
'Guaranteed hit' tech could be added to army’s next-gen squad weapon - sakopov
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/01/29/guaranteed-hit-tech-could-be-added-armys-next-gen-squad-weapon.html
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ISL
_" Once upon a time, in the very earliest days of interplanetary exploration,
an unarmed human vessel was set upon by a warship from the planet Kzin-home of
the fiercest warriors in Known Space. This was a fatal mistake for the Kzinti,
of course; they learned the hard way that the reason humanity had decided to
study war no more was that humans were so very, very, good at it."_ \-- from
the jacket of the anthology 'Man-Kzin Wars'.

The same technology that makes for beautiful eye-detection autofocus in
portraits can also make for efficient slaughter of those designated to die.

We must each choose the world in which we wish to live.

~~~
Waterluvian
I'm not sure it changes anything. If you've seen the horrible footage of
modern aerial platforms turning unsuspecting enemy infantry into red mist, you
might be surprised to learn that they haven't, in response, abandoned their
AKs and RPGs in terror.

I'm not sure there's a killing technology so exacting and guaranteed as to
change the fundamental behaviour of these enemies.

Though maybe I'm wrong and there is some magic bullet out there that will
change modern warfighing.

~~~
ISL
It has been a long while since the world has seen first-class militaries
battling one another for survival. Current conflicts frequently have
restrictive rules-of-engagement behind which inferior opponents can shelter.
Furthermore, the 'insurgents' of today may feel that they have no other choice
than the course of actions that they have selected, even if death loiters
above.

The next major conflict will have episodes that emulate some of the battles of
World War One, where machine guns and chemical weapons utterly massacred those
who were unprepared to face them. Imagine a 1990s-era armored column beset by
a few thousand drones with small shaped charges -- it would be an attack
without countermeasure; utterly confusing and over in minutes.

~~~
tashoecraft
“I don’t know what weapons world war 3 will be fought with, but world war 4
will fought with sticks and stones”- idk

A true major conflict would be annihilation and utter devastation across the
globe.

~~~
nine_k
Not really.

Imagine a nuclear war between US and USSR, which were on the brink of it
several times.

For simplicity, let's consider that 100% of populations of both countries, and
half of Western Europe's, get killed in the war. This makes, roughly, 150M +
300M + 150M = 600M. With world population being around 6000M at the time of
the demise of the USSR, that would make 10% of world population. Hardly a
complete devastation.

Much harder consequences would be the climate impact ("nuclear winter"; its
original prognosis was reviewed since 1980s, it should be less severe), and
radiation pollution (which, as we know from e.g. Chernobyl, is nasty but not
immediately deadly after some time).

Of course, the world has enough nukes to kill the entire population, but
likely only if carefully planned for it, unlike any even remotely realistic
conflict scenario.

~~~
dchichkov
I think you underestimate how efficient and fragile the civilization is. If
you take a modern city and stop transportation of products into the city, in a
few days there'd be nothing to eat there.

~~~
nine_k
Yes. But we also underestimate how many people in Africa and even east Asia
live not in efficient cities, but off the land, in poverty but also in
relative independence.

~~~
dchichkov
There was a civilization collapse before, around 500 C.E. Cities abandoned,
books burned, technology forgotten. It took 1000 years to get back to the
level of that civilization. People living off the land only have so much time
in the day. Some of the causes of collapse included military spending,
constant wars, erosion of traditional polytheistic values by intolerant
religion, government corruption and political instability, lead pollution,
soil erosion and deforestation.

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ryanmarsh
Marksmanship isn’t a problem. I don’t understand what problem this solves
except for snipers. Most infantry engagements happen within 150yds. Anything
further (like across a mountain valley in Afghanistan) your target is the
muzzle flashes of the enemy. Is this thing going to be an aimbot for muzzle
flashes? This is where crew served weapons come in handy, and snipers. This
device would not have helped me getting ambushed within 100yards or being the
first guy in the door on a raid.

~~~
serioussecurity
Most fire is suppressing fire. If you could have the equivalent of suppressing
fire without needing to waste bullets that'd be a huge change.

~~~
ryanmarsh
Suppressing fire is used to keep the enemy’s head down and to reduce their
volume of fire even from defilade so that you can move shoot and communicate.
Obviously it is preferable to kill your enemy but you can’t always see them.

~~~
serioussecurity
If they know there's a high probability they'll be hit they'll adapt their
behavior. The uncertainty of whether or not you're painted is significant.

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Animats
That technology has been for sale since 2013.[1] The original version cost
$22,000 and was quite bulky. This looks smaller, but still on the bulky side.
It will probably be made smaller and cheaper in the future. There's less
electronics than in a cell phone in there.

[1] [http://www.tracking-point.com/](http://www.tracking-point.com/)

~~~
allovernow
That's pretty awesome. I wonder if it would be feasible with modern tech to
build a neural net powered autotracker on a raspi (or some other cheap,
compact, low power microcontroller). Mark a target with a button on the side
of the rifle, have the controller lock the trigger until target it aligned.
Could build in range compensation and might not even need a neural net to
track simple targets. But you need a way to segment target pixels and track
them as they move.

~~~
_Microft
We have distinctly different definitions of awesome.

~~~
taneq
Awesome: _adj_ inspiring awe

Modern general usage aside, it's always meant 'overwhelmingly impressive'
rather than 'good'.

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arkh
The main problem for the military with those kind of electronics assisted
weapons are the fucking batteries. Infantry already has a heavy load to move
around. Adding battery packs does not help. Best case scenario you're tethered
to some vehicle. Worst case your heavier rifle has no special system anymore
because your 10lb of batteries are depleted.

For militarized police which do fast action like SWAT the battery problem is
not a thing anymore.

~~~
Cpoll
Why do they need so much power? A phone can run all day off a 200g battery and
has enough processing power to do autofocusing and image processing. If it's
on standby it should consume next to nothing.

~~~
chillacy
Hmm are soldiers using LiPo batteries? Given that they’re flammable when
damaged, and don’t work well in extreme temperatures.

~~~
derefr
But on the other hand, you're already wearing body armour, so what's a little
explosion? Little explosions come out the back of your rifle every minute.
(LiPo batteries really don't deflagrate _violently_ , even when shot. They
just burn.)

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dchichkov
I remember reading somewhere that there is money to fight climate change. It
is just that it is being spend on weapons, like this one. Efforts would be
much better spent, trying to reduce the rate of destruction of ecological
services. There are between 200 and 2,000 species extinctions occur every
year. Could one be saved for a price of one rifle like this?

~~~
CRUDite
Nature has devised molecular machinery specific to our time on this earth.
Want to freeze yourself for a deep space trip? There is a creature that can do
that. Want to regrow limbs? Survive like a tardigrade? Not get cancer?
Everything we need is out there. Some of it will be key to the future. In some
cases it took many millions of years to evolve. Vancomycin came from soil,
what else lies in wait for bio-prospectors and molecule hunters? Nothing if
its all dead. There should be a prime directive and it should be for life on
this planet

~~~
SturgeonsLaw
It's truly criminal that we're potentially losing out on gamechanging biotech
in order to facilitate archaic profit generating schemes like chopping down
trees for lumber or digging up coal to burn.

Our future is getting mortgaged in more ways than one.

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exabrial
I hope someday humans can evolve past war. The cold unfortunate truth is there
are people in the world right now that seek to gain power through whatever
means they can. To that end, it would be incredibly naive to not develop these
weapons systems, and police ourselves to use them for purely defensive
purposes. The alternative is to face annihilation when they are developed and
used against you. I'm will forever be anti-war, but in order to be peaceful,
one must first be dangerous.

~~~
wizzwizz4
> _it would be incredibly naive to not develop these weapons systems, and
> police ourselves to use them for purely defensive purposes._

What happens when the person in charge is insane? Or, worse, unethical? Or,
even worse, Dunning–Kruger? How would we police ourselves then‽

~~~
exabrial
"And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned
from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let
them take arms."

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willvarfar
Suddenly adversarial AI becomes more than a cool tech talk and paper.

It seems reasonable to imagine spies and hackers trying to acquire the models
from sights so that, on the day of actual battle, their soldiers can be given
carefully prepared masks that defeat the sights of the enemy etc.

~~~
leereeves
Considering scaling, rotation, lighting, smoke, dirt, etc, it's hard to
imagine being able to effectively use an adversarial image on a battlefield.

Much easier to simply obscure or mask whatever features the model detects.

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endorphone
There is an early window with tech like this where it feels okay because the
"good guys" have it.

Only soon enough everyone has it.

Every dollar towards tech like that is effectively R&D for every regime on
Earth.

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swalsh
This doesn't really seem like technology that is "needed". When you can
actually see the enemy a holo sight in the hands of a trained soldier is
probably more than sufficient. Whether it takes one round or 3 to stop the
enemy it doesn't matter. Watching this tech it seems super slow to use.
Perhaps it might be useful for hitting a target at 1000 yards. But that's such
a rare use case.

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clktmr
Just love that on HN killing somebody is discussed as a use case.

~~~
quotemstr
What's wrong with that? Not everyone is a pacifist --- far from it. There are
legitimate uses for violence.

~~~
KozmoNau7
The only legitimate use of violence is to end violence.

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tyingq
Details are lacking, but this seems ok-ish. It sounds like this is focused on
_" found my target and now I'm in the figure 8 where my sight is bouncing
around because of my heartbeat or other outside physical influence"_. Assuming
it's focused on that sort of bias, it seems fine. If it reaches beyond that it
clearly needs more research.

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baybal2
Adding to that: most soldier who died in WWII didn't fire a single shot, and
never seen the enemy.

A lot more of who survived just spent the whole war walking and doing
maneuvers.

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ridgeguy
I suppose you could equip a team with these and bluetooth an AND function.
Every team member could pick a different target, all weapons would fire
simultaneously when every weapon met 'guaranteed hit' criteria, not before.
Should make for a highly effective one-shot tactic against multiple targets.

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scarejunba
Didn't tracking point have a security flaw because it worked on local wifi or
something? Don't recall for sure. Looks like they just put everything on the
weapon now. Interesting what modern miniaturization can do. Same tech that
advances smartphones makes guntech better.

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m3kw9
Can use this tech to train it to recognize hogs for pest control

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narrator
It's so funny how sci-fi gets so many things wrong. In the future every
infantry level soldier will never miss, yet we have Star Wars.

~~~
baybal2
Even "realistic" WWII movies got near everything wrong.

War wouldn't look glamorous if 4 out of 5 soldiers die a "glorious" death from
artillery fire from 20 kilometres away.

Analogously, WWIII will likely be about thousands of soldiers being vaporised
by atomic weapons, and blown to pieces by drones flown by men sitting in comfy
bunkers on the other side of the globe

~~~
ajmurmann
Or maybe for WWIII weapons will be so destructive that we instead will fight
it through propaganda, surveillance and trade. Maybe a country will build some
militarized, new island, but nobody would date to touch those because weapons
are already to scary. Even if one country managed to install a puppet
president in another, no military action would ever result because escalation
to nuclear weapons is too frightening of a possible consequence.

~~~
ISL
I think this outcome is a reasonable prediction, but it requires three key
assumptions -- that those people making the decisions actually understand how
terrible these weapons are, that mutual destruction is actually assured, and
that those people actually care about losing.

~~~
dredmorbius
It's not prediction. It's history.

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kbar13
so they implemented a triggerbot irl. gamers rise up.

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adamsea
Hard not to read this with some sadness and bitterness ...

