Twilight for Fighter Pilots

[Ed P]

You may have read about the way an AI controlled fighter beat the pants off a human pilot controlled fighter in five out of five attempts (Computer Simulations). This was despite the fact that the AI pilot was hobbled with the same restrictions on high G turns etc. The writing is obviously on the wall for fighter pilots except perhaps in low-tech countries or those where their MOD still lives in the past.

This linked WarZone article gives a postmortem by a USN F19 squadron commander and includes some great HUD/Bone-dome etc footages. Good read.

The spoiler for those who have not got the time to read the article is that the AI made consistently better use of basic flight parameters than its human opponent.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

I was also thinking we may not need aircraft carriers. The day of the big battle ship may return.

Cruise missiles, anti missile missiles, anti torpedo torpedos and radar guided guns. Bigger the ship the more of them it could hold.

[Dave Rice]

Carriers make a good floating base for things like dealing with lots of (maybe injured) people and other things the military get involved in besides fighting.

[Ed P]

As we found during the Falklands War, container ships make excellent low cost carriers! They would make even better launch platforms for drones and tethered zeppelins (stealthy command and control radar blimps). Covid is going to mean a lot of these will be surplus to requirements.

Just wish I could think of a similar repurposing for all the floating petri dishes (cruise ships) moored off the Dorset coast!

[Author]

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