To Combat Drone or Not to Combat Drone?

[Blayne]

I've read quite a few peoples opinions elsewhere that the US is moving or "should" be moving towards unmanned combat vehicals, ie taking the Human out of say fighter and bomber craft and make them drone or remote controlled.

I am personally against this it further dehumanizes war and thus further the chances of war occurring.

And also it just doesn't seem particularly design a weapon system that could potentially be countered by any sufficient amount of tech wanking, remote controlled fighters? Why not jam them? Ai controlled ones? Why not hack them? Having both in one? Increases complexity and possibility of errors and breakdowns no?

What do others think.

[Samuel]

I am personally against this it further dehumanizes war and thus further the chances of war occurring.

So does using bombers/artillary/warships or giving troops body armor- after all, if our soldiers are less like to die we are more likely to declare war.

And also it just doesn't seem particularly design a weapon system that could potentially be countered by any sufficient amount of tech wanking, remote controlled fighters? Why not jam them? Ai controlled ones? Why not hack them? Having both in one? Increases complexity and possibility of errors and breakdowns no?

I don't think hacking is an automatic I win button. A computer expert can give more details, but suffice it to say you need a way to take over the unit in question- you can't just tell it to switch sides and immediately overwrite its programming.

[Lord of the Abyss]

As I understand it, one of the advantages of using drones is that they aren't limited by human g-force tolerance, or forced to carry all the equipment that having a human there requires. If drone fighters are simply better fighters, then I think the militaries of the world will eventually have to go for them. In the long run, a vague and debatable moral argument like "it further dehumanizes war" is going to lose out to practicality.

[adam_grif]

There's also the fact that a drone pilot doesn't die or become a PoW when his craft gets show down in hostile territory. This means that pilots only get more and more experienced, and that unless the installation where the pilots are gets bombed, they aren't in any real danger. This is quite attractive, because pilots are a costly investment, both in time and money.

Jets already have computers and radios on board, so making them remote piloted is a mass reduction measure - you don't have the squishy pilot, the vulnerable cockpit or the life support systems. Aforementioned lack of pilot means that it can pull G's that would turn the pilot into a film of paste, so long as the aircraft is physically capable of it. Additionally, drone pilots can take it in shifts, meaning that the endurance bottleneck becomes "how long can the jet stay up" and not "how long can the pilot stay awake". This means that ultra-high endurance aircraft can be designed (for use in patrolling and recon) without worrying about pilot fatigue.

There are drawbacks for stealthed drones in that constantly beaming it radio signals to control it might give them away if the enemy knew what to look for. This limits them to pre-programmed missions if you want to maximize stealthiness, unless you have some decent AI tech in the thing (which is more a mid-future thing than a five minutes in the future thing).

Jamming is a drawback, but it is for conventional aircraft too - getting cut off from base and not being able to get authorization to fire it still very bad news for a regular pilot. Getting hacked is not a huge concern, any more than enemies intercepting and broadcasting fake orders is to a regular pilot nowadays.

[Blayne]

So does using bombers/artillary/warships or giving troops body armor- after all, if our soldiers are less like to die we are more likely to declare war.

The troops are still there and still in nominal risk, reducing personal risk doesn't change the fact that they are still putting their lives on the line.

I don't think hacking is an automatic I win button. A computer expert can give more details, but suffice it to say you need a way to take over the unit in question- you can't just tell it to switch sides and immediately overwrite its programming.

Doesn't need to be anything as sophisticated as changing sides, its probably alot eaiser to DDoS a program to crash and shutdown, being able to hinder an AI/attack program is probably just as much as a advantage.

As I understand it, one of the advantages of using drones is that they aren't limited by human g-force tolerance, or forced to carry all the equipment that having a human there requires. If drone fighters are simply better fighters, then I think the militaries of the world will eventually have to go for them. In the long run, a vague and debatable moral argument like "it further dehumanizes war" is going to lose out to practicality.

These would be the pro's on that side of the scale yes, same way the crossbow won over mounted knights.

Gimme back my mounted knights you crossbow loving freaks!

There's also the fact that a drone pilot doesn't die or become a PoW when his craft gets show down in hostile territory.

Technically yes but also no, isn't there always the chance of recovering important information from the crash?

Jets already have computers and radios on board, so making them remote piloted is a mass reduction measure - you don't have the squishy pilot, the vulnerable cockpit or the life support systems. Aforementioned lack of pilot means that it can pull G's that would turn the pilot into a film of paste, so long as the aircraft is physically capable of it. Additionally, drone pilots can take it in shifts, meaning that the endurance bottleneck becomes "how long can the jet stay up" and not "how long can the pilot stay awake". This means that ultra-high endurance aircraft can be designed (for use in patrolling and recon) without worrying about pilot fatigue.

Another pro yes, although jamming is still an issue against 1st world nations.

There are drawbacks for stealthed drones in that constantly beaming it radio signals to control it might give them away if the enemy knew what to look for. This limits them to pre-programmed missions if you want to maximize stealthiness, unless you have some decent AI tech in the thing (which is more a mid-future thing than a five minutes in the future thing).

But this is more inlign with UAVs though isn't it and not replacing your entire stealth airforce with drones? Your essentially talking about fancier cruise missiles, I wouldn't think it practical or flexible to convert a majority of your first strike aircraft in this fashion.

Jamming is a drawback, but it is for conventional aircraft too - getting cut off from base and not being able to get authorization to fire it still very bad news for a regular pilot. Getting hacked is not a huge concern, any more than enemies intercepting and broadcasting fake orders is to a regular pilot nowadays.

A jammed pilot can still go after targets of oppurtunity and make his way back to base can't he? A remote controlled drone is essentially like pulling the internet during a fps.

[Samuel]

Found the origional thread from HPCA:

http://www.tboverse.us/HPCAFORUM/phpBB3 ... 92317ee47b

[Sea Skimmer]

Found the origional thread from HPCA:

http://www.tboverse.us/HPCAFORUM/phpBB3 ... 92317ee47b

You know, this habit people are getting of just linking to random HPCA threads which involve people who are members of this forum like me is getting real retarded. Did you even fucking read that thread before you linked too it? 75% of it is just personal arguments between me and Edgeplay, who is a fucking idiot who doesn’t know the cold war ended twenty years ago. He showed up here too a while, made a couple of his usual insane posts and then ran back off.

[Blayne]

I am so confused did he post that link in the wrong thread?

[adam_grif]

Technically yes but also no, isn't there always the chance of recovering important information from the crash?

That's now what we're worried about, it's more that they don't have a hostage, and the pilot isn't in danger / can be put straight back into the fight after his drone is taken down. If you're worried about sensitive information in the drone, have an auto-destruct feature in the computers in case of being shot down. If the drone is shot up so badly that the autodestruct fails, there probably won't be much to salvage anyway.

Another pro yes, although jamming is still an issue against 1st world nations.

Somewhat, but there are ways to minimize or prevent jamming from being a problem. Pre-determined frequency hopping and so on. If it become a really bad problem, you can just whack an anti-radiation missile on your UAV's, and if it detects jamming it can be programmed to identify the source and fire one off. After all, in order to successfully jam, you have to overwhelm the frequency they're broadcasting on with a signal powerful enough make the signal to noise ratio such that transmission of information is difficult or impossible.

I imagine it would just become another aspect of war to be dealt with. Having a drawback is acceptable if the positives outweigh them.

But this is more inlign with UAVs though isn't it and not replacing your entire stealth airforce with drones? Your essentially talking about fancier cruise missiles, I wouldn't think it practical or flexible to convert a majority of your first strike aircraft in this fashion.

It's more flexible than a cruise missile in that it has multiple munitions, isn't disposable, and can be programmed to sweep an area and shoot anything it sees. High endurance patrol drones with stealth features might be good for area denial, both on the ground and for enforcing no fly zones.

A jammed pilot can still go after targets of oppurtunity and make his way back to base can't he? A remote controlled drone is essentially like pulling the internet during a fps.

Except that the drone can be executing code for what to do in case of jamming. This can range from "return to base" to "attempt to reconnect until successful or bingo fuel" or "proceed with mission then return to base". It can defend itself from hostiles if it's programmed to do that.

It's not as simple as "jammed signal = drone is written off".

[Sarevok]

1, if you can jamm a drones radio link you can also jam a manned fighters voice and datalinks. Without fancy network centric warfare shit manned fighters are also highly useless.

2. If you can hack an autonomous drones software you can also hack the millions of lines of code running onboard computers on a manned fighter.

[Shroom Man 777]

Why is reducing the risk of fatalities by using unmanned systems considered a bad thing anyway?

[Sea Skimmer]

I am so confused did he post that link in the wrong thread?

No, he just acted without thinking and somehow thought that a random thread from a different forum would somehow have any damn relevance at all, when nothing in it is anymore authoritative then any random post I or anyone else might make here in thirty seconds of typing.

[Sarevok]

Romanticism about the past where war is seen through rose colored glasses.

[Blayne]

Romanticism about the past where war is seen through rose colored glasses.

Gimme back my Knights and Samurai!

"Why is reducing the risk of fatalities by using unmanned systems considered a bad thing anyway?"

Because arguably not every good intention will lead to uniformly good results, I would figure that wars has a point frequency increases when the less risk there is to your soldiers and decreases when said loss of life increases, don't take this to mean though that 100% casualties = 0 wars it isn't linear however this is a start to what could be a rather complex philosophical argument but I lack the grounding to argue it beyond "this is my opinion take it as you will".

[Broomstick]

[These would be the pro's on that side of the scale yes, same way the crossbow won over mounted knights.

Gimme back my mounted knights you crossbow loving freaks!

You are NOT getting my crossbow!

(And yes, I really do own a crossbow)

Jamming is a drawback, but it is for conventional aircraft too - getting cut off from base and not being able to get authorization to fire it still very bad news for a regular pilot. Getting hacked is not a huge concern, any more than enemies intercepting and broadcasting fake orders is to a regular pilot nowadays.

A jammed pilot can still go after targets of oppurtunity and make his way back to base can't he? A remote controlled drone is essentially like pulling the internet during a fps.

Available right now for the civilian remote-control aviation market, is a device that, should your RC aircrat lose all contact with your controlling device, will either tell it to circle until contact is re-established or, for the more sophisticated models, tell it to go to a specific GPS coordinate. If that is available to civilian hobbiests don't you think the military probably has something even better for their multi-million dollar devices?

Jamming or cutting off remote communications does not automatically mean the device will crash.

[adam_grif]

I imagine he's more referring to the idea that a jammed drone is out of the fight, can't receive attack orders and so on, not necessarily "it will crash instantly".

[Master of Ossus]

I've read quite a few peoples opinions elsewhere that the US is moving or "should" be moving towards unmanned combat vehicals, ie taking the Human out of say fighter and bomber craft and make them drone or remote controlled.

I am personally against this it further dehumanizes war and thus further the chances of war occurring.

The goal of any individual military is, and should be, to minimize its casualties and maximize its effectiveness once in combat. That is inherently bad for the other side, in a conflict. Stating that you are, therefore, against the use of more advanced weapons, tactics, and strategies is irrelevant: a military is almost by definition not meant to serve the interests of the entire world--it is an instrument of the state that is created to further the interests of that state.

Gimme back my Knights and Samurai!

"Why is reducing the risk of fatalities by using unmanned systems considered a bad thing anyway?"

Because arguably not every good intention will lead to uniformly good results, I would figure that wars has a point frequency increases when the less risk there is to your soldiers and decreases when said loss of life increases, don't take this to mean though that 100% casualties = 0 wars it isn't linear however this is a start to what could be a rather complex philosophical argument but I lack the grounding to argue it beyond "this is my opinion take it as you will".

But you're still viewing the military as if its purpose is to somehow serve the interests of the entire world. If that were honestly the purpose then no country would have any armed forces. But militaries exist to serve the interests of an individual state, and the use of more advanced weapons systems obviously furthers those ends. Criticizing them for their use of drones making warfare more likely by "depersonalizing" war is stupid both because it's irrelevant (militaries exist) and because it's a mere sub-facet of your fundamental, larger criticism: militaries use resources that could otherwise be used to make butter.

[Shroom Man 777]

According to Blayne's logic, wherein UCAVs are bad because they minimize one side's casualties and thus make war more likely, then we should have armies resort to using rocks to kill each other and abolish the use of antibiotics and medical treatments. When soldiers are smashing each other's skulls with stones, and dying en masse from horrific blood infections with no medical treatment in sight, this will make war a thing of the past! Then we can truly have A World With No Boundaries! Peace of mind!

[Samuel]

I am so confused did he post that link in the wrong thread?

No, he just acted without thinking and somehow thought that a random thread from a different forum would somehow have any damn relevance at all, when nothing in it is anymore authoritative then any random post I or anyone else might make here in thirty seconds of typing.

Er, it isn't exactly random. It is about the same topic. I put it up because I have it cached in messages and if anyone is curious about the subject they can ask the people involved there. I don't have any expertise in computers or military hardware so I don't know how to respond to keeping military hardware secure from attempts to take it over.

[Blayne]

According to Blayne's logic, wherein UCAVs are bad because they minimize one side's casualties and thus make war more likely, then we should have armies resort to using rocks to kill each other and abolish the use of antibiotics and medical treatments. When soldiers are smashing each other's skulls with stones, and dying en masse from horrific blood infections with no medical treatment in sight, this will make war a thing of the past! Then we can truly have A World With No Boundaries! Peace of mind!

*cough*

*points to the common fallacies post*

[Shroom Man 777]

According to Blayne's logic, wherein UCAVs are bad because they minimize one side's casualties and thus make war more likely, then we should have armies resort to using rocks to kill each other and abolish the use of antibiotics and medical treatments. When soldiers are smashing each other's skulls with stones, and dying en masse from horrific blood infections with no medical treatment in sight, this will make war a thing of the past! Then we can truly have A World With No Boundaries! Peace of mind!

*cough*

*points to the common fallacies post*

But don't you see! If there was no medicine, and if a significant portion of soldiers died not because of fighting but because of disease and depravity, and if soldiers didn't have dehumanizing guns that made killing other people as dehumanized as shooting practice targets, then war would be less likelier! If an army has medicine that makes its soldiers less likely to die from disease, and has guns to make the killing easier and more convenient, then this "thus further the chances of war occurring."

(My point is that UCAVs are no different from any other new and more effective weapons system that makes killing people easier and safer. Your argument that UCAVs further the chances of war occurring is no different from the advent of iron chariots furthering the chances of war occurring against the Canaanites and Hebrews.)

EDIT:

If you want to go philosophical, UCAVs/chariots don't really cause any "further chances of war occurring." Why? Because people created UCAVs/chariots precisely because they want to further their own chances, if war occurs. The advent of UCAVs/chariots is the effect, not the cause.

Or whatever.

[Blayne]

Lets put it in another way.

Say you had a weapon system that could win any war quickly and efficently and doing so caused not one of your own to die, but using it easily killed thousands or tens of thousands.

The argument is that it become political easy to resort to violance to solve problems because after all what can they do to strike back?

Now the philosophical argument is just that a thought experiment, I feel that there are probably more valid criticisms tecnologically that would make completely AI/remote controlling your airforce as impractical and unwise.

[Shroom Man 777]

They built that weapon system because it makes it (politically/militaristically/economically/logistically/whateveristically) easy to rresort to violence to solve problems while leaving the enemy with nothing to do to strike back. That's the crux of all sorts of military developments. From the first gorillas who invented stones so they could have an easier time politically resorting to violence against dumber gorillas who didn't have the stones to strike back, to the advent of the iron chariot, the nuclear bomb, phased plasma pulse rifles, independently targetable particle beam phalanxes, sonic-electronic ball breakers, to sharp sticks!

Your philosophical argument/thought experiment applies equally to all of these inventions that make killing easier.

[Kane Starkiller]

Say you had a weapon system that could win any war quickly and efficently and doing so caused not one of your own to die, but using it easily killed thousands or tens of thousands.

The argument is that it become political easy to resort to violance to solve problems because after all what can they do to strike back?

Now the philosophical argument is just that a thought experiment, I feel that there are probably more valid criticisms tecnologically that would make completely AI/remote controlling your airforce as impractical and unwise.

How many manned US fighters were shot down during Iraq and Afghanistan wars? Almost all casualties came from ground troops so casualty rate using UCAVs won't really change if that's what you're worried about.
Regarding AI things like take off, land, bomb coordinates X, evade missile approaching from direction X, fire missile at aircraft approaching from direction X are all relatively simple and can be realized today. Sure it probably won't be able to fly inverted over a MiG-29 doing 9 negative g while its AI wingman takes a polaroid picture of the enemy pilot but 99.9% of the time that won't be necessary.
Then there is the fact that mission parameters like "you are only allowed to bomb the area between these coordinates", "you are only allowed to land on airfields X,Y and Z", "no matter what return to this base after 10 hours max", "if someone gives you an order that contradicts these mission parameters return to base immediately" can be programmed before the UCAV takes off and made so that they can't be overwritten remotely thus eliminating the possibility of turning UCAV against its allies or hijacking it.

[Sea Skimmer]

Any new weapon ultimately has the same potential to be stabilizing or destabilizing. It can deter war, or it can be used to launch a new one. Which it will be depends on external factors related to the nature of man as a lazy, greedy combative species.

Just for some big quick examples, the rampant unchecked nuclear arms race between the USSR and USA did not lead to a war for several decades until both sides just agreed that things had gotten excessive and unnecessarily expensive. On the other hand the preemptive strict arms limitations on the Washington Naval Treaty directly precipitated WW2, despite repeated attempts to modify the agreements to suit all parties, and then attempts to merely informally follow them after the systems collapse. The end result was that ambitious weaker powers found themselves artificially strengthen, and able to gamble on a conflict. Arms control can be useful to control costs in peacetime, but it doesn't stop wars.