a capability that can effective suppress and support offensive operations.  Combine it with sufficient artillery and AD and one has a potential war winner.  The only question really left is, can Ukraine or Russia make this happen in this war?  And for this I do not know.

They sent a Slamhound on Turner's trail in New Delhi, slotted it to his pheromones and the color of his hair. It caught up with him on a street called Chandni Chauk and came scrambling for his rented BMW - Its core was a kilogram of recrystallized hexogene and flaked TNT.

I guess I have heard from the military conservative school for most of my career...hell at one point I think I was inside it.  They have declared "fad" since 1991 for everything from EBO, RMA and Multi-Domain.  They have also mounted evidence to prove their "rightness".  This war is unique, not only for its time in history, but also what it is demonstrating - just how far war is evolving beyond our former doctrinal status quos.
What we are seeing in Ukraine is not a "fad".  It is fundamental on many levels.

Another area of development with this conflict - new ways to strike strategically
 

This is how it’s done. Respectful, illuminating and useful. Thanks, lads.

Interesting post from Russian telegrammer:
https://t.me/rogozin_do/5657
 
 

I think we still do because of the slippery concept of effects.  The primary purpose of employing weapons systems is not to destroy or damage - the main purpose is to deliver an effect.  The effect of a naval gun is the threat of damage more than the damage itself.  This can shape the battlespace by forcing an opponent to manoeuvre or avoid certain conditions.
The reason for all that volume of fires was more than simply to kill other ships.  It was to get them to do what we wanted to do.  So the employment of all this energy is to create effects options spaces, which I suspect may be much more complicated than energy-time.
For example in your dive bomber example, the dive bomber has both fewer and greater effects options depending on when and where that dive occurs.  In the dive, they have very limited targeting effects flexibility coming in at those speeds, less after weapons release.  But before final attack the very presence of dive bombers creates an effect - ships must be looking up, AD manned and ready, and at speed to avoid.  Add sirens and one can get a psychological effect.
These options are less about the energy over time being applied, they are about the potential energy being applied.  The potential energy of those bombers is higher earlier, which creates options spaces.  Once committed, those option spaces appear to shrink.   

UK trying to cover all the bases as Lord Cameron visits Mar-a-Lago, Biden administration officials, and Members of Congress, presumably the ones swallowing the Russian propaganda that need convincing.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/david-cameron-donald-trump-us-aid-ukraine-russia-war-h3w687nkb
As for Russian propaganda, some comments from rational Republicans in Congress on that subject:
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4579289-intel-chair-turner-absolutely-true-russia-propaganda-infected-us-congress/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/06/when-top-republican-says-russian-propaganda-has-infected-gop/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Not that this is any great surprise, but it is refreshing to hear at least some Republicans calling out their colleagues for promoting misinformation.
For The Times and WaPo, I have subscriptions, but I think you still get a certain number of free looks per month without a subscription. If you can't and really want to read them, PM me and I may be able to "gift" the article to you.

Dave
 

Ok, but doesn’t your second example invalidate your thesis?  A naval artillery shell does not appear to have a flat energy-time curve but of all your examples it is likely the hardest to defend against. In fact ballistic weapons appear to be the hardest to counter and none of them have what I think you are describing as a flat curve.
Energy is definitely part of all this but I think how that energy is translated into effect is the core idea you appear to be driving at (we should leave aside effects for now as that is a pretty complicated concept in its own right).

Actual, actual....

FSRU Marshal Portovyy out of Kaliningrad (whose pipeline has not been cut off) offloads its cargo at sea to LNG tanker Cool Rover. Which ships the contraband gas to buyers who care less about its provenance than its price.
If [unnnamed Formites] want to act 'wised up' (woke?) about 'strategic global resources', perhaps focus on the stuff that actually moves the needle on balance of trade today.
That would (still) be stuff the belligerents can put in a pipe or a ship or a train and send where it gets the highest price.
Los!

UKR FPVs are hunting for Russian infantrymen near abandoned Russian tank. After one soldier was hit other try to hide under the tank, but the drone reaches them even there. Finally other drone makes lucky shot and cooks off the tank. I suppose, families of these soldiers will not get any compensations or LADAs - no the body, no money.
 

Very timely in light of recent discussion on drone technology 
 

Very timely in light of recent discussion on drone technology 
 

The rate  drone warfare is evolving is astounding.  Who was seriously envisioning the variety of offensive capabilities that exist today?
And it continues to evolve…
 

And even if a drone did not get it the EW beast is going to be the prime target for ATGMs.  I see no way to wrap enough around or on tanks to really get what we need out of them anymore.  Sniping, glorified infantry guns and indirect fire seem to be how they are being employed in this war.  No one has been able to mass them and use them for manoeuvre, breakout or breakthrough.  This means that one of the pillars of the combat arms is essentially been broken.  Air denial means air-land is also out.
I simply cannot see how a US or western ground force is going to far any better against an opponent armed with thousands of drones. Especially if they have fully autonomous capabilities.  I suspect we will create drone swarms to kill their drone swarms so our mech and armor can do their thing.  Until someone figures out that if we have defeated their drone swarms, why not just send in more swarms to kill them too.  I don’t think heavy is going to die because they can die or war is lethal.  I think it will die because we are seeing the beginnings of something that can get the job done faster and better.

And the lead tank was basically screaming "shoot me first! shoot me first!" on every frequency.  Anything using its radio for target homing instead of communication will make a beeline toward it.  So if it wasn't an optical/AI drone, it could have been an anti-radiation drone.

First combat usage of haeavy octocopter with mounted machine-gun. Before we could see experiments, but lookls like more than year was need to complete works and test the system in real combat