• einfach_orangensaft@sh.itjust.works
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    13 days ago

    Ill doubt i have the technical expertise to judge any of that.

    I think the future of air defense against most air breathing mid sized airborne targets will include:

    • Initial target detection via decentral passive radar detectors (using satellites as radar illumination)
    • computational layer to choose the next available air defense asset capable of intercepting
    • guidance of interceptor to the area of interest via telemetry link
    • once the target is in visual range THEN some far IR cam+“AI buzzword of the day” comes in for terminal guidance

    I dont even know if it makes sense to call the computation in the missile itself “AI” cuz it dosent take much intelligence for matching 3D models of airplanes to the life picture of the cam and keep that in center. Against the open sky the contrast is so good that fucking 70s analog tech could track a IR blob against it. Top down against ground clutter the process may be more complicated but can be easy tackled by just giving it better optics that only keep the jet and not the ground in focus…

    ok rant over i hope that was non credible enough

    • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
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      13 days ago

      It doesn’t actually take any expertise to figure out that Musk’s idea is moronic.

      You just have to understand what the words “Beyond visual horizon” / “Beyond visual range” actually mean.

      The F-35 is designed to eliminate targets that it literally cannot see, in some cases because the curvature of the Earth is in the way.

      No camera can solve that. Even if you get the Earth out of the way, no camera small enough to mount on a combat vehicle or weapon exists that can identify something the size of an F-35 at modern engagement distances.

      Musk claims they’re “not invisible” but at the distance they can kill you at, functionally, they are.

      • einfach_orangensaft@sh.itjust.works
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        13 days ago

        ima stay fully non credible here and just claim that the starlink constellation can probably be used engage basically everything because there is no “beyond visual horizon”, the constellation is probably useable as distributed synthetic aperture in multiple wavelengths. Its also very usable for guidance telemetry.

        With all that infrastructure in place…not sure if there is still need for flying trucks with limited amounts of air to air missiles. Just add a solid booster stage to some Meteor missiles that have starlink telemetry and u can engage basically everything that flies in a 900km range around each missile battery.

        • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
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          13 days ago

          Obviously, the real goal here is to replace fighter planes with Tesla cybertrucks which will be strategically dropped from orbit onto the target, and then drive themselves back to base using their world class autopilot that definitely doesn’t ever try to drive under a flatbed truck.

      • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
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        13 days ago

        The F-35 is designed to eliminate targets that it literally cannot see, in some cases because the curvature of the Earth is in the way.

        When you’re at 5km, the horizon is hundreds of kilometers away. When your target is also at altitude, it becomes thousands of kilometers.

        It’s more a problem that a top-down look at an F35 from 100km is the size of a period on a page, from 3m away. And possibly behind a cloud. And not moving laterally at all, just very slightly growing until you explode violently because it actually does have radar.