Batteries as a Military Enabler
warontherocks.com
warontherocks.com
Heck, even a fuel cell would be far better energy/weight ratio, wouldn't it? And since they would be single or few use, you don't have to worry about poisoning the electrodes anywhere near as much.
Batteries do a lot of things very well such as ramping up and down power output drastically with sub second response times. This allows quadcopter to be very simple mechanically making them scale down really well into a tiny package someone can carry several of them without significant issue. As a bonus tiny drones can be reasonably quiet and cheap.
Aircraft carriers probably are exempt, since intentionally blowing one up as a dirty bomb amounts to a mass suicide attack.
Under 5kg of batteries, engines basically can't compete. The smallest viable petrol engines (you want engines made in large quantities) are around 4kg and need fuel, and so you end up in a situation in which 4kg of engine and 1kg of fuel is as useful as 5kg of batteries (for motors of that size), but every subsequent 1kg of fuel is then also as useful as 5kg of batteries. But you can't really drop this down much, as a 1kg engine is much less useful than 1kg of batteries, and a drone with 5kg of batteries is really a very large drone.
Drones are additionally typically very small and light, with mass at an absolute premium. A typical quadcopter will weigh under a kilogram and have maybe 200g of batteries for 20-30 minutes endurance. A drone with a 2.5m wingspan will typically have room for maybe 1-2kg of extra payload, and an engine will not fit into the battery slot.
Furthermore, they are extremely sensitive to weight balance issues.
This is to say, once you're in the world where you want chemical fuel, you might as well design a drone for it, rather than trying to retrofit. The mass of retrofitting will mess up your prior drone design, and petrol changes the dynamics of what you're trying to do enough that you might as well just do it all differently.
Essentially, if you're making a 1-10kg drone, you want battery. If you're making a 10-20kg drone, you might want battery, you might want petrol. Above 20kg, you probably want petrol.
1. Scaling. You want to reap the rewards of someone else investing billions, and while billions of ICE engines are built every year, most of them are much bigger than 50cc. 2. Tolerances, as you say. I know for example that jet engines have low efficiency at small sizes due to efficiency being driven by the gaps between certain rotating parts, which are relatively larger. 3. Certain parts that need miniaturisation are more expensive on smaller engines. For example, a 50cc would typically have a carburettor, a bigger engine fuel injection. A fuel injector would be significantly larger per unit. 4. Some parts are just harder to miniaturise. For example, small turbochargers have to work harder and at much higher RPMs to achieve the same boost due to area scaling quadratically with diameter.
>internal combustion
Thing with this is that now you need:
a) Fuel tank plus a pump
b) A combustion chamber
c) Gears or a way to mechanically regulate fuel flow
...of which b and c probably need to be metal. For light & small drones you're not necessarily winning here on weight
What am I missing?
Can't find a reference now - maybe someone here knows.
I knew that the JTRS project wasn't going to work when they decided that the best way to make portable SDR was to use - drumroll - CORBA. (they should have asked for something broadly like vulkan or perhaps CUDA. CORBA doesn't solve a relevant problem)
I just realized that western countries use the term "the free world" to describe themselves above other countries.
It's just funny how they like to fool themselves.
They are in essence free compared to russia and china's autocracies.
Do you mind detailing what you mean?
This guy wants to talk about something nebulous like freedom.
Let's talk about how we can bring domestic battery manufacturing to America so that we can use that to crush Chinese and Russian military opposition with the eventual goal of seeing proper democracy brought to those regions.
We need domestic battery production for so many things, and it needed to happen yesterday.
Another thing I've been wondering about is this: Who is the JLPCB or PCBWay of America? When is low cost rapid turn around PCB manufacturing in America going to be a thing? How can I be a part of that?
For instance we could have a guarantee of free emigration: If a person, of no real criminality, wants to leave their country (perhaps because they feel oppressed or whatever) then their government cannot prevent them, if another country is willing to accept them. Alongside this there should also be a global agreement for countries to not interfere, directly or covertly, in the matters of other countries. That would include things like funding or otherwise providing support to various groups within other countries.
It seems this would be a zillion times more viable, effective, harmonious, and productive - than trying to Americanize the rest of the world, which seems more likely to lead to the end of the world than anything else.
Just be sure not to let the true Scotsmen migrate!
> a global agreement for countries to not interfere, directly or covertly, in the matters of other countries
Such as interfering with their CO2 emissions?
I don't know what you are implying with the CO2 stuff.
Who backs those limited global rights?
The cost of participation would be less than zero in one case - don't screw around in other people's countries, and negligible in the case of allowing emigration, which near to all countries excepting a handful of places like North Korea, already do. While the benefits of not having others screw around in your country would generally be significantly greater. So violating the agreement would generally not be in one's self interest.
And again this isn't about ideology or ethics, but simple self interest. Danzig (And other dubious decisions from the Treaty of Versailles) all but guaranteed WW2. In general it's quite interesting to consider how many major conflicts since WW1 can, in one way or another, be tied directly back to WW1. The War to End All Wars was really more like the War to Start All Wars.
yes. Good intentions, maybe, but they induced Germany to surrender but then feel betrayed by the ultimate Treaty. It would have been better to just continue, let everyone in Germany realize they were beaten, and bring the troops home. The Europeans have a lot of experience in diplomacy and they could hardly have done any worse.
The level of strategic illiteracy on HN is breathtaking sometimes.
Take, for instance Israel. We know that they have directly killed about 2% (~40,000) of all Gazans, mostly civilians, alongside an unknowably large number of indirect (famine/disease/etc) deaths also being caused, with some evidence of intent - all in just 9 months! And we also know they have senior officials making lovely comments like 'Palestinian residents of Gaza should leave the besieged enclave to make way for Israelis who could make the desert bloom.' [1]
And so now what, would you say, is the right way to respond to this? Suddenly things are not so clear, and many people expressing this value or that will tend to directly contradict it after some fanciful mental gymnastics. This is why I largely think self interest, realpolitik, should be the prevailing guidance in political relations - not virtue. Because the former is very real, while the latter only generally exists up to the point that it becomes inconvenient. It leads to an unstable, unbelievable, and hypocritical world order.
[1] - https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-minister-r...
One should be a be able to live a fulfulling life anywhere, not be forced to emigrate just to be able to live...
> than trying to Americanize the rest of the world, which seems more likely to lead to the end of the world than anything else.
When you see injustice somewhere else, a good answer is action, better is pre-emptive. Autocracies are fundamentally bad for humanity (otherwise we're going to repeat the past with countries like russia and china repeating ww2 germany)
So if you think the proper response to "injustice" is action, then you largely just explained endless war and violence because one person's just and righteous nation is another's den of tyranny and villainy. This is why a mutually respectful multipolar, where countries stop screwing around in the matters of others', is likely the only way we can ever create anything even remotely like a stable and peaceful world order. The right of emigration ensures the worst possible scenarios are largely limited.
Oh but I do.
I was born in a country behind USSR iron curtain. I am very grateful for whatever help was provided to destroy USSR and topple russian placed dictators. (even if indirect)
A multi-polar world that you suggest was the case before 1989, and for the countries within russia's control it was hell.
This is precisely why the right of emigration must also be a part of this system. Like the old joke goes, 'What do you call a Soviet musical duet? It's a musical quartet that went abroad.' Countries should never be able to trap "their" citizens within their borders, for any reason, at any time.
On top of all of this I would add that this era obviously was also directly contrary to the entire spirit of the idea I'm proposing here as well. That wasn't a multipolar world. It was a world with two hegemons seeing how many countries they could make completely subservient, using any means possible. And in the end it caused nothing but self harm for both powers. Myopia.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostalgia_for_the_Soviet_Union
Because for most, that was their youth, of course you're going to have nostalgia for that, even if you and everyone you knew were starving, you had your life assigned to you by the party, women were treated like cattle, any sign of discontent you got secret service torturing you, you got killed for protesting... that second part you forget or were part of privileged classes and actively profited from it and it was indeed better.
Another factor is the active propaganda: https://www.reddit.com/r/Romania/comments/1bncqt4/aveam_de_t...
Picture is funny and it actively translates to
"Childhood memories department, at work on the internet, circa 2024"
"Do you remember how we put white animal fat on bread and how good that tasted?, we had it all..."
> 70% of Moldovans, and so on.
That's funny, there, after 1989 Russia started a war to keep them locked in their influence and constantly meddles with them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria_War
Were they actually able to unite with Romania like east germany they would be much better, but they were dragged back into misery...
I am not knowledgeable enough about the rest to comment.
> This is precisely why the right of emigration must also be a part of this system.
Why are you saying emigration is a solution?
It won't work since there won't be anybody to enforce it. (good luck emigrating from NK right now)
It's not moral, why should someone leave everything they've ever known behind. Economic reasons?, help their region be more productive. Social reasons, help their region be better. Persecution?, destroy the mechanisms for that. Getting rid of those factors would remove the need for emigration and everyone would be better off.
It's not sustainable, what would 10B people just in EU/USA look like?, what would be left of bad places?, just the dictators?
It's not good for the future when we'll likely reach for the stars and earth just consolidates in a single political entity (hopefully democratic).
Did you actually think through implications of your idea?, or is it born out of your personal experience and just think that since it worked for you it would work for everyone else?
> That wasn't a multipolar world.
It was if you had considered China as a separate entity, which you should have, it wasn't just USSR vs USA. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Soviet_border_conflict )
Emigration, as a component, works out of simple self interest. In this proposed system the cost of emigration would be relatively low, yet the benefits would not.
You just cherry picked one number of one country, I can do the same to reach opposite conclusion if you want to argue in bad faith.
> In a 2017 survey, 75% of Estonians said the dissolution of the USSR was a good thing, compared to only 15% who said it was a bad thing.[10]
Mirroring your argument, 75% of people say it was a good thing for what happened. (to quote you those 75% are people who simply think differently than you might.)
> People value different things in life. And there's no single system that can really embrace and fairly represent all views.
Are you actually arguing that dictatorship and oppression should be respected because some people like them?, I'm sure everyone in NK absolutely loves Kim and their system.
> Emigration, as a component, works out of simple self interest. In this proposed system the cost of emigration would be relatively low, yet the benefits would not.
So what do you do if all 10B people living everywhere want to move to the US tomorrow?
And tolerating these different preferences, desires, views, systems, values, and so on is the only possible way we might ever achieve something resembling a more stable and desirable world order. The right of emigration does not mean countries are forced to accept people. Accepting migrants would be up to the nation people are seeking to move to.
How can one tolerate the abuses that went on behind the iron curtain and other dictatorships?
Even if some people are still fond of them, it's unacceptable for such systems to exist and those people are morally reprehensible.
And this will never change, because people hold many views that are simply mutually exclusive, and we always will. So we can continue to fight and kill each other until the point somebody finally goes all the way and we end up nuking ourselves out of existence, or we can learn to tolerate one another - even when we really don't like the other guy.
Russia still exists and is unchanged in behavior but much less powerful. So something went right, just not enough.
> Look at any country with power
Some are much better then others and always have been.
> And this will never change,
That's what they used to say about monarchies.
> so we can continue to fight and kill each other
Fighting back and forcing change is justified. It's not like the other side is standing still and not trying to destabilize us.
> and we end up nuking ourselves out of existence
We haven't in worse conditions.
> or we can learn to tolerate one another - even when we really don't like the other guy.
Tolerating abuses is unacceptable.
Why take the bait, indeed.
Most of the “free world” is at least comparatively free compared to the rest. No it is not black and white but it’s definitely light grey vs dark grey or black.
There’s a reason places like the USA, Canada, etc continue to be the most desirable destinations for immigration while you see very few people trying to get into Russia or China. Only people trying to get into those are fleeing much worse places or in the case of Russia have drunk certain brands of kool-aid.
Still way higher than Russia or China. While a little over 15 % of the US population are immigrants (defined as not born in the country), only 0.07 % of the Chinese population are immigrants. Roughly 7 % of Russian population is immigrants.
Source: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/immigrati...
The relevant denominator would seem to be "population outside the target," not "population in the target." After all, the immigrant population comes from outside their destination.
Equivocating the systems of government of the US or "Western Countries" as you've put it with that of China, is so blatantly false that someone less charitable than I might question whether you are arguing in good faith.
which doesn't exist. It's a republic.
Anti-communist says, "In America, I'm free to stand on the corner with a sign saying, 'Nixon is a criminal' "
Loyal communist supporter, "Here, too, I'm free to stand on the corner with a sign saying, 'Nixon is a criminal' "