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China Is Hard At Work Developing Swarms Of Small Drones With Big Military Applications
more at
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone...ultiple-levels A mass drone attack on Russian forces in Syria has highlighted the very real danger that small unmanned aircraft increasingly pose, even in the hands of non-state groups. At the same time, it underscores how small drone swarms could be a game-changing capability for larger nation states, including the United States’ near-peer opponents, such as China, who are already developing this technology in more structured environments. ....In June 2017, the state-owned China Electronics Technology Group Corporation, or CETC, conducted its own record-breaking swarm experiment with nearly 120 unmanned fixed wing aircraft, as well. This event included simulated missions where the entire formation acted as a whole and instances where smaller groups broke away to complete separate objectives. ....The specific objectives of the NUDTs drone swarm experiments are unclear, as are those related to the CETC’s tests, but it seems almost certain that it is foundational research to see what small unmanned aircraft can and can’t do as a single entity within the limits of existing technology. The U.S. military is also engaged in a host of similar technology demonstration efforts regarding drone swarms. The NUDT's latest experiment looks very similar in concept to the U.S. Department of Defense's Strategic Capabilities Office's tests with Perdix, a miniature air-dropped unmanned aircraft, and the U.S. Navy's Low-Cost UAV Swarming Technology project, which used Raytheon's Coyote, another small fixed-wing drone. Both of these efforts focused as much on the software, which allowed the swarms to respond in unison to commands and operate autonomously based on pre-programmed instructions, all while avoiding running into each other, as the hardware itself. Small groups of networked drones could significantly change how military forces operate in the future. Our own Tyler Rogoway explained some potential scenarios in a feature last year on the need for new short-range air defenses, or SHORAD systems, writing: “Being networked together, and being autonomous in nature after being loaded with a target area location, along with other mission parameters, these swarms will be extremely hard to defend against using even the best SHORAD systems in development today. It's the saturation nature of the attack, the size of the attackers, and the fact that they work as a coordinated swarm, employing dynamic tactics to see as many in their company survive long enough to make their suicidal attack, that make them so deadly. They could even drop micro-munitions and be reused for a later attack. Just the knowledge that such an attack is possible would be psychologically stressful and demoralizing for troops on the ground. Similar swarming strikes could be unleashed behind the front lines as well, with hugely expensive and low density/high demand combat aircraft being especially vulnerable to this sort of tactic—something General James Holmes alluded to inadvertently while speaking to the Air Force Association, stating: "Imagine a world where somebody flies a couple hundred of those and flies one down the intake of my F-22s with just a small weapon on it." “Actually, it would be even easier to just strike the jets as they sit idle and vulnerable on the flight line. One swarm could see a whole squadron of tightly packed fighters destroyed without even having a chance to fight back.” “But regardless of the direct implications this new tactic has on Russia's Syrian operation, it does give us our first glimpses of a new age in modern warfare – one where dense swarms of low-cost drones armed with high-explosives will be able to wreak havoc on targets. Russian defenses, and those of other countries for that matter, may be able to fend off a handful of these improvised drones executing a very loosely coordinated attack, but a near peer-state competitor could field a much denser, more nimble, adaptable, and networked force. And as we have mentioned before, there is no known kinetic defense to counter such an attack.” "Although it may sound like a page out a science fiction novel, the only thing that could probably counter such a dense swarming attack on ground forces or a garrisoned force would be for those forces to have their own counter-swarm swarms at the ready. This would result in dozens or even hundreds of mini kamikaze dogfights in the sky—a life and death suicide struggle among diminutive hive-minded flying robots." more at http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone...ultiple-levels * |
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