Re: [GZG] [OFFICIAL] Question: was Re: [SG3]: What if?

Samuel Penn schrieb:
> On Sunday 10 February 2008 08:36:30 Richard Bell wrote:
> 
>>On Feb 8, 2008 1:53 AM, Samuel Penn <sam@glendale.org.uk> wrote:
>>
>>>The main advantage here is that UAVs have the potential to be
>>>mass produced in a very short space of time. You can go from
>>>a small number (and low expense) of UAVs in peacetime, to lots
>>>of UAVs simply by throwing money at some factories.
>>>
>>
>>No, it is nowhere that easy.
>>
> It's easier than building lots of manned aircraft, and training the
> pilots.

It will depend on the capabilities you specify for the UAV whether 
building them is that much easier than building a manned aircraft. If it

can do everything a modern fighter can do, with similar speed, range, 
weapon load, electronics suite etc. its cost (=building effort) will be 
comparable to a manned aircraft. Even half the price of a Raptor is 
quite a lot of money.

> Assuming a major war (which doesn't result in total annihilation of
> both sides within 30 minutes), you'll have time and incentive to build
> the factories to build the UAVs. UAVs lost in the early stages of
> the war don't result in pilot loss, so the old pilots just fly the
> newly produced UAVs.

If you look at the years before WWII and the early stages of that war, 
it took all combatants half a decade or more to ramp up their weapons 
production capacity to a full war footing, and even so the military 
didn't get everything they wanted. Nowadays it would take at least as 
long, if not longer, given that weaponry has become more complex and 
that factories are more specialized and that many production steps are 
outsourced to foreign countris.

> 
> If you lose aircraft, you also have to spend time training up good
> pilots. I don't have figures on how long it takes to build a modern
> fighter, or how long it takes to train a modern pilot, but I'd be
> surprised if the first is longer than the second. Regardless, doing
> one rather than both is going to be cheaper.

It is not obvious to me that there will be no need to replace UAV
pilots.
- UAV control centers will be a prime target for enemy actions, and with

their need to broadcast control commands, they shoudl be easily
detected,

- Running a UAV in a full-blown war certainly must be stressful, so 
pilots may well 'burn out' psychologically after a time.

> 
> Why couldn't your example of how aircraft factories are kept running
> in peace time also work with UAV factories?

It can be done, wiht similar overheads and waste.

Greetings
Karl Heinz

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