Re:Military robots are getting smaller and more capable
by imrelaxed on Sunday September 02, 2018 @09:48PM
(#17899716)
Agreed. Modern commercially available drones can follow targets, even if they are temporarily obscured, detect faces, path around obstacles and perform preprogrammed tasks. The higher end ones typically carry enough compute power to do fairly advanced video recognition and execute logic. All that’s really missing for weaponization is an articulated firearm.
Re:Military robots are getting smaller and more capable
by StavrosK on Sunday September 02, 2018 @09:55PM
(#17899737)
What do you need an articulated firearm for? Isn't some C4 good enough?
Hell, why do you need the drone to be autonomous? There are $100 drones that can be piloted remotely from kilometers away.
Re:Military robots are getting smaller and more capable
by ryanmarsh on Sunday September 02, 2018 @10:40PM
(#17899919)
> Isn't some C4 good enough?
Not by itself. An area weapon is fine, which is why I said grenade. They are effective even with enemy in defilade. Rifles are cumbersome, give their position away and have recoil.
> why do you need the drone to be autonomous
Electronic Countermeasures
Re:Military robots are getting smaller and more capable
by Abekkus on Sunday September 02, 2018 @10:39PM
(#17899913)
Also, you can leave scores of drones lying in wait, and alert a small number of pilots to fly the right ones when motion is detected.
Re:Military robots are getting smaller and more capable
by HeadsUpHigh on Monday September 03, 2018 @04:54AM
(#17901362)
This is why autonomy might be desirable:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=turkish+soldiers+drone+jammer&t=ff...
Re:Military robots are getting smaller and more capable
by HeadsUpHigh on Monday September 03, 2018 @04:52AM
(#17901356)
We are getting closer to the cyberpunk squad of guys with cf body armor, one guy with a drone jammer and a couple more with high suppressible firepower.
Re:Military robots are getting smaller and more capable
by AlexCoventry on Sunday September 02, 2018 @08:27PM
(#17899431)
What is AO?
Re:Military robots are getting smaller and more capable
by rhcom2 on Sunday September 02, 2018 @08:37PM
(#17899471)
Area of operations
Re:Military robots are getting smaller and more capable
by lowbloodsugar on Sunday September 02, 2018 @08:39PM
(#17899473)
Re:Military robots are getting smaller and more capable
by lowbloodsugar on Sunday September 02, 2018 @08:37PM
(#17899469)
1500 rounds in a Phalanx, so need 1510 drones (catapults, radar, any aircraft on deck), at, say $5000 each. $7.5m to take a carrier out of the battle. I hope the Navy has wargamed this or demonstrated the phalanx software wont shit itself with that many targets.
Re:Military robots are getting smaller and more capable
by imtringued on Monday September 03, 2018 @05:27AM
(#17901474)
How are the drones different from a simple bomb or missile then? You might as well just build a smaller SDB with more strikes. The vast majority of these drone weapons boil down to the concept of a guided bomb. Drones have a limited operational time measured in minutes and they can only attack once. The only difference to conventional bombs is that smaller explosives cause less collateral damage.
Re:Military robots are getting smaller and more capable
by adrianN on Monday September 03, 2018 @05:31AM
(#17901491)
Check out this wargame, where floats of small inexpensive boats dominate a traditional navy:
Re:Military robots are getting smaller and more capable
by trashtester on Monday September 03, 2018 @06:14AM
(#17901639)
Assuming the drones/missiles cannot be easily jammed, the main counter to such an opponent would be to:
1) Know their capabilities 2) Stay out of range of the drone/missile swarm, until you have rendered them harmless (by destroying or blinding them).
Re:Military robots are getting smaller and more capable
by candiodari on Monday September 03, 2018 @10:42AM
(#17902814)
There are unjammable communications. Essentially ad-hoc networks using laser beams, coordinated from a plane.
The reason it's unjammable is that you need to be in line-of-sight of the laser between 2 devices to jam it.
Blinding swarms of drones with communications and coordination between them is impossible. If necessary, they'll just get their sight from a satellite above.
Re:Military robots are getting smaller and more capable
by trashtester on Monday September 03, 2018 @01:28PM
(#17903805)
So this would fall under the assumption that they could not be jammed, in which case the trick is to stay out of range, and destroy them before launch.
Missiles like this with ranges of 100s of kilometers will be very expensive, and can be intercepted by cheaper missiles/drones (or soon, lasers).
Re:Military robots are getting smaller and more capable
by Latteland on Tuesday September 04, 2018 @12:27AM
(#17906645)
You can jam unjammable laser. If there was something like fog or rain it could block it's line of sight.
Re:Military robots are getting smaller and more capable
by ryanmarsh on Sunday September 02, 2018 @10:44PM
(#17899938)
Something like a CIWS could work but it’s big and heavy and probably would need some time to calibrate. So you can’t have them with you everywhere, especially on a foot patrol, raid, recon, etc...
Re:Military robots are getting smaller and more capable
by SerLava on Monday September 03, 2018 @05:28AM
(#17901479)
Well, once someone has 1510 drones capable of taking a carrier out of battle, they'll just toss a few dozen smaller turrets on the carrier that fire birdshot at full auto.
Re:Military robots are getting smaller and more capable
by imrelaxed on Sunday September 02, 2018 @09:54PM
(#17899730)
Check out the US Navy’s new laser cannon!
Re:Military robots are getting smaller and more capable
by ekun on Monday September 03, 2018 @01:25AM
(#17900519)
It's wild to imagine but 100% believable to think that the US Navy already has technology to defeat a large mass of cheap weaponized drones. And even more entertaining if it's lasers.
Re:Military robots are getting smaller and more capable
by raducu on Monday September 03, 2018 @03:50AM
(#17901108)
It would be a shame if those drones were covered with mirrors,wouldn't it?
There’s a common misconception that robots are not yet capable enough. This obscures the present, unexecuted, reality.
It is well within the budget of many nations to build grenade carrying swarms of drones capable of autonomously patrolling and attacking human targets. The fact that we have not seen this on a wide scale has no bearing on present capabilities, or that which is within reach. If you search YouTube you can already find examples of ISIS using remote piloted inexpensive drones to attack armored targets with devastating effectiveness.
This is here, now.
As a former light infantry grunt I have a visceral feel for the breathtaking transformation of the battle space we may soon witness. Within an AO it is very challenging to deny access to light infantry, even in the most foreboding terrain. Autonomous drones can and will effectively deny infantry access to large areas. This fundamentally changes ground warfare, even guerrilla.
Use logic. Can a drone recognize someone holding a weapon? Can a system be devised to demark areas of friendlies? Are all nations as cautious as the US when it comes to each weapons release?