Drone air to air combat

[streetwarfare88]

Dale Brown assumes no communications issues and obvious military targets segregated from civilian areas. Not terrible realistic in most modern situations.

Yeah that's true, I still think they should push for more combat active UCAV's to participate in SEAD, interceptor, recon, and ground attack missions. That way if one gets shot down or damaged the enemy is wasting ammo/distracted on them while manned forces can come in behind and overwhelm whatever the objective is. They could be a very good force multiplier.

 

[gf0012-aust]

Yeah that's true, I still think they should push for more combat active UCAV's to participate in SEAD, interceptor, recon, and ground attack missions. That way if one gets shot down or damaged the enemy is wasting ammo/distracted on them while manned forces can come in behind and overwhelm whatever the objective is. They could be a very good force multiplier.

This isn't an issue of what is technologically feasible - its more of an issue of what can safely be achieved under the advice and guidance of JAG and or their other country equivs

There would be reticence to do any of the above at an autonomous level even in a range ring defined free fire zone

 

[Rheinhardt]

As mentioned before, problem with UCAV is Communication Sattelites which can be downed by ASAT Missiles fired from aircrafts, therefore they would also need to be fully autonomous. I don't think we are there yet, first I think we would see a manned-unmanned plane, possibly in the form of an upgrade to existing stock, I don't exactly see what advantages there could be in this from an aircraft design perspective.

Certainly an advantage could be reduced sortie times, lower costs because of pilots, I don't really see that having any real impact, the cost of pilots I imagine would be very low compared to total running costs. The main advantage I could see would be that every plane could be an ace!