Watch out Buppert!!!! Bogeyman is gonna getcha!!! HAR HAR HAR!!!
Last drone-kill-snuff vid I saw was really well done - right out of the Terminator. We get a clear-as-a-bell view of the ominous evil drone as it hovers and patiently studies the prey hundreds of yards away. (Footage, BTW - that could only be taken by an advanced camera drone with movie-grade optics). A cool futuristic heads-up display comes up and the prey are are targetted - electronic pips come up on the screen, obviously to mark them and seal their fate. After autonomously deciding to act - the drone rapidly accelerates toward the hapless soldiers. The last pic of the telemetry shows the terrified faces of the men - and then static. One can only presume that every single one of those guys died horrible and no doubt excruciating deaths. The same footage gets played again and again, one day the victims are all evil Russians, the next - they're all Ukes. It was a great piece of cinematographic propaganda, I gotta admit.
This idiocy is ingrained now. Even fuggin Matt Bracken is telling tall tales. In the real world, no, it is not as easy as slapping a wad of C4 on the drone and then flying it into your enemies. Think about it. You're a squaddie. Would you want to attach live explosives to a flying toy that runs on cheap Chicom electronics? I can tell you from personal experience that if you do, it won't be long before you kill yourself or your mates. And the dreaded FPV? In every single vid I saw - the footage was so bad that you could not see markings on vehicles or tell the Russians frome the Ukes. Being able to distinguish friend from foe on the battlefield is kinda important. But... even the squaddies are missing it. The story tellers cast their spell, and the children suspend their sense of disbelief and their lost. I can see how herds of ordinarily intelligent people get duped into believing absolute claptrap!
Voltaire applies: Those that can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. And so it goes. Despite physics, despite aerodynamics, despite easily observable evidence and logic - the tiny drones are coming to get you. It's a question of when, not IF.
Welp... in the Kraine, where the weaponized hobby drone made it's debut? What did that battlefield look like? HELLO McFLY!!!! Trench warfare. Massive artillery barrages. Stuff right out of WW2! This is what happens when peer nations clash on the battlefield. Douglas MacGregor piped up once about the terrible drones saying that they were not really a game changer on the battlefield. As near as he could tell the overwhelming majority of the KIAs were mostly artillery, gunfire, and mines and other conventional anti-personnel weapons.
Terrance Popp has a saying about 'using your thinking meat'. It's damned good advice. People that leave the thinking to others take snake oil vaccines, they vote for their own disarmament and oppression, and get mad when the bad guys take advantage of them and loot them.
In the scheme of things I suppose if some hyperventilating wanks want to believe tiny drones are going to end all wars and make militaries obsolete... there is no harm in it. It's the other more diabolical shit that moron will believe that is the concern. And that is truly the revolutionary change that has taken the battlefield. Not only does the sad sack ground pounding infantryman gotta worry about God, Darwin and Murphy ending him... now Voltaire wants a piece of the action! HAR HAR HAR!!!
Back at the Thunderbox I did a chit house study/demo on drone lift limits. Maybe I should do one on tiny drones too?
As always - your scholarly input is always appreciated.
I've heard Buppert on other podcasts and he's not a stupid dude, by any means. But his podcast on what he calls 'irregular warfare' can be VERY dry and hard to get into.
ReplyDeleteI still maintain that there is always a low tech solution to any high tech problem. As scary as machines are made out to be, thanks to sci-fi propaganda, they have their limitations. Notably, they need to be programmed, maintained, and often operated by other humans.
Buppert's recent show posits that 'the infantry is dead'. I don't agree, modern technology notwithstanding. In conflict, you are always going to need infantry to take and hold real estate. Drones and robots and other pie-in-the-sky star trek bullshit will not do this. We still use infantry today because their stealth, mobility, and adaptability is still unparallelled by any other military trade. When I was a grunt for Queen and Country, yes, it sure did suck to walk everywhere night and day, for miles on end, carrying everything I need to live, move, and fight on opreations...but there were few places I COULDN'T go. That's why guys like me were used. I can't imagine any war where you WOULDN'T need good old fashioned infantry.
Besides...who ELSE is gonna do all the bitching and moaning in the field?
Yeah I shouldn’t be a dink JL. When it comes to mil bloggers I really don’t know who’s who. Popp seems good. Bracken is too - which is why it pisses me off, I guess. Other respectable men I read are falling for this crap. I watched Shawn Ryan once or twice and he seemed good, but the last episode he did on that squaddie that blew himself up in a Tesla truck… good grief. The guy must read comic books…
DeleteYou seem to have a good handle on those guys - I’m glad Buppert is otherwise sensible. Have any recommendations for mil bloggers?
NC Scout's 'Radio Contra' podcast is usually my 'go to'. Forward Observer is pretty good too, although I don't know if Sam Culper/Mike Shelby still does it.
DeleteI also used to listen to Tom Quiggin's 'Quiggin Report' (he is ex Canadian military, but his show has more of a counter-terrorism slant to it). Unfortunately he hasn't done a show in some time...he was very involved in the Freedom Convoy and sorta went dark in the fallout.
Lookie here filf, I’m a practitioner of somewhat unhealthy skepticism so I appreciate your outlook - to a degree: if you listen to the guy he flat out states that he speaks to the trend as opposed to the timeline and cinematic war porn aside, drone warfare tech is advancing in a non linear fashion. Unlike fusion which was only forty years away in the 70’s when I studied physics, fpv and autonomous personal remote combative device development was already well underway when I brushed up against it in the 80’s. Are current claims overblown? Smart money says yes, again, to a degree BUT, you best not count on it. As just a guy thats done a little bit of weird and worked with it coming from our inscrutable fellows half way around the world and seeing what autistic Biggus Balluss boys are doing here, my money also says their brothers in 404 are surprising peeps there at a frightening clip.
ReplyDeleteI remember reading an article last year or so about the army testing an AI sentry system. They had a group of enlisted men try to get past it. Some of them did so by getting boxes that refrigerators and other large appliances came in and walked past the sentry with the box over them. Others cut branches out of trees and held them up between them and the AI sentry and walked right past it. Perhaps the funniest was the guy who skipped past the AI sentry because it only recognized walking and running patterns.
ReplyDeleteI've met Bill he's a very decent and competent human being. When he talks I would listen. but I don't know anything about drones. you do. I think the future of drones will be quite amazing or terrifying. they can remote operate a Cessna sized aircraft easy enough. to deliver a nasty surprise. its not new tech its just what I would do.
ReplyDeleteThe best use of drones was shown in the Second (2020) Nagorno-Karabach war. They took out air defenses (cheaper than cruise missiles) and were then used to spot for artillery. The Armenians had more troops, better armor, and were dug in on the high ground. The Azeris had Turkish drones and lots of artillery.
ReplyDelete