[TML] Current USAF fleet was Re: CT Sup 7, Crews room sizes.

[Richard Aiken]

On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 11:42 AM, Tom B <kaladorn at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think you'll find that recce drones are the current vogue because
> the tech is still new, the cost is cheap (combat drone would be more
> $$$), they are quite portable (I suspect early gen combat drones will
> be bigger), and they've got plenty of fighters for the bombing. Recce
> is still risky if you send full sized assets to do it and more likely
> to get noticed.

I'm reading a near-future series by Robert Buettner where there are
very smart (well, at least as smart as a dog) military recce robots.
In the first book, they're so expensive that each *battalion* gets
*one* unit.  There are a lot more dumber units (updates of today's
gear), but only the one smart one.  By the end of that book (~4 years
elapsed time), they've been outclassed already and are being sold off
as surplus.

Buettner has an afterword in the re-print of this first book where he
admits to being caught out by the pace of technical advances.  The
tech which he assumed to be ~40 years out has since been mostly
deployed in the Middle East.  In fact, he gleefully steals some
current military slang (such as "battle rattle," for the noise
ceramic-plate-armor makes when you're hustling), for use in his second
book.

-- 
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident." Robert A. Heinlein