Drones, the Air Littoral, and the Looming Irrelevance of the USAF

[Colin Parkinson]

Likely see the smaller guns make a comback, being able to deal with the smaller stuff and leave the missiles to the bigger stuff.

 

[Kirkhill]

Likely see the smaller guns make a comback, being able to deal with the smaller stuff and leave the missiles to the bigger stuff.

How quickly can we get rounds on target at 200 m?

Detect, track, engage, kill.

 

[dimsum]

Likely see the smaller guns make a comback, being able to deal with the smaller stuff and leave the missiles to the bigger stuff.

the trade off being that usually the engagements are at closer range, which isn’t ideal in a swarm scenario.

 

[Furniture]

the trade off being that usually the engagements are at closer range, which isn’t ideal in a swarm scenario.

The secret with smaller guns is to later them with longer range options. A 30-40mm gun with hundreds of rounds is going to do a lot to a swarm when the bigger guns/missiles thin the herd.

 

[Kirkhill]

https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2024/10/3/army-wrestling-with-rapidly-changing-world-of-drones

Frontline Ukrainian soldiers are cycling through new drone technology every six weeks. Every brigade has master maintainers, fabricators and software writers who are empowered to reprogram the drones, print 3D parts and directly reach out to Ukrainian drone manufacturers to request changes. Then they directly pay them for their services.

One of the lessons learned is that drones can’t just be sensing platforms anymore. “They all have to be multifunctional. They all have to be lethal. They all have to be capable of doing many things at the same time,” he said.

There also has to be a universal controller that can guide any drone the Army acquires, he said.

And soldiers down to the platoon level must be able to act without having to ask higher headquarters to deconflict airspace.

In Ukraine, “they are free to shoot whatever they want, launch whatever they want, because that’s as fast as they’re seeing targets. And if they don’t, either that target is going to move or they’re going to be targeted and shot before they can do something about it,” Ryan said.

“The U.S. Army can do it better, and we should be able to do it better, and we shouldn’t allow our old way of doing business to be a block to how we could do it,” he said. But with the current acquisition systems, cycling through technology in six weeks is “impossible,” he added.

“The retired sergeant majors or colonels who are sitting in cubicles right now are resistant to change,” he said.

“The leaders at the top and the action officers at the bottom are all in. It’s those layers of mud in the middle that are the hard parts to get through, and that’s where we really need the most help right now,” he said. ND

 

[Colin Parkinson]

the trade off being that usually the engagements are at closer range, which isn’t ideal in a swarm scenario.

Mind you, one purpose of the swarm is to deplete your missile defense, either exposing the target to the heavier weapons or forcing a withdrawal of your asset.

 

[Kirkhill]

Navies work on layered defence. Perhaps armies are going to have to relearn that art?

Navies have long range missiles to attack the launch platforms (surface and airborne), then shorter range missiles, then long range cannons, then close in cannons, and finally heavy machine guns. They also have EW assets and all sorts of masking assets and decoys.

Armies are going to have to rebuild all those capabilities and then mount them on fixed and mobile platforms.

Trophy type Active Protective Systems are currently configured as a last ditch defence against AT weapons.

A drone is becoming an AT weapon of choice.

Perhaps the time has come to meld the APS with the 7.62mm GPMG RWS as a General Purpose self-defence system that can be mounted on any vehicle.

A convoy guarded by a troop of 35mm with a co-ordinated last ditch self-defence of GPMGs, together with an effective EW/decoy system, might offer the convoy a reasonable prospect of majority survival.

 

[dimsum]

Navies work on layered defence. Perhaps armies are going to have to relearn that art?

Navies have long range missiles to attack the launch platforms (surface and airborne), then shorter range missiles, then long range cannons, then close in cannons, and finally heavy machine guns. They also have EW assets and all sorts of masking assets and decoys.

Armies are going to have to rebuild all those capabilities and then mount them on fixed and mobile platforms.

Trophy type Active Protective Systems are currently configured as a last ditch defence against AT weapons.

A drone is becoming an AT weapon of choice.

Perhaps the time has come to meld the APS with the 7.62mm GPMG RWS as a General Purpose self-defence system that can be mounted on any vehicle.

A convoy guarded by a troop of 35mm with a co-ordinated last ditch self-defence of GPMGs, together with an effective EW/decoy system, might offer the convoy a reasonable prospect of majority survival.

The longest-ranged part of an army’s defence is the Air Force.

 

[Kirkhill]

The longest-ranged part of an army’s defence is the Air Force.

When it is available.

 

[Kirkhill]

The longest-ranged part of an army’s defence is the Air Force.

Second reply

Helicopters with 30mm cannons as a C-UAS system? Could the skies be kept clear enough of SAMs that the helicopters could operate effectively against a swarm of drones?

 

[dimsum]

When it is available.

Well yes, but that sortie times and aircraft availability also comes into play with Army Aviation.

Having air assets under the ground force commander doesn’t necessarily mean that their maintenance rates, etc go up. It may mean that they’re dedicated to a certain unit, but that means all units must have their own integral aviation.

Anyway, straying from the topic but that “hoarding” (not sure if it’s the right word) was a main reason why the USAF, then coalitions, ended up transitioning to the current CFACC / JFACC model instead of penny-packeting air assets with specific ground units. The Armies didn’t like that.

Second reply

Helicopters with 30mm cannons as a C-UAS system? Could the skies be kept clear enough of SAMs that the helicopters could operate effectively against a swarm of drones?

They’ve been used before (from the article about the use of Hellfire) but I don’t know if that’s a viable solution long term. Economically each bullet is cheap, but you’re still putting helicopters (I doubt one would be enough) up at a moment’s notice.

I trust that the gunner is a pretty good shot, but you’re not aiming at manned aircraft or truck-sized targets.

 

[Kirkhill]

Well yes, but that sortie times and aircraft availability also comes into play with Army Aviation.

Having air assets under the ground force commander doesn’t necessarily mean that their maintenance rates, etc go up. It may mean that they’re dedicated to a certain unit, but that means all units must have their own integral aviation.

Anyway, straying from the topic but that “hoarding” (not sure if it’s the right word) was a main reason why the USAF, then coalitions, ended up transitioning to the current CFACC / JFACC model instead of penny-packeting air assets with specific ground units. The Armies didn’t like that.

Seen.

They’ve been used before (from the article about the use of Hellfire) but I don’t know if that’s a viable solution long term. Economically each bullet is cheap, but you’re still putting helicopters (I doubt one would be enough) up at a moment’s notice.

I trust that the gunner is a pretty good shot, but you’re not aiming at manned aircraft or truck-sized targets.

Seen again.

I am wondering if a flight of "aerial Gepards" might be a thing. Take the gunner out of the loop and slave the chin turret to the radar?

Also, the original purpose of the 70mm / 2.75" rocket was as an anti-aircraft munition. APKWS with HE or even Flechettes?

 

[Kirkhill]

How the ‘Elon Musk of missiles’ is plotting to blow up the defence industry

Palmer Luckey’s Anduril is becoming a commercial threat to rivals who will fight it ‘tooth and nail’

www.telegraph.co.uk

Hanging on the wall in Palmer Luckey’s California office is a full-sized replica sword from the Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

The weapon – known as “Anduril” – inspired the name of the billionaire’s insurgent defence technology company. Translated from the fictional language Elvish, it means “Flame of the West”.

In JRR Tolkien’s stories, the sword is reforged from a broken blade and wielded by Aragorn, a warrior-exile who returns to become king and leads an army against the forces of evil.

Now Luckey – an avid fan of fantasy, science fiction, Japanese anime cartoons and video games – has set an equally grandiose goal for the real-life Anduril Industries.

Advertisement

“Anduril will save Western civilization”, his pitch to investors reads, “by saving taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars a year, as we make tens of billions of dollars a year”.

In practice, this means ramping up production of advanced drones and missiles, powered by artificial intelligence (AI), in numbers large enough to face down China and Russia.

According to Luckey – in an age of $1.6 trillion (£1.2 trillion) fighter jet programmes – the US and its allies must relearn what they seem to have forgotten: how to build effective weapons quickly, at large scale, for affordable prices.

And amid rising geopolitical tensions, ranging from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the current conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas, western governments are listening.

Since Luckey founded Anduril in 2017, the Los Angeles-based company has secured business from the Pentagon, Australia and the UK’s Ministry of Defence, among other customers, with its drones deployed by Ukraine against Vladimir Putin’s forces.

Advertisement



Advertisement : 29 sec
This year, the company has also won major contracts with the US Air Force, Army and Space Force – humiliating bigger rivals that have been in the game for decades.

Luckey – who sports a mullet haircut, goatee and an outfit consisting of Haiwaian shirts, cargo shorts and sandals – is known for a combative and swaggering style that attracts comparisons with Elon Musk, the founder of electric carmaker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX.

Palmer Luckey wants to emulate the way Elon Musk’s SpaceX won Nasa contracts on price Bloomberg/itKyle Grillot
Both men are well regarded for their engineering smarts but also viewed as dissidents in liberal-leaning Silicon Valley, with both expressing vocal support for Donald Trump.

Like Musk, Luckey is also challenging the business model of the most powerful defence industry incumbents – large companies known as “primes” – which he claims is failing to meet the moment as Western governments race to replenish their munition stockpiles.

While US and European officials have increasingly focused on developing relatively small numbers of increasingly sophisticated, “exquisite” stealth aircraft, tanks and armoured cars, they have struggled to produce enough artillery shells to send to Ukraine and to replenish missile stocks after donating them to Kiev.

At the same time, war games have found key American weapons such as anti-ship missiles would be expended within the first week of a US-China conflict. But they would take years to replace, owing to slow and highly specialist production lines.

Last month, Anduril unveiled a potential solution: a family of ultra-cheap cruise missiles, called Barracuda, capable of being made at “hyperscale” with common tools and commercially available components.

Along with robot submarines and fighter jets, virtual reality goggles and a plethora of jamming and detection devices – all linked together by AI software – the missiles are part of the new “arsenal of democracy” Luckey hopes to build en masse in a series of high-tech, reconfigurable factories.

“I don’t think the United States needs to be the world police,” the billionaire said in a recent television interview with Bloomberg. “I think we need to be the world’s gun store.

“We need to be able to provide our allies and our partners with the tools they need to turn themselves into prickly porcupines that no one wants to step on.”

Anduril’s missiles are being touted as a potential $150,000-per-shot alternative to munitions produced by Lockheed Martin and Boeing, which currently cost between $700,000 and $3m each. The company claims they require 50pc of the parts and 95pc fewer tools to make.

The weapon is an example of Anduril’s “off the shelf approach”, where it invests in research and development itself and then sells ready-made products to governments.

By contrast, most defence primes invest single digit percentages of their revenues in R&D and instead operate on “cost-plus” contracts with customers, where they are paid for the development process.

Luckey has said his goal is to emulate Musk’s SpaceX, which muscled its way into contracts with US space agency NASA by offering dramatically cheaper rocket launches than bigger, traditional rivals.

“Anduril’s approach does mean sacrificing some of the capabilities in these other, exquisite systems, and of course you are not going to be able to build F-35 jets or aircraft carriers in commercial factories,” says Stacie Pettyjohn, a senior fellow and director of defence at the Centre for a New American Security.

“But that’s because cost is really the factor they have zeroed in on.”

She says weapons like Anduril’s “wingman” autonomous fighter jet and Barracuda missiles are likely to compliment rather than completely replace more expensive platforms, but adds: “They’re ultimately proposing a new kind of defence market… and that’s inevitably going to pose a challenge to existing programmes and budgets.”

Earlier this year, Anduril embarrassed some of its bigger rivals when its “Fury” drone beat alternatives made by Lockheed, Boeing and Northrop Grumman in a competition to design an autonomous fighter jet for the US Air Force.

In September, tensions boiled over as General Atomics, which made the final two with Anduril in the contest, appeared to compare Luckey to Elizabeth Holmes, who was jailed in 2022 for making fraudulent claims about her blood test company Theranos.

Mark Brinkley, a spokesman for General Atomics, told the Breaking Defence website: “Sometimes you find these companies, and they say they’re going to use one drop of blood and they’re going to revolutionise the whole world, and then they grow up to be Theranos.

“Quite frankly, when you look at the Fury – to me, it looks like trying to use a drop of blood to change the world. And I don’t see it.”

Luckey did not respond directly to the comments, but instead posted on Musk’s social network X, formerly known as Twitter, to joke that General Atomics “doth protest too much”.

In another post he referred to the jailing of Theranos boss Holmes, writing: “I guess I am going to prison for 11 years” with a sad text emoji.

It was a typical riposte from the mercurial billionaire, whose backstory is quintessential Silicon Valley.

He owns an oceanfront mansion in Long Beach, along with six helicopters, a collection of fast cars he keeps in a giant subterranean garage, a former US Navy gunboat and even several decommissioned US nuclear missile silos – at least one of which he wants to convert into a museum.

Alongside Anduril, his other current venture is a video game business that has just produced a recreation of Nintendo’s best selling – but out of production – Gameboy Colour console.

He earned his reputation as a tech prodigy early on.

As a teenager, Luckey built a groundbreaking virtual reality headset out of scraps, while living in a campervan on his parents’ driveway.

The idea went on to become the Oculus Rift headset – now seen as a paradigm-shifting jump in technology – which he sold to Facebook for $2bn, netting him a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars at the age of 21.

Palmer Luckey sold Oculus VR to Facebook for $2bn in 2014 Ramin Talaie/Corbis via Getty Images
The merger ended on a sour note just two years later, however, when Luckey was fired over his $10,000 donation to a pro-Trump campaign group dedicated to “s***posting” Hilary Clinton.

By Luckey’s own telling, the furore led to his effective exile from Silicon Valley, despite a lack of proof for claims that he had funded hate speech.

That is when the billionaire – after ruling out other projects – decided to start Anduril.

The venture secured backing from Peter Thiel, who also funds rival defence startup Palantir (another Lord of the Rings reference), as well as other big names such as 9Yards, the investment vehicle run by former British chancellor George Osborne and his brother Theo Osborne, and Baillie Gifford.

For now, Luckey says he expects Anduril to keep making losses while it invests to win business. A stock market listing has been hinted at but not as a priority.

However the company was recently valued at $14bn and it is expected to generate revenues of more than $1bn by 2026.

“What I think is quite interesting is that Luckey’s a complete outsider in defence,” says Theo Osborne, of 9Yards.

“But sometimes it takes an outsider to come into an industry and shake it up, because they think about things on a first principles basis as an engineer.

“I think he’s really a once in a generation founder, definitely the type of person you want to back.”

Luckey’s willingness to work with the military – something Google employees famously refused to do – has also attracted criticism from some quarters in Silicon Valley.

Anduril’s ultra-cheap cruise missiles, called Barracuda, are capable of being made at ‘hyperscale’ with common tools and commercially-available components
When he worked at Facebook and drove a desert Humvee military truck to the office, colleagues accused him of flaunting a symbol of “American oppression” and even called the police once.

But the billionaire himself is unrepentant about his mission, arguing that those who oppose a strong Western military posture are playing into the hands of China and Russia by holding such “luxury beliefs”.

“Societies have always needed a warrior class that is enthused and excited about enacting violence on others in pursuit of good aims,” he told TechCrunch in a recent interview.

“You need people like me who are sick in that way and who don’t lose any sleep making tools of violence in order to preserve freedom.”

After big wins in the US and Australia, where Anduril is building “Ghost Shark” robot submarines for the navy, Luckey is now also seeking to do more business in Britain.

His company already works with the Royal Marines and has sold sentry equipment to the Home Office to monitor the English Channel.

But Anduril is also thought to be targeting a contract with the British Army to provide battlefield software and is also keen to find more buyers for his Barracuda missiles and other products such as the Fury drone.

Now his company is growing into a commercial threat, however, it is not just peace protesters who will be painting a target on Luckey’s back.

Rival defence primes, who wield massive influence in Washington and London, are unlikely to go quietly, says Francis Tusa, an independent defence analyst.

He also questions whether Anduril will be able to make gains in countries outside the US while strict defence export restrictions remain in place.

“What Anduril is proposing is a massive departure from the norm, it will be fought tooth and nail by the defence primes,” Tusa adds.

But if Luckey succeeds like his hero Aragorn, he’ll have written his own story for the ages.

 

[dimsum]

How the ‘Elon Musk of missiles’ is plotting to blow up the defence industry

Palmer Luckey’s Anduril is becoming a commercial threat to rivals who will fight it ‘tooth and nail’

www.telegraph.co.uk

Hanging on the wall in Palmer Luckey’s California office is a full-sized replica sword from the Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

The weapon – known as “Anduril” – inspired the name of the billionaire’s insurgent defence technology company. Translated from the fictional language Elvish, it means “Flame of the West”.

In JRR Tolkien’s stories, the sword is reforged from a broken blade and wielded by Aragorn, a warrior-exile who returns to become king and leads an army against the forces of evil.

Now Luckey – an avid fan of fantasy, science fiction, Japanese anime cartoons and video games – has set an equally grandiose goal for the real-life Anduril Industries.

Advertisement

“Anduril will save Western civilization”, his pitch to investors reads, “by saving taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars a year, as we make tens of billions of dollars a year”.

In practice, this means ramping up production of advanced drones and missiles, powered by artificial intelligence (AI), in numbers large enough to face down China and Russia.

According to Luckey – in an age of $1.6 trillion (£1.2 trillion) fighter jet programmes – the US and its allies must relearn what they seem to have forgotten: how to build effective weapons quickly, at large scale, for affordable prices.

And amid rising geopolitical tensions, ranging from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the current conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas, western governments are listening.

Since Luckey founded Anduril in 2017, the Los Angeles-based company has secured business from the Pentagon, Australia and the UK’s Ministry of Defence, among other customers, with its drones deployed by Ukraine against Vladimir Putin’s forces.

Advertisement



Advertisement : 29 sec
This year, the company has also won major contracts with the US Air Force, Army and Space Force – humiliating bigger rivals that have been in the game for decades.

Luckey – who sports a mullet haircut, goatee and an outfit consisting of Haiwaian shirts, cargo shorts and sandals – is known for a combative and swaggering style that attracts comparisons with Elon Musk, the founder of electric carmaker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX.

Palmer Luckey wants to emulate the way Elon Musk’s SpaceX won Nasa contracts on price Bloomberg/itKyle Grillot
Both men are well regarded for their engineering smarts but also viewed as dissidents in liberal-leaning Silicon Valley, with both expressing vocal support for Donald Trump.

Like Musk, Luckey is also challenging the business model of the most powerful defence industry incumbents – large companies known as “primes” – which he claims is failing to meet the moment as Western governments race to replenish their munition stockpiles.

While US and European officials have increasingly focused on developing relatively small numbers of increasingly sophisticated, “exquisite” stealth aircraft, tanks and armoured cars, they have struggled to produce enough artillery shells to send to Ukraine and to replenish missile stocks after donating them to Kiev.

At the same time, war games have found key American weapons such as anti-ship missiles would be expended within the first week of a US-China conflict. But they would take years to replace, owing to slow and highly specialist production lines.

Last month, Anduril unveiled a potential solution: a family of ultra-cheap cruise missiles, called Barracuda, capable of being made at “hyperscale” with common tools and commercially available components.

Along with robot submarines and fighter jets, virtual reality goggles and a plethora of jamming and detection devices – all linked together by AI software – the missiles are part of the new “arsenal of democracy” Luckey hopes to build en masse in a series of high-tech, reconfigurable factories.

“I don’t think the United States needs to be the world police,” the billionaire said in a recent television interview with Bloomberg. “I think we need to be the world’s gun store.

“We need to be able to provide our allies and our partners with the tools they need to turn themselves into prickly porcupines that no one wants to step on.”

Anduril’s missiles are being touted as a potential $150,000-per-shot alternative to munitions produced by Lockheed Martin and Boeing, which currently cost between $700,000 and $3m each. The company claims they require 50pc of the parts and 95pc fewer tools to make.

The weapon is an example of Anduril’s “off the shelf approach”, where it invests in research and development itself and then sells ready-made products to governments.

By contrast, most defence primes invest single digit percentages of their revenues in R&D and instead operate on “cost-plus” contracts with customers, where they are paid for the development process.

Luckey has said his goal is to emulate Musk’s SpaceX, which muscled its way into contracts with US space agency NASA by offering dramatically cheaper rocket launches than bigger, traditional rivals.

“Anduril’s approach does mean sacrificing some of the capabilities in these other, exquisite systems, and of course you are not going to be able to build F-35 jets or aircraft carriers in commercial factories,” says Stacie Pettyjohn, a senior fellow and director of defence at the Centre for a New American Security.

“But that’s because cost is really the factor they have zeroed in on.”

She says weapons like Anduril’s “wingman” autonomous fighter jet and Barracuda missiles are likely to compliment rather than completely replace more expensive platforms, but adds: “They’re ultimately proposing a new kind of defence market… and that’s inevitably going to pose a challenge to existing programmes and budgets.”

Earlier this year, Anduril embarrassed some of its bigger rivals when its “Fury” drone beat alternatives made by Lockheed, Boeing and Northrop Grumman in a competition to design an autonomous fighter jet for the US Air Force.

In September, tensions boiled over as General Atomics, which made the final two with Anduril in the contest, appeared to compare Luckey to Elizabeth Holmes, who was jailed in 2022 for making fraudulent claims about her blood test company Theranos.

Mark Brinkley, a spokesman for General Atomics, told the Breaking Defence website: “Sometimes you find these companies, and they say they’re going to use one drop of blood and they’re going to revolutionise the whole world, and then they grow up to be Theranos.

“Quite frankly, when you look at the Fury – to me, it looks like trying to use a drop of blood to change the world. And I don’t see it.”

Luckey did not respond directly to the comments, but instead posted on Musk’s social network X, formerly known as Twitter, to joke that General Atomics “doth protest too much”.

In another post he referred to the jailing of Theranos boss Holmes, writing: “I guess I am going to prison for 11 years” with a sad text emoji.

It was a typical riposte from the mercurial billionaire, whose backstory is quintessential Silicon Valley.

He owns an oceanfront mansion in Long Beach, along with six helicopters, a collection of fast cars he keeps in a giant subterranean garage, a former US Navy gunboat and even several decommissioned US nuclear missile silos – at least one of which he wants to convert into a museum.

Alongside Anduril, his other current venture is a video game business that has just produced a recreation of Nintendo’s best selling – but out of production – Gameboy Colour console.

He earned his reputation as a tech prodigy early on.

As a teenager, Luckey built a groundbreaking virtual reality headset out of scraps, while living in a campervan on his parents’ driveway.

The idea went on to become the Oculus Rift headset – now seen as a paradigm-shifting jump in technology – which he sold to Facebook for $2bn, netting him a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars at the age of 21.

Palmer Luckey sold Oculus VR to Facebook for $2bn in 2014 Ramin Talaie/Corbis via Getty Images
The merger ended on a sour note just two years later, however, when Luckey was fired over his $10,000 donation to a pro-Trump campaign group dedicated to “s***posting” Hilary Clinton.

By Luckey’s own telling, the furore led to his effective exile from Silicon Valley, despite a lack of proof for claims that he had funded hate speech.

That is when the billionaire – after ruling out other projects – decided to start Anduril.

The venture secured backing from Peter Thiel, who also funds rival defence startup Palantir (another Lord of the Rings reference), as well as other big names such as 9Yards, the investment vehicle run by former British chancellor George Osborne and his brother Theo Osborne, and Baillie Gifford.

For now, Luckey says he expects Anduril to keep making losses while it invests to win business. A stock market listing has been hinted at but not as a priority.

However the company was recently valued at $14bn and it is expected to generate revenues of more than $1bn by 2026.

“What I think is quite interesting is that Luckey’s a complete outsider in defence,” says Theo Osborne, of 9Yards.

“But sometimes it takes an outsider to come into an industry and shake it up, because they think about things on a first principles basis as an engineer.

“I think he’s really a once in a generation founder, definitely the type of person you want to back.”

Luckey’s willingness to work with the military – something Google employees famously refused to do – has also attracted criticism from some quarters in Silicon Valley.

Anduril’s ultra-cheap cruise missiles, called Barracuda, are capable of being made at ‘hyperscale’ with common tools and commercially-available components
When he worked at Facebook and drove a desert Humvee military truck to the office, colleagues accused him of flaunting a symbol of “American oppression” and even called the police once.

But the billionaire himself is unrepentant about his mission, arguing that those who oppose a strong Western military posture are playing into the hands of China and Russia by holding such “luxury beliefs”.

“Societies have always needed a warrior class that is enthused and excited about enacting violence on others in pursuit of good aims,” he told TechCrunch in a recent interview.

“You need people like me who are sick in that way and who don’t lose any sleep making tools of violence in order to preserve freedom.”

After big wins in the US and Australia, where Anduril is building “Ghost Shark” robot submarines for the navy, Luckey is now also seeking to do more business in Britain.

His company already works with the Royal Marines and has sold sentry equipment to the Home Office to monitor the English Channel.

But Anduril is also thought to be targeting a contract with the British Army to provide battlefield software and is also keen to find more buyers for his Barracuda missiles and other products such as the Fury drone.

Now his company is growing into a commercial threat, however, it is not just peace protesters who will be painting a target on Luckey’s back.

Rival defence primes, who wield massive influence in Washington and London, are unlikely to go quietly, says Francis Tusa, an independent defence analyst.

He also questions whether Anduril will be able to make gains in countries outside the US while strict defence export restrictions remain in place.

“What Anduril is proposing is a massive departure from the norm, it will be fought tooth and nail by the defence primes,” Tusa adds.

But if Luckey succeeds like his hero Aragorn, he’ll have written his own story for the ages.

Dude reminds me of Marcus Munitions in Borderlands.

 

[Kirkhill]

CCA: What weapons and engines will let loyal wingmen drones hit their potential? [VIDEO #4] - Breaking Defense

In the fourth video in our CCA series, Breaking Defense looks at the devil in the details for the future fleet.

breakingdefense.com

Interesting discussion about power plants and weapons and comms.

They seem to be coming at it from the Air Force side and trying to create an Uncrewed Crewed Fighter, one that is going to be big, heavy and expensive which will require lots of maintenance.

I suggest the other option is putting a Tomahawk on a Rocket Sled and upgrading its seekers. Mix up the payloads to include a bunch of decoys, spoofers and jammers.

The Tomahawk is an autonomous system. Send a swarm of them at a target and bury a couple of F35s in the flock to do BDA.

The F35 costs 100 MUSD.
The Tomahawk cost 1 MUSD.
That is a lot of cheap but deadly targets that the enemy will have to manage simultaneously.
And who cares if 90 of them die in the attempt.

And Kratos Valkyries and Makos and Targets carry useful payloads over long ranges for prices closer to the Tomahawk than the F35.

Manufacturer

Model

Max Speed.

Ceiling

Range

Power Plant

MTOW

Empty Weight

Fuel Capacity

Payload - Internal

Payload - External

Length

Wingspan

Tomahawk

BGM-109

Mach 0.74

164 ft

1600 km

Williams International F107-WR-402 turbofan 700 lb (3.1 kN)

2900 lb

1900 lb

-

1000 lb

-

18 ft 3 in (5.56 m)

8 ft 9 in (2.67 m)

Kratos

XQ-58

Mach 0.72

45,000 ft

5500 km

2000 lb (8.8 kN)

6000 lb

2500 lb

600 lb

2x 600 lb

30 ft

27 ft

Kratos

UTAP-122

Mach 0.91

50,000 ft

2600 km

2 × 1x MicroTurbo Tri 60-5+ turbojet, 1,000 lbf (4.4 kN) thrust

2050 lb

650 lb

350 lb

800 lb + 2x 100 lb

20.1 ft (6.1 m)

10.5 ft (3.2 m)

Kratos

BQM-177

Mach 0.95

40,000 ft

550 km

1 × 1x MicroTurbo Tri 60-5+ turbojet, 1,000 lbf (4.4 kN) thrust

1,500 lb (680 kg)

620 lb (281 kg)

63 gal

100 lb

2x 85 lb

17 ft 0 in (5.18 m)

7 ft 0 in (2.1 m)

And the Kratos/GE alliance is looking at a sealed engine with a maximum 3000 lb of thrust (4x Tomahawk, 1.5x Valkyrie XQ-58A).

 

[Kirkhill]

And ....

Pentagon on the hunt for cheap, one-way drones - Breaking Defense

“We have no cap on the number of vendors involved," a DIU spokesperson said.

breakingdefense.com

WASHINGTON — The Department of Defense is turning to industry for low-cost, one-way long-range unmanned aerial systems that can operate in “disrupted, disconnected, intermittent, low-bandwidth” (DDIL) environments, according to a recent Defense Innovation Unit solicitation.

The solicitation stated that such inexpensive drones have had an “asymmetric impact” in modern battlefield settings, presumably in Ukraine’s ongoing fight against Russia and the escalating tensions in the Middle East. The US also approved the sale of hundreds of similar air vehicles to Taiwan earlier this year

In addition to being DDIL compatible, the drones must also be able to operate in Global Navigation Satellite System denied environments, carry a payload of at least 10 kilograms (though ideally over 25 kg), and be able to travel over 50 kilometers, but ideally 300 km.

 

[dimsum]

CCA: What weapons and engines will let loyal wingmen drones hit their potential? [VIDEO #4] - Breaking Defense

In the fourth video in our CCA series, Breaking Defense looks at the devil in the details for the future fleet.

breakingdefense.com

Interesting discussion about power plants and weapons and comms.

They seem to be coming at it from the Air Force side and trying to create an Uncrewed Crewed Fighter, one that is going to be big, heavy and expensive which will require lots of maintenance.

I suggest the other option is putting a Tomahawk on a Rocket Sled and upgrading its seekers. Mix up the payloads to include a bunch of decoys, spoofers and jammers.

The Tomahawk is an autonomous system. Send a swarm of them at a target and bury a couple of F35s in the flock to do BDA.

The F35 costs 100 MUSD.
The Tomahawk cost 1 MUSD.
That is a lot of cheap but deadly targets that the enemy will have to manage simultaneously.
And who cares if 90 of them die in the attempt.

And Kratos Valkyries and Makos and Targets carry useful payloads over long ranges for prices closer to the Tomahawk than the F35.

Manufacturer

Model

Max Speed.

Ceiling

Range

Power Plant

MTOW

Empty Weight

Fuel Capacity

Payload - Internal

Payload - External

Length

Wingspan

Tomahawk

BGM-109

Mach 0.74

164 ft

1600 km

Williams International F107-WR-402 turbofan 700 lb (3.1 kN)

2900 lb

1900 lb

-

1000 lb

-

18 ft 3 in (5.56 m)

8 ft 9 in (2.67 m)

Kratos

XQ-58

Mach 0.72

45,000 ft

5500 km

2000 lb (8.8 kN)

6000 lb

2500 lb

600 lb

2x 600 lb

30 ft

27 ft

Kratos

UTAP-122

Mach 0.91

50,000 ft

2600 km

2 × 1x MicroTurbo Tri 60-5+ turbojet, 1,000 lbf (4.4 kN) thrust

2050 lb

650 lb

350 lb

800 lb + 2x 100 lb

20.1 ft (6.1 m)

10.5 ft (3.2 m)

Kratos

BQM-177

Mach 0.95

40,000 ft

550 km

1 × 1x MicroTurbo Tri 60-5+ turbojet, 1,000 lbf (4.4 kN) thrust

1,500 lb (680 kg)

620 lb (281 kg)

63 gal

100 lb

2x 85 lb

17 ft 0 in (5.18 m)

7 ft 0 in (2.1 m)

And the Kratos/GE alliance is looking at a sealed engine with a maximum 3000 lb of thrust (4x Tomahawk, 1.5x Valkyrie XQ-58A).

Objectively you are probably correct, in that the next thing is probably missile-centric with the fighter/UAS guiding to the “last mile” or conducting BDA.

However…

The USAF is run by pilots. Mostly fighter pilots. I would love to be a fly on the wall if someone pitches to the USAF that its fighter fleet becomes support for cruise missiles.

But more seriously, the fighter / interceptor fleets were in danger in the 1950s / 1960s. Not exactly the same situation, obviously, but I’m not totally convinced that a cruise missile barrage is the best way to go. There are definitely some situations that it would work well, but I would suggest that it’s kind of a one-trick pony.

Once you launch it, you’re not getting it back so what happens if the strike has to be aborted for whatever reason?

 

[Kirkhill]

Objectively you are probably correct, in that the next thing is probably missile-centric with the fighter/UAS guiding to the “last mile” or conducting BDA.

However…

The USAF is run by pilots. Mostly fighter pilots. I would love to be a fly on the wall if someone pitches to the USAF that its fighter fleet becomes support for cruise missiles.

But more seriously, the fighter / interceptor fleets were in danger in the 1950s / 1960s. Not exactly the same situation, obviously, but I’m not totally convinced that a cruise missile barrage is the best way to go. There are definitely some situations that it would work well, but I would suggest that it’s kind of a one-trick pony.

Once you launch it, you’re not getting it back so what happens if the strike has to be aborted for whatever reason?

Do the Kratos thing. Abort, RTB and land on a parachute. It is plan B. Not part of the primary mission plan.

The returned rounds could then be inspected, refurbed, refuelled and relaunched.

I find it noteworthy that it is the USMC that is playing with Kratos under Navy auspices.

The Air Force is looking for the other answer.

 

[dimsum]

Do the Kratos thing. Abort, RTB and land on a parachute. It is plan B. Not part of the primary mission plan.

The returned rounds could then be inspected, refurbed, refuelled and relaunched.

I find it noteworthy that it is the USMC that is playing with Kratos under Navy auspices.

The Air Force is looking for the other answer.

Yup, and probably in no small part due to the ingrained culture of the two services.

The USMC is, at heart, a land force deployed by sea (by somebody else). They have an Air element but it’s not the primary role of the USMC. The USMC, writ large, probably think that this is returnable artillery.

The USAF is, unsurprisingly, aircraft-centric. The USAF has command of missiles (ICBMs) as well, but that’s not really what most people think when they think of the USAF. Most of the people (including its leaders) have been ingrained that the solution involves aircraft of some description, because if not, what’s the point of having the USAF?

I’m not saying that it’s a good reason, but I’m guessing it’s a big part of the reason.

 

[Kirkhill]

In the "cruise missile" vein

The Leidos Black Arrow

New small cruise missile slated for SOCOM gunship test

Digital engineering is helping smaller companies make big leaps in missile design.

www.defenseone.com

The effort by Leidos, better known for its weapons components than entire missiles, shows how digital technologies and open, modular design are enabling new entrants to the missile market and clearing a path toward cheaper, easier-to-built weapons.

The Black Arrow is designed to answer SOCOM’s 2021 call for a small air-to-ground cruise missile that can fly about 400 nautical miles and hit targets even when GPS is down. SOCOM said it needed such a missile because more advanced air defense systems were putting U.S. forces at greater risk in more places.

Leidos, like Anduril, is a non-traditional supplier that is software focused.

Other Leidos projects include unmanned ships for the USN



In like manner Anduril uses similar software architecture across all its UxVs regardless of domain.
Rheinmetall's PATH-A system is also pretty platform agnostic.