Yowsa - sunset time

[dieseltaylor]

A nod is a good as a wink to a blind man. However in this case it is explicit though it would be nice to see the whole message.

I am glad you were able to come up with that as I had vague recollections that this existed. So American politically appointed ambasssadors and politicos manage to give Sadam the go-ahead. Nice move. But typically I imagine they ignored the State Depatment Arab experts OR the experts they employ are actually mainly Israelis : )

As it is topical I suppose I should say Zionist Israeli as opposed to one of the near 2 million Arab Israelis.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/segregation-of-jews-and-arabs-in-2010-israel-is-almost-absolute-1.321728

[Affentitten]

Glaspie later said words along the lines of "Yeah, but I didn't think they'd actually be crazy enough to invade for real."

[Michael Emrys]

I don't think it was so much a carefully designed trap for Saddam as a blunder on the part of the State Department in misestimating Saddam's intentions. They might not been expecting anything more than a little saber rattling and demanding once again to have the border renegotiated.

Michael

[Affentitten]

Oh definitely. There's no implication that they wanted him to do it. Remember that he was kind of the good guy as fas as the USA was concerned compared to Iran. But what ripples that stone in the pond has had....

Saddam Hussein was the political theorists' nightmare because of his irrationality. Of course, some would say that his invasion of Kuwait was perfectly rational at the time, given that it answered a lot of his problems.

[Bigduke6]

Speaking of the British army and whether or not small efficient armies are the way to go, maybe history has a couple of lessons here?

If you look at what the English brought to colonial wars, say, 100 - 150 years ago, it seems to me there is a lot of parallel with the US today.

The opposition, basically, was 5th world forces over which the British army had a huge technological edge. The British way of war against them, was to put a good deal (relatively to the tribesmen in the opposition) of logistical effort into fielding a small, very well-drilled force, backboned by excellent NCOs, and equipped with a whole bunch of firepower. The idea was numbers weren't nearly as important, as the ability to move one's riflemen and machine guns from "A" to "B" and keep the boys in ammunition. Then pick fights with the warlike tribesmen and kill said tribesmen until the tribesmen get sick of it, then return to Blighty and have a parade.

It pretty much always worked too. The kill ratio probably was more in favor of British colonial war forces vs. the tribesmen, than to US forces today. And I am not so sure the technological gap wasn't even wider then than now, after all, the present tribesmen appear to be pretty up on radio communications and psywar in the Internet.

There may be a lesson in that there was one place where this very British style of warfare most decidedly not get results: Afghanistan. I know what I think, you draw your own conclusions.

If we carry the parallel further, maybe it's possible to guess where the present US style of warfare wil lead.

The British had fits when they came up against a small opponent at least equally skilled tactically and able to use modern technologies, albeit not on the scale of the British, this being of course the Boers. Militaries being what they are, the British army had no idea such a thing was possible until they got their nose bloodied repeatedly learning the lesson it wasn't just British nationality and army traditions that made them superior on the battle field.

You have to work for wartime superiority. If the other guy is capable of using the stuff that gave you a tech edge in previous conflicts, you better believe he will, and what's more, he may do it in ways your military - which being in love with its traditions, is not exactly great at creative thinking - may not expect.

Perhaps something like that is going on right now in the US thrashing on COIN. they've been talking reforming the mindset for years but it's not so easy to get the officer corps to change its mind on how to fight wars. I would say this is a good article along those lines:

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2010/1028/Pentagon-had-red-flags-about-command-climate-in-kill-team-Stryker-brigade

Who is to say, that if the magic and wonderful day someday arrives that the entire US military is wholeheartedly committed to COIN, the opposition will not have figured out another way to fight the war besides low-level insurgency?

Anyway, maybe already the US is experiencing its modern version of the Boer War, in that it is using a military designed to exploit a huge battlefield technological edge to destroy the enemy, but the enemy really isn't focused on fighting the war on the battlefield. If one accepts - and I am not sure that I do - that the war going on right now is the US vs. a general resistance in the less-educated Muslim world against the imposition of European-style government in a region that is not Europe/America, then the parallel probably holds.

But even if the wars going on right now are splintered into separate conflicts for places like greater Baghdad, the Korengal Valley, the districts controlled by the Afridi clan, bits of Yemen and Sudan where some US-haters with money can stir up trouble, then clearly, like the British in the Boer War, the US is clearly confronted with war-fighting not turning out like the military expected.

There are parallels for that too. If the US had a terrific experience using high tech to demolish the opposition during the Kuwait war, and then next war on the same template is not giving results, then what about the British?

Well, some one correct me if I'm wrong, but if I recall right the war previous to the Boer War that the British were in, was the campaign against the Mahdi, which ended in the slaughter of the Battle of Omdurman, perhaps the classic vindication of riflemen backed with machine guns and quick-firing artillery vs. tribesmen with muskets and spears.

It seems pretty reasonable to me that the British thought, when they went to war with the Boers, they had a pretty effective military.

We saw after Vietnam that the US military first contracted its ranks, then decided it was less an expeditionary force and more a major conventional-war fighting force, and then it geared up and trained and when a proper conventional war came along - Kuwait - it was very effective.

It seems already that one of the conclusions the US military is drawing from these wars is that although it must be ready to take on say the Chinese or the Russians in a dispute over some distant place, the real opponent that is going to be fought from day to day are poorly-educated Muslims in low-intensity conflict, at the end of a big long logistical tether.

Provided the future goes the way of that plan, then fine and good.

But if the Americans wind up fighting some one who isn't fifth-rate tribesmen, but a nation with some nationalism and enough education to exploit modern technology themselves, then maybe a repeat of the Boer War is in the offing. Iran comes immediately to mind as a potential unpleasant surprise; South Africa, Mexico might be another. Brazil or India could certainly fit that mold as well, and arguably places like Pakistan or Venezuela have a tech base that would make a US intervention something very different from a walkover.

The US military loves to talk about how awesomely powerful it is, but we should never forget that in the last 20 years or so its opponents have been a fourth-rate Arab state, and an assortment of clans large and small in Iraq, Sudan, and Afghanistan. Obviously, those are not the only potential combatants out there.

[ASL Veteran]

But if the Americans wind up fighting some one who isn't fifth-rate tribesmen, but a nation with some nationalism and enough education to exploit modern technology themselves, then maybe a repeat of the Boer War is in the offing. Iran comes immediately to mind as a potential unpleasant surprise; South Africa, Mexico might be another. Brazil or India could certainly fit that mold as well, and arguably places like Pakistan or Venezuela have a tech base that would make a US intervention something very different from a walkover.

The US military loves to talk about how awesomely powerful it is, but we should never forget that in the last 20 years or so its opponents have been a fourth-rate Arab state, and an assortment of clans large and small in Iraq, Sudan, and Afghanistan. Obviously, those are not the only potential combatants out there.

Unless those nations you have listed can compete against the US for air superiority then as soon as their conventional forces take the field all you are going to get is a lot of this

[Wicky]

You'll need a lot of missiles if the enemy fields a lot of these...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1264317/When-I-said-blow-comrade---The-inflatable-planes-used-decoys-Russian-military.html

Second World War Deception, Lessons Learned for Today’s Joint Planner

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/wright/wf05.pdf

[dieseltaylor]

ASL Veteran - did you read the comments on jamming missiles under the video. People there are suggesting 80% of the missiles would be jammed. That alters the risk benefit equation a tad.

BD6 - it seems to me the lesson is get in , and get out quick. The problem comes from staying around thinking you are intrinsically better because of western society. The Boer war is perhaps misleading simply because there were no aircraft to do the dirty work.

[Bigduke6]

ASLV,

I disagree, air superiority requires not just the other guy not shooting your aircraft down, but targets for your aircraft to hit.

North Vietnam is the obvious example, the Americans didn't cross the border on the ground but they dropped more HE on the north than they did on the Germans AND the Japanese during WW2. North Vietnam still won, and the air guys to this day complain that the problem was they ran out of useful targets to hit.

Wind the clock back, and no less of a military brain than MacArthur was telling us there was no way the Chinese could intervene effectively in Korea, because our air could interdict their supply. Then the Chinese DO intervene, choosing the worst possible weather to do it in, and the longest retreat in US ground forces' history follows. Afterwards we learn that those Chinese somehow fought unfairly, their logistical tail was too small, and they refused to quit after suffering what we considered absolutely unacceptable casualties. (Although why Chinese generals should use a US value system when considering getting Chinese soldiers killed off, has never been made clear.)

If we look more to the present, in the first place, I'll spare you an actual links here as the vids are very unpleasant, but just in case you want to see the evidence for yourself do a search for "us air strike civilians" on youtube. You will find plenty of disturbing proof - and not propaganda, but by credible international news services - of US air superiority not always advancing the US cause. Even if the mangled women and children were somehow in the proximity of some kind of legitimate military target, the images can't be stopped, and if you are fighting a war to get some kind of negotiated conclusions, pretty much the last thing you want is your own air force creating more fanatics on the other side. Air superiority is not an end in itself, you need to get a useful effect on the enemy.

I would argue that if the enemy can deny you good targeting intelligence or - and I bet a million to one this happens in Afghanistan sometimes - trick you into bombing his civilians - then your air force could, net effect speaking, wind up fighting on the enemy's side. I am not convinced that is not happening right now, that literally every time we put a fast mover in the air the overall effect is to worsen US chances of getting a positive result, and that's including those times when the munition hits exactly what it's supposed to and bad guys, and only bad guys die.

Moving right along, if we're talking potential conflicts, I would ask, what if a potential US opponent decided to follow the China/Korea template, and instead of trying to defeat the US air just figured out a way to fight in spite of it? Arguably, those bits of the Pathans that are currently fighting the Americans already doing that, it's called dressing up like civilians and being very careful about using your mobile phone.

Is anti-aircraft technology an absolute high tech nation monopoly these days? I would argue perhaps not as much as the Americans would like to think? It's a big world out there. Every one from the Russians to the Chinese to the Brazilians to the Israelis to the Indians to the Ukrainians manufacture and actively sell missiles and radars; is it plausible that NONE of them has a solution to stealth technology?

Can the US air operate against an opponent able to field a dense AND capable ADA network? Arguably, the last time they really tried was over Hanoi in the 1970s, and no matter how one evaluates the outcome it is clear, today's US air force has next to no real life experience flying against a competently-operated ADA net.

Or what if manned aircraft already are obsolete? That's heresy in the US forces, too many careers and too much money invested in pilots, but think about it for a second, do the math. What if some opponent just tosses out the idea that your need manned planes for air superiority, and instead just fields bazillions of missiles to protect his own forces, and a mazillion or so drones toting guided missiles? Could he get a better bang for his military buck, than by trying to ape the US air force? How much better?

Heck, who needs drones? The Russians pretty much have their version of GPS operational, the Europeans should have their constellation up in a couple of years, and the Chinese can't be too far behind. I expect the US/NATO monopoly on GPS targeting for guided missiles will end quite soon. How effective would US air be against an opponent who didn't even bother to put aircraft in the air, just used a mix of anti-aircraft missiles, intelligence denial, and bad weather to keep the US air at bay, and meanwhile strike missiles to bombard US forces? Who historically do not have an overly impressive record when fighting against an enemy able to deliver effective air strikes against US ground forces? When was the last time that happened, Guadalcanal?

There already are plenty of places US air superiority is not only not guaranteed, it's something close to a pipe dream. The Straits of Taiwan are the obvious example. How about the Straits of Hormuz, what if the Saudis AND the Iranians get mad at the Americans? How many other places are following behind?

The thing I'm trying to get at is, there is no such thing as an inherently invincible military force, and if history is any guide, successful militaries are not just bad but certified awful at predicting how technology and changing society will make the next war different.

[ASL Veteran]

I'm not really going to get into a debate about what the future holds because it is true that you can't predict the outcome of a future conflict based upon the past. However, the US airforce has had air superiority for the entire duration of every single war the US has participated in since WW2. Even in Korea the only place it could be argued that the US didn't have total air superiority would be near the North Korean and Chinese borders and only then because of political restrictions. Saddam's Air Defense system in Gulf War 1 was considered very robust at the time and the US didn't have a lot of trouble with it. The Israelis had trouble with Egyptian SAMs in 72, but no amount of Syrian SAMs slowed down the Israelis in Lebanon. Sure, Vietnam had a robust Air Defense system, but the US still had Air Supremacy the entire time (and there were a lot of political restrictions as well). Not to put to fine a point on it - sure, the US could possibly be completely and totally defeated in a conventional war with Iran, but if I were a betting man I wouldn't put any money on it. There is absolutely no evidence to indicate that a US / Iranian conventional conflict would end in any other way other than to see Iran bombed into the stone age by the US Air Force.

Stealth isn't the only way to defeat an Air Defense force either so don't think that it is all reliant on stealth. Generally speaking, radar and SAM sites can be targeted by aircraft when SAM batteries and radar turn their equipment on so the air defense soldiers really do play a deadly game of cat and mouse. Leaving your radars and batteries 'switched on' all the time is similar to putting a gun to your head. It's not at all assured that the SAM battery will have the upper hand. Once the SAMs are gone then no matter how many inflatable tanks you have, as long as there are bombs and missiles to drop then a nation will suffer for as long as that nation remains at war both from an infrastructure standpoint and a military mobility standpoint.

So basically, if the US controls the sky and you plan on fighting the US in a full on conventional conflict then the odds are going to be stacked against you. Sure, you could play defense for a while, but if you give the US Air Force as much time as it needs to methodically eliminate your SAM sites then eventually you are going to run out of SAMs and your nation will start to slowly deteriorate as your power grid, highways, command and control network etc are destroyed. The amount of conventional firepower that the US is using in Afghanistan is only a tiny fraction of what's available.

[Affentitten]

There is absolutely no evidence to indicate that a US / Iranian conventional conflict would end in any other way other than to see Iran bombed into the stone age by the US Air Force.

.

Afghanistan was in the stone age long before the coalition showed up. But being in the stone age doesn't matter. In a way it's even an advantage because there's nothing obvious for your F-22s to target. But you can't win just by cruising around at 30,000 feet with your JDAMs. Once it comes to boots on ground things even up a bit.

And on the battle of Omdurman, one shouldn't forget that it was a case of the Empire Strikes Back after the Khartoum garrison was wiped out.

[dieseltaylor]

It seems to me that airpower is not being looked at the right way.

1] A country would have to be an idiot or very very large to want any sort of conventional war where the US airpower would be useful.

2] Therefore you use proxy wars/groups to keep stirring the pot if you are pissed off with the US

3] The Boer War was won using concentration camps and wiring the countryside. Now obviously putting your villagers in fortified villages/concentration camps might see politically undesirable - denying the enemy movement though may achieve the same end. As I understand it the Allies can drop vast minefields by air. Gradually palstering the mountains and constricting the villages would be minimal in terms of force loss.

Now obviously The Allies would be responsible for advising the denied areas to the local villagers so they do not get injured ..... and after 3 months they can self-destruct.

I am not suggesing this is a civilised war, I am not trying to export Western values of womens liberation, or freedom, etc. You say to a tribe that we are going to plaster your hillsides with mines as naughty AlQueada are sneaking around. Now they can stop Al Quaeda and hand them over or live a very constricted lifestyle.

Make Afghanistan a forbidden travel zone, eremove all targets and let the Afghanis get on with what they do best.

As for future aircraft - they will not have pilots. Pilots are a huge constraint on a planes abilities - and given the cost of including a pilot why bother? I am not saying all pilots will be redundant but certainly air-superiority will not be using air-based pilots.

Whats the downside?

[Bigduke6]

However, the US airforce has had air superiority for the entire duration of every single war the US has participated in since WW2. Even in Korea the only place it could be argued that the US didn't have total air superiority would be near the North Korean and Chinese borders and only then because of political restrictions.

I think that it is worth noting, that since WW2, the US airforce has never faced a first world opponent. And that when they did, there was little evidence of any kind of overwhelming natural US advantage over the Luftwaffe.

Indeed, when during the Korean War the us airforce faced almost a first world opponent, i.e., the Red Air Force, to me the jury is out that the US airforce was overwhelmingly superior. There are reports out there that when the Russians sent their best pilots up in MiG-15s vs. the Americans, they won more often then they lost.

That is of course a pilot story, and we all know who reliable that is. But I think that it is worth bearing in mind that the people telling us we need, we cannot live without, and that our military is so incredibly awesome precisely because of US air powes - the people who are telling us that are US combat pilots. These are not people I would expect to give me an honest evaluation of the utulity of airpower. I would expect these people to be airpower cheerleaders.

Certainly, on paper the US has an overwhelming air superiority over Iran.

But the war wouldn't be on paper. What if the Saudis, Turks, or Iraqis, or any combination of the above, close their air space to US strikes? Remember, the Turks would let the US use its air bases to hit Iraq back during Gulf War I and II, and now ten years down the line I doubt very seriously they would change their minds.

Can the Saud royal family get away with letting the Christian infidels attack a Musiim theocratic state, from bases in the Muslim Holy Land? I mean, of course the Saud family would be thrilled to kill Persians, but can the Saudi buy and repress their way out of the backlash? Tens of millions of Muslims travel to Saudi Arabia every year on Hadj; is it really a good idea to give all these people a reason to hate the Saudi leadership?

What about the Azeris and Georgians, are THEY going to let the US air force use Baku and Tbilisi international airports for staging? And if the strikes are coming out of Europe, then what, the Russians and the Ukrainians are going to allow overflights?

If not, then what? The US is going to fly its strikes out of Israel, and put itself on the wrong side of a jihad?

The US is going to fly its strikes out of Afghanistan, sure, I bet the Taliban would love that.

So how does the US actually do it? Where do the air strikes come from, carriers, and exactly how many shore-based anti-ship missiles do the Iranians have? Diego Garcia? Quatar?

Sure, it's easy to say the US airforce would whomp up on the Iranians. But take away Saudi airspace, and I am not sure, and if the Caucasus corridor is blocked, which it almost certainly would, then the Iranian air defence net gets about 50 per cent more efficient.

The Iranians SAY that they already are fielding a home-grown version of S-300, which may or may not be true, but in any case let's not forget these are not Vietnamese or Iraqis: the Iranians manufacture their own SAM, have done so for years.

And Allah knows they've had plenty of time to learn everything they need to know electronically about the US airforce, it's been buzzing around Iran for about the last 30 years. Are we to believe the Iranians have learned nothing, developed no countermeasures, after all those years of electronic eavesdropping, sitting right next to every major US air operation of the last three decades? Does it really make sense to assume they are that incompetent and stupid?

That's a whole lot of variables, and another one to stick into it is, the Iranians don't have to make the US airforce combat ineffective to win. They just have to inflict enough casualties to make the US airforce look like it doesn't know what it's doing - let's not forget the US population is used to wars with practically no friendly casualties and if a single aircraft goes down one per week for a pair of weeks, that's heavy aircraft attrition.

What if the Iranians manage to make the US airforce do what the Israelis did during 1973 over the Suez, which was pull the airforce back and keep them heck out of the SAM belt, until the blue ground forces overrun it? Is there will in the US population to accept the casualties? Does the US have the ground forces to campaign in Iran, with all the logisitical tether that entails, if the US airforce is sort of leery about getting too close to the Iranian SAMs?

You talk about the US fighting Iran, I have a whole bunch of questions. I don't know the answers, but it sure doesn't look like an automatic US airforce walkover.

[hoolaman]

As for future aircraft - they will not have pilots. Pilots are a huge constraint on a planes abilities - and given the cost of including a pilot why bother? I am not saying all pilots will be redundant but certainly air-superiority will not be using air-based pilots.

I think it is a bit much to say a pilot constrains an aircraft's abilities. After all, even drones are controlled by a human operator, and they are not required to have anything like the 360deg situational awareness or instant decision making that an air superiority fighter does.

I think there will be humans for a long time yet. Big money is still going into designs for piloted planes, and not for nothing.

[dieseltaylor]

hoolaman - I am quite sure in future many aircraft will be flown from the ground as drones. However air-superiority fighters I suspect will be ground-jockeyed for a while before autonomous fighters will evolve because of superior reaction times.

As for constraint ... I am guessing that the cockpit gear, plus all the doodads that sense information for the pilot and convert it into a format he can handle add milliions of dollars and weight to the fighter. Less weight, no G-force limitations other than airframe, no desire for self-preservation, surely that gives the robo-Fighter a huge edge. Too huge to be ignored.

If the US remains wedded to human pilots for air superiority then it will be a big mistake

[flamingknives]

Two words: Latency and Bandwidth.

These restrict the capability of remotely piloted vehicles. The only way past it is to grant increasing degrees of autonomy to the UAVs.

[Affentitten]

hoolaman - I am quite sure in future many aircraft will be flown from the ground as drones. However air-superiority fighters I suspect will be ground-jockeyed for a while before autonomous fighters will evolve because of superior reaction times.

Not saying you're wrong, but I'm curious as to what reaction times have to do with it these days? At least the millisecond sort of reaction times you're implying. There are no dogfights any more. You're launching AAMs from over the horizon or trying to defeat them with countermeasures. Not dodging a stream of tracers from an Me-109.

[dieseltaylor]

If you can anticipate an impact position, and you realise your jamming is not working, I suspect in your pilotless plane you utilise a move that confounds the enemy missiles trajectory - possibly a momentary effect whilst you deploy a short range anti-missile missile.

The point being that without any pilot to intefere the software coding will enable appreciation of situation and targetting to happen extremely quickly. I did mention a period of ground based air superiority pilots ... but that is not my wish ... just me accepting that an Air Force has inertia.

As flaming knives points out there are problems that with a first moving asset that precludes fancy moves and that will be realised quite quickly. The first stop will be a pretty smart air superiority fighter but with eyes for the remote "driver". This will be a sop as the software will be able to land and take-off and do pretty much everything in between.

There will also be an appreciation that grond/fighter message sending would be the first thing the enemy attacked in a "proper" war so the fighters would need autonomy.

[Tero]

By flamingknives

Two words: Latency and Bandwidth.

These restrict the capability of remotely piloted vehicles. The only way past it is to grant increasing degrees of autonomy to the UAVs.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, but how long will it take someone to come up with a low cost device for spooffing/jamming IFF signals and/or say, an EMP device which will render all the remote, autonomous and piloted, rather useless.

And the more autonomy you give the more you risk friendly fire as yet again hugging enemy troops becomes a viable option in negating the technical superiority. If danger close parameters are strict in the programming moving close enough to an IFF source will prevent firing on targets.

[Noltyboy]

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, but how long will it take someone to come up with a low cost device for spooffing/jamming IFF signals and/or say, an EMP device which will render all the remote, autonomous and piloted, rather useless.

If the EMP was able to burn through the hardened circuits of the UAV's control system then any 5 gen manned fighter is just as buggered.

Still i dont see UAV's taking over from manned fighters for a long time. No matter how long we spend treasure, time and effort developing AI in the next 70 years (probably longer) we cant beat the Mk1 human brain for the ability to process data and come up with solutions to problems. hundreads of thousands of years of trial and error development takes some beating.

As for high end remote control UAV's the problem is as brought up earlier is latency and bandwidth. Human reactions are already considered "slow" and now we have extra responce time added on for the plane to react.

[dieseltaylor]

The U.S. Army is planning the largest ever demonstration of its Manned Unmanned Systems Integration Concept (MUSIC). The technology, which we first covered back in 2006, allows pilots to control the payload of a nearby Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) from the cockpit of an Apache Attack helicopter. The demonstration to be held at Dougway Proving Ground, Utah, is aimed at analyzing the progress of evolving manned-unmanned teaming technologies and will showcase level-4 UAS interoperability, which includes the ability to control the payload and view feeds from UAS systems in real-time from the cockpit.

"It's going to be the largest single demonstration of interoperability between manned and unmanned systems ever conducted," said Tim Owings, deputy project manager for Army unmanned aircraft systems.

During the U.S. Army exercise, an Apache AH 64D Block III will be exchanging information with and exchanging command and control while in flight of the Grey Eagle, Hunter, Shadow and Raven UAVs.

"The Block III Apache is going to take control of the UAS, point the payload and do a mission. All the other systems will see Apache video and Kiowa video. We will have a Universal Ground Control Station on the ground as well," said Owings.

The demonstration is set to take place in September 2011.

Gizmag today

[dieseltaylor]

Still i dont see UAV's taking over from manned fighters for a long time. No matter how long we spend treasure, time and effort developing AI in the next 70 years (probably longer) we cant beat the Mk1 human brain for the ability to process data and come up with solutions to problems. hundreads of thousands of years of trial and error development takes some beating.

Mans brain is a wonderful thing and yes I have a huge regard for what it is capable of. However one thing it is not good at is dealing with mutiple inputs and taking instant decisions. I am not denying humans can make "instant" decisions but its a matter of quality and speed. One can integrate smart systems to make the sensor inputs understandable to the pilot but this in essence is avoiding the obvious that the software could probably do that particular job in a fraction of the time

What the software might have a problem with is if you ask it to do all the things a human brain might be able to do. However if you restrict it to simple things, take-off loiter at 80,000 ft until activated or required to return to base that is a relatively simple program. The activation might be an intrusion by an aircraft in a defined area, a nuclear explosion, an EMP attack.

Now you may also have crewed "fighters" where you want to eyeball a plane but for out and out air superiority it would be hard to see what could beat a dedicated programmed fighter. You may even progress to modules of software to exchange in and out for long range naval surveillance, or ground survellance. [ in the right kind of aircraft]

EMP is a big problem but hen how many nations will have the capability? Is it easier to have spare unpiloted planes in silos ready for launch because you do not need the huge pilot infrastructure costs.

[costard]

Mans brain is a wonderful thing and yes I have a huge regard for what it is capable of. However one thing it is not good at is dealing with mutiple inputs and taking instant decisions. I am not denying humans can make "instant" decisions but its a matter of quality and speed. One can integrate smart systems to make the sensor inputs understandable to the pilot but this in essence is avoiding the obvious that the software could probably do that particular job in a fraction of the time

Sorry diesel, I have to take issue with this. The one feature of human consciousness that a computer will not match is an awareness of the future. Humans are capable of making decisions ahead of time - based on "hunch" or "gut feeling", which are common terms for processes we don't yet fully understand. As for processing multiple data channels, we have five senses, each of which represents at least one spectrum of value in a mode of perception. The human brain is quite capable of forming a gestalt of this information in something approaching real time. The biggest advantage a non-human pilot gives is the lack of a casualty when things go pear shaped. The next biggest is the performance gain of the vehicle, in terms of manouvrability (no blackouts due to excessive 'g', etc.)

[Tero]

By Noltyboy

If the EMP was able to burn through the hardened circuits of the UAV's control system then any 5 gen manned fighter is just as buggered.

Burning hardened circuits is not needed if you can disrupt communication between the UAV and the base long enough. By any means available.

As for high end remote control UAV's the problem is as brought up earlier is latency and bandwidth. Human reactions are already considered "slow" and now we have extra responce time added on for the plane to react.

Yes, what is clearly needed in low level conflicts is a bunch of autonomous trigger happy UAV's flying over hot spots.

[flamingknives]

Just to clarify, Bandwidth is a major problem that isn't going to go away, especially over large distances.

It is possible to reduce the need for bandwidth across the world by reducing the amount of information transmitted (autonomy) or by reducing the distance it has to be transmitted (local control). Autonomy is fraught with problems, primarily from the moral/legal side. Local control means that you still need a survivable manned platform up there with your drones.

Latency is less of an issue at terrestrial distances, but starts becoming a bit more of an issue when you are running the signal through satellites or through high strength encryption.