F-22/JSF to be the last manned fighters?

[Orsorum]

Originally posted by: FrancesBeansRevenge
Our enemies would never sleep safely again as there would be armies of 13yo's flying unmanned combat missions.

 

[element]

btw where did you read 300mph? The article says top speed during the test flight was reached, a meaasly 224 mph. Thats ~200mph not ~300mph.

Also these sitting ducks in the sky cost from 10 million to 15 million a piece. Tmohawk cruise missiles cost between $500,000 to 1 million each. The military just wants to spend your tax dollars.

I think there should be elections held not only for president of the U.S. but also for economic plans on how the tax dollars are spent.

 

[Jimbo]

It would be all the rage! Our enemies would never sleep safely again as there would be armies of 13yo's flying unmanned combat missions.

I say we just retrofit all of the old airliners sitting out in the desert. You could fly it through a CFS-2 interface. We could bring 9-11-01 to Mecca, every hour, on the hour for about a month!
Rock ON!

 

[RedRooster]

Originally posted by: element®
300 mph is slow as molasses in January in the sky, they would be sitting ducks. Great lets burn billions of tax dollars on lobbing sitting ducks at the enemy. You want to bomb using unmanned craft use cruise missiles.

Read the specs again, cruise speed is 600mph, so Mach 1 at full thrust would be possible. A little quicker at least.

 

[Ramsnake]

hmmm.....more ways to bomb a place clean and then come in and collect ur medals.....yay!!!

 

[Belvedere]

I think alot of people are forgetting some important points. the airforce is NOT trying to push out pilots! these aircraft represent a supplement to manned aircraft. they will fly into high risk situations like taking out radar and sam installations. if anyone knows about cruise missles, you know what im talking about. cruise missles created a huge backlash in the air force especially because the navy has so many of the cruise missles. cruise missles are designed to do exactly what the air force's bombers do without the risk to human life. I think its pretty safe to say cruise missles are a pretty mature technology especially considering the tomahawk has gone through multiple revisions. it used to be able to merely store a few waypoints on its way to a target but now allows for full terrain mapping with gps way points. did the introduction of the tomahawk spell the end of airforce bombers? of course not. and while likely, i dont think the airforce is going to completely abandon manned war planes for quite some time. as a side note, aircraft design is limited by human anatomy, while you could design a plane to withstand a multi-g negative dive, keeping the pilot conscious during such a maneuver presents quite a challenge, the flesh is weaker than the steel. so the maturing of these technology will eventually allow for aircraft with far superior performance capabilities.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: Zakath15

Originally posted by: FrancesBeansRevenge
Our enemies would never sleep safely again as there would be armies of 13yo's flying unmanned combat missions.

That's the general's plot from Toys with Robin Williams

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: Astaroth33

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER

The military sees such aircraft taking part in its most dangerous missions, usually in initial attacks to suppress enemy air defenses.

This is an excellent idea and does not seem poised to replace our human pilots but rather to help increase their chances of survival/success by eliminating one of the the primary threats to them.

Well the F-22/JSF still have 5-10 years before they are full use by the military. I see these drones going in rapid development since you dont have to worry about keeping a pilot alive. The x-45 is a first generation drone with weapons and it has the luxury of all the current tech attached to it. It is will probably only be a short time before they crank up the speed/payload.

These shouldn't be meant to replace human piloted aircraft, but instead to complement them in certain circumstances. Remember, when you are flying by remote control, your reaction time will be down, so it'll be easier to shoot one of these down (the advantage being that even if the enemy does shoot one down, no pilots are lost). This holds particularly true if one remote pilot's controlling a number of these planes.

The benefit is that you can place these airplanes in higher-risk situations where you expect them to get shot down.

Precisely.

 

[Miramonti]

Originally posted by: Jimbo

Its always fun to have more ways to bomb people incessantly from the air so we don't have to send ground troups and lose any of our lives. This way we can litter any countryside we want with unexploded bombs and the only casualties are the enemy, oh and of course the future generations of farmers and innocent women and children, muchless anyone who wants to get out and about for some fresh air after the bombing is over.

You say that like it's a bad thing

I don't believe in sterilizing a war just so that we can save a few of our own private ryan's at the expense of countless innocent lives, just because we can't put a name or face to those lives so we don't have to identify with them. A life is a life, ours or theirs, and innocent lives should be avoided whether during the war or after, i.e. unexploded bombs all over after the confrontation. What was done in the balkans by nato was repulsive and it was done because of politics - people didn't want to see any of our troops go in there because our precious lives might be lost - so the countryside was littered with bombs left and right.

Sure we saved some of our lives but at the expense of generations of innocent people. This type of sterilyzed warfare only makes the aggressor feel invincible, not to mention arrogant, and isn't a deterrent to war but is just the opposite, it give 'the ruling powers' a license to throw their weight around with the threat of these types of actions if others don't submit. I hardly consider this a good thing overall.

The lives of our military personel are very valuable, and losses should be avoided, but how much more valuable are they than other innocent lives? How many innocent lives should be allowed to be lost to save just one of ours, just because they fight for our self-interests?

A life is a life, and an innocent life has as much value as any else's life in any military. Just because we can afford the most advanced technology to aid in protecting our military, I simply don't believe a death of one of our military soldiers should be avoided "at all costs", particularly when the cost is numerous other innocent lives.

 

[ElFenix]

we have land mines that expire. they only detonate for a week or two after placement. after that, someone hits it with a plow, its like they hit a rock. i don't see why bombs couldn't be the same.

 

[UltraQuiet]

jjsole a couple of things
1. What does having an unmanned vehicle have to do with unexploded ordinance? It would be unexploded no matter where it was launched from. Or are you saying you don't like any bombing. The U S tries very hard and is very sucessfull at not hitting civilians. Yes, it does happen but more and more infrequently. Of course ignorant hand wringers will moan " but even one is unacceptable."
2. I am happy to see that you ready to sacrifice other peoples lives just in case something accidental might happen. When was the last time you put on a uniform and went in harms way. When you are ready to back up what you are saying by actually going and doing the fighting and not just admonishing those who are, let me know. I'll give you directions to your local recruiting office. Then we'll see if you want to dispense with the bombing and go right to the ground war when it is you on the ground.

 

[Miramonti]

we have land mines that expire. they only detonate for a week or two after placement. after that, someone hits it with a plow, its like they hit a rock. i don't see why bombs couldn't be the same.

I'm not familiar with those but thats a great concept.

Originally posted by: DaveSohmer
jjsole a couple of things 1. What does having an unmanned vehicle have to do with unexploded ordinance?

It sterilyzes the risk of using military action, thus reduces the effort to avoid these types of military incursions - unexploded bombs are a result

It would be unexploded no matter where it was launched from. Or are you saying you don't like any bombing. The U S tries very hard and is very sucessfull at not hitting civilians. Yes, it does happen but more and more infrequently. Of course ignorant hand wringers will moan " but even one is unacceptable."

Civilian injuries and casualties that occur after the main incursion still count and should be considered just as unnacceptable, even if there are no longer members of the media still hanging around villages to photograph funeral processions of the victims and them publish the photos in the ny times for everyone here to see.

2. I am happy to see that you ready to sacrifice other peoples lives just in case something accidental might happen. When was the last time you put on a uniform and went in harms way. When you are ready to back up what you are saying by actually going and doing the fighting and not just admonishing those who are, let me know. I'll give you directions to your local recruiting office. Then we'll see if you want to dispense with the bombing and go right to the ground war when it is you on the ground.

I'm not admonishing anyone who's doing the fighting. I have alot of respect for the individuals, whether or not I myself have fought on a battlefield, real or atari-style. When the vietnam war was over and soldiers were spit on...the protesters weren't wrong for spitting, they were wrong for spitting on the wrong people, and the soldiers should have been embraced. The soldiers however are generally just puppets of our miserable international policies that often puts them in very misguided military applications, with some very misguided objectives, led by some very misguided egomaniacs who believe that our lives are the only ones of value. Just because we have soldiers around the world using some weapons towards someone else, that its our job to be patriotic and support the morons who either put them there or who developed the int'l policy that escalated the issues that are involved.

 

[Nefrodite]

I don't believe in sterilizing a war just so that we can save a few of our own private ryan's at the expense of countless innocent lives, just because we can't put a name or face to those lives so we don't have to identify with them. A life is a life, ours or theirs, and innocent lives should be avoided whether during the war or after, i.e. unexploded bombs all over after the confrontation. What was done in the balkans by nato was repulsive and it was done because of politics - people didn't want to see any of our troops go in there because our precious lives might be lost - so the countryside was littered with bombs left and right.



sterilizing war? what are you talking about? we have the geneva conventions doing that already. armies generally aren't admired for going arouind slaughtering civilians. and just take the example of the holocaust. the soldiers saw them face to face.. and what happened?

ai warfare is not warfare without rules.

warfare without rules is TERRORISM.