Posted on 03/28/2023 2:15:15 PM PDT by Alas Babylon!
Collaborative Combat Aircraft will be able to carry out missions without direction from crewed aircraft and may not always fly as their “wingmen,” in order to maximize employment flexibility, Air Force leaders developing and testing the new platforms said March 27.
In a panel discussion presented by Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, the four generals charged with bringing the CCA concept to fruition said the service has embarked on on a modeling and simulation campaign to figure out how to make CCAs as useful and cost-imposing on an enemy as possible, while making progress on developmental, operational and testing fronts simultaneously. They would not, however, divulge expected program milestones.
Asked whether CCAs will be “tethered” to crewed platforms or carry out their own missions without such pairings, Maj. Gen. R. Scott Jobe, Air Combat Command’s director of plans, programs. and requirements, replied “Yes.”
In many cases, he said, “we will tether, in terms of range and speed and payloads and capabilities. And in other areas, we will untether in terms of geographic location [and] mission generation” to complicate an enemy’s targeting scheme.
“And then we will be able to congeal our forces [in the] time and place of our choosing,” Jobe added.
The capability to act either as a manned aircraft partner, an independently-operating platform, or as part of a group of CCAs without direct human supervision will be basic to the new systems, Jobe said.
(Excerpt) Read more at airandspaceforces.com ...
When I retired from the USAF, the hair-chested fighter pilot was still the golden god of the airmen.
This is a huge sea change, and the dawn of a new age. Not a remote controlled drone, but an aircraft flown by an AI. So many things to digest, good and bad...
Killing and destroying need to be under the direct control of a human lest it become too easy.
It really is too late to put this genie back in the bottle.
Why?
Because other countries, if and when they get this technology, will use it.
Like trying to keep nuclear weapons limited to those countries that already have them. This idea is as old as I am, the UN supports it, but yet every few years, another nation gets nuclear weapons.
It would have to be globally legislated. I just don’t see every nation agreeing.
It will be great unless it goes full HAL9000.
“I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that. – ...”
Naval surface combatants are obsolete floating coffins. AI and rapidly evolving drone technology is changing the nature of warfare. Armored land vehicles and even aircraft of all sorts also have little chance of survival against technologically sophisticated opponents. The winner of future battles and wars will be the side that can neutralize or shoot down their opponents drones.
This is correct.
We can’t stop it, either.
What we can do is plan on how to defend from these things. Now.
Reagan wasn’t wrong about the Strategic Defense Initiative, jokingly (on purpose) called “Star Wars” by the media. MAD was keeping us from war, but what a hair trigger that was and IS!
We need a defense beyond launching everything we have before it is all destroyed in 30 minutes.
Hopefully it won’t go the direction of skynet either.
Correspondent: General, we’re told of wonder weapons the Germans were working on: Long-range rockets, push-button bombing weapons that don’t need soldiers. What’s your take on that?
Patton: “Wonder weapons?” My God, I don’t see the wonder in them. Killing without heroics. Nothing is glorified? Nothing is reaffirmed? No heroes, no cowards, no troops, no generals. Only those who are left alive and those who are left... dead. I won’t live to see it.
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