

Iran building copy of captured US drone  - jaxonrice
http://www.timeslive.co.za/world/2012/04/22/iran-building-copy-of-captured-us-drone

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bborud
Of course, none of this would have happened if the IP had been properly
protected.

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nosse
It will be interesting to see more and more countries building cheap hi-tech
military robotics.

This will probably chance the doctrines. In short term I'd guess fighters
become more relevant as they are needed to identify large quantities of flying
objects. At the same time manned bombers become less relevant. With cruise
missiles anything is destroyable. And with surveillance robotics everything is
becoming observable.

Probably land groups become smaller as they have to try to be "too cheap to
attack". It's not economical to send 1,5 million dollar cruise missile to kill
five soldiers. How you can organize whole military force to effectively do
their jobs, while gatherings of more than 5 people to the same spot is
forbidden?

I'd guess future camouflage is going to be something that confuses the
difference between military and civilian. And decoys are going to be big
trend. Something like using artillery to disperse large amounts of heat
sources that look like humans to IR-camera.

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stoolpigeon
I agree in large - though manned fighters will become irrelevant too. As it is
- much of the time an F-35 pilot will not be actually looking outside, they'll
be looking into their helmet screen. There's a good EO DAS video that shows
the reasons why - though the only one I can find right now isn't of the best
quality - <http://youtu.be/CwvnhFgzIKI>

So the pilot isn't actually controlling the flight surfaces, that is all fly
by wire. And the pilot is not actually looking outside with the naked eye. So
- really the only reason to have a pilot actually in the cockpit is if the
side sending up the plane is worried they'll lose the ability to control it
remotely.

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nosse
"So - really the only reason to have a pilot actually in the cockpit is if the
side sending up the plane is worried they'll lose the ability to control it
remotely."

Well the only thing worse than losing your fighter to enemy force, is the
enemy force controlling your fighter against you.

With current technology I'd say the best possibility is single manned fighter
controlling few unmanned fighters with two-way highly encrypted optical link.
So that when engaging enemy the pilot would just send one of the unmanned
against a identified target, bit like a more maneuverable missile. Then the AI
would kick in.

In the future something like electronic tunneling radio might do the job. I
really don't believe in AI doing the whole thing, scenarios are too complex.
And there has to be someone taking the responsibility.

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stuckk
These drones are useless if you don't have the satellites that control them.
unless they plan on using it only under the satellite that they had recently
launched.

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harryf
You could achieve a 10-15 mile radius with radio control. For defending a
position with cheap flying objects, that's more than enough.

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tomwalker
I cant really blame them - it must be a golden oppurtunity

