PHYSICS IS STILL A THING, DAMMIT. Normally I wouldn't pick on Gen. (ret) Mark Milley & Google (ret) Eric Schmidt, who've done a ton to drag the US military into the 21st century, but their @ForeignAffairs piece out today makes a mistake people KEEP MAKING, and I am LOSING IT. /1
@ForeignAffairs Don't get me wrong, drones are amazing...but the catch-all term "drones" (or UAVs/UAS/RPAs) conceals a trap, because it makes it all too easy to make mistakes like this one, where Miley & @ericschmidt compare a $400~ FPV hobby drone, a $30~ MILLION MQ-9 Reaper, & an $80M F-35. /2
@ForeignAffairs @ericschmidt (No, I don't know where they get the Reaper being just 1/4 the cost of an F-35). But that's not apples to apples. It's not even apples to oranges to pears. It's apples to aadvarks to alligators. These three things are not comparable! /3
@ForeignAffairs @ericschmidt The F-35 is a supersonic, stealthy fighter. that can carry up 18,000 pounds of weapons (or sensor/jamming pods, etc) to hit targets over 750 miles away. It'd be expensive even without a human in it, as the Air Force is discovering... /3 af.mil/About-Us/Fact-…
@ForeignAffairs @ericschmidt with its CCA (Collaborative Combat Aircraft) effort to build a drone "loyal wingman" to fly into battle alongside manned aircraft. Yes, removing the cockpit & life support saves a lot of weight & cost, but "carry a lot a long way, fast" is never cheap. /4 breakingdefense.com/2024/07/air-fo…
@ForeignAffairs @ericschmidt Then there's the MQ-9 Reaper, the bigger, badder successor to the famous MQ-1 Predator. This a propeller plane (turboprop), not a jet. Its range is a little shorter than F-35's. Its heaviest variant, fully loaded, weighs less than the F-35's bomb load! /5 af.mil/About-Us/Fact-…
As for the drones being used - and used up, and shot down - by the tens of thousands over Ukraine, they vary widely, but the armed variants mostly carry a few pounds of explosive maybe six miles. They're hard to hit but painfully vulnerable to jamming. /6 breakingdefense.com/2023/06/dumb-a…
Now, drones can do things that manned aircraft can't, like loiter all day over a target area without having to land for crew rest, or be so cheap they're expendable one-shot weapons, or maneuver far more sharply in a dogfight. But.... /7 breakingdefense.com/2024/04/in-a-w…
...no one drone can do ALL these things at once, drones built for different missions will be very different, and drones that go fast, go a long way, carry a lot, or all of the above will be expensive... because the laws of physics still matter, and moving stuff takes energy. /8
Forgetting physics is a recurring problem21st century hype cycles of all kinds, because computers get exponentially better while getting smaller and cheaper. Silicon Valley VC types in particular often think they can revolutionize another technology the same way... 9/
...but there's been no comparable breakthrough in moving physical objects, which means that traditional design, traditional industry, and, yes, traditional aerospace & defense companies still play a vital role. We need to combine the best of the Valley and Detroit.../ 10
...if we're to defend ourselves abroad and thrive at home. Genius is great, innovation is inspiring, and new tech can make a difference, but there's still no easy button to avoid hard work, heavy metal, and big budgets. /11
That said, read the Milley & @ericschmidt piece, it makes a lot of points, and @ForeignAffairs kindly put it in front of the paywall. / end rant foreignaffairs.com/united-states/…
@ericschmidt @ForeignAffairs PS: Here's a good example of General Milley pushing back against the tech hype. He's one of the best at balancing "tech will change war dramatically" with "but the inherent brutality of war will never change": breakingdefense.com/2024/05/mark-m…
PPS: Here's my own latest story on future warfare, about the invisible battle networks that link the sexy weapons into an effective fighting force -- potentially across thousands of miles of open ocean:
PPPS: Drone enthusiast & OSINTer @TrentTelenko (and yes, I know he has...passionate critics) goes into the power of FPV drones here. Note he's talking about their lethality (a) within a range of 10 km (6 miles) and (b) against unarmored targets like trucks
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