Ask anything Thread

[Jeff Head]

This thread is predominantly for new, inexperienced posters on SD. There will be one in each forum and the questions should relate to the overall topic of the forum in which it is located..

It is for true nubie or greenie questions that we do not want to clutter up our main threads with.

It is also for "off the wall," questions or suggestions, even from more experienced users on SD.

Our forum is very broad ranging and everyone cannot be experts on everything...so in one of the forums, if you have a legitimate question you have been afraid or embarrassed to ask...this is where you can do it.

As moderators see questions that may fit into these categories on other threads...they may well move them here to try and keep our more serious threads as professional as possible.

Be patient. Longer time members will watch these threads as will moderators...but it may take us a whole to get to some of these questions.

So...with that...carryon!

 

[Black Shark]

Haven't been update for quite long time on chinese ground forces. What was products of the Active Protection System development for AFV's so far?

 

[solarz]

I believe this has the potential to be something completely new to warfare. Swarms of autonomous flying drones that can fly in coordination and identify targets.

I'm not sure if you can put a machine gun on a quadcopter, I imagine the recoil would probably be too strong for it to handle, but what if each drone had a rocket-propelled grenade?

The low cost of these things would allow them to be mass produced. A swarm of a few hundred of these could easily take out an entire armor battalion.

Then there's the recon possibilities. Deploy thousands of these over a battlefield, and the generals would have real-time update on the progress of the battle. Scale this up to a million drones over an entire theatre, coupled with a supercomputer for filtering out noise and reporting relevant data, fog of war would be a thing of the past.

 

[TerraN_EmpirE]

The problems I see are power, Endurance and bandwidth. huge numbers of drones is going to demand a exceptional EM bandwidth and staying aloft well maintaining sensor fusion will stretch power generation beyond realism and maintaining them for a extended period beyond reality. Rather perhaps I see Swarms of drones operating near forces and maneuvering elements. Larger Drones based on ultra long endurance types like modern air ships can e strategically placed to serve as over all view well more conventional drones spread into the fringes. These Larger conventional drones used for recon and strike missions as well as dropping unmanned unattended sensor packages that can track movement in a area.

 

[TerraN_EmpirE]

Added thoughts.
On armament for mini drones. Small weapons like a SMG or PDW class weapons module, little more then a MP7 with a electronic trigger its light weight lethal at close range.
how about a single shot airburst round like the 25mm of a XM25 one or two well placed shots or A explosive payload for a Kamikaze run. One tested drone here in the US was developed with dual AA12 full auto shotguns and it was little more then a model helicopter.

 

[no_name]

For kamikaze isn't that what switchblade is for?

I'd say instead you could have self-loitering smart munitions crusing around target area on their own, then a manned platform that send activation/arming code and target coordinates to them when target is identified and to be engaged so that bandwidth is only used when necessary.

 

[solarz]

The problems I see are power, Endurance and bandwidth. huge numbers of drones is going to demand a exceptional EM bandwidth and staying aloft well maintaining sensor fusion will stretch power generation beyond realism and maintaining them for a extended period beyond reality. Rather perhaps I see Swarms of drones operating near forces and maneuvering elements. Larger Drones based on ultra long endurance types like modern air ships can e strategically placed to serve as over all view well more conventional drones spread into the fringes. These Larger conventional drones used for recon and strike missions as well as dropping unmanned unattended sensor packages that can track movement in a area.

Bandwidth for swarm communication should not be an issue. They will be communicating via bytes, not voice, so the packets will be tiny albeit continuous.

Transmitting videos to base stations will take a lot of bandwidth, which is why it should not be done. The purpose of video transmission is to enable human operators to make decisions. If the drones were each autonomous, this would no longer be necessary. Instead, just transmit relevant intel data, such as number of enemy forces, composition, coordinates, etc. All of this then gets processed and reconstructed into human-digestible graphics by the base station computer.

Staying power, however, is a different issue. I'm envisioning two types of drones: recon drones and attack drones. The recon drone has no armament, a light chasis, and a long-life battery that can be charged by solar power. The attack drone is designed to operate only for a short period of time. They are delivered to their target via a different mechanism, such as through a cruise missile or even a man-portable rocket. They only need to have enough power to achieve their mission.

 

[lllchairmanlll]

I believe this has the potential to be something completely new to warfare. Swarms of autonomous flying drones that can fly in coordination and identify targets.

I'm not sure if you can put a machine gun on a quadcopter, I imagine the recoil would probably be too strong for it to handle, but what if each drone had a rocket-propelled grenade?

The low cost of these things would allow them to be mass produced. A swarm of a few hundred of these could easily take out an entire armor battalion.

Then there's the recon possibilities. Deploy thousands of these over a battlefield, and the generals would have real-time update on the progress of the battle. Scale this up to a million drones over an entire theatre, coupled with a supercomputer for filtering out noise and reporting relevant data, fog of war would be a thing of the past.

Is this Qi Tian Da Shen?

 

[ladioussupp]

According to Sina Military, PLA equips with a recon projectile which can transmit real-time image back to command post for BDA or recon. Do US or Western Army have similar products?

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[ahho]

Hi Guys,
I was reading about the VT-4 MBT and notice some article online mentioned GL-5 Active Protection System. I am wondering if anyone have any information in regarding to it. This is news to me on APS. I know the Chinese are developing their own, but I have not seen anything online as of yet.