first google self-driving car in action
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsaES–OTzM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqSDWoAhvLU

for those who think it’ll decades for UCAVs to come into their own
if a Google vehicle can do all this already, with civilian technology just a few years old, imagine what a military grade UCAV might be capable of, and will be in the near future

With that being said, this thread is derailing more quickly than the cease-fire agreement in Ukraine. Hardly the topic nor the forum to discuss Russia/Ukraine. Finland sees a Russian threat and has done so since the winter war. That’s a fact. Now let’s move on.

agreed
but I stand by my argument that Russia has little to gain from attacking Finland, which is a relevant question to this discussion

The attempt to track, block and disrupt a missile transmitting for a few seconds whilst traveling from Vo -> terminal velocity before activating its own radar/IR-homing is useless. Attempting to track, block and disrupt a UCAV flying at continious speed emitting a strong signal in order to be controlled from a remote station is not useless and will be a greater part of warfare when the air-air UCAVs enter service.

a) if the F-35 or any stealth (UCAV) aircraft is transmitting to an AMRAAM, even for a few seconds, it risks giving away its position
b) a few seconds can be enough. once you know where the missile is, even in terminal phase, it can be targetted with cyber warfare. on the stock market time is measured in nanoseconds, because to even your home pc a second is an eternity
c) a UCAV would not continuously send a strong signal. the whole point of the latest models is that they’re largely autonomous. when they do send a signal, they use directional arrays that cannot be detected or intercepted unless you’re positioned between the sender and the receiver (you can actually buy such technology, apparantly it’s used to share Wifi at long distance, and you can’t detect the signal unless you aim it exactly right)
d) even if you do locate a UCAV (or guided missile, or satellite), it’s absurdly difficult to hack them. for example you can program them to ignore any signals not coming from a specific direction/satellite. or just turn off their radio receiver and only focus on optical signals, chaining to other unmanned aircraft until you reach a manned aircraft

And again. Look at what those UCAVS are designed to do. Is it air-air combat? There are some who plan for them to be utilized together with manned A/C and carry Meteors. NONE are designing them to be air supremacy UCAVs. What are they designed to carry? Reconnaissance equipment, air-ground weaponry and radars. All designed for low-end threats where smaller UCAVs might be more cost effective. For aerial combat however we see: F-22 (US) F-35 (US) K-FX (Korea) ATD-X (Japan) T-50 (Russia) MiG 5th gen (Russia) Gripen 39E [+design studies on FS2020] (Sweden) FGFA (India) AMCA (India) J-20 (China) J-31 (China) J-18 (China) TFX (Turkey) + US and Russia already underway with designing manned/optionally manned sixth generation fighters.

the F-35 isn’t designed to be an air supremacy aircraft, yet even I’ll admit that it’ll defeat any older fighter jet in long range combat. not because it has speed or TVC, but becasue it has stealth and thus likely first strike capability
even in dogfighting an F-35 can detect and engage at any angle, even if it doesn’t turn that good it’s still extremely dangerous

for the same reason a stealthy UCAV will be a killer in air combat, because it can sneak up on an enemy, shoot its missiles (all you need is a sensor asset that sends the target location and the kill order, the UCAV doesn’t even need to send any signals itself) and sneak off again, avoiding all and any retaliation (and even then, I’d happily risk a cheap UCAV or two to take out a T-50. the psychological threat alone will be worth it)
or in dogfighting a number of UCAVs can act as a swarm, using team tactics no human can hope to match. when a UCAV moves to the left you think it’s trying to dodge you, when in fact it’s drawing you into the line of fire of an another UCAV, who’s doing the same thing with another UCAV… and individual UCAVs can sacrifice themselves without second thought if it’s for the greater good, not always a viable tactic with manned aircraft. not to mention UCAVs can pull sustained G’s without blacking out

so UCAVs in a dogfight is like a human playing chess against a computer. you have some really good human players that can beat computers, but then Deep Blue comes along and suddenly goes Schwarzenegger on any human’s ass
and on top of that the UCAV can use tactics and moves a human cannot. and with time he always gets better, while humans do not (they actually get worse after a while). good luck with that

the problem with those advanced manned jets is that you’re building the best possible prop fighter, in a world that’s started developing jet fighters
or the best possible crossbow, when the enemy starts using firearms
I’m not saying they won’t be great fighters/crossbows, I’m just pointing out that technology tends to punish those that don’t adapt, especially in military conflicts

I’m starting to see why Sanem wishes that Finland wouldn’t replace Hornets with more modern fighters and it has nothing to do with saving money. Someone is little bit afraid that Russian fighters would have to fly against F-35’s…

let’s just say that if I was sent to Vietnam in the 1960’s, and had the choice between
– the brand new but untested M-16 (with every General’s and the contracter’s guarantee that it works as promised)
– or an outdated M1 Garand
I’ll take the Garand thank you, I know it works, and that those generals and contracter care more about shares and careers than if I get killed or not

First off, there won’t be any UCAV capable of DCA/OCA missions for the forseeable future. There are some giant hurtles to overcome before your going to see a UCAV capable of autonomous action in an environment as dynamic as air combat. There is a good possibility of the “swarm” concept being employed, perhaps by the 2030’s. Even in that case, there will be a manned aircraft collecting the data and directing the UCAV’s and making the “shoot” decisions.

lol, please, Boeing proved back in 2005 that UCAVs can autonomously and with little or no human intervention find and attack targets, even unplanned ones
shortly after, the J-UCAS program was cancelled (and probably the USAF started work on the RQ-170)
if there are no capable UCAVs yet, it’s not because the technology isn’t there, but because the military refuses to develop it, or more likely has classified it (BAe is very hush hush about its Mantis/Taranis technology)

The $43 million you are quoting for the Gripen is pure fiction. Even the Swedish air force chief estimated the cost at roughly 80 million, and that was before the program was pushed back to 2017-18.

I quoted this article on Aviationweek from a year ago
http://aviationweek.com/awin/new-gripen-aims-low-cost-high-capability
it’s on converted Gripen C’s, but I figure it should be accurate

if you have more accurate, recent links, please share

excuse me if I don’t take LMT’s word on it when they say the F-35 will cost x in x years when taking into account x inflation
for example Japan could end up paying a lot more, because of strong recent inflation
so I prefer to look at known costs, rather than projections
again, if you have a link to guaranteed and signed flyaway prices, please share

here’s a list of military invasions for the last 1000 years
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_invasions
since WW2 Russia has only invaded two countries, Georgia and Ukraine
in Georgia Russia was supporting seperatists
in Ukraine, this was after a pro-Russian government was overthrown by paramilitary groups (many of them with Neo-Nazi ideologies) and two regions with a clear pro-Russian population voted to seperate from Ukraine

so unless Finland has a seperatist population on its Russian border, chances of Russia attacking it are historically speaking zero
this is more about fear propaganda and wasting tax payers money in times of economic recession

as for the Gripen NG price, I’m hearing a lot of numbers, but none of them seem to be the flyaway cost
if you have a good source please link it (on the flyaway cost, not the total acquisition cost divided by the number of jets, or the F-35s preferred method of not counting the engine in the price)

on UCAVs, they’re already capable of air fighting, it’s just that no one wants to admit it
and it’s not easy to jam a UCAV. if it was, it would also be easy to jam AMRAAMs, and then those would be pretty much useless

when people talk about UCAVs being hacked or crashing because they lose a connection, I have to laugh
your off the shelf civilian drones can already autonomously dodge obstacles, track users and if they have no connection fly home all by themselves
BAe said of the Mantis that it can fly and execute missions pretty much all by itself, which means less crashes because there will be less human error (= the main cause for UAV crashes)
whe can only guess at what the Taranis can do

I don’t think so.. For a civil conflict you need to have highly profiled ethnic, racial, religious or nationalist groups.. There is a good reason why you have the same names in the media all the time while many parts of the world have not seen a war for centiuries (unless imported from outside).

a) I think Texas will seperate tomorrow if it doesn’t like where the US government is going. they’re that kind of people, I guess that falls under what you referred to as nationalist groups
b) outside influence is always a factor. even if it’s for example just targetting the economy, by doing so it can create stress and thus civil conflict (again Texas would be a good example)