The Pentagon has to cut a lot of costs. Humans are expensive. Humans need to eat and sometimes they get sick. But drones? They can fly and kill for hours — so the military’s ordering a ton to replace flesh.
The Wall Street Journal reports that as a result of the government being broke and spending too much on guns, the US Army alone will drop over active duty 100,000 soldiers. But at the same time, we’re ordering 30 per cent more drones — enough to prowl the skies in a serious way:
The Air Force now operates 61 drone combat air patrols around the clock, with up to four drones in each patrol. [Secretary of Defense] Panetta’s plan calls for the military to have enough drones to comfortably operate 65 combat air patrols constantly with the ability to temporarily surge to 85 combat air patrols, officials said.
Eighty five drones at once? That’s serious lethal overwatch and possibly far more effective than boots on the ground in nebulous warzones like Pakistan’s borders and Somalia. The drone buildup, which the WSJ says will happen over the next few years, will be joined by the expansion of small, light UAV airstrips, allowing sudden pounce attacks and the aforementioned 24-hour patrols.
This is the military of the future, not a temporary trend. Even if the Pentagon’s hand weren’t forced by empty pockets, drones have been undeniably effective fighting both terrorists and political entities like Taliban. Drones are cheap — drones kill well. And when a drone crashes, nobody mourns. [WSJ]
Christian
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 1:10 PMFor when the zombies come this will be awesome!
Charles
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 9:17 PMAhh Christian, perhaps! But what will come first? Skynet or the Zombie Holocaust? WE MAY NEVER KNOW.
Dave
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 1:37 PM“with up to four drones in each patrol” and “to 85 combat air patrols”
Would make up to 340 drones at once!
Kent
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 2:17 PMYaaayyy!@!@!@##$
Osiris Fox
Monday, February 6, 2012 at 4:29 PMIt’s not going to be made up of a single type of drone. For example, the global hawk (admittedly the top surveillance drone) can survey as much as 103,600 square kilometers a day (Afghanistan’s total land surface is 652,090 Km2). Whereas the smaller ones (I think Predator) can do up to 300 Km2 per day (perfect for front line or combat area surveillance.)
I think 340 drones is a very substantial amount all things considered. Don’t forget, they still have a conventional army, and everybody else is still far behind in drone technology.
Stephen
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 2:03 PMI’m loving the Starcraft reference made me smile, now all they need is drones that can repair and maintain these things as well as drones to repair and maintain those drones and so on and so on and so on…
Kent
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 2:21 PMWhy cant the drones who repair and maintain the flying drones repaire and maintain each other?
Franz
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 5:23 PMA true story inspired by the best selling book of 2011, ‘Drones Don’t Go To Sick Bay’.
jeremy
Monday, January 30, 2012 at 12:09 PMthese drone are NOT robots – remotely piloted warplane is a better term. People are in the loop for nav, target selection and firecontrol. They have to be staged, armed and recovered just like normal planes. The “drivers” for the drones are on shift while they fly and can intervene at any time, much like pilots in “real” planes (even a high performance manned bomber is mostly on autopilot). They are well paid and cost plenty of money to train and often work in pairs. Some drones are cheap, but many are not. The real advantage is body bags – these pilots are harder to kill. Also not sending people into other countries terittory ovoids certain political implications.
Osiris Fox
Monday, February 6, 2012 at 4:37 PMNever mind the fact that air to air RPW’s won’t have pilots and thus will not be performance affected by G’s. They will be able to be faaaar more maneuverable than conventional warplanes and thus deadlier.
Osiris Fox
Monday, February 6, 2012 at 4:40 PMP.S. This is a “very near” future scenario.