Avenger -- Why UAVs are great and F-22s suck

[Patroklos]

Topped.

This should be required reading for all newbies just so that Ashers character faults are clearl known.

[Serb]

Yes, trusting human security to robots is a brilliant idea...

... as Terminator series teaches us


p.s. the end begins May 21st.

[Dinner]

I for one welcome our new Cylon overloads.

[Serb]

Wow, I disappear for a few hours and Asher completely self destructs

This is a perfect sig material.

[Serb]

You're completely delusional.

Nope, he is not.
I hate to say that but Patro was incredibly sane in this thread and you were exactly the opposite.
He won this battle hands down. Period.

[Serb]

I again suggest you leave this thread, you posting in it serves no other purpose but to top an astonishing example of your stuborn ignorance.

Another unexpected flash of wisdom here
The man speaks truth, Asher (no matter how much I hate to addmit that).

Let's go to the IIHF World Cup thread (do we have any?) and talk about hockey instead.

[Asher]

I can't think of anything stronger to prove I was right than to have you say that. Thank you.

I don't know how you guys can even be arguing this. UAV CAN carry AAM now, period. When I demonstrated this, Patty immediately stopped arguing content and left the thread after he threw a tantrum on how he was right.

[Drake Tungsten]

UAV CAN carry AAM now, period.

So what?

[Serb]

Among the objections to this are the fact that these UAVs can be jammed. However, there's nothing to say that they couldn't have limited autonomy or could communicate through other methods.

On the clear plus side for UAVs, they do not need to accommodate human physiology.

Oh, Jesus. Anything can be jammed. Don't you guys really can't understand what Patro is trying to say?

Air-to-air combat is way more complicated than just do surveillance or hitting ground targets. That's why they've started experimenting with UAVs from surveillance - because it's the simplest task. For that task all you need is remote controled airframe with an attached video camera. Next step was to equip this airframe with ordinance and avionics capable to hit stationary ground targets. Next step - the same but moving ground targets. But to make a capable air-to-air fighter drone you need a leap in technology to exploit the "lack of accommodation for human physiology". Modern UAVs are slow flying airframes, which are an easy pray for even first generation jet fighters. If those vehicles can hit ground targets - great (it makes them an effective weapon platform only because that can save pilot lives, despite they can easily be destroyed in air combat). But to make them competitive air combatants you will need to make them faster, more manoeuvrable, give them an ability to detect, track and fire at fast moving air targets (preferably at distances further then your rival can do), make them less visible than your rival (to strike him first), and so on, and so on. At best you will end-up with an airframe slightly bigger and slightly more expensive than F-22. And this is at best. The swarm tactics suggested by Asher (based on his wrong assumption that it will be cost effective) simply won't work, because it will not be cost effective, goddamnit! It will still require a sh!tloads of investments for R&D and production and using modern technolgy to make a drone that has a chance in air combat you will still end-up with an airframe the size of the modern jet (and no less, but more likely much more expensive than a 4th generation jet). Otherwise your drone will simply remain an easy target and a great waste of money. You either design your drone to have the same features as modern human piloted jets to be competive against them (in this case it CANNOT cost less than a human piloted fighter (but in fact will cost MUCH more due to cost of equipment and software that will replace human pilot) OR you design a drone which is cheaper but generation or two behind the modern human piloted jet fighters. In the last case your swarm will have the same chances vs. modern jets as a swatm of WW2 fighters would have against few first or 2nd generation jets (and it will be a waste of war matrial instead of cost-effective solution).
A simple ability to fly don't automaticaly gives you a chance against a fighter that can supercruise and has trust vectoring thus has a super agility feature. An ability to strike stationary ground targets using GPS don't make you good enough to hit fast moving jets which use stealth and ECM to trick you. Do you have a GPS-reciever in your phone? But have you ever seen a phased array radar of any modern fighter? Good luck in installing that piece of harware into any existing UAV airframe. And the same with engines, avionics, weapons, etc.


Summary: Patro is absolutely correct when he is saying that such things will be possible, but not in near future. And I tend to agree with his prediction about 2040 when F-22 will quit service. (of course if we humanity survive that long as 2040).

[Serb]

I can't think of anything stronger to prove I was right than to have you say that. Thank you.

You welcome. Keep digging your head into the sand.

I don't know how you guys can even be arguing this. UAV CAN carry AAM now, period. When I demonstrated this, Patty immediately stopped arguing content and left the thread after he threw a tantrum on how he was right.

Oh, you mean this quote?

The Stinger AAM has also been evaluated as a store, but it does not appear that this configuration has been fielded since there has been no operational need for it to this time. There has been some thought of carriage of the bigger Sidewinder, or even the long-range AIM-120 AMRAAM, as stores. The AMRAAM would require that the Reaper carry an improved radar with AMRAAM targeting and control capabilities. General Atomics has published ads showing the Reaper armed with twin 225 kilogram guided bombs, eight Hellfires, and two Sidewinders, demonstrating just how much of a punch the machine can pack.
You just was unable to understand what that means. Let me explain to you. This line:
"The AMRAAM would require that the Reaper carry an improved radar with AMRAAM targeting and control capabilities. "
means - NOT POSSIBLE. Simple as that. It means to do that you would need a different airframe, an entierly NEW DESIGN, a brand new project.

And this line:
"General Atomics has published ads showing the Reaper armed with twin 225 kilogram guided bombs, eight Hellfires, and two Sidewinders, demonstrating just how much of a punch the machine can pack."
is just a dumb advertising. With the same success you can attach a sh!tload of weaponry to a WW1 biplane just to show "how much of a punch the machine can pack" but it won't make it a capable air combantant which has a single chance against a modern human piloted fighter. Hell, you can attach a sidewinder to your horse carriage or a bycicle and cream your pants about how well the swarm of your gadgets will do against those pesky Migs.

[Asher]

Yes, Serb. UAVs can do air to air, they just haven't had to be deployed as such yet due to the nature of the Iraqi and Afghani conflicts.

Did you not read that properly?

[Asher]

UAV CAN carry AAM now, period.

So what?

Go back to the root of the discussion. Patty asked what capabilities the UAVs have that the F-22s have.

I mentioned they can fire missiles at targets on the ground, fire missiles at targets in the air, and fly in the air. Patty then responded with his usual military smugness saying I was "smarter than that" (even though it is all demonstrably true). He even said, and I quote: "No, it does not." to the comment that a UAV can "Fire WEAPONS at other AIRCRAFT ".

That's the root of this whole discussion.

[Drake Tungsten]

Your point is stupid. 747s can carry AAMs. So can helicopters. That doesn't make either suitable for air-to-air combat.

[Asher]

Your point is stupid. 747s can carry AAMs. So can helicopters. That doesn't make either suitable for air-to-air combat.

That's the whole point of the post. See the last facetious comment on naval ships in the bullet points, too.

I even subsequently explicitly said ANY airplane can carry AAMs, and there's nothing that would prevent it. Still, Drake kept arguing the point.

Read the post again. I just said it can "Fire WEAPONS at other AIRCRAFT". Is that true or false? It's true, Patty claimed it was false, and this claim isn't to say it is "suitable for air to air combat", LET ALONE it is "suitable for an air superiority role" like other people have tried to pretend.

[Asher]

- Flies in the AIR
- Drops WEAPONS on to GROUND
- Fires WEAPONS at other AIRCRAFT
- A single UAV is far more useful than most Navy boats.

This is the comment again. If you guys can't figure out the purpose behind this comment, you're totally hopeless.

It was in reply to this stupid comment from Patty:

So what capability of the F-22 does this have again?

The next 40 or so posts focused on Patty arguing the point if UAVs could carry AAM. Which, as you said, is stupid -- virtually any aircraft can.