Science!! Fucking magnets, how do they work?

Tuco

Tuco

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I feel like if we had to make a ground strike against a nation with a real air force we wouldn't want to use surgical and opportunistic strikes against them, but would instead do what we did in Iraq: stealth strike their air defenses and airfields and then shock and awe them. Once we gained some form of air superiority then maybe we'd deploy drones, but in a target rich environment the advantage that Fadaar stated of being able to idle for 12+ hours before striking is greatly diminished.
 
Cybsled

Cybsled

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You're thinking in terms of present drone deployment. Imagine insect like swarms, with "dummy" drones to reduce material loses and adaptive hive-mind like AI to act like a real swarm. Zerg-style attacks can be highly effective.
 
iannis

iannis

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It seems like with a drone you could pull some crazy shit that you just wouldn't be able to with a manned aircraft.

Fly 2 miles straight up, fly to your target, then turn off the engine. Hahaha, good luck shooting that down you fucking commies.

It doesn't seem like conventional AA would be worth shit.

missileCommand2600Screen.jpg
 
mkopec

mkopec

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^^Too small for radar.

Not to mention you could have some cheap ass ones that self destruct, like a grenade. Have spotter drones find the enemy, relay the coordinates and then BAM! Take a few enemy out with one cheap drone. You dont even need drivers, that shit can be all automated by use of GPS.

You could have our troops and vehicles employ some kind of beacon or something to reduce friendly fire. They could employ codes that are ever changing on a daily basis. So if the enemy finds a beacon it is obsolete the next day.
 
iannis

iannis

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That's basically what they would be, in that example.

Mainly it seems that if you're not having to account for a human pilot you can now disregard some design constraints. You still have to make sure that your machine isn't going to fly apart, but there has to be a lot of new territory for using the laws of physics that were forbidden when you have to consider the frailty of a human passenger.

"We can't go mach7 straight down! Iceman will DIE as soon as you change direction!"
 
Big Phoenix

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mkopec_sl said:
^^Too small for radar.

Not to mention you could have some cheap ass ones that self destruct, like a grenade. Have spotter drones find the enemy, relay the coordinates and then BAM! Take a few enemy out with one cheap drone. You dont even need drivers, that shit can be all automated by use of GPS.

You could have our troops and vehicles employ some kind of beacon or something to reduce friendly fire. They could employ codes that are ever changing on a daily basis. So if the enemy finds a beacon it is obsolete the next day.
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If its too small for radar then it sgoing to be too small to be useful probably.

Big difference between something you fly on the weekend over the forest and a combat capable device.
 
K

Kedwyn

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Tuco_sl said:
I feel like if we had to make a ground strike against a nation with a real air force we wouldn't want to use surgical and opportunistic strikes against them, but would instead do what we did in Iraq: stealth strike their air defenses and airfields and then shock and awe them. Once we gained some form of air superiority then maybe we'd deploy drones, but in a target rich environment the advantage that Fadaar stated of being able to idle for 12+ hours before striking is greatly diminished.
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I don't know drones are dirt cheap and expendable and will only fill a larger roll (heavier and more powerful ordinance) as times goes on. Especially with the brass being able to target deeper and more sensitive targets early on without having to worry so much about casualties.

I see a far more effective shock and awe campaign with 5k+ drones all attacking and swarming different targets and would be much harder to kill / stop than say a few hundred combat air craft in the air at any one time costing exponentially more and carrying human life. I can see the appeal of saying "fuck it that target is worth losing 40% of the force" because we can shit out drones faster than they can kill them and no American lives are lost when one goes down.

I can also see air craft carriers and air fields just launching these things non stop in some kind of warped death machine. Instead of spooling up and raining destruction for a few hours and going back to reload there would be a painful constant bombardment and new drones enter the area of operation every few minutes and as they return home the drones being launched by the minute are arriving to deliver their payload while the empty ones are landing and being rearmed / fueled and sent out right away.

By removing the good guy human loss factor and relatively speaking making these things practically free compared to alternative delivery methods you increase the capability of war exponentially.
 
mkopec

mkopec

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Tuco_sl said:
What do you think the effective range and weapons payload is of a device that size?
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Well obviously thats just a $500 toy. Add another $1000 of tech, and you have a $1500 drone capable of at least delivering a few grenades worth of explosive power. And as cheap as that is you can have swarms of these things self-destructing wherever you want. Even inside of structures.
 
iannis

iannis

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khalid_sl said:
Tempted to buy that to take videos of my dad's properties. Should be cool.
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My uncle has something a lot like that. He's got a RC helicopter that he can fly with his Ipad and he's strapped a little video camera to it. Signal range ain't that much, but it's super neat.

I used to go out to the model airfield with him when I was a kid. Back then it was a buncha guys with those 2stick RC controllers staring at the sky and buzzing the trees. I went a few months ago and now it's a buncha dudes with laptops. lol.
 
BrutulTM

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Does anybody know what kind of range the GPS guided versions of these things have? I am waiting for one that could make a daily circuit of all of my water tanks and take pictures of them. It would probably be like a 20 mile round trip to see them all but it could theoretically make a couple shorter trips instead of one big loop.
 
Tuco

Tuco

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mkopec_sl said:
Well obviously thats just a $500 toy. Add another $1000 of tech, and you have a $1500 drone capable of at least delivering a few grenades worth of explosive power. And as cheap as that is you can have swarms of these things self-destructing wherever you want. Even inside of structures.
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Those drones work on pure GPS. They claim a 1meter accuracy but it's probably closer to 10 (since it's so cheap, small and they probably don't support differential gps). So they can only position outdoors with no nearby buildings / heavy forest / cliffs etc.

Those drones also have a max speed of 10m/s (22mph) and I bet their range/flight time is only a few hours.

I think the best you could do is have a truck full of them, set them all up and coordinate a strike on some nearby enemy position. And at that point you've just made very expensive, complicated and easily defended mortar fire.

Though the image of 10 drones all carrying a couple hand grenades slowly floating toward a group of enemies scattering is pretty funny.
 
Tuco

Tuco

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BrutulTM_sl said:
Does anybody know what kind of range the GPS guided versions of these things have? I am waiting for one that could make a daily circuit of all of my water tanks and take pictures of them. It would probably be like a 20 mile round trip to see them all but it could theoretically make a couple shorter trips instead of one big loop.
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I couldn't find any flight time or max range on them.
 
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