While these very high tech birds are impressive and important in their own right, I suspect that the future of air war will be on the other side of the equation of quality vs. quantity.
Imagine a really cheap UAV, that, along with its engine, fuel tank, simple wire guidance from a simple shielded computer, and 1000lb bomb, is about as expensive as an economy car, say $30,000 each, mass produced.
For the cost of a single B-2 Stealth Bomber, about $750m, you could build 30,000 of these simple drones.
Who could shoot down an air armada of 300 aircraft, much less 3,000? 30,000?
And if you equipped just a few dozen with reasonably good air to air missiles, you could likely get air superiority as well.
The use of the things is simple: Just fill their tank, insert a modular computer brain into them, arm their weapons system, and launch.
“fully autonomous”??
fully?
You mean it decides when and who to attack all by itself? It could just decide one night to go and bomb Scotland, just ‘cuz?
“Who could shoot down an air armada of 300 aircraft, much less 3,000? 30,000?”
Stalin: “quantity has a quality all its own.”