France to tack weapons onto spy drones – reports France is fitting weapons to its fleet of reconnaissance drones, according to reports. French defence minister Florence Parly said the EU nation's six Reaper drones would equipped with weapons, though she did not specify precisely what weapons, by 2020. The drone fleet is reportedly deployed in northwest Africa, being used in …
Traditional bombers wouldn't hear the screams in any case from their height.
True...but traditional antiaircraft fire, and traditional interceptors armed with traditional cannons and traditional missiles were pretty effective reminders to the bomber crew that they weren't playing a game on their Xbox
By using a drone its a lot easier to vet the target and ensure that
a) you have the correct target
b) that there are no non-combatants around
c) the pilot(s) are unstressed, more situationally aware and more likely to make the correct decision
d) the chain of command is kept
If I recall correctly, the plan to launch Orion 'safely', was to build a launchpad on Antarctica. Plus, if I recall the schematics correctly, there didn't appear to be any way to steer the thing, or indeed, stop it, there was just one pusher plate at the bottom. Orion seems to be one of those back of the envelope calculations / pipe dreams that got taken a bit too seriously.
"Critics have pointed out that this reduces the killing of human beings to a mechanised process carried out through a screen and a controller, much like a video game. ®"
...because as we all know, manned ariel attacks, cruise missiles, artillery strikes and any other potential form of beyond visual range weaponry all require someone to see the whites of the victims eyes before they press the kill button
Manned aircraft are piloted by individuals who are usually overloaded and in the case of Navy pilots well beyond exhaustion and kept going by amphetamines - which has provably affected their judgement in many cases.
Remotely operated aircraft can have any number of people involved, looking at the same things the pilot is looking at and aiming the weapons/deciding what to do whilst the operator/pilot gets on with the job of keeping the thing flying and pointed in the right direction. The bigger problem at the moment is that the operator is being tasked with doing virtually everything including pushing the fire button and this is causing situational awareness problems.
You young guys need to grow up and grow a pair. I can assure you that it never feels like a TV game.
Unfortunately there are a small number of extremely horrible people in the world. You cannot debate with them. Their minds are made up and they won't change it. The only way to handle them is to remove them. However, a game, it is not.
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