Esquire catches up with the Reaper:
Every so often in history, something profound happens that changes warfare forever. Next year, for the first time ever, the Pentagon will buy more unmanned aircraft than manned, line-item proof that we are in a new age of fighting machines, in which war will be ever more abstract, ever more distant, and ruthlessly efficient.
Inevitable, I suppose. Still, I’m glad I did it the other way.
It doesn’t leave much hope for those of us aspiring to be aviators.
I’m not certain that drones are going to replace butts in cockpits. Drones have a place, but I’m betting that after a lot of noise, the fly boys will still be there.
They won’t. The current overemphasis on unmanned aircraft is an artifact of the low-threat counterinsurgency environment. COIN demands persistence, which UAVs have in spades.
Yeah? Ask the Marines. They might see things differently. After all, they’ve been engaged in a very personal fight. As has the Army and Navy SEALs for that matter. War has not been revolutionized that much. It still takes boots on the ground.
Kind of like at the last Mad Boom (think Tailhook for us NA’s w/o hooks) how they had a P-8 sim we could play with and a full-size BAMS drone mockup. Everyone thought it was real cool as it would eliminate a lot of the “less glamorous” parts of typical ASW missions.
Then it was reveled that the plan is for 24 hr BAMS presence, to be flown by winged aviators, on a 3 person rotation. A month of BAMS, a month of P-8. Ugggh.
How much longer until the point man in every patrol is an automaton?
No ‘it’s TOPGUN’ correction?
Slipping Lex, slipping….
While UAVs have a wide range of applications, as has been mentioned here many times, this whole thing is as much driven by DOD budget bean-counters (I’ve said all this n#-times before–don’t even know why I bother anymore) who see this technology as budgetary nirvana ( which it won’t be in the long-run; they are delusional even in this) which eliminates not only higher paying officer pilot slots, but eliminates the pay & allowances overhang for a reduced force and their dependents plus the long health-care tail that hangs around forever in DOD budgets–and SecDef types who allow themselves to whistle past the grave-yard about what’s needed to seriously contend with the PRC/PLAN–a viewpoint also driven by budgetary considerations and the “realistic” resignation that future budgets are only going to shrink under Donkey administrations and a Donkey dominated Congress as far as the eye can see with increasing election of more lefty feminists and homosexuals to Congress as well–let alone outside pressure from these groups.
Virg, Virg . . .
I wish I could claim with a straight face that everything you mention here is total cr@p, but, sadly, that about sums it up from where I sit too.
Back to liquor and the plane pr0n
Yup, I think Virg has nailed it. The bean counters won this round of the acquisition wars. Not on the benefits to be delivered, but the cost of what can be afforded.
If only ACORN made aircraft…
We need more of both manned and unmanned, and boats to put them on, big or small.
But we get healthcare reform that will bankrupt us.
John/
“If only ACORN made aircraft….”
God, what an insight! If we let ACORN run things we’ll have a 13 million man force and 150 Ftr Wings! (Now about that personnel quality and QC on the production line…..hummmm…)
Hey Virgil, if ACORN runs things they might let us codgers fly again. Of course, O-clubs are about gone, so it might be a huge drag after all.
Seriously, The quote I take away from the article, which, I think, is one of the most important,
“Today, fewer than one in a hundred serve in the military, and as the machines take over and that flesh-and-blood burden shrinks even more, the citizenry will disengage more and more.”
This is a a very unhealthy thing. We already have very serious problems with the civilian populace’s disconnection from military service and the obligations of citizenship. Such a thing brought Rome to empire, then dissolution. It looks like we are doing far faster than Rome did.
Virg ole buddy, grab a bottle of Old Grand Dad and head to the porch. And appreciate that your stories of “there I was …” will always have more drama than the dronies can ever have.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin.
Bob Dylan
An excerpt from a letter I wrote to Navy Times not too long ago concerning the flailing about in that publication over the training of enlisted UAV pilots:
The Esquire article is okay, a little wordy in spots but as Virg so succinctly put it above it doesn’t come close to touching the thorny end of the plant: what we are expecting to do with unmanned systems in the future when you still need people on the ground. Additionally, what I was getting at here is that although the UAV has a place in the overall force it isn’t the panacea that some would make it out to be.
The airspace denial mission will still be there, and Close air support requires more than a UAV can normally carry. Pilot’s butts will still be in the cockpit for the foreseeable future.
The ability to linger for many hours, as one poster above pointed out, makes them very useful for taking out certain targets when you have to watch some point on the ground for long periods. But most aviation mission will still require putting pilots in jeopardy.