Lift Challenge
darpa.mil
darpa.mil
I'd make it 50NM. 5 is way too easy to bullshit with edge case engineering. Alternatively, set a minimum payload capacity of something like 100kg.
>110 pounds is the minimum payload weight to receive a qualifying score.
Forbidden in 3.7
the key idea is that you need something which can get you onto the enemy position either before hunter drones take off, or that a drone won't take out the whole complement, hence the uselessness of trucks
going on foot is not really due to the human wave nature of the attacks, but rather its like WW1 stosstruppen - they use whatever cover they can find and a squad of 4 on foot is much easier to go through bushes used as cover or when weather is not suitable for flying
of note here is that trucks were not really used for transport on the tactical level on the frontline, however lately (with drones from destinus) logistics runs in the rear have also become a problem even 100km+ deep - thats where the 90% killrate figure comes from
That is quite interesting but in light of that my original question remains (except shifted 100 km back) what about troop transport? Are the combatants suffering a 90% killrate on all their large vehicles near the front or if not then what is special about logistics runs?
So the answer for troop transport and some of the logistics shifted onto smaller vehicles, although the tendency have been there the whole war -- the key innovation was the use of small drones for recon, which basically lifted fog of war and increased kill chain speed for inter-unit operation, i.e. infantry calls an artillery strike precisely on target and from the comfort of a pillbox equipped with a large screen to monitor feeds from 5-10 recon drones hovering 24/7 over allied positions
They don't. Life expectancy of a Russian on the front line is hours. You just send in another wave.
Edit, I forgot, most are not aware of that:
https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-conscripts-war-combat...
"Phase 1 | Launch
October 2025
Special Notice publishing (Oct. 23): DARPA publishes a Special Notice to broadly announce the Lift Challenge and solicit innovative design concepts.
Website launches (Oct. 23): DARPA publishes a Special Notice to broadly announce the Lift Challenge and solicit innovative design concepts.
Rules and prize announcement (Oct. 23): Detailed draft rules and prize structure are announced, specifying objective and subjective judging criteria."
Given how outlandish the ratio requirement is compared to currently available products I expect this one will be recurring for at least a few years similar to what happened with the self driving challenge 20ish years ago.
Saw the one video linked here comparing other existing transport ratios, and asking for double that is 'not crazy hard'? It certainly sounds like a challenge.
Though, I really do enjoy this racket so I guess I'm not allowed to ask any questions about the ethics of keeping it going.
Again…I spent 17 years as a military officer I’m not hearing anything from someone that hasn’t served anything.
Indeed not. You're the one who made the comment on something I submitted.
Possibly against laws of physics at energy density of 4x?
It also reminded me that for the first round of the self-driving grand challenge, none of the vehicles even completed the course :-) They really are trying to encourage "out of the box", or at least "not in the obvious box", designs...
[title fixed now]
cc @dang
Use microbes, algae, duckweed, or plant-cell cultures to produce deuterated and 13C/15N-labeled complex biomolecules that are expensive or impractical to synthesize chemically.
Could be fun, honestly.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractionation_of_carbon_isotop... [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7577891/ [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1734681/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_C4_plants [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deuterated_drug#Examples
Contact DARPA for a lift !