30 Comments
Sep 1, 2023Liked by Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson

I really like that idea, “dangerous to their masters.” Let’s do that one.

Expand full comment
Sep 1, 2023Liked by Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson

There’s somebody who lives nearby, thinks its cool to fly over the ridge, buzz yards and nose about. I’m told it isn’t legal, but it also isn’t legal to blow ‘em outa the sky. Thus if I can buy a system to kamikaze that sucker on its owner, I’m in

Expand full comment
Jan 1Liked by Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson

Barrage balloons.

Expand full comment
Sep 5, 2023Liked by Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson

I doubt the ability of engineers to come up with a workable system of automated drones to kill combatants, due to a few key parts.

Lack of understanding of how to design a 'bird' like device that knows what to kill when to kill and do so effectively without blue on blue occuring

Reduction in total number of educated professionalals needed to start such projects

The reality that the logistics of such devices would be nigh-um impossible to source reliably en mass for and from one nation/ place (supply chain would be global as a result subject to all pros and cons)

The harshest reality that a more technically advanced society, or in this case military, actually has a higher demand on the number of men employed to produce, maintain and broadly use the devices, thereby defeating the point of the intended theoretical benefits of drones in the military.

Expand full comment
Sep 1, 2023·edited Sep 1, 2023Liked by Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson

> This consideration, I suspect, would incline the makers of military drones to two courses of action. The easiest would be the conversion of reconnaissance drones into suicide planes. (The simplest of these would work by ramming. Fancier models would carry explosives.)

I don't think this makes sense. Suicide drones only make sense if the target is more expansive than the suicide drone itself.

Expand full comment
Sep 1, 2023·edited Sep 1, 2023Liked by Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson

WRT Newton and recoil, I have been thinking that the initial kludge would be rocket pods suspended beneath the drone firing rockets. That would be useful for ground attack. For drove v. drone, perhaps larger, mother ship drones which can drop swarms of small, cheap, suicide drones, which would have an explosive charge and would kamikaze (used here as a verb) into higher value enemy drones.

Interestingly, what we would see here is similar to the counter battery artillery battles which go back to the 18th century and the 20th century struggles for air dominance. First knock out the other sides guns / aircraft / drones. Then and only then can the other components of your force operate. Establishing aerial drone dominance, assuming the number and quantity of platforms is available, could lead to the swift annihilation of the other sides ground forces, if necessary killing each soldier and vehicle with an individually targeted attack. The ground forces would then do what Douglas Haid hoped for, walk over a field strewn only with the wreckage of the enemy army, annihilated by the long range weapon assault which preceded the ground assault, mopping up remnants.

And a related point: Once this technology is cheap, mature, and widely distributed, civil aviation as we know it will no longer be possible. Anyone deploying technology that costs a pittance will be able to destroy a jetliner. So the age of mass air travel will be ending soon. We will do remote things via electronic meetings or via haptic suits in on site robots, and long distance travel will be in surface vessels with a swarm of drone defenders around them at all times. Possibly dirigibles could be used, with drone hangars on board.

This really is the beginning of a radically different age.

Expand full comment
Sep 1, 2023Liked by Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson

I think we can spot dirigibles.

Expand full comment
Sep 1, 2023Liked by Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson

We can spot anything. With quantum sensors we will be able to spot submarines. I suggested dirigibles because they may be able to carry their own anti-drones. Also, they can be built to be impervious to small explosives or penetrations which would destroy a comparatively brittle and fragile jetliner.

Expand full comment
Sep 1, 2023Liked by Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson

armor is heavy. ☺️

Expand full comment
Sep 1, 2023·edited Sep 1, 2023Liked by Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson

Not armor -- compartmentalization, and active countermeasures. And of course this is against amateur or terrorist attack, which will become easy with cheap drones. Full scale military attack would be large missiles which can take down anything.

Expand full comment
Sep 1, 2023Liked by Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson

Maybe that drone nosing around my place is yours. 😳

Expand full comment
Sep 1, 2023Liked by Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson

Wait, I thought the one in the tree outside my window was yours ...

Expand full comment
Sep 1, 2023Liked by Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson

That's depressing.

Expand full comment
Sep 1, 2023Liked by Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson

As I often say these days ... I hope I'm wrong about this!

Expand full comment
author

Indeed!

Expand full comment
Sep 1, 2023Liked by Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson

In that scenario, you may also see the need for VIPs to spend their time in bunkers, or surrounded by security.

Expand full comment

Dey do dat now

Expand full comment

Way to set me off with the Red pants.

The VA will call to confirm 🤣 thanks Bruce, inflation and all that...

Expand full comment

Nice red pants.

Expand full comment
Jan 1Liked by Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson

Semi-auto mag-fed shotgun with a wicked muzzle brake to approach a recoilless delivery. Up to 20 rounds for less than 10 lbs total armament system weight. Don't use a hover drone. Use a winged drone for endurance, speed and range. The rest is easy.

Expand full comment

Has this been proven?

Because I really am asking for real friends, who happen to be in Harms Way...

Expand full comment
Sep 5, 2023Liked by Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson

I have derived my last point from this material here, though I will add I have seen this before in reality itself.

https://open.substack.com/pub/thecirculationofelites/p/technology-of-gemeinschaft?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=ga0u4

Expand full comment

Unless the drone operator is quite close, the requirements for a 'fighter' pilot to observe-assess-act will pretty much guarantee that combat drones in this role will need to be highly autonomous. Drones in a strike role against ground targets have a bit more leeway (so far) and by focusing on the easier challenge of targeting vehicles and weapons platforms are skirting the issue of autonomous weapons with no man in the loop pulling the actual trigger.

Expand full comment

What happens if it’s jammed?

If GPS or GLONASS is jammed?

And radio control?

Expand full comment
Sep 1, 2023Liked by Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson

About to stack a link. you get it first. I thought, these things are electronic, AI or not, what’s to stop me from knockin’ em down with EMP? Somebody I think has already developed that tech, directed EMP. Then I recalled that bombers to deliver nuclear devices had to be EMP-proof or they’d never get home. so I think it was the Navy came up with a biological chip so that basic data was protected. Did a search, yes, a Bloomberg article behind a paywall said “Pentagon Swoops in to Buy Last of One-of-a-Kind Chips.” But, look what else I found.

https://bgr.com/science/new-ai-chip-that-uses-human-brain-tissue-just-got-military-funding/

Expand full comment

Yes, it's my understanding from reporting out of the Ukraine combat zone that both sides are already using jammers and other EW techniques against drones - the success rates for different platforms do not yet seem to be in (reliable) open source reporting though I expect that that information is being shared with allies and suppliers in order to develop countermeasures and counter-countermeasures.

Expand full comment
Sep 1, 2023Liked by Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson

As far as the algorithms needed for individual drones are concerned, you might look at the activities being performed by drone swarms, which basically think collectively, and provide guidance and assessments to each other. Individually, they are not particularly powerful, but their common algorithm means they are as powerful from an AI standpoint as a much more complex (and hence larger and more expensive) device.

Expand full comment
author

Like Boids?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boids

Expand full comment
Sep 1, 2023Liked by Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson

Yes, and ultimately like this: "The AIM-260 long-range anti-air missile didn’t need target data, though it was much more accurate if it was given it before launch. It was a true ‘fire and forget’ weapon that could be launched down a bearing or toward a GPS coordinate and, once in the designated combat area, start looking for targets with its multimode radar, infrared and optical seekers. More like tiny near-invisible kamikaze drones, AIM-260 missiles flew in swarms, sharing data with each other so that if one of them spotted a group of targets, it shared the data with other missiles nearby and called them in to join the attack. And if they did not find a target, they would loiter until their fuel ran out, just in case a target happened past. They would attack anything that did not have a civilian or allied IFF, Identify Friend or Foe, transponder." From the future war novel, "PAGASA" by the Australian author F X Holden. This is set in the near future (2030s), but the systems my former associates are working on now make this type of thing possible in the next five years.

Expand full comment