OPC’s Post

Well said James! Are you recommending a group or organization that could develop or spin-off appropriate resources?

Spot on and also additional capabilities are needed to help with lack of people, part of missions and processes and so on. Written about this a lot. More action is needed than just talk.

The United States urgently needs significant funding to align critical manufacturing capabilities with future conflict requirements. Currently, waiting up to seven months for turbines or electronics is untenable. Major manufacturers hesitate to produce components without a program of record to contract against, as the investment risks are high if their systems are later replaced by another vendor's product. While the Pentagon can't predict the future with certainty, it's clear that the U.S. is far from being able to rapidly scale to wartime production. Build, baby, build! It's time to reinvigorate domestic manufacturing and ensure we're prepared for any challenge ahead.

Excellent post. What is needed is not the U.S. tendency to make "Christmas tree" a verb, which is what we used to call the DoD when I worked on Capitol Hill, but for someone to create the drone equivalent of the AK-47 - inexpensive, expendable, works in volume, anyone can learn to use it, functions in all conditions. Both sides are developing these in the Ukraine theater, while the U.S. awards massive drone contracts for aircraft with problems as described above. Sigh.

The solution is simple. Let you buy Turkish battle proven UCAV’s with their incrediable performance and EW capabilities.. If you put aside your arrogance and establish a more positive win-win relationship with Turkey, which has the largest and most experienced modern army in NATO and in the region, you can find a solution eeasily to your problems with a friend who has now become a world leader in this regard.

As stalin, the great ruzzian criminal once said: quantity has its own quality. I cannot understand that we can make 45 sophisticated trucks per day, 5000 tv's and the like, but we are not capable of producing 1 missile per week. The defence industry has grown fat on selling overpriced and over-engineered kit. There is no need for paint that last 30 years and electronics that last 50 years when things will get shot up in a month. It should just work, be cheap and available in enormous quantities. Our economies are perhaps 50 times the ruzzian, but we are outproduced by some tinpot dictators.

Sir I am in procurement not in weapons development so please take this in the spirit of introspection. The vendors provide what we ask for. Pre Ukraine we wanted big mean and expensive. In Ukraine we have learned, cheap, effective, destructive, reliable is good enough. It doesn’t have to be a predator when a dji will do. Just one procurement guys thoughts. The specs have changed don’t place all the blame on the vendor

Your graphic is an example of misinformation. Please educate yourself on the systems actually deployed.

How a Drone for Close Air Support Could Look? For the past 20 years, the image of an armed unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) providing close air support (CAS) has become familiar: the high-flying MQ-1 Predator or MQ-9A Reaper. Equipped with advanced optics and targeting systems, the MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9A Reaper excelled in locating and eliminating individual ground targets, effectively supporting ground troops. Everything changed two years ago. Wars between nations and their conventional armies erupted, revealing that high-flying, large UAVs were virtually defenseless against medium-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems, even outdated ones like the SA-2 Guideline. Squadrons of large, expensive, and unprotected UAVs began suffering unexpectedly high losses, leaving ground forces without critical air support. This created an urgent demand for a drone capable of serving as an attack aircraft that could perform missions in environments with active enemy air defenses. Using manned attack aircraft to fill this gap has proven to be only a temporary solution, as even heavily armored and well-protected aircraft, such as the Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoot, have sustained losses under enemy fire and loss of trained combat pilots, is irreparable.

“You know who you are. Overconfidence, hubris, and a lack of collaboration with end-users on the battlefield are holding back the effectiveness of American drones in Ukraine.”… I’m reminded of the frustration we had with the DOD Aquisition regulations that forbid service members in position to influence product development from talking to arms manufactures when I worked at HQMarine Corps 20 years ago. It was a travesty then and I’m sure it hasn’t improved.