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Brit Watchkeeper drone fell in the sea because blocked sensor made algorithms flip out

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

Historically, worldwide, different military services have different priorities and viewpoints.

Either you have a unitary military structure, like the PLA, responsible for everything, or you have multiple services that want very different things.

Classic example - the US air force doesn't like subsonic, low altitude close support aircraft... which is why they have been trying to retire the A10 for decades, so they can buy more shiny supersonic fighters that can do more 'air forcey' things than close support.

The US army does not have fixed wing aircraft because the US decided to give those all to the Air Force, who wanted a monopoly on that budget and function, save for the ones that fly off ships or spend all their time at low speed and altitude looking for submarines.

The US army doesn't trust air force priorities for aircraft design, numbers, and training, but can't have their own fixed wing support aircraft, hence the large number of attack helicopters in army units. Compared to close support fixed wing aircraft they are slow, vulnerable, overly complex, and carry small weapons loads... but they will be built, and they will do what the army considers important. If the army could have their own A10s, they'd love to have them instead of gunships.

Similar things tend to happen within services between branches. I expect that in the RN, submarine captains want more underwater boats, while surface captains want more surface warships to command - IIRC this is important for their chance of promotion.

In the US navy the naval aviators have huge influence, hence large numbers (10, more if they can get them) of very expensive carrier battle groups built around huge nuclear powered carriers, each carrying 100+ aircraft. The nuclear sub crew are also influential, and the blue water surface captains have little interest in ships designed for close to shore missions, which they consider a waste of money better spent on more impressive deep ocean combatants.

Air forces tend to pay more attention to air superiority, strike, recon, and bombers than to maritime patrol, anti-sub, or close support roles.

It also shows up in role differences. The strategic deterrence guys want long range nukes, the tactical guys want more support, strike, and air defence units...

Occasionally someone forces common weapons and acquisition on these disparate groups, and you get mediocre or compromised equipment like the F35, where design changes to fit three or four very different roles reduced the capability in all of them, while driving up costs and development times.

The US can probably live better with this than most prospective users as they also have several dedicated air superiority designs, a couple of good to excellent close support models, dedicated EW planes, strategic stealth aircraft big enough to actually resist VHF radar detection, and so on.

Unfortunate services trying to do all this with one aircraft type that happens to be partially stealthy in some directions to some types of detection as long as it limits its load to a few internally carried weapons, and which can perform adequately as long as it doesn't have to go fast, or maneuver, or try to shoot at something with its gun, or operate without massive computer support at its base, or fly more than one mission every three days per plane... might wish they had something trying less hard to be all things to all people.

That's why each service wants its own custom designed toys under their control and planning structure.

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