Drones, the Air Littoral, and the Looming Irrelevance of the USAF

[KevinB]

Kev your logic also applies in spades to conventional forces. The logistics required to sustain a 10,000 round per day artillery force are massive. Dumb rounds are cheap but apparently not as cheap as FPV drones.

But you are ignoring the payload aspect.
A FPV drone is a very expensive 5.56mm round when used in the anti-personnel role, and you need a slew of them on an armored target that a precision round or ATGM doesn’t need the mass.

I’m not discounting the role of the FPV UAS, my point is it is a tool, but not something to dumb other tools for.

And the cost of adding a flight control module to a dumb round are dropping from JDAM-Excalibur levels to those of the APKWS-PGK(M1156)-PGMM-RGK122, down into the 3-zeroes range.

Agreed, and those methods are being incorporated into the battlefield.

But they don’t offer the same level of precision, so it’s not an either or, it’s a mix.

A good chunk of the Sopwith pilot's time was spent just keeping the Camel in the air, managing the flight. That process has been automated and reduced to a package that can be added to anything thst has the potential for flight to a few hundred dollars.

I think you are vastly overestimating the value of UAS systems, and not understanding what C/UAS and C/RAM assets can do if meshed

That changes the way things are done and increases the range of possibilities.

It is another tool in the tool box. It isn’t really replacing anything.

All you can do is force your opponent to spend more to try to counter your capabilities, and try to stay in the black while maintaining a superior capability.

 

[Kirkhill]

The point is that you can now afford to apply flight control to a 5.56mm round cost effectively.

(Edit: forgot to hit the Post on this one. It has been lying dormant for a couple of weeks now.)

 

[Kirkhill]

More indications of the speed of change


From an airdroppable Horsa

USAF Gets Airlift Boost With DZYNE’s New ‘Grasshopper’ Autonomous Glider

DZYNE's Grasshopper moves critical supplies without putting soldiers in harm’s way.

nextgendefense.com

Boeing to Test Drones for Japanese ‘Loyal Wingman’ Experiment

Japan has contracted Boeing to test aerial drones for the country’s manned-unmanned teaming research and development.

nextgendefense.com

Kratos Flight-Tests New ‘Thanatos’ Combat Drone: Report

American defense firm Kratos has reportedly completed the first flight of its “Thanatos” combat drone.

nextgendefense.com

‘AirLAS’ Turns Reusable Drones Into Long-Range Missile Launchers

AirLAS pairs a reusable drone with IRIS-T missiles, offering a flexible, pilotless way to launch precision strikes from anywhere.

nextgendefense.com

Sikorsky Debuts Drone That Can Fly Like Helicopter, Airplane

Sikorsky has successfully flight-tested its “rotor blown wing” unmanned aerial system (UAS) with rotorcraft and fixed-wing platform characteristics.

nextgendefense.com

New Hybrid-Powered British Drone Aims to Revolutionize Military Logistics

The 600-kilogram logistics drone can stay airborne for long stretches, thanks to its hybrid turbine generator power system.

nextgendefense.com

And

Sweden Unveils New Drone Swarm Technology From Saab

Sweden has introduced advanced drone swarm technology that will enable drones of various sizes to work collaboratively on tasks.

nextgendefense.com

‘Fits in the Palm’: China Shows Off New Mosquito-Like Recon Drone

Equipped with micro-cameras and sensors, China’s mosquito-like drone is engineered for covert missions.

nextgendefense.com

To swarms of thumbnail sized recce scouts.

 

[Kirkhill]

And the transition includes more, newer, smarter weapons produced faster...

General Atomics to Enhance US Military Precision With ‘Bullseye’ Missile

General Atomics is set to supercharge the US military's precision strike capabilities with the Israeli-inspired "Bullseye" precision-guided missile.

nextgendefense.com

New FULGUR Missile Takes Aim at Europe’s VSHORAD Needs

Europe’s new FULGUR missile is designed to meet NATO standards and counter fast-evolving aerial threats with precision.

nextgendefense.com

 

[Kirkhill]

And just when I thought I had seen it all with the "mosquito", we have the cyborg bee.

Cyborg bees to be Chinese military scouts

Scientists to direct where insects fly by inserting controllers in their brains

www.telegraph.co.uk

Scientists in China are turning bees into cyborgs by inserting controllers into their brains and deciding where they should fly.

The bees – part insect, part machine – could serve as military scouts or be used to search for survivors following a natural disaster.

Zhao Jieliang, a professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology, and his team recently developed the world’s lightest brain controller – weighing only 74 milligrams, or less than a pinch of salt.

The device is strapped to the back of a worker bee and pierces its brain with three needles to instruct it to fly in specific directions.

Based on the tests conducted by Prof Zhao and his team, the device worked nine times out of 10 and the bees obeyed the instructions.

 

[Kirkhill]

@KevinB

Further to "Drones as Ammunition"

Drones are now bullets: How a new Pentagon policy may accelerate robot warfare

The new policy also allows more units to buy drones, which should boost the demand signal to industry.

www.defenseone.com

Treat small drones like ammunition, not airplanes, the defense secretary told the Pentagon in a Thursday memo that just might boost production where many other efforts have failed.

The memo from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, which builds on a July 6 White House executive order, does a couple of key things. Most importantly, it directs the Defense Department to treat small drones under 55 pounds—the so-called Group 1 and 2 drones—as consumables rather than “durable property.”

Small drones already don’t have to fit STANAG 4586—the NATO standard that makes sure different militaries can talk to the same drone over the same control link. The memo explicitly removes that requirement; there had been some confusion, particularly in training documents. It instructs U.S. military buyers to not hold cheap battlefield drones to the same interoperability rules designed for larger, more expensive systems.

That will codify that those drones will now be treated like “a munition,” which makes sense when thousands of them are consumed every week on Ukrainian battlefields.

....

The new policy also greatly opens up who in the Defense Department can buy drones, as well as how they can buy them by “delegating authorities to procure and operate drones from the bureaucracy to our warfighters” specifically by colonels and Navy captains at the brigade level. That should create the demand signal that will foster investments by U.S. dronemakers in innovation and production capacity.

The memo also directs the services to treat drones like a resourced capability at the service level. That will allow the services to deploy congressionally allocated budgets to buy drones far more quickly, rather than trying to fund lots of relatively small programs of record. That, in turn, allows purchasers to get around micro-purchase caps for GSA funds (around $10,000). And it will make drone purchases less vulnerable to tardy budgets.

“So now customers could come to our online store and buy $20,000 worth of stuff and just do a [Government Purchase Card], rather than having to find a contract vehicle and justify a contract vehicle and getting the authority to operate,” said Evans.

 

[Kirkhill]

Airbus and Kratos teaming up to supply the German Air Force with a UCAV based on the MQ-58 Valkyrie by 2029

Airbus to integrate mission system into Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie

Airbus Defence and Space has an alliance with Kratos to integrate an Airbus-developed mission system into the Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie.

www.airforce-technology.com

 

[Kirkhill]

And the RN and RAF working on their "drones"

UK accelerates plans for drones to boost carrier air wing

The plan aims to integrate crewed and uncrewed aircraft to increase the combat effectiveness of the Queen Elizabeth-class carriers.

ukdefencejournal.org.uk

GA Protector



Storm Shroud ISR



Malloy T150 Logistics



Peregrine with Martlet (Trials)



GA Gambit 5 UCAV (Provisional)



....

With more of the Air Force becoming uncrewed and launching from ships, trucks and fixed stands will the longer ranged missiles like PrSM, Tomahawk and SM6 fall under its remit?

It is used to working in thousands of kilometers.

 

[daftandbarmy]

The Department of the Air Force in 2050 looks pretty expensive...

The Air Force’s 2050 report highlights a dark future for air power​

With China recently unveiling its new stealth aircraft currently in testing and the fate of America’s Next-Generation Air Dominance Fighter (NGAD) still uncertain, the Air Force released its 22-page vision of the future of air warfare in a newly released report titled simply: The Department of the Air Force in 2050.

This report highlights the rapidly changing landscape of air warfare, including the need for a fundamental shift in the way the United States goes about designing and procuring new combat aircraft. It also emphasizes the need to dramatically increase both the number and the range of new jets entering service due to the persistent and growing threat of long-range cruise and ballistic missiles strikes on forward air bases.

Yet, those aren’t the only threats the Air Force is concerned about. With predictions of adversaries fielding air defense interceptors that can bring down aircraft at thousand-mile ranges, China’s nuclear arsenal ballooning to thousands of warheads, and the growing possibility of conventional missile strikes on the U.S. mainland, the Air Force paints a picture of America at a crossroads with two possible paths forward.

The first is a Defense Department and lawmaker class that continues to resist change, keeps old and obsolete weapons and aircraft in service well beyond their useful lifespans for political reasons, and aims to win the next big conflict by preparing for the last one. This path, the Air Force warns, will lead to an outdated airpower apparatus in 2050 that looks very much like the Air Force that’s already in service today.

But the Air Force also outlines another possible path, one that’s willing to embrace fundamental changes in the way America conducts air warfare, from the earliest stages of designing new systems all the way to their employment on the battlefield.

Put simply, the United States can no longer keep kicking this can down the road, and must decide now which future its Air Force will fight in: one where the nation’s aging airpower apparatus struggles to address tomorrow’s threats using yesterday’s equipment; or one where America leans into emerging technologies the same way it did in the 20th century, not arriving at the future of air warfare, but rather shaping it itself.

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