At 11/26/08 08:29 AM, LazyDrunk wrote:
People are an invaluable asset, no doubt, dredd.
No doubt. The 911 attack was significant because they were commercial airlines with passengers, and the authority to shoot down a passenger plane wasn't forthcoming. Somewhere in the chain of command there was a critical delay in making such a ghastly decision. This goes to show how much the value of people fluctuates greatly under very extreme circumstances.
Technology will always exist, if the argument you're trying to make is that I believe unmanned drones are the apex of technologically-inspired weapons of war.
Also, you believe the US military hasn't explored the possiblities of RC weapons?
Oh sure, a manned heli might even fly with a swarm of RC helis and function as a hive defending the "queen" once deployed, but they would still need complicated re-docking capability, or else have to be primed with relatively certain self-destuct mechanism. More simply, a jamming technology could stop an enemy's RC signal, and so on and so forth. So i don't doubt America will continue to lead in this field. I'm just saying that the continued trend in recent wars in particular is towards small remote unmanned devices (IEDs for example) or cheap opportunistic attacks (ok, suicide bombers are "manned" but it's still a "cheap" substitute smartbomb), and drones are just an example of this trend on the American side also.
But as always, geo-location, transportation, and supply-chain costs are more significant factors, compared to those of the poorer defending forces. The same is true in every war. But America's air superiority will be ultimately be un-done by a low-tech solution of some sort. Who knows, maybe something more like a laser weapon. Anyway price is a critical factor in unmanned warfare in particular. The smaller and cheaper the systems become, then the greater possiblility that the tech will able to be replicated or reused. A motor, a battery, a schematic off the net, a gyro. Simply put, it's not rocket science.