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A group of 5 to 10 of these things would completely control the battlefield like no weapon before it. Being un-manned they could go lower and slower than you'ld go with a manned craft therefore being more accurate in their targeting.
The lower cost would let you have several aircraft supporting each
other so if somebody shot at one drone, 5 others would open fire on that position.
The M230, the gun that's mounted on the AH-64 Apache is only 120 pounds. Add a couple of hundred more for ammo and a drone with the lift capacity of a small Cessna would do just fine.
With the addition of a couple of Hellfire missiles this would be an unstoppable weapon system.
Time to let robots and un-manned vehicles do the fighting.
M230
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M230
Noisy but nice [8th of 7, Aug 09 2014]
Pick your weapon
http://www.armada.c...apons-killer-drone/
No shortage of ground attack weapons. [MechE, Aug 09 2014]
Watch from 18:00 on.
https://www.youtube...watch?v=juUJdzFFORs
You gonna do this with missiles? [doctorremulac3, Aug 11 2014]
A10 Run
https://www.youtube...watch?v=D0PgPK67jwc
[bs0u0155, Aug 11 2014]
Guided Bullets
http://www.darpa.mi...es/2014/07/10a.aspx
[bs0u0155, Aug 11 2014]
The SABER small air bomb extended range (SABER) from MBDA
http://defense-upda...d.html#.U-oqzBZDExI
[doctorremulac3, Aug 12 2014]
Lockheed's Shadow Hawk
http://defense-upda...dow_hawk_weapon.jpg
[doctorremulac3, Aug 12 2014]
Raytheon Pyros
http://www.raytheon...sset/rtn_191810.jpg
[doctorremulac3, Aug 12 2014]
81MM Air Dropped Mortar
http://www.gd-ots.com/81mm_ADM.html
[doctorremulac3, Aug 12 2014]
30 mm cannon ammo
http://www.army.mod...ry_03_502x335-1.jpg
[doctorremulac3, Aug 12 2014]
Minigun and ammo
http://www.epicycle...images/minigun2.jpg
[doctorremulac3, Aug 12 2014]
Rough mockup
https://www.dropbox...20UAV%20Gunship.png
Gave it a catchy name too. [doctorremulac3, Aug 12 2014]
I'll have to kill you
https://www.youtube...zCAOUlF-nAg&t=2m50s
Stupid Zvika Kalron trying to impress Simon Ostrowski [pashute, Aug 14 2014]
Sharlene - the Russian drone
https://www.youtube...watch?v=SNPJMk2fgJU
[pashute, Aug 14 2014]
I got some good stuff here!
https://www.youtube...watch?v=NFQ2x-CeA2E
[pashute, Aug 14 2014]
Jet powered drone
http://en.wikipedia...an_RQ-4_Global_Hawk
[doctorremulac3, Aug 15 2014]
Jet powered drone
http://en.wikipedia...ral_Atomics_Avenger
[doctorremulac3, Aug 15 2014]
Jet powered drone
http://en.wikipedia...tin_RQ-170_Sentinel
[doctorremulac3, Aug 15 2014]
Jet powered drone
http://en.wikipedia.../wiki/MBLE_Épervier
[doctorremulac3, Aug 15 2014]
Jet powered drone
http://en.wikipedia...iki/Dassault_nEUROn
[doctorremulac3, Aug 15 2014]
Etc..
http://en.wikipedia...iki/Lavochkin_La-17
[doctorremulac3, Aug 15 2014]
...etc...
http://en.wikipedia...i/Novel_Air_Concept
[doctorremulac3, Aug 15 2014]
...etc.
http://en.wikipedia.../wiki/Lockheed_D-21
[doctorremulac3, Aug 15 2014]
Paintball sentry robot
http://projectsentr...ii-paintball-turret
Killbots exist. [bungston, Oct 04 2014]
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So the entire idea is to put a cannon on UAVs? Since
the Predator series already carry hellfire and smaller
missiles, and are being used in a close air support
role. |
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Right, that's the idea in its entirety. |
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//the Predator series already carry hellfire and
smaller missiles// |
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Which would be appropriate criticism if I said "Missile
equipped Close Air Support Drone" |
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Our current close air support vehicles, the A10 and
Apache carry automatic cannon for a very good
reason. Seems like our drones should too. |
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The point is they are already filling that role with
their current weapons mix. Therefore, it comes
down to whether no one has thought of mounting
a cannon, it is impractical to do so, or there is no
advantage in doing so. |
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While it hasn't been tested (to the best of my
knowledge) there doesn't seem to be a reason you
couldn't mount a GPU-2/A gun pod on a MQ-9
Reaper, it certainly has the load capacity and the
hard points. The fact it isn't being done suggests
that it's not worth the effort. |
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So ask any A-10 or Apache pilot why they need an
automatic cannon when they already have missiles.
No difference, manned or unmanned, the job is the
same. The same job should have the same tools. |
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You have 20 combatants spread out around the
battlefield. You gonna shoot a Hellfire at each guy? |
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That was the first idea. Mech really hated that one. |
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//The M230, the gun that's mounted on the AH-64 Apache is only 120
pounds. Add a couple of hundred more for ammo and a drone with the
lift capacity of a small Cessna would do just fine. // |
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... except for the recoil. |
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The rearward forces are considerable. A-10's lose a significant
amount of airspeed when they fire their cannon. If your proposed
drone is already flying "low and slow", that means a big wing area,
which in turn means "Large Slow Target". |
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The relative invulnerability of drones is conferred by (amongst other
factors) presenting a combination of relatively small target area and
high speed. |
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When a missile detaches, there's very little thrust on the airframe, just
a change in drag and trim. Not so with firing a cannon. |
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Even the most sophisticated automated reloader
would have difficult to not get the black powder
blown away when reloading the 12 pounder in flight,
not to mention the wadding. Better off just to hire
a couple of pirates. |
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The M230's a 30mm, 625 rpm. |
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8th, totally true and a very legitimate point. |
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My solution is the recoil cancelling cannon. It's got
twice the
explosive and shoots out both ends. The front firing
mass is the round, the rear firing mass is water that
blows out the back as steam. |
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I'll post that idea later when I get a minute for its
well deserved flogging. For instance, those big clouds
of steam would make it easier
to see which is a drawback. |
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You could also just have a regular recoilless gun with
rocket propelled rounds. Or substitute sand instead
of water and make sure the back of the gun isn't
pointing at the drone. |
|
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//You have 20 combatants spread out around the
battlefield. You gonna shoot a Hellfire at each
guy?// |
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Again, not me. If there were an advantage to this,
it would be being done. I suspect the issue is
target discrimination. Alternatively, drones are
relatively fragile (a trade-off for payload and low
cost and stealth), whereas the A-10 is deliberately
designed to shrug off absurd amounts of small
arms fire. |
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And no, you aren't going to shoot a hellfire at each
one, you're going to drop down to a griffin, a
a hydra (well APKWS, the updated guided version),
or a viper strike, or a spike, or one of several
different guided small payload bombs.
That's very specifically what they are designed for. |
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So if you've got 20 combatants well spread out on the battlefield, you're suggesting shooting an individual missile at each man? |
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Let me ask you this. Why do they put guns on Apache helicopters? These things carry 4 racks of missiles, so what's the gun for? |
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Again, not me. There is absolutely no reason you
can't mount a GPU-2/A gun pod on a drone. It's
not being done. |
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And yes, if your munition costs $1000 each
(current unit price for the hydra, admittedly all of
the guided versions are a little higher), one rocket
for one enemy fighter is not unreasonable. You'd
probably run through that much in ammunition
from a mini-gun, let alone a cannon. Especially if
the drone can carry 4 pods of 17 of them (no clue
if they do, they highest count I've actually seen is
2 pods of 4). |
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I'm sorry if I was unclear on the question. |
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Why have a gun on a ground attack vehicle? |
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I'm not debating that there is advantage to having a
gun on manned ground attack aircraft. |
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My counter question is: The equipment exists to
mount a gun pod on a drone. If there is an
advantage to doing so, why is no one doing it? |
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As stated before several times, recoil. See proposed solution. (link) |
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An MQ-9 Reaper weighs about the same as a A-37
(essentially that armed cessna you mentioned)
which can mount the gun pod I've mentioned.
Recoil is not the issue. |
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Ground attack aircraft with cannon are heavily
armored against small arms fire. This means they
can fly low and slow to pick out targets. Drones
are lightly armored in order to maximize range,
payload, and stealth/low RCS. That means
someone with a rifle can take one out if it
ventures in range. |
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Manned aircraft are big, expensive, mission
limited, and spend much of their time cycling to
and from the airfield. That means that it's useful
to maximize their ability to hit random targets
while on station. Given their relative cost and
endurance, a dozen drones can be on station for
the same effort as a single manned aircraft, which
means the flexibility can be achieved through
variable munitions load-out, and cycling one back
once it's expended it's munitions is a tiny fraction
of the total on-duty cycle. |
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There's two very good reasons why you wouldn't
mount a gun on a drone. |
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The only advantage would be cost, except that, as
near as I can tell, there are munitions in
development or in service that still offer the
stand-off range, and don't cost any more than the
gun load-out for any of the cannons we're
discussing. |
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Point 1- Drones can't be designed with heavy armor = Wrong. |
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Point 2- //it's useful to maximize to (manned aircraft's) ability to hit random targets while on station.// Implying that it's somehow not useful to maximize a drone's ability to hit random targets while on station. Also that instead of having a single drone with a machine gun, you just have a bunch of drones with missiles. = Wrong |
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Then why isn't it done? I've made it pretty clear that
there is no actual technical limitation, and the
hardware to do it actually exists. And it's definitely
not that the concept hasn't been considered. |
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You still haven't actually pointed out an advantage
to a gun over a guided mortar bomb, or other low
cost munition. |
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I have, but you said that if you have 20, 50 or 100 guys well spread out on a battlefield, you should just shoot 20, 50 or 100 "low cost" guided missiles at them rather than using a machine gun. |
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So ok, write the defense department and let them know your theory. It's umm.. original, I'll give you that. |
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But you haven't clarified what the advantage of
that gun is, if, in order to hit a single target, it has
to put enough rounds down range that it does
more collateral damage, and costs more than a 3lb
warhead precision guided bomb, which is the
alternative I've pointed out. The the ammunition
for a single attack also weighs more than the
bomb, which means a lower total payload (or did
you miss the fact the A-10 can fire it's total
payload in 20 seconds). |
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Maybe, if we get to the point where a drone can
hit it's target with a single shot from what is
essentially a sniper rifle, you might
have a point, but as long as you're talking about
20-30mm high speed cannon, the advantage is
with precision guided explosives. |
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So a bullet does more collateral damage than a bomb? |
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No. If you need a machine gun, you use a machine gun.
They were extensively tested in WW1 and nobody has questioned their effectiveness since. Until now I guess. |
|
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Yes a hundred 30mm rounds spread 20 meters (and
20 meters CEP is optimistic at best for a light
aircraft
mounted weapon)
around the target do far more collateral damage
than a 3lb
warhead landing within a meter of the target. |
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Machine guns are good at putting a lot of metal
downrange quickly. They actually aren't all that
good at hitting a specific target. Aircraft strafing
tends to take the form of running a continuous
stream of fire across the target, not precision
shooting. In both cases, they're designed for
target rich environments, not single opponents. |
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Ok. Sounds like we need take all the machine guns away from our troops and replace them with "low cost" guided missiles. |
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Like I said, a very original concept. |
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In case you hadn't noticed, most of our troops did
have their "machine guns" taken away. There's a
reason why the primary issue version of the M-16
doesn't have a full auto mode, and hasn't since
Vietnam. |
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Hmm. My son carried a fully automatic machine gun in Iraq, guess they forgot to take his away. And even if a weapon only has a burst mode, it's still a machine gun. |
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By the way, how you gonna guide these "low cost" guided missiles towards these multiple targets? You've got 50 guys all 30 feet apart running across the battlefield. You need to hit them all in a few seconds. How does this work now? |
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Look, I know you're just arguing for the sake of arguing, (hey, nothing wrong with that, one of my favorite activities) but machine guns have their place, guided missiles have their place, bombs have their place. The trick is knowing where you use what. You don't replace machine guns with bombs. |
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A machine gun on a close air support drone would be very useful. |
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Ok, I'll let you have the last word, gotta go. |
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I was reading about antiaircraft guns in the context of the Malaysian passenge jet being shot down. Flak was used in WWII until bombers started flying too high to hit. My guess is that cities and other large fixed targets could have antiaircraft cannon ready to go. |
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Flak would be great against a helicopter. I presume that on a shifting battlefield it is hard to have a suitable cannon handy when you need it. I think an RPG is just a shrapnel grenade. I read that RPGs took down a helicopter in Somalia and I think this was true vs the Soviets in Afghanistan. Flak would be even better against a low flying ground assault drone. If I were arming infantry men against such drones I would give them more RPGs. |
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Or a shotgun. Shotguns are great vs low, fast, fragile targets. I wonder if there could be a military version of a shotgun for attack drones? An RPG affects a sphere somewhere in the air, but a shotgun produces a cone starting with the shooter. |
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Another thought on guns vs missiles on a close air
support aircraft. Attack profile. When you're
patrolling with missiles and you see a target, you
need to substantially aim the aircraft at the target.
With a
pivoting gun you just aim and shoot. You can fly along
a row of targets, say a convoy and attack as you fly
along the line. You can also shoot at a target that's
behind you after you pass over it. You can shoot at a
target that just pops up to your side as you fly by. |
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You have one attack profile with a missile, head on.
With a gun you have 360 degrees covered at all
times. |
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With a helicopter door mount, you have more
coverage. With an airplane axis mount or even with
the gun pods, you've still only got head on. Most
precision guided munitions, on the other hand, have
at least a significant off-axis capability. |
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And I'm not arguing for the sake of arguing. You
seem to have this belief that aircraft mounted auto-
cannon are precision weapons. They simply aren't. |
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//With an airplane axis mount or even with the gun
pods, you've still only got head on.// |
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Well, maybe that's the problem, you don't understand
what I'm suggesting. |
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Slung under the drone, a ball turret style mounting
with 360 degree
coverage, not guns facing head on. One pilot flying
the
thing and a gunner manning the turret. |
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Look at the mini gun attacks in the posted video.
How are you going to attack these targets at this
close range from these angles and with this reaction
time with missiles? |
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//You seem to have this belief that aircraft mounted
auto- cannon are precision weapons. They simply
aren't.// |
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In the video, each and every target flown over
absolutely annihilated with a total aim and fire time
of a split second before the next target comes into
range and is similarly destroyed. |
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Only a misunderstanding of what I'm proposing could
explain your posts so let me clarify: when I say
"cannon" I don't mean the kind on old sailing ships
that shoot cannon balls. Hope we're on the same
page now. |
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// There's a reason why the primary issue
version of the M-16 doesn't have a full auto
mode, and hasn't since Vietnam // |
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There's more than one reason, ammunition
expenditure being one of them. |
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Another is that the light alloy receiver heats
up really fast in full auto fire. Apart from
burning the user, if you loose a full mag from
an original M16, then change mags and fire
most of the second one, there's a very good
chance (depending on who's ammunition you
favour) that the chambered round will cook
off. |
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Not such a problem with modern propellants,
but it still happens.. |
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There's a good reason that many SMGs fire
from an open bolt. |
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//You seem to have this belief that aircraft
mounted auto- cannon are precision weapons.
They simply aren't.// |
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They really really are. Missiles have to get there,
then they explode producing a rapidly expanding
sphere of heat, light, noise and sharp things. The
cannon gives you the option of organizing your
sharp things in a much more controlled way.
Better yet, you can meter out the rounds in a
manner proportional to the thing you're trying to
destroy. If you need a lot destructive power, take
a look at the A10 <link>. I love that from the
ground you see it all in reverse order: you see the
flashes, then you hear the rounds hitting, THEN
you hear them being fired. |
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With regard to this idea, would it not be simpler
to make an A10 into a drone, rather than making a
drone into a non-armored apache? There's over a
ton of titanium armor for the pilot in the A10, this
and all the other pilot related gubbins could be
removed. You could use the weight to add a bunch
of extra armor elsewhere. Give it a modern engine
upgrade, (there are plenty of 10,000lb thrust
business jet class engines now) throw on a couple
of winglets and a few production optimization
tweaks, and bam. Best CAS drone ever. |
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Ha! If you've got TONNES of spare weight, and you
want a tough aircraft, make lots of it out of steel.
Field repairs could be done with a MIG welder and
bits of old oil barrel. |
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Was that an intentional pun ? |
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Well, I was thinking about the mostly-steel MIG 25. |
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I know exactly what you are talking about. If you
are proposing a turret, then yes we are back to
recoil being a significant issue. There is a reason
why the A-10 is forward firing and fixed range. In
fact you will find the same design in (I believe
since the ball turrets were removed from the B-52)
all
modern fixed wing aircraft with guns. If anyone
knows of one with a turret, please feel free to
correct me. |
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And [bs0u0155] the A-10 will put 80% of its shots
into a 12m diameter circle, which moves forward
at a minimum of 138mph, or 62m/s. Therefore a
short (1 second) burst of 50-60 rounds will cover an
oblong over 12m wide and 62m long. That same
burst
will eat up 90 or so pounds of ammunition. (Of
course this ignores the fact that the A-10
ammunition is explosive shells or armor piercing
incendiary.) |
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The APKWS or the 88mm guided mortar bomb both
have a CEP somewhere around 1m from the laser
designator spot, and a lethal blast radius of maybe
5 meters (for a ground burst). So that single
munition will destroy it's target, and cover a much
smaller area. It also weighs about 18 lbs for the
APKWS, about 10 for the smallest bombs. |
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Again. If we get to the point where a drone can
hover over a battlefield and execute precision,
sniper like attacks, I'm right there with you. Until
that happens, the guns do not have the
advantage. |
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Bear in mind the psychological factors -
"shock and awe". |
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Sometimes, rather than killing the opponent,
it's more advantageous to send them
scuttling to the rear, with brown stains on
their trousers and crying for their mother. |
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In 1944, Hawker Typhoons destroyed
relatively few German armoured vehicles.
But many undamaged vehicles were
abandoned by their crews out of panic when
subjected to Typhoon attacks. The same was
true of infantry; there are numerous reports
of Germman infantry surrendering en masse
after their positions were attacked by rocket-
firing Typhoons. |
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Just the sight and sound of an A-10's "buzz-
saw", never mind seeing the on-target
effects, plus the knowledge that "there are
more of those bastard things up there
somewhere" is more effective in terms of the
effects than the actual damage. |
|
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Nebelwerfer are a good example. Allied
troops feared them, because even though
their effects were no worse that mortars or
artillery, the prolonged and unmistakeable
sound signature engendered fear and dismay.
The Russians did the same thing with
Katyushas. |
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Mech, wow, you're all over the place. Grasping at
straws I'm
afraid. |
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Modern "fixed wing" aircraft don't have turrets,
except for my proposal which is kind of the point. |
|
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Every attack helicopter has a gun turret on the front.
They swivel 180, not 360 because the gunner doesn't
swivel 360. Not a problem with a remote controlled
gun. |
|
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This drone wouldn't need precise sniper attacks. It
would blast the area with automatic cannon
destroying anything and everything it was aiming at. |
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So, your drone is a helicopter then? |
|
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And producing far more collateral damage. You do
realize that when they designed the A-10, they
had to mount the gun off-center so the firing
barrel was on center, because that few inches of
misalignment was enough to turn the aircraft. You
put a proportionally equally powerful (force to
weight) gun in a turret, and that thing will spray
shells all over the place. And yes, helicopters have
a mechanism to counter off-axis firing from their
nose turret. That's much harder to do with a fixed
wing aircraft, especially if you don't want to
induce a spin. |
|
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Please actually counter my point about the
relative accuracy of a burst from an A-10 vs a
precision guided bomb or micro missile. |
|
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//So, your drone is a helicopter then?// |
|
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Slow flying fixed wing with a 360 degree rotating
turret. |
|
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//A-10 vs a precision guided bomb or micro missile// |
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Fill it full of self-guided 30 mm rounds <link>. |
|
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[doc] See my above re recoil and aim. |
|
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And, given that you apparently are talking about
HE
shells, please, with regards to collateral damage,
please discuss the fact that a single burst will
deliver
just about as much explosive as several of the
smaller
options I have been describing, and that in doing
so
in 40-50 small packets rather than 1 slightly larger
one, you are inherently spreading it over a larger
area. |
|
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[bs0] Fine. As I said, if you can get it to 1 shot 1 kill,
I'm going to agree it's useful. I don't care if you use
precision gun guidance or guided weapons. But the
technology to do it with guided munitions exists
now. |
|
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As long as you're talking about an autocannon that's
designed to drop lots and lots of shells onto the
target, it's a higher collateral damage weapon than
the others I've been discussing. |
|
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You're right. But this is modern guidance making up
for the fact that explosives are messier than kinetic
energy. |
|
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//[doc] See my above re recoil and aim.// |
|
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Not for a turret mounted gun you haven't. An axis
mounted gun with your "recoiless" system would
throw the force of the recoil out the back. A turret
will throw it into the body of the aircraft a large
percentage of the time. |
|
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And to clarify on cost, the Air Force paid $26.04 per
shell for the GAU-8 avenger (in 2001). A 50 round
burst cost just about $1300, and it's probably gone up
since then. A Hydra rocket costs, as I mentioned
before, about $1000 (today's prices). The guided
versions do cost more, but the guided small bombs
cost less. So there is no cost savings in using the
cannon. |
|
| |
//An axis mounted gun with your "recoiless" system
would throw the force of the recoil out the back. A
turret will throw it into the body of the aircraft a
large percentage of the time.// |
|
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It would be mounted such that the counter charge
would not hit the plane obviously. It's outlet would be
on top. |
|
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//And to clarify on cost,// |
|
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Next you're going to say that the word "missiles" rolls
off the tongue more pleasantly than the word
"cannon". |
|
| |
//It would be mounted such that the counter
charge would not hit the plane obviously. It's
outlet would be on top.// |
|
| |
Work out the physics on that one for me please.
Pay special attention to the moment between the
shell and the ballast given the variable firing angle
of the two turrets. |
|
| |
//Next you're going to say that the word "missiles"
rolls off the tongue more pleasantly than the word
"cannon".// |
|
| |
I'd appreciate it if you would actually try to rebut
my points. At this point I have shown a standard
50 round burst from an aircraft cannon: |
|
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Costs more than a small precision guided bomb. |
|
| |
Delivers explosive over a larger area than said
bomb, resulting in more collateral damage. |
|
| |
Weighs more than said bomb (and that's even
ignoring your added ballast weight). |
|
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Puts the firing aircraft in a more exposed position
than said bomb. |
|
| |
Your have not actually countered any of these
points. |
|
| |
//precision guided bomb// |
|
| |
What's the probability that the mechanisms behind
precision guidance (IR laser/mm RADAR) will be
spoofable/detectable/directly targeted? |
|
| |
I think I've repeatedly addressed the difference
between machine guns/automatic cannons and "low
cost" guided bombs. |
|
| |
Really getting into comparing screwdrivers and
hammers here. |
|
| |
You boys go outside and play. Dinner is at seven, don't be late. |
|
| |
BUT MOOOOOMMM! MechE's dissing my totally
awesome design again! |
|
| |
Alllriiight. (shuffles dejectedly out the door
exchanging shoulder punches with Mech) |
|
| |
Spoofable, possibly. I would suggest, however,
that you're basically going to have the same
problem with whatever camera system your using
for targeting the cannon in the first place. The
mark 1 eyeball is hard to beat, but drones don't
exactly have one of those. |
|
| |
Detectable/Directly targeted, for laser only if the
detector happens to be directly on the target.
mm wave radar is probably a little easier, but even
there they'd have to get lucky. |
|
| |
// I think I've repeatedly addressed the
difference between machine guns/automatic
cannons and "low cost" guided bombs.// |
|
| |
Really, because I haven't seen it. You do realize
that a bomb is essentially a grenade with a
guidance system strapped to it, right? And while
it wouldn't be mil-spec, I could build that
guidance system for the cost of a low end digital
camera (as long as it had a real zoom capability,
need the motors). A lot less in lenses, offset by
the cost of the optical notch filter. |
|
| |
Add in the $4 cost of an M68 grenade, heck, I'll
even double it to $8 in order to get an
aerodynamic casing. We're still not talking about
a particularly expensive piece of ordnance. Buck
it up several times to get it to mil-spec, to cover
R&D, and to get the error down to 1m, and you're
still not breaking the bank. |
|
| |
//A lot less in lenses, offset by the cost of the optical
notch filter.// |
|
| |
And rather than just shooting 50 guys spread out on a
battlefield with a machine gun you'd shoot 50 guided
missiles at them right? |
|
| |
I've asked that like twenty times and you've changed
the subject to stuff like the cost of lading and
drayage of the various systems. |
|
| |
I'll take a stab for you. The answer is yes. No? |
|
| |
I think it would be interesting to do a drone with
*only* a rear-facing M230. |
|
| |
So it makes its approach, does the decision of
fire/no fire *after* getting a good view of the
target, then begins hosing the rear (typically less
armored) aspect (hey, guys, how good are you at
getting turned around quickly - and baring your
butts to the rest of the battlefield?) of the target
position, at the same time adding about 6000 lbs
thrust (approx. the same as a JATO bottle, albeit
short duration). |
|
| |
One downside is that the velocity of the
projectiles at the target would be lower than a
front-mount gun. |
|
| |
I wouldn't want to make it the only weapon
attacking the enemy position, but it would
certainly add a new and distracting dimension. |
|
| |
Erm, claymore mine on a very long piece of string? |
|
| |
Hey, guns and missiles, just like any other close air
support vehicle. |
|
| |
Yes, I would drop 50 separate weapons on them.
Missile or bomb as appropriate. You, on the other
hand would shoot 24 of them with 1200 separate
shells and then run out of
ammunition. |
|
| |
And where would you get these low cost "man seeking
missiles"? |
|
| |
My system carries 5,000 rounds. |
|
| |
Is there any reason a reasonably big drone can't have
a gyro stabilized .50 cal sniper rifle? Why use $5000
grenades for a $3 job? |
|
| |
Did you bother to look at the link I posted last
week? |
|
| |
Particularly, the MBDA Sabre, the Raytheon STM or
Pyros, Lockheed's Shadow Hawk, Alliant Technical's
guided 120mm mortar, or General Dynamics 88mm
Air Dropped mortar? |
|
| |
I've not been talking pie in the sky, these systems
have been developed for exactly the uses I've
been talking about. |
|
| |
And your loadout is why I've been emphasizing
weight. The A-10 carries 1300 rounds (about 20
seconds sustained fire, 90 lbs for a 1 sec burst).
The Apache can carry about to 1200 rounds (2
minutes sustained), but typically carries 300 in
favor of more fuel. |
|
| |
//Is there any reason a reasonably big drone can't
have a gyro stabilized .50 cal sniper rifle? Why use
$5000 grenades for a $3 job?// |
|
| |
That's the interesting possibility, I suspect there are
technical issues still to be worked out since no one
seems to think it is being done. |
|
| |
Or, more likely, administrative issues. |
|
| |
//I suspect there are technical issues still to be
worked out // |
|
| |
I have a little background in marksmanship and can
say that beyond a couple of hundred yards, a LOT of
things have to go right to hit things. Presumably the
guided bullets solve a lot of this though? |
|
| |
//Did you bother to look at the link I posted last
week?// |
|
| |
I've posted links of the various guided munitions
you referred to as well as the cannon and mini-gun
ammo you're
suggesting they replace. I left out the mortar with it's
massive recoil for obvious reasons. |
|
| |
They're all variants, more of less, of the $70,000 per
unit Hellfire missile system, a semi active laser
guided munition that requires the target be "painted"
from the aircraft for the duration of the missile's
flight. |
|
| |
Among other things, they're designed to be shot or
dropped from an aircraft that's substantially pointing
at the target. They are not designed be fired 360
degrees from the aircraft limiting it's ability to come
about and fire at a target that pops up to the side,
something that is bound to happen when you're down
close to the battlefield. I
couldn't find pricing but
to suggest that the SABER would cost/weight about
the same as the 3 or 4 cannon shells or mini-gun
rounds it would replace,
well, doesn't make much sense. |
|
| |
In the scenario of the 50 spread out troops you want
to shoot at, you'd have to paint the target, shoot the
missile, wait for it to hit then paint the next target,
fire the missile etc. Unless you develop a laser
targeting system that
paints and tracks 50 moving troops simultaneously
while the missiles finds them. Additionally, at
extreme close range, the
missiles would be useless needing time to get up to
speed and maneuver. |
|
| |
The alternative is just aiming and shooting your
30mm cannon or mini-gun. This is what makes the
most sense. They have missiles AND automatic guns
on close air support aircraft for a reason. |
|
| |
There's no reason a drone shouldn't be armed the
same as it's manned counterpart when they're
designed to do the same job. |
|
| |
The 50cal sniper rifle makes sense to me. I pulled up those fancy 50cal bullets on Wikipedia. You can fit all sorts of - gubbins? - in a 50cal bullet. |
|
| |
But if this were for shooting people running around maybe you would not even need that. My understanding is that 50cal was chosen for sniper rifles because of the ballistics - shooter is 1000m+ from target over a horizontal expanse. For a drone, why not use a 22cal bullet? More 22cal bullets will fit on board. A drone would be a lot closer than a sniper and some of the distance would be vertical. The drone could fly over / along fortifications. A hit would be less lethal but for fighting infantry that would be good. |
|
| |
Thinking about infantry again. Under what circumstances do soldiers still run around loose? If I were on foot I would rather take my chances with the drone than with the Kaiser's boys manning their artillery. |
|
| |
Hey, if you can quickly aim the gun at the target,
shoot and hit it, that's the point so I'm all for it. |
|
| |
Machine guns make hitting the target easier but if
you've got enough gyro stabilization and fancy target
tracking to lead the moving target as necessary to do
the 1 shot 1 kill thing, sure. |
|
| |
//Under what circumstances do soldiers still run
around loose?// |
|
| |
That brings up a good point. That's still the way wars
are brought to their terminal phase. Boots on the
ground. After all the air superiority, guided bombs
blowing up vehicles etc, it's the side that has troops
running the city that wins. (we can leave whether or
not the city was worth winning to another discussion) |
|
| |
If we have to fight psychotic murderous ideologies
that are going to engage us in wars of attrition, I say
we use unmanned, remote control fighting vehicles
wherever possible rather than sending our young
people out to get killed. |
|
| |
Who knows, it might take some of the appeal of
fighting away from the other side too. Where's the
glory in going out to get blown up by a drone? |
|
| |
Actually I was thinking three. I did a little mockup of
a
drone with 1 pivoting
central automatic cannon and 2 independently
pivoting mini gun pods. Remotely operated by a 4
man crew, 1 pilot and 3 gunners with 360 degrees of
coverage. Kind of a modern flying fortress deal. |
|
| |
Excuse the crappy mockup, just spend about 5
minutes on it. (link) |
|
| |
Anyway, if a flight if ten or so of these were coming
towards you you'd be very unwise to to do anything
other than hide or surrender. You could try shooting
at one of them if you're anxious to get killed but that
would be about the only reason to take these things
on. |
|
| |
I'd also supplement these with very small spotter only
drones that would be almost impossible to hit. They'd
also have laser illumination ability. First come the
almost impossible to hit spotter drones, they relay
target map info and
designate targets for the laser guided missiles that
get fired, then the gunship drones sweep in. |
|
| |
This system would own the battlefield. It's mere
existence would deter aggression. |
|
| |
None of them are anything resembling a hellfire. A few of
the ones I didn't specifically mentioned are variants of the
hydra, which is essentially a backyard model rocket with a
few pounds of explosives on the end. All of the ones I
specifically mentioned are bombs. No propulsion, gps or
inertial guidance with laser terminal guidance. That means
the designator can be moved point to point quickly. |
|
| |
Also, one of my main points is that you don't want the
drone down close to the battle field, where a lucky thrown
rock could bring it down. |
|
| |
And you seem to be counting one bomb against one shell,
rather than the 50 or so theses cannons actually fire in a
burst. |
|
| |
They're all laser guided munitions like the Hellfire. |
|
| |
You have to fire or drop the munition painting the
target the whole time while you wait for it to
hit then fire or drop the next one. |
|
| |
Or you could just shoot all 50 targets in about the
time it would take you to hit about 5 to 6 by
individually dropping bombs on them. |
|
| |
And please don't suggest that any one of these are
cheaper and lighter than
a couple of bullets from a mini-gun. |
|
| |
//a lucky thrown rock could bring it down.// |
|
| |
Ok. I think we're done here yes? |
|
| |
Yes, they're laser guided, but that's like saying a Mini
Cooper is the same as an M1 Abrams because they both
have a steering wheel. |
|
| |
A hellfire is laser guided all the way. Most of these are
terminal laser guidance only. A hellfire has a propulsion
system, most of these don't. |
|
| |
The Hydra rocket costs $1000, the APKWS guided version
runs about 5k and that's still a more sophisticated guidance
system than most of these bombs require. |
|
| |
And a lucky thrown rock, small arms fire, whatever. |
|
| |
//Ok. I think we're done here yes?// |
|
| |
Time to wrap this up Mech. |
|
| |
I have to declare this one in Mech's favor. |
|
| |
Which part, the shooting $79,000 guided missiles at people instead of using a couple of bullets from a machine gun? |
|
| |
You get to vote, not declare, and sorry, the buns have it. |
|
| |
How many times do I have to point out that I am not,
and never have been talking about a $79,000 dollar
missile. At most, the munition's I'm talking about are
in the $10,000 range. |
|
| |
You, on the other hand keep talking about 1-2 shells,
not the 50 round minimum burst that these cannons
fire, and need to fire in order to be certain of hitting
the target. |
|
| |
OK, now I understand why you guys didn't like my
floating safe haven idea. |
|
| |
I'll have to find that scene from 'falling down'. |
|
| |
The part where the basically disinterested third party decides for himself who has done the better job covering all the bases for their case. |
|
| |
Ok, I'll mark you down as thinking it's a good idea to replace fifty bucks worth of bullets with ten thousand dollars worth of guided ordinance to do the same job much less effectively. |
|
| |
$1300 bucks of "bullets". And more weight per
target. And that assumes you work out the off axis
firing issues, which you haven't yet. |
|
| |
How come manned aircraft don't have "off axis firing issues"? |
|
| |
Depends upon the weapon/aircraft ratio. With the
A10 they had to go on-axis with the cannon, and put
the nosewheel off to one side. |
|
| |
The only way you could mound that thing in a turret
would be on a ship. |
|
| |
Yea, but that's a very big gun. I never suggested that. The original post suggests putting the M230 on a drone. |
|
| |
//While it hasn't been tested (to the best of my knowledge) there doesn't seem to be a reason you couldn't mount a GPU-2/A gun pod on a MQ-9 Reaper, it certainly has the load capacity and the hard points.// |
|
| |
Which was the last post of his that I agreed with, unless he was stating that only a forward firing gun pod would work in which case I disagree. |
|
| |
Obviously it would have to be the right size for the aircraft. |
|
| |
The gun pod doesn't fire off axis, it's fixed. |
|
| |
And, again, I ask you to find me one modern fixed
wing aircraft with guns that fire off axis. It's
correctable with helicopters because they're
already
dynamically balanced between the rotor forces
and
the tail forces. And even then, part of the reason
the M230 has a much lower firing rate, a much
lower muzzle velocity, and a much, much lower
effective range is to make it so the gun doesn't
spin the aircraft. Knock it down further for a
drone helicopter and you're not going to have
much luck hitting anything at any distance. |
|
| |
So this is how the cycle works: |
|
| |
1- I point out that it's possible to have a recoilless gun. |
|
| |
2- You change the subject and say it's too expensive. |
|
| |
3- I say bullets and cannon shells are cheaper than laser guided bombs. |
|
| |
4- You say there's too much recoil. |
|
| |
And how many times do you want to do this? |
|
| |
Oh, and as an aside, my pricing was based on the A-
10's avenger cannon. While it's hard to find exact
pricing for the shell for the M230, the best I can find
suggests it's more like $113 per shell (makes sense,
the shells are machined aluminum, not drawn brass in
order to save weight), which just bumped your cost
per burst up to $5650. |
|
| |
No. You say it is possible to have a recoiless gun.
I point out that any recoiless gun design needs to
be able to throw material out the back on the
exact same axis, and that is not possible in a
turret mount. You counter with something about
what are essentially opposed turrets, and I point
out that that induces one heck of a moment on
the aircraft unless they are firing in line, which
they won't be 99.99% of the time. You then ignore
that point. |
|
| |
I then point out that the accuracy of guided
bombs is significantly greater than that of aircraft
mounted cannon, and you ignore that point. |
|
| |
Then I point out that the cost per burst for one of
the cannon that you are proposing is comparable
to the cost of one of the newer precision guided
bombs (possibly slightly less expensive, but see
above re accuracy). And also that the weight of a
burst of ammunition is significantly higher than
the weight of one of these small bombs. You then
ignore both of these points. |
|
| |
The biggest problem, is that if you put a cannon on a
Reaper, it will have to fly within cannon range of the
target. The target might be a cannon, it might shoot
you back, and the Reaper is not armored. |
|
| |
The A10 IS armored. It's gun is very big with good
range. It's also fast and maneuverable enough to
dictate the engagement with ground troops. |
|
| |
I liked reading the debate, but I don't really think
the idea is original enough. The poster didn't
invent the M230, the UAV, or a new way of using
them. The debate between guns and bombs is
interesting, but I don't think it comes down to a
question of one or the other. The UAV guided
bomb argument wins in my opinion because it
exists in use, can be used against armored targets,
can attack without stopping, is more demoralizing
because there's no fighting back, not as visual or
audible as machine gun fire, destroys cover, kills
entirely and immediately without the suffering of
removing arms and legs, doesn't require
coordinated attacks, effective against installations
and convoys and personnel, etc. |
|
| |
Plus they come in fourteen different colors, so you can get them to match your flag. |
|
| |
Mech, I have no idea what you're talking about with opposed turrets firing out of line etc. You obviously haven't looked at the picture. |
|
| |
There's a set of 3 ball turrets, the top of which protrude from the top of the plane, the bottom from the bottom. The bottom has the gun, the top the outlet for the reaction material. |
|
| |
Now take a deep breath. Do you understand that? Don't get excited and start talking about the cost of shipping, drayage, port fees, dealer markup, tax, licence and restocking fee. One step at a time. Do you understand that? |
|
| |
First of all, from an aerodynamic and structural
standpoint, no, but we'll leave that for a moment. |
|
| |
When a gun is firing roughly backwards, where
does the exhaust go? If this is prop driven, how
much of it impacts and erodes the propeller? If it
is jet engine driven, how much of it is sucked into
the engine? In fact, in general, how much of the
time is a portion of the aircraft in direct line of
the exhaust? Please remember to include the fact
that wings aren't actually flat plates, and
therefore your turrets have a much larger
percentage of their ball embedded in the wings
and body. |
|
| |
The jet intakes are forward of the gun exhaust which
could be steam as one of the counterweights I've
suggested is water that's used to cool the gun before
being blown out as counter ballast. |
|
| |
But see what you're doing? You won't answer one
question because you get clobbered so you dodge it
by bringing up another, as if a large quantity of
invalid arguments will some how equal one good one. |
|
| |
If any of your criticisms were valid you'd just lay it
down, it would stand on its own and you'd achieve...
whatever it is you're hoping to achieve. Then you'd
lay another one down, they'd all add up. But you
change the subject every time I try to pin you down. |
|
| |
So, I'll try again. Do you understand that the guns
have
a counter recoil feature? I ask because you
repeatedly allude to recoil as being a problem no
matter how many times I suggest this solution. |
|
| |
So yes or no. We can discuss whether they chip the
paint
or not later. Do you understand that these guns have
recoil canceling ports opposite the line of fire? We
won't go forward until this is resolved so don't try to
wiggle out of it. Yes or no. Recoil cancellation. |
|
| |
//First of all, from an aerodynamic and structural standpoint, no, but we'll leave that for a moment// |
|
| |
I think this is the bigger issue. |
|
| |
I understand that you are claiming it is possible for
the guns to have a counter re-coil feature. I am
then
pointing out all of the problems with the use of
that
design in an aircraft as you propose. Please try to
keep up. |
|
| |
And it doesn't matter if the recoil mass is steam or
something else. Sucking a big puff of anything
that is not oxygenated air into a jet engine is not
good for maintaining a working engine. |
|
| |
And it's worse for the propellers that every drone
in existence actually has. |
|
| |
Please try to keep up, I know it's difficult for you. |
|
| |
The jet inlets, as clearly stated before, are forward
of any exhaust from the guns. |
|
| |
So, I'll try one last time then I'm done. |
|
| |
Recoil issue: solved or not? |
|
| |
Which you won't answer so instead see link showing
the many, many, many jet powered drones that
you didn't know exist. |
|
| |
//And it's worse for the propellers that every drone
in existence actually has.// |
|
| |
Surprising that a self professed
expert on drone design wouldn't know about these. |
|
| |
If you're throwing a bullet backward, you're
throwing your recoil material forward at the same
velocity relative to the aircraft. No matter how
quickly it disperses, it's still going to go past the
nose of the aircraft, and be picked up by the intakes. |
|
| |
Oh, and those jet powered drones? All either
developmental, or high altitude surveillance. I'll
admit, I'd missed that the PredatorC/Avenger was
a pure jet. Guess what, it doesn't matter. Either
way, a load of steam and burned explosive
entering the intakes is not going to be good for it. |
|
| |
Ok, I won't say that the inlets are placed forward the
exhaust from the guns a 3rd time, you're clinging to
your straw man argument and then trying got change
the subject again and even trying to put propellors on
my attack drone so you can critique them. |
|
| |
Whoops, now you're going back and changing previous
posts to remove wrong statements, a clear violation
of the rules of debate. |
|
| |
Here's a suggestion (assuming it is legal for you to
do so). Acquire a small pistol. Mount it in firing
mount (see any episode of mythbusters for what I
mean). Load it with (full load) blanks. Put a piece
of sheet metal at an angle a few inches in front of
it. Fire it a few times. Tell me what shape the
metal is in. |
|
| |
Here's a hint. The force coming out of the barrel
is the same, whether or not there is a projectile
involved, the only thing that changes is the
dispersion rate, and given a 30mm cannon, a few
feet is not going to be enough to disperse. |
|
| |
And I will say for a third time, that it is not
possible
to mount the turrets such that the exhaust will
not
reach the front of the aircraft. Physics is a thing. |
|
| |
And I admitted I was wrong about the jet, so no
we
don't have to discuss propellers. We might want
to
discuss the fan blades inside the jet in the same
terms, however. |
|
| |
And yes, I did remove a few statements that
weren't relevant to the discussion. |
|
| |
I can put the inlets 20 feet in front of the thing if I
wanted but it's not necessary for among other
reasons, I could just put them underneath the plane
if it was an issue, which it isn't. I'm
sure YOU couldn't
design an aircraft that
would overcome any issues, so tell you what. We'll
compromise and agree on that. |
|
| |
But I'm going out and getting some fresh air, sunshine
and exercise. You should do the same. |
|
| |
I'll say thank you for a spirited debate. It had its
interesting moments. |
|
| |
I'll let you have the closing argument and I swear to
almighty Thrall, that I will not respond, (unless it's an
insult). You have the floor for the final wrap up. |
|
| |
If you mount the intakes under, then it's the gun
exhaust when the cannon is firing forwards. By
having significant loads of cannon exhaust above
and below the aircraft, in many different axes,
you've trapped yourself in a situation where it will
sometimes get into the engines. Now that I think
about it, it's also going to do nasty things to the
airflow over the wings. |
|
| |
Given the structural and clearance requirements,
your concept might, just might, be possible in a
single cannon mounted in the body, towards the
tail of the aircraft, if you limit yourself to about a
60 degree traverse (both axes). I won't even
swear to that,
because it's going to do interesting things to the
aerodynamics at the tail, but let's say that can be
dealt with. |
|
| |
So you now have your recoiless cannon. It can't
have the sort of aiming flexibility you want, but it
is what it is. Given that it's based on the M230,
but
the shells weigh twice as much and are twice as
expensive, can we discuss payload and cost? |
|
| |
No, but you can put your thoughts in your closing
statement. Take your time, make it as long as you
want. The floor is yours. I'm declaring this your
"rebuttal free safe free speech zone". (standard rules
of curtesy still apply of course) Let 'er rip. THEN GO
OUT AND DO SOMETHING FUN! (Unless you're at work,
in which case you might want to get back to work.) |
|
| |
I've already said it before. The cost for a 50 round
burst (the recommended burst size for aircraft
currently using it) of basic M230 shells is about
$6000. Once you
add in the fact that in your recoiless system
essentially requires a double shell, figure it's about
around $10,000. You can lower this cost
significantly by moving away from the costly
light weight shells, but see the section on
payload. |
|
| |
While it is hard to find exact pricing on the newer
small guided munitions, the 120mm Roll Control
Guided Mortar (which is suitable for use as an air-
dropped bomb) is also about $10,000. Several
smaller, lower cost alternatives exist, but I don't
have exact pricing on them. Any way you slice it,
however, the costs are at best competitive, and
more likely favor the guided munitions. |
|
| |
The weight of 50 M789 shells for the M230 is 38.5
lbs (those cheaper shells I mentioned above would
be about 90lbs). I'll be generous and figure your
recoiless
system only increases that by half, so 57 lbs. The
weight of one of the 120mm mortar is under 30lbs,
and some of the smaller bombs are in the 10-20lb
range, so the aircraft will be able to carry many
more of them. |
|
| |
And aircraft mounted guns are less accurate than
the precision guided munitions (8-10m for the
M230 on the Apache, vs 1-2m for the bombs) ,
which means you
are spraying roughly the same amount of explosive
over a much larger area, resulting in more collateral
damage. |
|
| |
In summary, the cannon is less capable, more
expensive, and can engage fewer targets with
more collateral damage. To do so, it has to fly
much closer to the action, putting the drone at
significant risk of damage due to small arms fire,
let alone anti-aircraft fire. The one countervailing
advantage is that it might be slightly faster to
engage multiple independent targets. |
|
| |
Concise and clear. Thank you for your input Mech. |
|
| |
Lawn-darts with shaped-charge nosecones. |
|
| |
No no. Lawn darts are far too dangerous to sell. An AR-15 however... |
|
| |
// The one countervailing advantage is that it might
be slightly faster to engage multiple independent
targets. // |
|
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It seems to me that it could be possible with guided
munitions to launch many so that they all hit their
target at the same time so that none of the targets
gets any advance warning. A canon may switch
targets rapidly, but it is still sequential. |
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//A canon may switch targets rapidly, but it is still
sequential// |
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There are guided bullets/cannon shells now. you
could time it so that the furthest target receives the
first, the closest the last. |
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The two issues are terminal guidance and cost.
Most guided munitions use laser terminal
guidance, which means that the laser must be on
the target immediately before and during impact. |
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With regards to cost, most of the really cheap
things I'm discussing are bombs with guidance, but
no propulsion or real glide capability. You drop it,
they steer, they hit the target, but the timing is
going to be pretty constant. If you want it to be
able to control it's rate of descent, you're going to
have to pay a bit more. |
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Optimum is straight down of course. |
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All sorts of tactical advantages, including forcing a non-targeted enemy to shoot upwards, a targeted enemy to shoot directly upwards, where cartoon physics can come into play. |
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Thinking of those Amazon drones of course: if you actually want a wotsis, A-10 cannon, in play you need something for it to wear; something large and tough so you don't end up just giving the enemy $300k autocannons; something like an A-10. |
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//Optimum is straight down of course.// |
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If your target happens to be not only conveniently
under you, but in the available drop vector of your
bomb. With a bomb you have to fly
over the target, with a gun you don't. You can shoot
far out in front of the aircraft, to the sides and even
backwards and your attack is instantaneous. You're on
patrol and you see a target 500 yards to your left,
with a bomb you turn the aircraft, fly towards it and
drop when you're in the right position possibly being
shot at the whole time. With a gun you
aim and shoot. |
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Guided bombs also take time to drop and hit their
target. In the time it takes for one bomb to drop,
several targets can be hit with a gun. Assuming all
these targets are shooting back at you hitting those
targets quickly is beneficial. If I'm eye to eye with an
enemy shooting at me, I'd be
more comfortable having him in the sights of a gun
that's currently shooting back at them than having
them in the sights
of a laser illumination device that's steering a bomb
to hit them in "5, 4, 3, 2, 1" seconds. If the enemy
has an automatic cannon, that's gonna be the longest
5 seconds of my life, and possibly the last. |
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Bombs are also pretty useless in a city street fighting
situation where for instance, your bomb would have
to drop straight down to hit a target on a narrow
street or alley lest it hit the buildings on either side,
unless
you're trying to blow the building up. Talk about
collateral damage. With a
gun you just get into the line of
sight with the target from several blocks away and
pull the trigger. In this situation you can also use
buildings for your cover by flying by the target and
shooting before disappearing behind a building
between you and your target. |
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The best system to use is the one they use now, guns
and missiles in combination to hit the targets with
the best weapon for the particular situation. Missiles
for hard or clustered targets, guns for soft and/or
spread out targets or targets to the side of the
aircraft. |
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Now if there were a system where twenty targets
could be illuminated at once and twenty bombs could
be dropped simultaneously that might be useful, but I
don't think anybody's suggested that. I wouldn't have
a problem with one drone having a couple of dozen
bomb aimers each being assigned and illuminating
their target. That's something you could do with a
drone that you couldn't do with a manned plane.
Twenty bombarders, or more. |
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As long as it had it's targetable cannon as well. |
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I keep thinking "repurposed lawn darts" |
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$100 quadcopter from ebay. replace camera with hand
grenade? |
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It seems to me that a drone, whether remotely-piloted or automatic, is
seeing with mechanical eyes, even if that includes cameras and
video screens for a human. A guided missile also uses some sort of
mechanical/electronic sensing system. |
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A gun, on the other hand, is almost always guided by human eyes
directly. There may be electronic aim points, or magnification lenses
of various sorts, but the eye is not looking at a screen, and the gun is
seldom self-aiming. |
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So I say that this gun idea requires a lot of development of the
sighting system. A missile-launcher on such a drone is bog-standard,
practically speaking, while a gun is very much a new thing. And, as is
my wont, I want some method. |
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The recoilless idea is interesting, but it adds to the ammo weight
something fierce. Unless your countermass is going away as fast as
your bullet, it needs to weigh more. And if you are talking about
having a separate device entirely to fire the recoil, it had better never
malfunction. |
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I would try for making smaller and smaller guided missiles, to get
them to where using them on individual people is worthwhile. Or just,
you know, find a peaceful solution. |
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The problem is that in the end all these smart weapons land
in the hands of terrorists and dictatorships. Next, you are
defined as having committed crimes against humanity, even
before you shot anything. And finally your own army is
ordered to dismantle for legal and financial reasons. |
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Unfortunately that's going to happen with any new
weapon. The only reason that civilization marches
forward instead of being taken over by violent
barbarians using new weaponry is because, usually,
for the most part, with many glaring exceptions
through history, the people who make the best
weapons are a little bit smarter, and smarter people
usually tend to see the value in peace and order. |
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Case in point, these ISIS assholes would do anything
to get a nuclear weapon, and who knows, someday
they might, but it won't be because they build it
themselves, quite simply because they're too stupid.
That doesn't mean they can't do a lot of damage, but
they'll never take over the world because AK-47s and
throat cutting knives don't work too well against a
twenty megaton warhead coming down at 15,000
miles per hour. |
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It's very important the realize that these people are
alive because civilized people have elected to leave
them alive. They could be exterminated by dialing in
a few coordinates, pushing a few buttons and turning
some keys. But civilization doesn't feel threatened
enough at this point to get as ugly as it's capable of
getting. |
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By the way, I don't think anybody disagrees that the
kill decision needs to always be made by a human
and autonomous killing machines need to be banned
under international law (for whatever that's worth).
Auto targeting, fine. But there needs to be that "Do
you want this person blown up? YES - NO" message on
the control panel. |
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Problem is, the effectiveness of autokillbots will be
hard to resist for those bent on genocide. Just set
and forget. I'm afraid that the only reason other
nasty weapons such as poison gas have been banned
is because they're really not that good at killing
compared to good old explosives. You can't put on a
gas mask to protect yourself from a 500 pound bomb.
You can try a little parasol like Wily E Coyote but
they don't work very well. |
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I was thinking about how I would take on cannon
drones in my city. The small size and lack of
redundant metal / cabin space means that a hit
would be even more likely to cripple than is the
case for a manned aircraft. And as opposed to
those 2 mile high bomb droppers, these are down
where you can shoot them. But you really do not
want to be in the line of sight for something like
this. |
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I think the fact that they are moving objects of a
certain size silhouetted against the sky means
that one could use either a motion detector or
image recogniton and shoot them down with a
robot rifle. I am pretty impressed by the robot
paintball sentries. |
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For these, the image recognition would not be
super tricky. The software to lead the shot etc
could be made freely available. The expensive bit
is the motors to point the rifle. One could use
fancy rifles, bullets etc but I bet a hit from a 22
would be enough. |
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I wonder if there exists a robot skeet shooter. I
like the idea of a robot shooting skeet with a rifle.
I will look. |
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I would set these up on rooftops and leave them. |
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