J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread VIII

[siegecrossbow]

Would you say it would be better for these to be based separately? IMO, given how UADFs are advertised as standalone fully autonomous fighters and not really like CCAs which are meant to be slaved to manned fighters, they'd possibly get their own basing to carry out separate missions and patrols.

That’s the eventual goal, but the technology is not quite there yet for them to do things completely independently. They can optimize things on a tactical level flawlessly but can’t make strategic decisions themselves. Here is an example:

JF-17 pilots: Why on earth were you guys flying in circles at the rear? We dashed forward and couldn’t maintain communication with you.



J-10C pilots: Of course we couldn’t see or hear you. Our datalink was disrupted by the hostile. If your JF-17s were flying close to us, we could have given you an optimal flight path to flank the J-16. But before we could do that, your planes were shot down by the PL-15.



J-10C pilots: You know the reason why those J-16 pilots took you down that fast? It’s because under a certain “Initial Angle”, they knew their missile could hit you with ease. Also, in our experience, the SD-10 you launched would never reach its target. The offensive and defensive maneuvers of those J-16 pilots were almost flawless, even against us, the J-10C.

JF-17 pilots: Then what the hell are we going to do? Our JF-17s will be hopeless!



J-10C pilots: Just calm down and sit. Your jets are always combat-effective. Look, we will change our tactics tomorrow. Let me ask a question: if you were a J-16 pilot and saw J-10Cs and JF-17s outnumbering your side, which aircraft would you hit first?



JF-17 pilots: Of course I would shoot the more threatening J-10Cs first. If they were down, I could then handle the JF-17s easily.



J-10C pilots: Right. Actually, we J-10C pilots graduated from the same flight academy and received the same training as those flying J-16s. It’s even possible that our Brigade’s commander once served in the same unit alongside theirs! My point is, if we think J-16 should hit J-10C first, so do they.



J-10C pilots: You see, we really wanted them to fire at us first today, but you literally flew your jets to their gunpoint, so there was nothing more we could do. Next time, let us make the first move. We will climb and act as bait, so you can find the right firing windows.

Current UADFs, when left to their own devices entirely, behave more like the JF-17 pilots from Shaheen Exercise 2019.

 

[Blitzo]

Would you say it would be better for these to be based separately? IMO, given how UADFs are advertised as standalone fully autonomous fighters and not really like CCAs which are meant to be slaved to manned fighters, they'd possibly get their own basing to carry out separate missions and patrols.

Too early to say, imo

That’s the eventual goal, but the technology is not quite there yet for them to do things completely independently. They can optimize things on a tactical level flawlessly but can’t make strategic decisions themselves. Here is an example.

Being based separately from manned fighters doesn't mean that they would conduct missions in the air, independent of manned fighters.

That's why I said the basing and organizational aspect is actually a more unknowable aspect, because just because CCAs/UADFs will operate alongside manned fighters in the air, doesn't mean it automatically makes sense to operate them out of the same airbase.

 

[Nullify]

I do wonder about how they will solve all the potential issues with C2 of these UADFs, as those kinds of issues seem quite tricky. Someone elsewhere has mentioned some points:

I have a lot of questions about the C2 of these unmanned platforms. Namely:

• How do they deconflict with each other to avoid fratricidal jamming?
• How do they mitigate risks of being used by OPFOR EMSO to reveal their controller locations?
• How do they expect to compensate for OPFOR jamming?
• If they use onboard AI to analyze incoming waveforms so that they can operate autonomously/semi-autonomously in a contested environment, how do they avoid friendly fire incidents?
• If a single controller is managing 4x UADFs, and you have 4x controllers in the air at once, that's a lot of trons filling the box. Scale this up to a PLAAF air brigade, then an entire theater of operations, and then add in OPFOR to the mix, and you're looking at hundreds of different frequencies switching and hopping around all the time.

Deconfliction is going to be a bitch. As will be detection and maintaining good weapon lock.

Though I suppose if they become sufficiently reliable to be fully autonomous and capable of executing missions by themselves, then the friendly fire probability is likely deemed low enough to be acceptable. And then some of those C2 issues get resolved by autonomy itself. Of course it's easier said than done though, reliable autonomy in contested environments is very ambitious!

 

[latenlazy]

I do wonder about how they will solve all the potential issues with C2 of these UADFs, as those kinds of issues seem quite tricky. Someone elsewhere has mentioned some points:

Though I suppose if they become sufficiently reliable to be fully autonomous and capable of executing missions by themselves, then the friendly fire probability is likely deemed low enough to be acceptable. And then some of those C2 issues get resolved by autonomy itself. Of course it's easier said than done though, reliable autonomy in contested environments is very ambitious!

You will still need survivable control nodes operating locally with the CCAs to direct tasking. Aka J-20S/J-36/H-20(?)

 

[siegecrossbow]

You will still need survivable control nodes operating locally with the CCAs to direct tasking. Aka J-20S/J-36/H-20(?)

I think his question is how to prevent communications between said controller nodes and CCAs/UADFs from being hijacked.

 

[latenlazy]

I think his question is how to prevent communications between said controller nodes and CCAs/UADFs from being hijacked.

That’s all down to details of signals warfare like how well you’ve encrypted your comms and your comms beaming strategy. Pretty opaque stuff. In general though I think it’s safe to assume so long as you have manned control nodes there are robust measures to maintain operational integrity.

 

[Nullify]

That’s all down to details of signals warfare like how well you’ve encrypted your comms and your comms beaming strategy. Pretty opaque stuff. In general though I think it’s safe to assume so long as you have manned control nodes there are robust measures to maintain operational integrity.

Yeah, I guess we probably won't ever be privy to the finer details because there will be some black magic going on to solve these difficult C2 problems.

Looking at it from another aspect, mitigating any disruption of C2 by OPFOR will also depend on how PLAAF program the autonomy and the different responses to communications degradation. For example, if it loses the link to its controller, they could have it autonomously engage opponents in a set area ahead of it , or fall back to a set location, or keep carrying out the most recent command, or maybe something outside of our current imagination. Lots of possible scenarios for them to wargame out.

 

[latenlazy]

Yeah, I guess we probably won't ever be privy to the finer details because there will be some black magic going on to solve these difficult C2 problems.

Looking at it from another aspect, mitigating any disruption of C2 by OPFOR will also depend on how PLAAF program the autonomy and the different responses to communications degradation. For example, if it loses the link to its controller, they could have it autonomously engage opponents in a set area ahead of it , or fall back to a set location, or keep carrying out the most recent command, or maybe something outside of our current imagination. Lots of possible scenarios for them to wargame out.

Or you can just maintain comms redundancy. Direct link with a higher bandwidth node doesn’t have to be constant. You could send a mission package and then the rest of the comms could just be via satellite. Constant link need not mean constant high bandwidth.

 

[taxiya]

There is no need to worry about the communication between these nodes in a battle evironment in a foreseable future. Long security keys and scrambling data packages are widely used in civilian comminication. The key is so long that even supercomputers need days or months to crack it with acommpanied raw large data payload. In the mean time keys are constantly being changed and exchanged between nodes. In a battle that lasts minutes or hours, it just don't work to make meaning out of a chunk of intercepted partial data stream of some seconds. Boradband total jamming is more realistic than ear-dropping.

 

[Tomboy]

There is no need to worry about the communication betwegese node in a battle evironment. Long security key and scrambling data packages is widely used in civilian comminication. The key is so long that even supercomputers need days or months to crack it with acommpanied raw large data payload. In the mean time keys are constantly being changed and exchanged between nodes. In a battle that lasts minutes or hours, it just don't work to make meaning out of a chunk of intercepted partial data stream of some seconds. Boradband total jamming is more realistic than ear-dropping.

AFAIK, the latest USAF jammers like EA-37Bs are said to target comms links instead of trying directly jamming radars to degrade combat networks and datalinks and single out assets. IMO, I don't think there is a real risk of cracking or hijacking the C2 link, the RQ-170 for example was brought down via a exploit in its positioning system instead of hijacking the control link.

IMO, Real difficulty to these UADFs are still spotty/unreliable communication in complex combat environments and hence needing operate autonomously most of the mission with high reliability.