The Harvard Law Record weighs in on the advantages of drone-based warfare, among other things:
(With) UAVs being increasingly controlled by automated systems and operated from the comfort of a command center, the decision to release weapons can be made by an entire team, usually including a lawyer. “The pilot is a mere voting member in the system that decides how to control the vehicle.” While the Air Force has held to the old model and employed officers with two years of special training as unmanned mission pilots, the Army has successfully run the same missions using enlisted personnel with ten weeks of training. Soon, she predicts that the increasing automation will make it possible for each pilot to command multiple UAVs at a time. The result will be that the pilots of the future will be more like video game players than the Chuck Yeager daredevils of the past.
Well, great. Fewer Chuck Yeagers and more lawyers.
That should keep things humming.
That should keep things humming… just like Congress. Fewer farmers and shopkeepers, more lawyers.
This is ludicrous. Only liberal nut job academics could come up with such a plan.
Maybe lawyers should be placed on the front lines and be subject to the air support supplied by other lawyers. It would definitely clear the legal job market rather quickly.
can we target the law schools? no sense allowing them to have safe havens….. %-)
One small step away from having the “political officer” on the team to consult with the lawyer before the drone driver presses a release button. WBC (war by committee) coming to a theater near you!
What the…
sorry – just had a 747 do a 40 deg nose up waveoff here at Charleston Rwy 33 out my window. Atlas cargo followed by a STEEP turn downwind. Sta-range…
Hah… Boeing just fired Evergreen and hired Atlas to ferry their 787 bodies from/to Italy, Charleston & Everett, WA. I’m sure they’ll be glad to hear of the Atlas air crew’s climbing abilities.
The Navy already has Diversity Zampolits…….
They should have listen to PLATO many years ago when he said: KILL ALL THE LAWYERS!!!!! they have NO PLACE in warfare. Get LAWFAIR OUT of there & leave it up to the Warriors!!!!!
My last few years in, I used to joke that they needed to add a couple of seats to the Tomcat. So you could carry the lawyer, plus an accountant to tell you if your target was worth the cost of the ordnance you were about to expend on it.
Now we actually have generals in AF telling Congressional delegations they can’t answer ROE questions without talking to their JAG.
Anybody besides me glad they’re retired?
Yup.
*And* I’ve graduated from being a PTSD-ridden, drug-crazed baby burner in the Lefty Phrasebook to being merely a war-profiteering contractor-parasite.
Life jes’ don’t get any better’n that, do it?
Yes it does. I’m a capitalist bourgeois exploiter of the downtrodden proletariat.
That would be OK, as long as the pilot controls their ejection seat. Just build the Ac so the cockpits for both the JAG and bean counter are separate capsules so the flight crew aren’t affected by the accidental ejections.
LBJ and R.S. McNamara weigh-in posthumously to signal their concurrence with the Record …
- SJS
As Desert Storm illustrated, airpower can achieve decisive results without restrictive rules of engagement.
Bomber-Mafia Poppycock. Air power did *not* achieve the combat decision, and the ROE were only slightly more relaxed than the ones I operated under in RVN.
yea. Then we can resume missions with half a load of ord and let commie pukes haul our ships into their port, and the current pres can continue in the tradition of LBJ. At least he has an excuse; he is a harvard puke. Where is “Hot Rod Halladay” when you need him?
50% of all trials are lost by lawyers. That is no way to fight a war.
I was involved in some Naval War College wargames about 16-17 years ago, and came away convinced that in a shooting war, the first order of the day should be to confine the legal staff to non-working spaces.
I’ll also categorically state that if you aren’t in the UAV field, speculation on how many aircraft a pilot can or cannot control safely is totally out of line. Particularly for some half-witted attorney who can just barely spell ‘UAV’, much less having any time designing, testing, or operating one. This whole “video game” nonsense is going to get aircraft lost…and at ~$50 million for a high-end unmanned aircraft, it adds up very, very quickly.
Soon, she predicts that the increasing automation will make it possible for each pilot to command multiple UAVs at a time.
And Alfred Nobel predicted that his invention of dynamite would make the prospect of future warfare too ghastly to contemplate.
We all know how well *that* went.
If I’m to be blown away by ordnance from the sky, I wonder if it would hurt more or less if it were done by someone actually present who was actually mad at me, versus by a consensus of robots and lawyers. Assuming consciousness after death, I think I would feel insulted to have been killed in the latter manner.
But would you care about the insult if, rather than 72 virgins, you were given 72 raisins instead?
But then what will the daredevils do?
Must…consume…..even…..MORE… Barbancourt..
We never got that report on the Fort Hood Class 6 store. I wonder if that is indicative of anything important.
I suppose the navy will start operating their ships by a “Command Committee” and the Skipper will check with the Harvard Law Review before he turns into the wind….
Yeah – that will work!!
They call their political persuasion as Progressive. What a totally inappropriate and illogical name!
Hey, I was the sole dissenting vote when my CO wanted to put a cell phone antenna on the yardarm. Used to be you could cast off all lines and exercise a little command responsibility. Guess now we need to get red-n-free from Nancy Pelosi.
Ignoring equivocating second thoughts from higher has a long and honorable history. I think of Nelson putting the telescope to his blind eye and saying, “I really do not see the signal.” Or, in latter-day terms, “Sir? Sir? Your signal is breaking up. Must be something wrong with this radio.”