3 comments

  • warner257 hours ago
    For as long as there have been tanks, I think there have been cheap anti-tank weapons that are effective when tanks aren't operating as part of a combined arms team with other maneuver, fires, and protection elements.

    There does seem to be a good case for replacing manned attack and reconnaissance aircraft with unmanned aircraft, and the Army appears to be moving in that direction with the recent cancellation of the FARA program (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Attack_Reconnaissance_A...), plus the use of Shadows since retiring the Kiowa fleet ten years ago. Replacing tanks with unmanned aircraft, however, would be replacing one tool with another tool that has an entirely different purpose.

  • talldayo8 hours ago
    > The former Google supremo's argument is that recent conflicts, such as the war in Ukraine, have demonstrated how "a $5,000 drone can destroy a $5 million tank."

    Wait until this guy hears about what the same drone does to a $50,000,000 stealth jet. Will be say that we need to replace those with cruise missiles too, then?

    • palmfacehn8 hours ago
      A 5k drone can destroy a 5M tank, but the US defense establishment would never settle for a 5k drone. Instead there will be a decade+ long procurement process, resulting in a much more expensive drone.
      • quantified7 hours ago
        Sadly true. It's about jobs and donors, not about battlefield effectiveness.
      • Log_out_7 hours ago
        That then is delivered and not used in the warzone. Its to expensive dor the front,it belongs into a museum .
      • talldayo6 hours ago
        Well, yeah: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroVironment_Switchblade

        But I don't think that's a necessarily terrible thing. When you talk about military procurement a bunch of pork-cutters love to piss and moan about $5,000 toilet seats and $500 machined spurred nuts made out of an alloy nobody uses. There's this general impression that government appropriation of these industries would bring the cost down, but looking at communist and socialist analogs this doesn't seem to be the case. Worse yet, every Boeing that America buys has to be bailed-out directly by it's owner instead of being allowed to die naturally in a free and competitive market. Forcing DARPA to design all this stuff instead redirects manpower from important tasks to instead optimize a price tag that might not even be realistic in the first place.

        The most important part of deploying a novel technology in war is integrating it properly. Artillery doesn't work without targeting personnel and radio officers communicating what and where to strike. Submarines aren't scary unless command & control can coordinate targets and update the crew in the vessel. Drones and glide bombs rely on robust targeting information that must be maintained and updated to hit a mobile target like a tank. The US takes the time to figure this stuff out because they have the enviable position of accepting "No" for an answer from their advisors. If something is too dangerous, expensive or undeveloped to field in warfare, a rational army should not operationalize it.

  • 8 hours ago
    undefined