First Robotic Drone Squadron Deployed 772
coondoggie writes with a link to a Network World blog post on the world's first unmanned attack squadron. The US is deploying a full squadron of combat drones to Iraq this week. These armed and remotely controlled robots can be manipulated from on the ground in the field, or via satellite from thousands of miles away. "The MQ-9 Reaper is the Air Force's first hunter-killer unmanned aircraft. It is the big brother to the highly successful and sometimes controversial Predator aircraft, which General Atomics said this week had flown over 300,000 flight hours, with over 80% of that time spent in combat. The company said Predator series aircraft have flown an average of 8,200 hours per month over the past six months while maintaining the highest operational readiness rates in the U.S. military aircraft inventory. The MQ-9 Reaper is twice as fast as the Predator - it has a 900-horsepower turbo-prop engine, compared to the 119-horsepower Predator engine - and can carry far more ordnance - 14 Hellfire missiles as opposed to two."
Video game ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Robotic? (Score:2, Interesting)
Wholescale content thievery (Score:2, Interesting)
Wow. Even for the Slashdot crowd that likes to run fast and loose with copyright, that cut-and-paste article summary was pretty bad.
It's not "fair use" to just fill a slashdot "story" with paragraphs from the story you're linking to. Give us an actual summary, a more informative/in depth article, or don't bother posting your submission at all.
Those things look slow (Score:4, Interesting)
-b.
Re:There should be some way for civilian control (Score:3, Interesting)
Tinfoil hats FTW I guess.
Re:Toys (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Controversial? (Score:3, Interesting)
Is that really a good thing?? (Score:5, Interesting)
Just playing devil's advocate, is it really a good thing for wars to be more humane? Look at the difference between Iraq and (Germany || Japan). Both Germany and Japan were absolutely fucking destroyed during WWII. As a result, the civilians quit. They threw up their hands and said, "screw this, we quit."
A few years later, Germany and Japan are two of the richest, most prosperous nations on Earth.
Contrast with Iraq. We try *really* hard not to hurt anyone, to avoid casualties, we apologize if we destroy a building. Result: civilians kind of shrug and do their best to live their lives and avoid the fighting. A group of foreign insurgents can move into a town and the civilians will say, "eh, they're not here to kill me so I don't care - it's none of my business."
At this rate, Iraq will continue to be a war zone indefinitely.
So all I'm saying, again as the devil's advocate - what if the people of Iraq had to suffer as much as the people of Germany or Japan suffered? Maybe they would say, "screw this - you foreign insurgents get the fuck out - we want the Americans to rebuild."
Maybe.
Re:That can happen in a smaller way (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, take our few squads and toss them into an area with a large civilian population. Surround the squads with civilian dressed units firing from civilian occupied buildings. Have members of our military squads start dying.
Now freeze the scene for a moment. Would you rather have the people dying be drones or human marines?
Personally, I would much rather have a squad of drones dying. Even if we placed no value on the lives of soldiers and would happily tell them to die rather then return fire with all of the terrifying capability that they have, a squad of drones would still be better. People, even well trained soldiers, don't like to die. Asking a group of soldiers to allow themselves to be killed and to not defend themselves to save civilians is not only a good way to quickly demoralize your military, but an order that will be violated on more then one occasion to bloody effect. The marines might very well decide that screw it, we are going to tear the apartment complex that is firing at us in half and proceed to do so in a way that only marines can. It will be blood and civilians will die in large numbers.
For a squad of drones, the situation is simple. The controller glances at his orders and sees that he is not allowed to engage if there is a high probability of harming civilians. He turns off the heavy weapons on his drone, switches to small arms, and returns fire at the targets that he can see and is reasonably sure will not harm civilians. The drones merrily fight to the bitter end. The drones might not win due to their orders that they are not allowed to level buildings, but it isn't like the consequences of a failure to win is that the operator dies. The operator just sighs, hits the suicide button on his drone which fires the circuits and destroys the weapons, and switches to another unit. Civilians will still certainly die from stray bullets and what not, but the alternative is to have a group of panicking soldiers level entire city blocks in a desperate bide to save their own hides.
Finally, think of the GOOD possibilities that come with 'cheap wars'. War might not be "cheap" in the material sense... in fact it will almost certainly cost more. It might become a lot cheaper in terms of lives. Sure, this might lead to Americans kicking over perfectly functional dictators that piss them off. It might also lead to the nations of the world growing a (robotic) pair of balls and stepping in to prevent things like the Rwandan genocide.
The world looked on as Rwanda purged itself of 10% of its population in one of the most horrific and brutal genocides ever seen by mankind. No one raised a finger because no one relished the idea of getting involved in an African war and taking the loss of life it would take to stem the tied of violence and rape that was sweeping that nation. In Rwanda, one ethnic minority went from being 15% of the population to 5% of the population with the survivors having seen horrific and terrible things in their life and most of the (surviving) women having been brutally raped repeatedly. If the rest of the world had been more willing to act instead of watching and sending angry diplomatic letters, a drone army would not have been a bad thing.
Re:That can happen in a smaller way (Score:4, Interesting)
Sorry, I can't agree with that. Is a war fought on another country's soil because they asked for help in fighting some horrible aggressor not to be considered morally justified? And here's another example (sorry for its length). Let's say there are two tribes living in roughly the same geographic area. Both tribes live along a river not too far from an ocean. The river provides all the resources they need for life -- fresh water, fish for food, fertile soil for farming. The two tribes are aware of each other and have previously had a good relationship. However, things go awry when the tribe upstream has a change in leadership who does not care about the welfare of the tribe downstream. He decides that his tribe will build a dam on the river so that they can have a larger area of available fresh water, and so that his tribe has an easier time finding fish. Without consulting the downstream tribe, he implements his plan. Now the folks in the downstream tribe notice a serious dropoff in water flowing down the river. They head upstream to investigate and find that the source of the problem is the dam built by the upstream tribe. Repeated delegations are sent to the leader of the upstream tribe to explain their position and ask if they can come up with a mutually beneficial solution. Each time, the response is "Talk to the hand," and the leader of the upstream tribe does not yield. During the course of "political discussion", the leader of the upstream tribe builds up a very strong following among his people because they are very happy with their now easier way of life. Few of them are interested any longer in helping the downstream tribe. Now the downstream tribe has two choices: 1. Leave the area where they are living which is, other than the recent loss of the river that they depend on, a more or less ideal spot to live. Or 2. Try to destroy the dam built by the upstream tribe, which will require killing members of the upstream tribe and will clearly be considered an act of war. Would you consider option 2 to be morally unjust?
My point is this. If you take away the resources that my people need to survive and you turn a deaf ear on the fact that you have endangered the existence of my people, I will do what is necessary to regain the resources that my people need. I will obviously choose the path that does the least damage, but I will feel morally obligated to protect my people. I will mourn the loss of members of the opposing forces, but given the same options, I would make the same decision each and every time.
Re:Controversial? (Score:2, Interesting)
Lagtime? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:First Skynet! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Those things look slow (Score:4, Interesting)
Shoulder-launched SAMs aren't able to intercept targets flying that high. An MQ-9 Reaper is only vulnerable to them during takeoff, landing, or low-altitude operations.
The best way to kill a high-flying drone is to use another high-flying vehicle carrying air-to-air missiles, ideally a drone. In 2002, the Iraqi Air Force managed to shoot down an MQ-1 Predator with a MiG-25 by shooting an air-to-air missile at it. Still, they risked a life and a very expensive MiG-25 to shoot down a cheap 3.2M$ drone.
Oh, you could always use a huge SAM with enough power to climb to 50000ft, but you're going to need a big truck to carry it around, and the SAM won't be cheap either.
Please explain (Score:4, Interesting)
Then please explain why combat deaths have gone down since WWII? This is not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of historical fact. Korea had less kills than Vietnam than Beirut/Panama than Iraq I. Right up until Iraq II, it had gone down in every single war.
If what you said was true, we would have seen MORE death over that period. Because nobody doubts significant military advancements have happened since WWII.
Re:War is Violence ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:That can happen in a smaller way (Score:2, Interesting)
Friendly Fire? Hearts and minds? (Score:3, Interesting)
And would they be more or less likely to kill enemies? Harder to capture them, I imagine?
Finally - doesn't seem like the ideal way to win hearts and minds - imagine growing up in a City patrolled by Western death machines?
Re:War is Violence ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually it does make it less efficient. The U.S. has lost 4000 soldiers in the years it's been since invading Iraq. That lost is significant but by no means leads to a win. It's only been used to continue our presence there. 4000 dead with several hundred thousand in reserve does not a good tactic make.
How many civilians and true enemy combatants have been killed against the 4000 soldiers that have been lost? I would say the fighting strategy is extremely both ineffectual and inefficient against the U.S.
Guerrilla fighting simply doesn't work. Best case scenario it causes the U.S. to say it's not worth it to prevent further civil war so we leave and cut off all economic ties and impose sanctions so no other country will trade and then the country starves because they can't or perhaps simply won't be peaceful. Of course it's hard when all sides have committed wrongs. Of course with all the oil involved it's going to take a long while before we agree enough that it's simply not worth it to leave all-together. More likely it we stop fighting and create a base and protect that one region instead of many. Overtime that region prospers while their neighbors continue to die. Perhaps in an optimal situation civil war wouldn't break out and the sides would come together without U.S. interference and then the secure region will prosper and the rest of the country will prosper and then the whole deal can be reintegrated.
In either case the problem is less of a technological problem. This technology will have little impact on who gets killed but it does reduce our own risk which will only prolong our resolve so you could say this will prolong the war.
Re:War is Violence ... (Score:3, Interesting)
That's the exact same justification the 9-11 attackers used.
And you sure as fuck gave them one, now.