via Motley Fool
....we're fascinated by the Armata -- and how its invention might affect investor portfolios back here in the U.S. For example, General Dynamics (NYSE: GD ) builds tanks for the U.S. military, while iRobot (NASDAQ: IRBT ) builds smaller military robots. Might a perceived threat from Russian "robo-tanks" like the Armata tank prompt a merger -- or at least a collaboration -- between these two U.S. defense contractors?Motley Fool is an interesting site. They've been extremely bullish on the F-35 and have recently moved to a more neutral stance. Additionally they have a focus on defense issues that I find...amusing. I don't often agree with them but it is fun to see what the people on Wall Street think (assuming they're representing "conventional wisdom").
Unless the Pentagon is willing to permit a "robot gap" to open between U.S. and Russian military capabilities, such a team-up might be necessary. Disturbing as the prospect of a new arms race between the U.S. and Russia might be, such a development would certainly benefit U.S. defense contractors.
At General Dynamics, for instance, slack sales of battle tanks recently forced the company tolay off hundreds of workers at its Lima, Ohio, Abrams tank plant. iRobot has been hurt nearly as hard by the drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Revenues at the company's Defense and Security business, responsible for PackBot sales to the military, fell from a 2011 high of $175 million in sales to just $50 million in the most recent fiscal year, according to S&P Capital IQ data -- about where the company was a decade ago. Working off such a small revenue base, it wouldn't take much of an investment in robo-technology by the Pentagon to move the needle at iRobot.
Anyway, read the entire article here.
russian robots? sure.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=283bDqu92PY
How long will you continue to masquerade as a veteran?
ReplyDeleteRed, vet or no vet, we don't care. Got it?
DeleteI'm here for the info, not to date Sol.
Owl, be nice .
DeleteHe's just a kid who's lonely. I even doubt if he's ever served in any Armed Forces.
Robo Tank? Seriously doubt it... they go in to too much fantasy zone here. Automatic loader, sure... unnamed turret, why not... but full combat automata? Nah.
ReplyDeleteEven if Russians would like to develop this they lack tech or know-how... everybody lack tech for this. Maybe in couple of decades... maybe.
@Maybe in couple of decades@
DeleteAgree, if it will no extreme stimulator like global war, for example.
Meanwhile we will see how it works on practice – for example how engineers performed a lot of things, questionable in terms of a relative unmanned gun-house. I mean, reload a gun or a machine-gun in case of jammed shell.
Then, the next step to robo-tank – a decreasing crew from 3 to 2 men. It is nontrivial task, definitely.
Indeed absolutely true, let's now perfect some "trivial" thing like fully reliable auto turret, then bigger level of automation that will not "freeze" when he meet a frakin bug in program. Tanks did not evolve too much in last 60 years and they will not jump from point A to Z in one design.
DeleteClock is ticking and still not a single official pic or concept, or maybe you saw something more reliable then graphic wet dream info' ?
Armata-tank @freeze" when he meet a frakin bug in program@
DeletePan, saying “tank-robot” I mean only tank-drone with this or that measure of automatisation. No decision making with the sing us such. I’m not sure that artificial intelligence is possible in the near Future.
@you saw something more reliable@
Bloody KGB keeps it in secret still. Bgggggg
Armata-tank theoretically can be shown at the end of March first– during drillings before the Victory-parade. I’m not so much interested how it looks, but I’m extremely desire to watch how it works in mud-everywhere circumstances, idle-hands of users and so on.
In that case... Russians have some solid history with drone tanks, I think Soviets did build some prototype before the war.
Delete@Russians have some solid history with drone tanks@
DeleteI guess it will be a very long and tragic-comic story only Armata-tank for 3 men crew, not to mention any kind of drones, pan. Before our rulers do not start to sentence relative decision-makers for shining-Magadan trip as the result of their abuse, misapplication of funds, slow fulfillment – nothing in our country will not work properly. Specially such tremendously hard thing as application of three new AV’s platform at once. There is a very popular Russian saying I personally share – “Only mass shooting sentences will rescue this country”.
Shas,
DeleteAs with a Predator or Reaper, the nature of the combat systems would likely remain under manned control (and be markedly easier to retain link security with because you could use millimeter wave or laser based, directional, transmissions rather than a UHF or C-Band feed which requires line of sight as well but which is _Omni_ and thus virtually unsecurable).
The key would be to have tank crews stop thinking of themselves as servers of weapons as single mounts and begin to think of themselves as MANAGERS of /weapons systems/. Plural. As in ten tubes at your command, not just one.
Something like this-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMV3yEzJCXM
Only fast and more user friendly in terms of BFT calling up unit segments using APP-6A codes with LARGE numbers (as clickable mouse fields) overtop to indicate whether you are commanding the platoon, company or battalion level force so that you can then move all units within that element in common thrust lines which a ground force 'Commanders Associate' auto-generates, on the fly. Including (UAV topomap) fast obstacle mapping. This will keep auto-spacing norms for the screen and main force elements with 'playbook' style event sequences that include phaselines and (threat) axis of fire indicators, real time.
http://www.developerfusion.com/pix/articleimages/may07/design1.jpg
http://www.donerightmarketingmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/playbook.jpg
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/71-123/fig4-95.gif
We already have auto-drive capabilities as AMAS-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBs4fHXYgEw
But what we don't have is something cheaper and less aperture-kill vulnerable than the multiple LIDARS on Crusher to-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcyeg_Y6cSE
To predict things like gulley and gopher hole hidden obstacles and a UAV top-down approach is the best solution here since it is wide area and non-grazing angle dependent so that cross country is as easy as downtown.
The other system element which we need (and which UAVs can only partly supply) is at least 4 vehicles from every Company level force to have a _scanning_ as opposed to /staring/ area sensor. Because if you have ten tube with autotracking enabled and you still can only see four dot-hump contrast tracks out of a total of ten threats firing, then, no matter how you refuse into threat axis, your ability to engage discrete targets is limited.
But, if you take a system like an IRLS with it's spinning mirror-
http://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/US7791638B2/US07791638-20100907-D00001.png
And provide a 4 bar, horizon stabilized, electronic elevation sweep, you can now, in the space of 2-3 seconds, get a complete, 360` expanded horizon mode vision of what's out there as bright hot or dark hot dots. Each fires vehicle then slews to look at that dot and says: "Aha! I have you now!" Or... "Just a cow." with it's high magnification targeting optics, based on inherent signature differences in spectrum intensities.
Deletehttp://people.rit.edu/andpph/a-scanner/handy-scan-vis-ir-pair-1.jpg
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/warning/sbirs-brochure/fig-5-1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/warning/sbirs-brochure/part02.htm&h=503&w=881&tbnid=bPDA-6T2azNizM:&zoom=1&docid=dT7vW4IOEHsJEM&ei=WM_XVK7oEoe-ggSXkoTwDQ&tbm=isch&ved=0CEgQMygeMB4
You can do the same thing (with mass-density reads) using active volume scan with MMW radar but of course, this invites jamming and/or ARM attack back.
Point Being: Ten Target = ten muzzle reference points, commanded by 2-3 manned vehicles (best of everything, protection wise) and 12 unmanneds (medium-okay but lotsa firepower).
And the weight differential between a 5-10 ton vehicle and a 20-30 ton vehicle adds up to massive fuel $aving$ in peacetime and extended, independent, operational manuever in war. No more foot-in-bucket "Where's the next M978?!" planning of maneuver from tanker to tanker (because you don't need turbine power to move a 72 ton TUSK'd Abrams).
Such is where robotics offers a couple of really neat enablers for combat:
1. They are cheap.
If nothing else, you don't have to enclose a MANPRINT ergonomics volume in a given amount of steel or aluminum which means the armor can be thicker and the vehicle still lighter than any manned system (you can also take risks with APS and sacrificial Appliques rather than hard-defeat protection).
2. Let The Droids Go First.
90%+ of all combat ends up being either ambushes ('They knew we were coming' is a real risk when doing 'joint' or MOOTW missions) or meeting engagements (Oh, hello. Saaaay, you're not...) whereby the first trigger squeeze basically decides the outcome for the lead combat elements. And the follow-ons then maneuver to flank or bypass, rolling the threat up or calling down the thunder.
With cheap tanks which are small and light enough to be both affordable and _deployable_, in numbers, the reality then becomes: "We know they are overwatching their own scout/security screen teams with UAVs. We know they have Viper GFAS on those UAVs. _Do we really_ want to blow up a bunch of silicon chips for the privilege of eating artillery 20 seconds later?
DeleteAnd this is a CRITICAL advantage because you are essentially stuffing up the enemy's engagement plan as initiative because your 'CAS on call' is effectively a bunch of short range artillery tubes /behind/ the scout screen, firing CLGP from only 8-10km back. Which means the enemy isn't going to be able to withdraw and disengage.
Robots also have other advantages. Namely, providing a new class of support system with 'traditional' IFV/APC level, antipersonnel and ATGW weapons mixes, able to support heavy armor, in close with troops via high angle and high volume fire as well as fluid maneuver. But without 10 men in the back.
Such is a major (hard diplomacy option disabling) shortcoming in systems like the Bradley, Stryker, GCV and APC.
If you are going to go deep, you'd better go hard-
1/64 Run Up Airport Road
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cuHmZfE0VM
No BFVs or Strykers there.
While there will be a need for light, fast, screening armor to prevent conditions like that pickup rolling up behind the Abrams, the risks will be such that you don't want to be hauling a mazcat worth of squad with you. Particularly if doing so increases weight while thinning protection. Especially if doing so means having a very large, unused, manned force which sucks money like a pornstar on a lollipop. Nobody worries about a Thunder Run that leaves a disabled UGCV behind.
Your occupational force can tail chase with another protective escort or come in via air. But you don't want a mazcat sitting within a grenade frag sized space, surrounded by HEAT warheads and rocket motors, simply because your MBT can't see well enough to fight if/when infantry pop up and start lobbing RPG. It takes too damn long to debus the boot force and get them into the fight to be worth it.
Surprisingly, unlike what M&S would think, we did experiment with unmanned ground vehicles before. It was a disaster. Doesn't have the ground sense God gave a hamster. Lots of accidents.
DeleteForget the thunder run, you'll be lucky if you didn't park it up the nearest tree.
On the other hand, his post did remind me of something.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffc7KG65HuM
5 years ago. Not much news of it now, but note the remote controlled (RC) suicide M-113s.
Don't know anyone familiar with them, but maybe they got better results than we did.
we are some decades away from any autonomus drones ,current flying drones are just giant toy planes controlled remotely only thing the do autonomuslly is crash. Land warfare id infinetly more complex and so much further away than air or seaborne drones.
ReplyDeleteFrom what russians tell Armata will not be a giant leap in design but more an evolutionary etep.
Mr. T,
DeleteThere was a program, flown way back in 2007 by an F/A-18D, called 'Automated Air To Air Refueling Demonstration'. The 'drone' surrogate flew to within X distance of a tanker simulator (buddy) off a discrete beacon and then that 707 aircraft became a differential GPS source, tightening propagation errors from about 2m to a matter of 10-15 inches. Close enough to let a video camera take over and 'chase the panty' to plug the probe. They put the drogue through swings of up to 9ft, up and down, side to side, and because of it's preternaturally quick timing and sense of spatial awareness, the autopilot+autothrottle driven 'drone' was able to plug the basket, nearly every time.
http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/5677_large_AIR_AARD_F-18_Refueling_No_Hands_lg.jpg
_No human could come close to this_ and to attempt it would be to risk basket strike, tearing off the drogue or damaging the probe (not good in a stealth conditioned environment on a very long radius, you have likely crashed not just the victim jet but anybody else who was supposed to use that tanker).
This year, they will begin testing with the X-47B.
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=1695
A similar capability, JPALS, has seen jets touch down within 17-24 inch scatter margins on heaving decks without an ACLS feed to lose calibration or signal to an enemy that you had an operative airport in the middle of the ocean (JPALS is actually more than this, incorporating elements of an automated marshall stacker ATC and aircraft health reporting system, changing the entire nature of the Air Boss and his staff's capabilities).
Yes, drones do crash, but more often than not, they do so because an idiot pilot does something beyond their capability to maneuver within (usually a function of PIO via the flight control reaction lag over the datalink) or does something like going behind the GUI deactivating a system limiter which then causes the aircraft to do something like assume the mission is over, shut off it's engine and go into a stall condition from which there is no pitch down recovery. Other things are indeed drone-stupid unique such as trying to /prevent/ a stall, at zero altitude, simply because there is no awareness that 'takeoff = zero feet, zero altitude' as a start point, not the next waypoint as climbout.
But the reality is that 'drones' fly completely automated routes all the time, with incredible precision. We call them cruise missiles. And when one of these drones is shot down and crashes into a hotel filled with people, we don't assume that something is wrong with the idea of drones. We wipe our brow and thank heaven that it wasn't an F-111 crew that got clobbered by low altitude trashfire.
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/01/19/world/raid-on-iraq-path-of-us-missiles-brings-debate-about-their-ability.html
Flying a route automated is nothing uber fantastic as Ryan FireBee in Vietnam it didn't have a soplisticated computer but it flew a route and from point A to B. But that is not decision making just simple program.
DeleteF 35 can land automatically but so could Yak36 -38 some 40 years ago only computer executing the landing was not on the plane but on the ship.
There are self driving cars, trains and passenger jets.
ReplyDeleteModern fighters are beyond human ability to fly, requiring computers to control flying surfaces.
In fighter still human take decisions, fly it even if most of the "fly part" are doing the machines. full autonomous combat automata is way more complex on the level of near AI. And it is still a long way before us... for Russians even longer as they did not invest too much in to autonomous systems in past decades.
DeleteAs programmer, i believe the problem is not technical, but software.
DeleteThat imply, in my view, That any country with decent programmer population and university coup achieve That, and only with times and somes millions, not billions. The problem is That usage will require learning algorithm, constant communication between bots, and obviously with command. That the Achille talon, the coms : They are always jammable...
The highly complicated algorithm is one thing... the data carrier is other, the communications system is another ect. Both software and hardware are the problem... they need to be highly complex and efficient and in the same time medium to low cost and reliable.
DeleteOfftopic:
ReplyDeleteSeveral great explosions happened several hours ago in Donetsk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2jmOYih_a8
Huge indeed, some solid explosive.
DeleteEven Tochka’s hit is not enough for this. It looks like someone lost a huge ammo storage.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXbSiCgpdyg&feature=youtu.be
DeleteYeah, too big for classic ordinance or fuel dump... ammo storage very possible, or they start to thor there tac nukes... from the hunters store next to you. ;)
Delete@Andrius
DeleteFucking Christ is that a shock wave that throw this dude camera?!
~15 sec until the sound/shockwave arrives, @ 340m/s the speed of sound, that puts the blast at around 5 kilometers away. I have no idea what it was, but looks like an ammo storage to me.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXbSiCgpdyg&feature=youtu.be
DeleteWhen the American ammo dump in Baghdad (Falcon?) got hit by a rocket attack, there were all sorts of secondary explosions. This is too clean for that.
DeleteObviously, having your articulated mounts on the outside of the main armor envelope is not a really great idea if you don't want to end up replacing them constantly (or suffering the consequences of thinning the shell to enclose them and their ammo in their own passive protection).
ReplyDeleteNor is having them so widely set in non-RWS, fixed, mounts that the turret drive has to 'dither' back and forth to service threats really a great idea. The high elevation angle indicates either an air defense role (silly when the missile comes from the horizonline) or a perceived need to fight in urban/mountainous terrain which is also not necessarily a good idea with heavy armor.
That said, the biggest problem with that tank is that it is concentrating ENORMOUS value as differentiated mission systems into a single hull.
Destroy that vehicle and you certainly take the main tube out of your OOB but also the autocannon of the IFV that you couldn't afford because the damn tank cost you 10-15 million instead of 6-8. And armored reconnaissance truck with the M134 on the back that would have spotted and wiped out the ATGW ambush that killed the Armata, 'if only' you hadn't packed in your Aufklarungs company due to budget issues as well.
Remember Arracourt. Having the right mix of vehicles is important. It's where the missions of each begin and end (no buses please) that requires careful thought as to a future maneuver plan.
In America, you drive the tank. In Soviet Russia, tank drive you!
ReplyDelete