>the U.S. Air Force could be the next customer for theMQ-28 Ghost Batdrone that Boeing Australia is building for theRoyal Australian Air Force, or RAAF. That revelation came about during a recent event in Australia that hosted U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, who confirmed that “preliminary discussions” were underway with a view to buying the MQ-28 as aloyal wingman-typeadjunct to the forthcoming Next Generation Air Dominance, orNGAD, program, a wide-ranging ‘system of systems’ intended to ensure U.S. tactical air dominance for years to come.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/usaf-might-buy-mq-28-ghost-bats-for-next-gen-air-dominance-program
Its fricking habberning
Hopefully US renames these. I never liked ghost bat. Ghost swat is better since it's designed to swat bugs.
Bats eat bugs, so it still works.
So Kratos is no more it seems
where Valkyrie
That's a different class. Valkyrie have an IWB already but it's small tho.
What does all this systems of systems bullshit mean anon?
What is even the point of any of this shit except lining defense company pockets all this bullshit is so advanced it's multiple generations ahead of any "'"near peers""" we'd ever war with
They're going to build enough stealth drones to blot out the sun across western Russia.
The other alternative is to allow your R&D, manufacturing, and military to stagnate leading to "peers" catching up, or surpassing you. Then, you have to spend even more money than you would to catch up all at once, as you would shorten your development time. How is that smart, or more economical than slowly continuing to advance? What would you rather have the money spent on, importing illegals, flying to different states, giving them welfare and free housing? Or giving Black folk more gibs? What about giving the Department of Education more money to line their pockets?
Because we're going to war with China whether we like it or not, unless the US cucks on Taiwan
Going to war with China would be suicide for the United States.
Going to war with the United States would be suicide for China.
Frick off bing lee
This. The US imports most of their oil and food from China, a Chinese blockade of the US coasts would cause a massive famine.
ebin
maybe up the dosage on the meds?
USA imports 0.5% of their food from chinese in 2019. And imports less oil that from fricking Nigeria which is 1.5%
Apparently, Chinese food is actually made from sewage. Like, they take oil from sewage pipes, process it and use it as cooking oil.
I get banned every time I put up the dog in a wok, so here's the next best thing for your entertainment
I still have nightmares from that gif. That said it did 100% radicalise me. There's basically no bug I wouldn't blowtorch to death.
most of these are genuine but at least one is plainly fricking moronic
>pull iron out of baby food with a magnet
>claim it's "crushed rocks"
You can do the same thing with regular cereal sold in the States, crush it up and run a magnet over it, you'll get a little bit of iron.
Think of it from the Australian perspective
>combat pilots are expensive
>we train ours to high standards
>they're not common or replaceable easily
Now our retention is generally ok enough to the point its not a massive problem, but in a shooting war you're going to rack up casualties at some point which means even the loss of aircraft becomes secondary. So anything out there taking a hit instead of a combat aircraft isn't great, but its also not losing an F-35 or its pilot.
More importantly is the number of combat aircraft you now effectively have access to- so say we get the Ghost Bat up to the point its 50% as good as a pilot when working with an actual pilot and you have 4 of them attached to the combat aircraft to go out there with him. Now instead of having a to face 'a pilot' the enemy has to consider that nation might have actually 3x the number of listed combat pilots instead of what you'd normally have to put up with and could theoretically be carrying 4-5x the firepower for every sortie they launch at your guys.
So its a bit more than just a force multiplier like just having say an AWACS out there or an EW bird in your squadron, when your squadron might be effectively able to throw a lot more firepower at targets then you anticipate. I mean, I'm an old army man, smell like mud, brain size of walnut and hit things with club- but I can appreciate more firepower any day of the week
That's basically my thought on the matter as well, but it seems like that approach may significantly add to logistical strain when you consider the larger number of aircraft you'd need to operate total. Probably not a big deal at the end of the day, but something that I hope at least somebody thinks about if they decide to go that route.
Far easier to just keep pouring money into the defense industry to keep your lead than to risk losing by being cheap or lazy.
We're gonna kill chinese.
wombat ?
>U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, who confirmed that “preliminary discussions” were underway with a view to buying the MQ-28 as aloyal wingman-
This the same guy that said the b21 raider was on the table. Seems based.
Australia is already hosting some B2s. Hosting some B21s in the (far off) future would make me chuffed
Who would ever trust the Austrians?
Germany