In article ,
says...
BlackBeard wrote:

:On Jun 29, 12:01*pm, Mark Borgerson wrote:
: In article caa4e8fe-7afd-4102-88ae-c432bde27500@
: 8g2000hse.googlegroups.com, says...
:
: On Jun 27, 7:42*pm, Fred J. McCall wrote:
: wrote:
:
: :It looks like the P-8 is going to use expendable UAV's to look
: :at surface targets too:
: :
: :http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs...plckController...
: :
: :Using expendable UAV's for routine missions like this could get
: :expensive after awhile.
: :
:
: Apparently that costs less than the loss of airframe life from using
: the airplane to do it, which is why it's being considered.
:
:
: I just spent 40 minutes responding to this post with an explanation of
: what airborne ASW could do to really be part of the game and become a
: serious threat to Submarines. *It was really cool and relatively
: inexpensive.
: Then I realized what the hell I was doing and which side I favored so
: I deleted the entire post.
: I'm really glad I did, because while it would have been interesting to
: see what some of you would have done with it, picking it apart and
: playing with it, I know there are some very good S-T&E's here that
: might have found a way to make it work. *And that scared the hell out
: of me.
:
: It would probably have been an interesting discussion. *As for making
: it work---there might be people out there to do that. *However, *I
: suspect that ONR is keeping a good number of them busy with similar
: ideas. * From my semi-insider point of view, *there are more ideas
: than engineers, *scientists, and research dollars in the US now. *That
: balance may be different in China and Iran. *They may have some
: different set *of ideas, *funding and engineers. *The ideas are
: probably most easily exported from the US, so let's be a bit
: stingy with those!
:
:
:The idea was simple enough but it took full advantage sensitive
:knowledge from the hunted side that would be inappropriate for the
:group.
:

And this seems like an appropriate place for my usual disclaimer.

I will never say anything about specifics or capabilities that doesn't
derive from public sources (and yes, I usually go do a quick check -
Google is your friend). In point of fact, I will argue in favour of
positions or facts that I know to be incorrect if those positions or
facts are what the consensus of publicly available information says
and will argue against positions and facts I know to be correct for
the same reason.

If you're looking for classified or 'sensitive' data or arguments
based upon them, you're looking in the wrong place...


Age and temporal distance from the subject are also a factor.
There are a lot of declassified documents available now covering
operations I was part of in the 1970s. There are also semi-official
sources like "Body of Secrets" covering sigint ops. Rather
than base my statements solely on my memories of the 1970s, I try
to find an online reference to any classified projects I might have
worked on.

OTOH, I feel reasonably free to speculate on possible
military uses of unclassified technology I've worked with. If some
of the government R&D I've worked on has slid into classified projects,
they're not telling me about it!


Since I last had a clearance in 1974, any remnants of classified
knowledge I might dredge up probably come under the "Top Secret
Embarassing" heading, rather than being a revelation of sensitive
technology. Technology we thought was hot in the 70's is now $1.95,
qty 1 in the DigiKey catalog (microprocessors with 1MHz clock rates,
etc.).

Mark Borgerson