Air Support in a Backpack: The Switchblade
asianometry.substack.com
asianometry.substack.com
That largely confirms a view I'd previously formed that the principle beneficiaries of lightweighting materials and solar (or small-engine) aircraft + nav & comms capabilities will be in warfare and surveillance applications.
A solar + battery styrofoam + balsa aircraft with cameras and transmission capabilities could loiter for weeks or months over a region transmitting close-range realtime imagery. Given comparable mission costs for manned aircraft (listed in the article) at $20k -- $40k/hour, it would be possible to "darken the skies" (or at least saturate regions of interest) at very low cost.
A smaller number of response UAVs could address specific points of interest with a response of a few minutes to hours.
All without putting pilots in harm's way.
The nature of ground (or surface naval) warfare will be profoundly changed. This is to bullets and shells what bullets and shells were to pikes.
https://www.space.com/airbus-zephyr-drone-long-endurance-fli...
An experimental aircraft tested in conjunction with the United States Army has been in the air above the Sonoran Desert for 42 days, breaking its own record for longest uncrewed flight.
The solar-powered, high-altitude Airbus Zephyr S took off from the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground on June 15, 2022 and has since been flying patterns over the Yuma Test Range and Kofa National Wildlife Refuge.
The flight has now broken Zephyr's previous record of 25 days, 23 hours that it set in August 2018. The latest flight has seen Zephyr reach a number of additional milestones including its first flight over water, first flight into international airspace, the longest continuous flight while being controlled through satellite communications, and the farthest flight from its launch point, according to a U.S. Army statement (opens in new tab).
I'd be interested in knowing what its flight profile looks like. The Solar Impulse manned solar-powered aircraft that flew around the world (though with stops) performed energy potential banking by climbing over the course of the day, then descending through the night. Altitude was thus a large part of the "battery" storage system, banking energy received during the day.
Article below describes the aircraft, if not the energy management element.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/inside-first-solar...
Alpha Go plus some drone kit from aliexpress and banggood is the start of WW3. If America does anything well, it is blowback. Russia's utter dysfunction would and should have been a long term strategic asset, but we burned it in Ukraine. Good technologists are globally distributed, everyone know where this is going and it will only cost a buck oh five. Often times, the winning move is not to play.
Who is "we"?
Good technologists ... tend to migrate toward attractive remuneration and/or sociopolitical environments, circumstances permitting.
But ignore I said that, because it tangential to the point I was making and the point you ignored.
Good technologists are everywhere on the planet. This is a supporting comment in that "the good guys" don't have a monopoly on the ability to create hyper-lethal, extremely low cost automated weapons.
The point which didn't land, is that the war in Ukraine, regardless of how we got there is funded by two parties and is being technologically participated in by many more. America is really good at blowback, like that is all we export. The low-cost, high-enough drone and autonomous weapons that are created during this war will have huge implications. Something we should have thought about before going down this path.
Before the Albatross there was the Gossamer Condor, which is the one that won the £50K prize mentioned in the article. For some reason the name of the aircraft wasn't given.
I remember when this prize was won. I was taking Unified (MIT aero-astro department requirement) and this achievement astonished me.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacCready_Gossamer_Condor>
I also remember when these flights were made. Part of the reason why TFA is having such a strong impression on me.
Also MacCready was the Quetzalcoatlus pterosaur:
Solar loitering for a few hundred bucks.
Yeah, wow, I would not have even had the remotest idea that the Gossamer Albatross and the Switchblade were somehow connected prior to reading this article.
I think the "transmission" part here is the real story for military applications. To get real time video further out than a few kilometers, not many nations have satellite datalink capabilities. Those that don't will be at the whim of commercial providers (Starlink for now). Otherwise, the long duration drone flight discussed here could be most valuable for aerial, orbiting, microwave transponders.
Suppose you capture video at 4k resolution and 2 frames per second, and you compress it with h.265 at reasonable quality. Most of your image will be the same from frame to frame, so encoding will be really efficient. Then you're looking at ballpark 70 kilobytes per frame, or 1120 kbit/s. If you transmit that over 1.3 GHz and the receiving station has a good antenna, there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to reach 100-200 km range?
It could relay signals from many front-line drones.
> agile orbital launch capabilities to quickly replace satellite attrition losses.
Once you reach Kessler syndrome / collisional cascading, the problem is no longer anti-satellite weapons, it's just lots of damaging space pollution in orbit - at this point, launching more satellites won't help anymore.
EDIT: on another note, this also reflects the Mutual Assured Destruction/ICBM situation - you don't destroy my things, I don't destroy your things - it only works if both parties have things to loose. Anti-satellite weapons are the most dangerous in the hands of countries with low amounts of spacecraft.
Kessler syndrome is mainly only a concern in higher orbits anyway. In lower orbits there's enough atmospheric drag that anything not periodically boosted will re-enter within a few years.
Combatants will have to consider satellites to be expendable anyway so they'll go ahead and launch replacements even if expected lifetime is very short. Even in if there's a lot of debris in orbit, it will take a while on average for any individual satellite to get hit.
This is absolutely nothing like MAD. Satellites have to be destroyed one at a time, and that involves little or no loss of human life or national infrastructure. In fact, I predict that if the USA gets into a major shooting war with China or Russia, satellites will be among the first targets on both sides.
This is a sad truth, people will shot first, and then when their own satellites get mass destroyed by the remnants of "the enemy satellites" they will notice something had gone terribly wrong.
And once such condition is reached up, clearing up the mess is nearly impossible without international coordination on a very expensive project.
> Kessler syndrome is mainly only a concern in higher orbits anyway.
LEO satellites (most of them, specifically most military satellites) are very vulnerable to Kessler syndrome.
> Even in if there's a lot of debris in orbit, it will take a while on average for any individual satellite to get hit.
If it takes a while for it to get hit, then you haven't reached Kessler syndrome yet.
> This is absolutely nothing like MAD. Satellites have to be destroyed one at a time
Until they all suddenly turn collectively into space junk, because too much space junk is floating in space.
> that involves little or no loss of human life or national infrastructure.
I think that the very expensive satellites humans put in orbit is considered part of the national infrastructure.
Even a few hundred metres of elevation gives a highly extended transmission range, and dedicated high-altitude comms drones (FL40 -- FL60 or better) could communicate to distances of 100s of km.
These themselves would still be cheap, would be difficult to spot, let alone target, and would require high-altitude-capable missiles to reach, though beam weapons (e.g., lasers) are another option.
Balloons (think weather balloons) would be another option, operating even higher. Again, cheap and easily replaced, but costing $100ks or $1ms to destroy. Think Google's Project Loon.
It also seems like a possible co-creative opportunity with the concept of covering ground properties with solar panels. Defend against airborne threats but also make the protective layer pay for itself if possible.
Given additional sensor and environmental control development (vs breathing in munitions byproducts, etc), I wonder if over time the rationale for going outside, especially in a war zone, will simply fade away.
EDIT: Looking at the wikipedia for Iron Beam. The range is only 7km. A quick google search indicates drones can fly at elevations of 10km, safely out of range. Also, it sounds like Iron Beam was designed to handle the occasional rocket launch from Hamas, and not a full scale barrage of artillery. So a possible way to defeat this system would be to send a drone up to 10km, locate the Iron Beam system, and send a barrage of artillery shells in its direction and maybe sneak in a high precision shell or two in the volley to increase your odds of a hit. That seems like it would be sufficient to take it out.
It's limited by physics - as of now, if Israel needs long-range interdiction they use the missile-based Iron Dome instead.
There's reports of drones armed with bombs shot down by the Iron Dome system.
> a full scale barrage of artillery
I don't think any system currently deployed has the capability of disrupting artillery/rocket barrages, mostly one-of events.
Even the SDI initiative "Excalibur" project would only really worked in space (you don't want to detonate nuclear weapons very close to you, or scatter X-rays in the atmosphere instead of the target)
I suspect that non-coherent RF pulse weapons with phased-array focusing (along with detection and ranging) could be more realistically portable.
Mainly these drones are for scouting and directing the shells of the artillery and the bullets of the soldiers, so I am not sure the comparison is adequate as they are not making the shells obsolete.
Once they are so cheap, that a drone with explosive is cheaper than an artillery round, they might make artillery obsolete, but so far they are strenghtening the value of artillery.
One of those is precise pinpoint attacks.
Russia's extraordinarily high losses of senior general staff officers would highlight these capabilities.
The ability to identify, inderdict, and disable high-capital equipment (e.g., tanks, the Moskova missile cruiser, another.
There's an interesting observation in an unusual source that I've had come to mind:
Regularity, order, and prompt obedience to command are qualities which, in modern armies, are of more importance towards determining the fate of battles than the dexterity and skill of the soldiers in the use of their arms. But the noise of firearms, the smoke, and the invisible death to which every man feels himself every moment exposed as soon as he comes within cannon-shot, and frequently a long time before the battle can be well said to be engaged, must render it very difficult to maintain any considerable degree of this regularity, order, and prompt obedience, even in the beginning of a modern battle. In an ancient battle there was no noise but what arose from the human voice; there was no smoke, there was no invisible cause of wounds or death.
-- Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_V/...
Smith discusses the earlier realm of shorter-ranged and melee weapons as well.
Bullets have typically required soldiers somewhere in the immediate region, at distances of a few tens, hundreds, or at the extreme, a thousand or so metres. Artillery has longer range but has typically required larger launch systems, even where those are portable.
Human-portable drones extend range to tens or hundreds of km with loitering and seeking capabilities. Again, the range of peril is extended greatly.
A drone would take 10-20 minutes to cover such a distance, and it would likely be easier to spot and destroy while en route, even if it tries to fly low and maneuver.
Howizters and Panzerhaubitzen have greater strategic value than single shells do.
Drones can fly non-predictable paths, and single-use drones don't pave a lane back to origin.
The strategy would be swarms of drones, who hibernate somewhere in enemy territory and gets activated once needed.
Also, you can have different propulsions, so in the end, basically have smart amunition/rockets.
But like I said, so far the artillery is not going away anytime soon.
They said this about torpedo boats, submarines, tanks, and guided munitions among others. It will require countermeasures and changes in tactics but I doubt much will change. Since these systems are cheap and slow everyone else will have them too and they will be easy to shoot down.
All of those are very big changes.
The most likely effect of loitering munitions will be a revolution in SHORAD and an understanding that even dug-in infantry can't operate outside of an air defense bubble. Or countries with the manpower and ethical flexibility going all-in on poorly-equipped cheap numbers over exquisite platforms.
Further, submarine warfare by the US against Japan during WWII was absolutely devastating to Japan's ability to supply raw materials for its own war effort. Japan was (and is) an extraordinarily capable and productive country, but, thanks to its volcanic geology, also extraordinarily limited in crucial raw materials, particularly iron and fuels (coal, oil), both of which are formed or concentrated largely through long-term biological activity.
The U.S. had become aware of these costs itself due to the earlier actions of German U-boat operations against both intracoastal and transatlantic shipping early in WWII. In March 1943 alone German U-boats sank over 100 Allied vessels, mostly cargo. One consequence of the attacks against US oil shipments was the construction of inland oil pipelines, the "Big Inch" and "Little Inch", as government projects, during the war. These remain in use AFIAU. Later, one of the first projects following establishing a beachhead in Normandy was to run an oil pipeline across the English Channel.
(Daniel Yergin's The Prize coves all of this, and I'm relying on it for specifics.)
We're familiar with the notion of coal and oil forming over hundred-million-year intervals. Most iron-ore deposits are multi-billion year old accumulations, many predating the Great Oxygenation Event.
Present long-distance transport modes (sea and air) are reliant on cheap fuels, large vehicles (both aircraft and ships become more efficient with size, within limits), and secure passage along routes. I was struck a few years ago how the development of large-scale long-distance cargo shipping largely paralleled the evolution of large-scale long-distance whale species. Both rely on the fundamental greater efficiency of long bodies moving through water ("hull speed"), the existence of widely-spaced reward (cargo/payment, food source) locations, and the ability to traverse such routes with little risk.
Human-based whale hunting absolutely annihilated whale populations, which crashed to a few percent of their pre-hunt levels. In instances in which combat regions have emperilled commercial aviation flights, airlines have acted quickly to route around such regions, even at the cost of much longer travel (and higher fuel costs).
A reintroduction of anti-shipping naval-warefare activities, and unlimited targeting of commercial aviation, would have profound effects.
Isn't that the explicit reason these technologies were developed? Just as 7000 series aluminum and carbon fiber were made for fighter aircraft before they trickled down to iPhones and golf clubs.
Oh, and $€10k bicycle frames.
Contemporaneous account:
<https://www.nytimes.com/1979/06/17/archives/over-the-waves-i...>
There was a long article in National Geographic at the time (where I likely saw it). I don't know if that's online though it appeared in the November 1979 issue:
<https://nationalgeographicbackissues.com/product/national-ge...>
Internet Archive doesn't appear to have the issue.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/wa74hd/ukrai...
https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/wamxri/ua_dr...
Small wars are like marketing campaigns for military-industrial suppliers around the world. They also drive up commodity prices. Since Dec 2021, average share prices for the oil majors and the defense contractors have increased from 25-50% depending on the company in question, as of last month.
In about 1/30th the amount of time.
> "75,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the field"
[0] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/russia-suffered-more-75-000-1...
Russia is getting better at spotting with drones. I gather they just managed to wipe out a fleet of M777s that parked too close to Russian artillary. Or maybe it was rockets?
I don’t understand one sided barbs in pieces trying to appear like unbiased analysis.
Denying reality does nobody any good. In fact, denying Russias continuing victory only helps them, as people rest on their laurels.
Paywalled, but still:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/28/ukraine-russ...
Given the dramatic military strength differential between Russia and the Ukraine, the fact they are at a stalemate is, itself, a huge victory for Ukraine and a crippling defeat for Russia.
It seems they are getting there, even the Germans are slowly giving up their hesitations, and it makes sense as well: anything Russia has to spend in Ukraine, they cannot spend in Poland and the Baltic States.
Russia has already cut off most of their gas supplies with Nord Stream 1.
And so Europe has measures in place eg. storing gas, sharing agreements, increasing supply from Azerbaijan etc. They will experience some pain over winter but day by day they become more ready for it.
Prices will be high, just like everything else, but there is no question that Russia must be defeated in Ukraine. It's essential to European security.
They've already failed strategically, so they're desperately trying to gain territory in areas where they have a localised tactical advantage (places near the border).
I guess it depends on two questions: (1) have they accomplished their actual goals? (2) how quickly can they replace the manpower and equipment that they have lost so far?
They have been constantly counter attacking.
And with so many Ukrainian soldiers in UK being trained the real offensive is coming soon when they return.
Russia failed to achieve its primary strategic goals. It has even failed its secondary strategic goals like taking the Donbas.
Instead of a swift conquest of Ukraine, they’re stuck in essentially a stalemate in most of the regions they control. They’re also facing an imminent counter offensive in the south with Kherson (their primary prize claimed so far) increasing cut from the lines of communication.
Meanwhile, years of economic growth have been erased from the Russian economy, it’s diplomatically isolated, militarily discredited, and facing a reinvigorated and enlarged NATO.
I’d call that a strategic failure.
According to who? The war is ongoing and getting worse for Ukraine the long the west doesn’t invest more heavily
Citation needed.
Trying for a move and adjusting when you don’t get the quick gambit isn’t failure.
Temporarily occupying.
As we are currently seeing in Kherson, Ukraine continues to attempt to reclaim held territory.
And there is widespread doubt about Russia’s ability to hold them over the long term with the limited troops they have. Russia needs a full scale mobilisation to do this and unfortunately for them it’s politically toxic.
Yeah, it did, which is why Russia radically changed focus and apparent strategy from decapitating and pacifying the regime to trying to seize a continuous arc through Eastern and Southern Ukraine to connect to the enclave they also clearly want to seize in Moldova.
True, so why deny the reality that Russian tanks have proven to be horribly unreliable?
You don’t get 20% of a large country without reliable armor. Fact.
They have undoubtably got working tanks, but I think the quality and maintenance of those tanks is what remains to be seen.
I feel like people are just pulling stuff out of their ass now.
Russia is a near peer, of course they maintained everything. They have been preparing for this since 2012.
Pretending our adversaries are magically incompetent does NOTHING for us except make us complacent.
Use. Your. Brain.
Do you really think any modern military isn’t maintaining the tires on they transport vehicle? Does that make any sense whatsoever?
Here's a very long twitter thread detailing all of it with photos. https://twitter.com/trenttelenko/status/1499164245250002944
> I feel like people are just pulling stuff out of their ass now.
I feel like you are underestimating just how corrupt Russia is
> Russia is a near peer, of course they maintained everything. They have been preparing for this since 2012.
Russia is no where near, a near peer to the USA. Every thought it was then it failed to take a city that was within ~300km of its borders.
> Pretending our adversaries are magically incompetent does NOTHING for us except make us complacent.
It's not pretend, they are just really bad at war.
> Do you really think any modern military isn’t maintaining the tires on they transport vehicle? Does that make any sense whatsoever?
Do you really think that the Russians are a near peer to the USA?.
Tube launched loitering munitions are the future nonetheless and will replace the mortar and multi rotor drones, once all the issues have been figured out.
We already have artillery that can reach 50-100km, but when that can be used to deploy drones with payloads capable of destroying tanks — then your entire style of fighting can change.
I actually wonder if this will bring back something like battleships: a 6” gun firing off drones in a 50-100km range would likely be able to penetrate modern point defense and hit critical systems — like radars, point defense, or weapons. At least, as a swarm from a broadside.
Battleships have disappeared for several reasons, but the biggest one is that it's an incredibly expensive way (in money and manpower) to launch those 6" (or even much bigger) shells. Changing the value of the shell doesn't change the fact that it's still incredibly expensive.
I think we'll be much more likely to see these launched in swarms from other aircraft - the Air Force is already exploring what they refer to as Arsenal Planes, which are basically cargo planes with the ability to launch or drop tons (literally) of long range munitions. These aircraft would remain hundreds of miles from contested airspace and still be able to bring hell down on a target.
Something like the Switchblade 600, launched by the dozens and controlled en-masse by either in-craft or remote pilots would be the modern version of launching these from the Mighty Mo's main cannon.
My sense of it is that such a ship would be able to engage at a range and volume of fire a lot of current navies would struggle to counter, but I’ll admit that’s more feeling than demonstrated fact.
Though, a plane is never going to hold the sheer volume of munitions a ship does: they have to fly and they’re smaller craft. And since Switchblade 600 has a 40km range, you’d have to take your plane awfully close for that plan — whereas artillery extends that.
Arsenal Planes are still a good idea though.
On the other hand drones appear to be excellent for directing artillery and general reconnaissance.
Over my head.
Though if you want to say the difference is powered flight, that’s probably a good distinction… but I think powered terminal guidance is worth a lot when you’re shooting 50-100km at potentially moving targets.
BTW: Why is the ammunition for these systems still on chains -- opposed to "just" shovelling it into some kind of funnel?
Chainguns generally depend upon an external drive to pull ammunition through a gun -- whether a round in the chamber has fired or not, it will be extracted and a new one put in its place. As I understand it, this is the primary difference between chainguns and belt-fed guns (which use part of the energy expended by the cartridge to cycle the weapon and feed the belt) -- reliability.
It doesn’t have much to do with how the ammo is loaded. Also most auto cannons today even the high fire rate ones that are used for CIWS and AA aren’t chain guns.
An air burst round doesn’t require the system stay pointed as a single target, whereas a laser needs a few seconds on target.
At speed-of-sound, a munition moves at about 0.2 miles per second, or about a mile in the engagement time. Which caps the number of targets it can intercept to a handful.
That's cute - but we aren't firing airguns at these things. A CIWS (the R2D2 looking missile defense cannons) fires its rounds with a velocity of around 3600ft/s, or 3.5x what you seem to be thinking.
Faster munitions means that the laser can intercept proportionally fewer targets — which is why it’s a question of if lasers can fend off swarms the way gun based solutions can.