The goal of concept to aircraft in 36 months is admirable. Anduril recently built a jet in a similar timeframe. In the US at least, the last 30 years after defense industry consolidation has caused great stagnation. The F-35 took over a decade and went monstrously over budget, more as a jobs program than as a functional product. Competition showing they can build a jet faster and cheaper is what we need to kick the DoD into gear with the large contractors.
Yup, while I'm sure that part of it is that the big players got used to this modus operandi, part of it it just your client not knowing what they want. I work for a financial institution, I see this everyday. Our IT partners just have to wait for our ill-conceived and ill-defined tickets and changes of priorities, keep track of the tickets and the money keeps flowing by itself. I know the analogy isn't perfect, but still.
Hats off to Anduril for shaking up the space. Wonder if the Swedes will be able to match them.
As it stands US tech companies don't want to do high volume low cost drones, so ukraine will likely end up doing it and become the supplier for other countries.
If we're going to expend time and effort on finding new and exciting ways to destroy other members of our species, it might be worth noting that the major change in battles over the last decade seems to have been flooding the zone with cheap, micro-to-small drones, not something like this.
That being said, perhaps we find something more productive to do with our time as humans?
Be careful that you're not able to fight the next war because all your effort is working on solving the problems of the past war when your enemy has found a better way around it.
It would be nice if humans could find ways to not kill each other, but the reality is humans have a very poor track record and you would be a fool to not put at least some effort into defending yourself.
We unfortunately have not found a way to turn our kleptokratic dictatorship neighbor into one.
The greatest failure of the past 20 years was the belief that if we open up trade and grow rich together, rational self-interest will lead to liberalization and peace. Instead, it just gave our enemies more resources to spend on self-destructive imperialist ambitions.
This might have to be put into the context that they do in fact move the conflict over resources to economic wars. They also actively engage in wars over ressources when they think they can win outside of MAD, see U. S. vs Iran.
Economic warfare also does in fact kill people. Denying a population, e. g., Cuba, the ability to access medicine/food kills humans just as well as a bullet in the long term.
There are various other ways this causes suffering. Different forms of warfare are still warfare, even if you don't to hold a gun for all of them.
Being "rich" also requires someone else to be "poor".
All of the current conflicts (russia / ukraine, us / iran) would consider drones as a nuisance if:
#1. For russia / ukraine neither side has air superiority. If one side had it, they could be obliterating the other side with a constant stream of 500 lb gravity bombs. Each of which has more explosives than 100 drones.
#2. For us / iran, the US is unwilling to risk any pilots. And iran has some air defenses in place. The US could drop bombs from up close, gravity mk-82's and jdams every hour for months. Currently they are using standoff weapons which are either minimally effective (drones) or crazy expensive (Tomohawk, Standard Missile, etc.)
One B1 gets shot down, and 4 crew get paraded around in downtown Tehran, and what little support trump has will vanish.
What am I trying to say? Drones have a place. They don't obsolete anything. The key is to have the weapons available to meet the time in which they are needed.
Hats off to Anduril for shaking up the space. Wonder if the Swedes will be able to match them.
As it stands US tech companies don't want to do high volume low cost drones, so ukraine will likely end up doing it and become the supplier for other countries.
Or just bring the 9-3 Turbo back!
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_37_Viggen
That being said, perhaps we find something more productive to do with our time as humans?
It would be nice if humans could find ways to not kill each other, but the reality is humans have a very poor track record and you would be a fool to not put at least some effort into defending yourself.
Rich free market democracies don't fight wars against each other.
The greatest failure of the past 20 years was the belief that if we open up trade and grow rich together, rational self-interest will lead to liberalization and peace. Instead, it just gave our enemies more resources to spend on self-destructive imperialist ambitions.
Economic warfare also does in fact kill people. Denying a population, e. g., Cuba, the ability to access medicine/food kills humans just as well as a bullet in the long term.
There are various other ways this causes suffering. Different forms of warfare are still warfare, even if you don't to hold a gun for all of them.
Being "rich" also requires someone else to be "poor".
Market democracy is not perfect but it solves 90% of the problems we'd have otherwise.
- NATO v Yugoslavia 1999 - India v Pakistan 1999 - Russia v Georgia 2008 - Russia v Ukraine 2014, 2022
#1. For russia / ukraine neither side has air superiority. If one side had it, they could be obliterating the other side with a constant stream of 500 lb gravity bombs. Each of which has more explosives than 100 drones.
#2. For us / iran, the US is unwilling to risk any pilots. And iran has some air defenses in place. The US could drop bombs from up close, gravity mk-82's and jdams every hour for months. Currently they are using standoff weapons which are either minimally effective (drones) or crazy expensive (Tomohawk, Standard Missile, etc.)
One B1 gets shot down, and 4 crew get paraded around in downtown Tehran, and what little support trump has will vanish.
What am I trying to say? Drones have a place. They don't obsolete anything. The key is to have the weapons available to meet the time in which they are needed.
When all you make are hammers, all your enemies look like nails.