>The Pentagon has unveiled its latest strategy to counter China’s rapid military progress, with a program named Replicator that intends to focus on fielding “thousands” of attritable autonomous platforms that will be characterized by being “small, smart, cheap, and many.” The initiative seeks to harness U.S. innovation as a way to counter the mass of China’s armed forces, while also, once again, putting the onus on uncrewed systems that will benefit from AI algorithms.
retard here. why not just expand manufacturing capacity to build more planes, ships, and missiles instead of making cheap drones?
Because drones are cheaper and don't require a pilot to control them individually, so they're good enough.
> build more planes, ships, and missiles instead of making cheap drones?
recruiting issues
increase wages?
>increase wages
You have to give money for people to just fuck around and waste even more money for support and training unless war actually happens
>use that wage increase to buy autonomous systems
You can just store them, and do little maintenance so that they are ready to use when necessary. Basically no running costs.
cool it with the antisemitism
my sides
WHAT? You can't give common folk money! That'll cut into my margi-, Imean cause inflation
>believes wages are the reason
LAMO
>recruiting issues
>retards who talk about recruiting issues as if every single person who ever died during war was enlisted prior to the outbreak of war
Helpless
This. Why the fuck are you going to stay in the military when you can make literally 3x as much in the civilian sector, work half as much, and put up with none of the military bullshit?
You don't want to be training F-22 pilots on the fly when a war could start and end in a matter of weeks, let alone the years it takes to actually fly a modern fighter.
>and put up with none of the military bullshit?
Corporate bullshit can be really bad in its own way, I don't think there's a direct comparison between them.
I had a civilian friend who worked on base doing graphical design work for them and she loved the military environment because:
> she was lesbian and the women were often her type
> people were mission oriented and if she needed something, people had a "just get it done" attitude that was unlike any corporate environment she'd worked in before
OP is a gay for not linking so as punishment I’m using the worst link possible
https://news.yahoo.com/replicator-dods-big-play-build-234946480.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS5hdS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAB82HRdfMc1Q7JiwhxOP4RhQooGo1GfzGIyYfEIONiUI7ZRkVpinsMDd0NGyKHiw3IpuGHFcDnQ7nG47X3nXICB261vDlz69QxYD_Ua3p3ho_g-5ket2rg2jU3EwbYLNZ0qhjaV88QNJzTLdfx2LO_Hxk7Scw5nxN2p1Eh-YKXv_
For OP: the key word used in the article here is “attritable” and almost everything else flows from that
Also US DOD cheap =/= cheap.
>so as punishment
you are not punishing op you brain dead retard
a drone is cheaper than a jet you retard and they already have the factories you retard
kek. op makes a screenshto bait thread without link. anon doesn't like something about the original article so he links a different one. anons use this as an opportunity to act like they would've linked it for any reason other than to feel superior to anon.
is this what having moron of the brain is like?
Actually the yahoo article is a cut and paste of the drive one, I chose yahoo specifically to troll
what a story mark
fag for not providing a link
fag
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/replicator-is-dods-big-play-to-build-thousands-of-autonomous-weapons-in-just-two-years
>https://news.yahoo.com/replicator-dods-big-play-build-234946480.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS5hdS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAB82HRdfMc1Q7JiwhxOP4RhQooGo1GfzGIyYfEIONiUI7ZRkVpinsMDd0NGyKHiw3IpuGHFcDnQ7nG47X3nXICB261vDlz69QxYD_Ua3p3ho_g-5ket2rg2jU3EwbYLNZ0qhjaV88QNJzTLdfx2LO_Hxk7Scw5nxN2p1Eh-YKXv_
Thread theme
Arsenal bird when
<<Behold the Razgriz, its wings of black sheath!">>
'Cuz juicy scrap fallin' from da sky is da right propa way to fund a waagh.
Dem boyz up there fightin', wez gonna be down here buildin' a stompah outta dere gutz.
>Replicator
Mfw
this, everyone here keeps referencing star trek but it's obviously alluding to the star gate replicators.
>lets make star trek technology!
>it's to make weapons
:/
The World of Star Trek was only made possible by the events of WWIII, after all.
>instead of making cheap drones?
>cheap drones
>cheap
You know, if you tried thinking about it a bit, just for a change?
To go into it in more depth capacity isn't something you can get just like that. You need to build factories, you need to buy equipment, and most of all your workers need first training and then experience. This costs a lot of money and takes time.
Even worse, once you have it you can't just pout it on a shelf and leave it until it's needed. Skills that aren't used start to fade, and workers need their pay-checks every month to live. With highly qualified people making stuff out of expensive raw materiels, building up and then maintaining experience will cost you a fuckton.
Now something you can try to offset this a bit of course is to keep some extra capacity around doing stuff that's sorta similar enough but at least somewhat cheaper. So instead of high end missiles and fighter jets you might build...
Though it should also be mentioned that it seems small and cheap drones you don't worry much about loosing have been extremely useful in the Ukraine war. So it's likely also a matter of you wanting to have them just for their own sake. Precision guided munitions and the like are all very nice and useful, but surgical precision only helps when you know what to am for. So in war it often seems you also want cheap munitions in astronomical quantities that you can vomit out for suppression.
I mostly agree with you but I do think attritable is a doing a lot of lifting here. For example
Say you needed to penetrate deep inland into highly contested air space - needed to. Let’s say you estimate even a 30% casualty rate for success here - that’s 30% of pilots and expensive F-35s or NGADs or whatever. But even 70% drone losses is completely acceptable. 90%. 100% if it results in success. And a theoretical drone with missiles will always have longer range than a similar sized aircraft because it lacks a cockpit and does not need to make a round trip. Against China these situations are going to come up
Ah yes, that's another way the cheap, spammable stuff is useful. Pilots are neither.
Isnt this ultimatively ending in cruise missiles? If you claculate with an 90% loss rste, your drone might as well be the missile itself. Just an idea, so basocally tons of cruise missiles? So hear me out, basically a big "plane" that carries lets say 3 glide bombs or missiles and itself has a bigass bomb inside. After it shoots its stuff out, it aquires a target and becomes a last boom. Its sounds retarded to have a missile carry missiles, but maybe it works in higly contested airspace.
Having the option for them to go kamikaze makes sense even if they didn’t use it all the time. If it’s big enough for a few missiles then just a warhead shouldn’t be too heavy
Kinda terrifying to think about.
>drone swarm just swooces right in
>bombs the everloving shit out of your everything, no hiding anywhere
>they are out of ammo, start to leave
Thank the gods-
>they turn around and engage the funny mode
Welcome to the suck zone, beep boop
https://ndiastorage.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/ndia/2005/psts/jenkins.pdf
Research JITSA Area Dominator.
>3 BONUS EFPs to air drop & 1 forward-facing kamikaze warhead
>year of our lord 2001+4
>Area Dominator (18)
>Area Dominator Based Gateway (2)
Based Gateway
How about you leave the thinking to people who are actually working on this project since they actually know what it encompasses and requires?
No, I'm going to be as big of a pain in the ass as your teachers and tell you to turn your brain on every now and then instead of just sitting there and expect to be spoon-fed.
Yes, trust the experts.
Because it costs less money to just build a bunch of cheap drones than doing any of those things. Planes, ships, and missiles are some of the most expensive things used in warfare and if you can get similar effectiveness without risking lives (as much) and for less money then you're kinda dumb for not considering it. Cheap drones are basically aimable artillery for a lot less than what HIMARS costs and artillery kills more people in any war than anything else besides illness.
That was an unexpected bonus to Japanese kamikaze strikes, since they had no intention of returning their range was far longer than usual, and caught the US unaware at first, thinking they were outside strike range. IIRC they were even panicking that there was a secret Jap airbase somewhere they hadn't noticed.
DO YOU WANT SKYNET?
THAT'S HOW YOU GET SKYNET!
Intel is opening new fabs and starting 3nm production soon. Catching up to Samsung and TSMC.
We'll soon be there.
>We
Oh vey, we shall soon counter the evil Chinese.
Lmao. Americans will never catch up with Asians. Americans can’t do math
Then why couldn't asians invent transistors and CPUs in the first place
You'll just be able to print a small jet out in a hangers using not the best metal... That's the idea.
Have a hanger and bunch if chips and ammo. Chinese launch an attack print out 100 drones that are at f 16 level in a week then launch attacks.
>in a week
So 4 days after the war is over. What an amazing idea.
>retard here
yes you are you retard
Where are all of these new planes launching from?
Traditional airbases?
I had thought maybe they were planning to use b52s as sky carriers, with their new pylons, but that would only be for much smaller numbers
In any case won't now space be needed to field these?
*New
Also, did they give them foldable wings yet?
>Where are all of these new planes launching from? Traditional airbases?
Sure. Unfortunately, when the Cold War ended, the US and their allies closed military bases and sold off the land to real estate developers, so kinda SOL now.
The first nation to use drones like artillery shells/bullets will win. What can a carrier group do against 100,000 ai controlled swarm drone besides die or run away. Carrier group takes 10 years to rebuild, drone swarm is 1 days production. What you're seeing in Ukraine is the tinniest taste of what is to come.
I've yet to see someone refute this, but the US Military seems quietly confident about CSGs, so maybe they have some trick up their sleeve. Remember Red Storm Rising?
the refutation, the obvious one, is that with the range and speed of warships cheap drones literally can't reach warships. if you make the drone large enough to get there it just becomes more or less a slow conventional drone. if you make it fast enough to intercept warships at a reasonable launch range you'll end up with a jet engine powered aircraft. you're just making another anti-ship cruise missile.
Drones have shitty range and once you've got enough range to reach out to where the CSG is, that is what we call a cruise missile and it turns out they're expensive as fuck so you can't afford to spam a saturation attack on the regular, if ever.
In addition to the other things, high powered lasers are entering service and even BEEFIER lasers are always being developed. Terminal air defense is going to get easier in the next few years because of that.
>100,000 drones
>1 day production
*takes evasive maneuvers at 40 knots while blasting away with laser point defence*
how are your shitty drones deal with that?
They come from everywhere at the same time you moron.
What even is the difference between that and just using a fuck ton of missiles?
Until autonomous vehicles get good enough that tank crews and aircraft pilots get completely replaced, the biggest impact I think they will have is as recconaisance and real time information gathering.
Armies should work into integrating drone operators seamlessly into the infantry units so the infantry had constant eyes on the sky guiding them. Maybe even give the infantry AV goggles that are connected to the operator in some way that the operator can relay information without speaking.
In the future an infantry squad without drone-provided visual support will be unthinkable
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Persistent_Munition_Technology_Demonstrator
Le MIC invented this in 2005 and now it's being publicly produced? Amerilards keep winning.
>The first nation to use drones like artillery shells/bullets will win.
Then China wins
>1 days
Closer to a few months, maybe a few weeks if you're at full war production.
Aside from that, wouldn't carriers still serve as mobile drone bases? Drones are a lot bigger than you might think. And wouldn't manned aircraft be better when you need adaptability and stealth? A drone is either moving on a pre-programmed route or is constantly sending and recieving data.
>in an attempt to flex on incompetent starved Asians, the US will build Skynet and doom us all
Thanks Biden.
are you motheffuckers trying to make screamers
you're going to doom us all
Huh-oh.
?si=G3Iqbe4j_2GWsE8m
Because we're running out of manpower to man those, especially ships.
Recruitment is the biggest problem the American military faces today. If a war with China happens, they'll run out of soldiers. If they start up the draft to try and stop this, the people will just make congress end the war so they don't have to fight. The only way to maintain war support without a direct attack on the homeland (which China won't do because of MAD) is not have casualties, drones makes this possible.
>If they start up the draft to try and stop this, the people will just make congress end the war so they don't have to fight. The only way to maintain war support without a direct attack on the homeland (which China won't do because of MAD) is not have casualties, drones makes this possible.
This sounds like democracy working as intended.
We maintain our economy and population base, don't have to brutalise the fighting age men and avoid instituting draconian laws and punishments.
And we get high-tech shit out of it.
Vive le democracy
Why do we want to fight China again? Who gives a flying fuck what they do on their side of the planet? Just arm everyone with recreational nuclear weapons.
Because America controls the fucking world anon, and if we don't some shitter will inevitably make our lives worse.
>Let China invade Taiwan
>Now the vast majority of both low-end and high-end chip manufacturing is owned by the CCP
Large portions of America are on their side of the planet. Besides that its economic imterests.
god i want to be a f22 and fuck a f35 while she shows her soft curvy underbelly and then make her pregnant with a dozen wingman drones
>thousands” of attritable autonomous platforms that will be characterized by being “small, smart, cheap, and many.”
China is better than you at building drones boat and UAV.
You can have one f35 with a swarm of drones as wing men. Effectively giving your single f35 the firepower of an entire flight group, and if the enemy fires anti air missiles at you you can have your cheaper drones simply get in the way and blow up instead of you. Saving both the pilots life and millions of dollars
>attritable autonomous platforms that will be characterized by being “small, smart, cheap, and many”
>surely this means drones
Anon, the Pentagon already has Fox Three missiles.
>the Pentagon already has Fox Three missiles
There's a point where the line between autonomous drone and seeking missile is real blurry.
>retard here. why not just expand manufacturing capacity to build more planes, ships, and missiles instead of making cheap drones?
because you dont have the capacity or even the manpower to do so
Yes, they do. USA still produces more tanks and fighters than china.
the last trully indigenous airftact of usa was the f15
and they were shit at building it the production rate was so slow that countries opted for the f16 instead
MENENDEZ!
This is the death of the true meaning of the 2nd amendment. There won't be any way to fight tyranny when the tyrants are protected by AI instead of men with souls and families of their own. Eventually this shit is going to be used to kill citizens who refuse to comply, and there will be no defense. I just hope I'm not still around when it happens.
Just get your own drones and run your own local AIs
>why not just expand manufacturing capacity
They don't want that, industry was exported intentionally.
Hope y'all bros have been practicing yo archery.
Haha what BS. Everyone knows the US is NOT going to go to war with China. Just another scam to keep a budget going and feed the MIC. I swear to GOD if the Chinese never BS’d about their capabilities and numbers the government would straight up just make up a bunch of shit to feed Congress anyway.
Pilots are extremely expensive in terms of money and time to train. It's why the US has always put a huge emphasis on rescuing downed pilots; they are very costly to replace. Modern pilots have an undergrad degree and then go to flight school, that's 6+ years of post-secondary education right there. Much easier to replace a drone and train a dipshit to fly it like a video game.
This shit is hilarious. The way to beat China’s rapid build-up is to invest into trade skill training and lost / weak core industries (ie ship-building, tank-building, steel, missiles, etc). But fuck that much better to feed light manufacture contracts to the MIC and connected startups of course. Sounds like an Obama-era scam ie renewable energy initiatives. Invent a problem and get everyone onboard by paying out to little scam investors and startups to "fix" it based on forced memes run by the media. Right this instant I know there’s TONNES of connected investors setting up faggy little drone / AI companies to build this swarm of "cheap" drones. God I hope China invades Taiwan and wipes out the drone swarm with HPM weapons.
Rounding up Chinese nationals and cutting diplomatic ties would be cheaper in the long term. Or just let pop up biolabs like those uncovered in California in July just propagate willy nilly and train their engineers at US colleges. Surely Charles Lieber's Wuhan ties and spike protein research PLA PHD candidates were total anomalies.
Fucking skynet waiting to happen. Or the components will be hackable due to hidden internal circuits. WEF subdues all grassroots political resistance movements via extermination.
> build more planes, ships, and missiles instead of making cheap drones?
Every war fought in the industrial age has proven that quantity is more often than not better than quality. Drones are cheaper in both manufacturing and, crucially, manpower. We live in an age where we’ll run out of pilots before we run out of planes.
are we running low on goynigs?
To fly a fighter jet you not only have to be fit but somewhat intelligent, as well. In today’s age it’s hard to find people who fit into one of those categories, both is practically a unicorn.
We have plent of smart people. Anyone who twlls you that is the pro is lying.
Because cheap drones are apparently able to hit airbases deep inside major nuclear powers as we just saw. Imagine if Taiwan, not just the US, managed to get their hands on thousands of them at a low cost and used them to wreck havoc on Chinese bases.
>why not just expand manufacturing capacity to build more [conventional weapons]
Drones, robots, etc are the future of warfare.
They will be more useful than human-crewed weapons.