
U.S. Army Vintage Racer Concept Suggests Hypersonic Entry For Loitering UAS - throwaway888abc
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/33934/pentagon-has-tested-a-suicide-drone-that-gets-to-its-target-area-at-hypersonic-speed
======
benaiah
The message of "Slaughterbots"
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA))
seems both more prescient and more urgent than ever given this news. Our
continued reckless development and deployment of autonomous weaponry without
thought to the consequences is deplorable, and its consequences could be
staggering.

~~~
mc32
No one is going to stop development for fear the other will have the
advantage.

For controls on this to work, there would have to be a treaty governing
development among the big nuclear powers —then they with their big sticks
dictate the rules to the rest.

In the vacuum of that everyone will feel they have to develop or get left
behind.

Additionally something like this (the enabling of political “decapitations”)
is only seriously countered by MAD. So nothing would keep Colombia from
developing their own and taking out Maduro for example if they were reasonably
sure a better alternative would rise in VZ.

~~~
kragen
Not the big nuclear powers — they should be relatively easy to get onboard,
because preventing proliferation of nuclear weapons is comparatively easy
compared to preventing proliferation of drones. The ones to watch are the
smaller countries who have in effect lost their sovereignty to the nuclear
powers: maybe Colombia, but also Taiwan, Canada, Ukraine, Spain, Brazil, Iran,
the UAE, Egypt, Bangladesh.

More worryingly: Daesh, Baruch Goldstein's fan club, the next Anders Breivik,
the janjaweed, Boko Haram, Voluntad Popular, antifa groups, the collectively
fired Minneapolis Police Department, the Hells Angels, MS-13, etc.

~~~
mc32
I agree there, except for the domestic organizations. They could develop crude
drones but not the hypersonic loitering kind —I’m not even sure they’d need
that. Hypersonics only make sense when you need to penetrate stiff air
defenses and get to destination to neutralize the big armament from reaching
altitude.

They could be used by the US, Russia, China, India, Pak, Israel to
“decapitate” “rouge” regimes incapable of retribution.

Mexican and ukranian drug orgs? maybe crude non hypersonic for whatever
political purpose.

Or imagine the ndraghetta having the crude variety during the time they tried
offing magistrates quicker than the state was able to convict the perps... or
the Italian red brigades...

!!

~~~
kragen
Agreed, it would be surprising if the Zetas were able to develop hypersonic
drones. But I don't think the hypersonic part is vital to their political
assassination capacities.

------
praveen9920
Current cruise missiles are optimised for long range but not for final target
accuracy, they actually use onboard offline terrain data to cruise to their
target. Accuracy of 99% is considered bad as it might mean collateral damage.
Also final target is predefined and aborting or changing target is non-
trivial.

With these so called "suicide drones", human operators can actions based on
current situation, like, pinpoint the target based on realtime images, that
actually means limiting collateral damage because of machine errors. which
also gives them ability to abort if situations have changed substantially.

~~~
kragen
> _It occurred to me that if I could invent a machine – a gun – which could by
> its rapidity of fire, enable one man to do as much battle duty as a hundred,
> that it would, to a large extent supersede the necessity of large armies,
> and consequently, exposure to battle and disease [would] be greatly
> diminished._

— Dr. Richard Jordan Gatling

~~~
mc32
You have a point, but he wasn’t completely wrong. Though it contains the
assumption your advantage is indefinite. In reality the foe catches up.

So he was right but it only holds true while you maintain the advantage.

~~~
kragen
Tell it to the Zulus who got massacred by early machine-guns or the Congolese
who couldn't successfully rebel against the atrocities of King Leopold's
machine-gun-armed forces, the atrocities that inspired _Heart of Darkness_.
Even before the opposing side caught up (around 1965, by my reckoning) the
effect of the machine-gun was precisely the opposite of "exposure to battle
and disease [being] greatly diminished". Some would argue _especially_ before
that time.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23473201](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23473201)

~~~
mc32
I made no implication on justice or fairness. My implication is that the side
with the upper hand afforded by this machinery would enjoy less battle induced
disease and losses. It’s not a revelation.

What it can do though is make the possessor overconfident and while the battle
numbers are in your favor, you may yet not have the stamina to win the
war—unless you’re completely ruthless.

~~~
kragen
The reason I brought up those situations is not that they were unfair —
although they were, that wasn't the point. It's because Gatling predicted that
his wonderful invention would diminish exposure to battle and disease
_overall_ , reducing the total of harm done by warfare to humanity — not just
to the winning side.

He was spectacularly, world-changingly wrong about that.

In the same way, praveen9920 is predicting that "suicide drones…actually means
limiting collateral damage". "Collateral damage" is a euphemism for mass-
murdering civilians on the side of the military you are nominally fighting
against, which is a war crime if done intentionally.

Praveen9920's optimistic predictions are likely to turn out to be
catastrophically mistaken, like Gatling's, and for very much the same reason.

~~~
mc32
Right so my point is Gatling was right but not completely right. He was right
that it could minimize the need for military personnel on the possessors side,
rather than overall reduction (which is more or less fantasy, but may have
some truth if the foe gives up earlier than they would if they thought they
had some chance at winning, though like I said overconfidence can result in
difficulties incurred by going further than prudent —for your side).

------
jcims
The materials science development going into hypersonic vehicles is going to
pay dividend in future space travel. Seems like that’s still the most dicey
part of building five digit cycle reusable spacecraft.

------
foxyv
So it's essentially a cruise missile with a long active time and datalink
based terminal guidance?

------
dwighttk
That sounds like a fast missile

------
kragen
As I understand it, my grandfather helped to develop a suicide drone that got
to its target area at hypersonic speed in the late 1950s. For the Pentagon. It
was called the Minuteman ICBM, and it entered service in 1962.

Is it possible to get a less misleading title on this article than "Pentagon
Has Tested A Suicide Drone That Gets To Its Target Area At Hypersonic Speed"?

~~~
est31
The B in ICBM stands for ballistic. That means they are mainly bound by
gravity for most of their travel. Hypersonic drones on the other hand are far
more steerable. Curious droid has a great video on the difference:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0t06EkZJcM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0t06EkZJcM)

~~~
badRNG
Maybe a better comparison would be an AMRAAM? They are essentially mini-drones
at this point anyway.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-120_AMRAAM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-120_AMRAAM)

------
alexbanks
I thought this was some kind of suicide prevention mechanism and thought
"Damn, that's so nice of the pentagon."

Alas. Better days ahead.

------
noncoml
Suicide drone? So... a missile?

~~~
blackflame7000
No, because it can loiter in the air for up to 2 hours in the target area
before destroying its target.

~~~
bootlooped
A Tomahawk cruise missile can also loiter over the target area.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomahawk_(missile)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomahawk_\(missile\))

~~~
whycombagator
Presumably you can abort mission with a drone and have it return home. Not
sure you can do that with a cruise missile.

~~~
serf
the IAI Harop is a missile that can loiter, and if no target is found can
Return to Base.[0]

Although, admittedly, the lines between 'drone' and 'missile' have begun to
blur.

[0] :
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAI_Harop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAI_Harop)

~~~
bostonsre
Having your missile return home seems suboptimal.

