A Predator drone requires more people to run it—fuelling, arming, polishing the paint—than a fighter aircraft does.
It does? I would’ve guessed the exact opposite and that the difference would be by a large margin: drones are smaller, eliminate all the equipment necessary to support a human, don’t have to be man-rated, and are expected to have drastically less performance in terms of going supersonic or executing high-g maneuvers.
Yes. An F-16 requires 100 support personnel; a Predator 168; a Reaper, 180. Source.
It seems like some but not all of the difference is that manned planes have only a single pilot, whereas UAV’s not only have multiple pilots, but also perform much more analysis on recorded data and split the job of piloting up into multiple subtasks for different people, since they are not limited by the need to have only 1 or 2 people controlling the plane.
If I had to guess, some of the remaining difference is probably due to the need to maintain the equipment connecting the pilots to the UAV, in addition to the UAV itself; the most high-profile UAV failure thus far was due to a failure in the connection between the pilots and the UAV.
I’m not sure that’s comparing apples and oranges. From the citation for the Predator figure:
About 168 people are needed to keep a single Predator aloft for 24 hours, according to the Air Force. The larger Global Hawk surveillance drone requires 300 people. In contrast, an F-16 fighter aircraft needs fewer than 100 people per mission.
I’m not sure how long the average mission for an F-16 is, but if it’s less than ~12 hours, then the Predator would seem to have a manpower advantage; and the CRS paper cited also specifically says:
In addition to having lower operating costs per flight hour, specialized unmanned aircraft systems can reduce flight hours for fighter aircraft
The F-16 seems to have a maximum endurance of 3-4 hours, so I’m pretty sure its average mission is less than 12 hours.
My understanding was that Rolf’s argument depended on the ratio personnel:plane, not on the ratio personnel:flight hour; the latter is more relevant for reconnaissance, ground attack against hidden targets, or potentially for strikes at range, whereas the former is more relevant for air superiority or short range strikes.
The actual US armed forces are a few million. 5% would be a much better estimate. This aside, you are ignoring that “lethal autonomy” is nowhere near the same thing as “operational autonomy”. A Predator drone requires more people to run it—fuelling, arming, polishing the paint—than a fighter aircraft does.
If you are getting >6x more flight-hours out of a drone for 6x for an increased man power of <2x—even if you keep the manpower constant and shrink the size of the fleet to compensate for that <2x manpower penalty, you’ve still got a new fleet which is somewhere around 6x more lethal. Or you could take the tradeoff even further and have an equally lethal fleet with a small fraction of the total manpower, because each drone goes so much further than its equivalent. So a drone fleet off similar lethality does have more operational autonomy!
That’s why per flight hour costs matter—because ultimately, the entire point of having these airplanes is to fly them.
Would you happen to be able to provide these figures:
The ratio of human resources-to-firepower on the current generation of weapons.
The ratio of human resources-to-firepower on the weapons used during eras where oppression was common.
I’d like to compare them.
Hmm, “firepower” is vague. I think the relevant number here would be something along the lines of how many people can be killed or subdued in a conflict situation.
I have no idea; as I said, my expectations are just guesses based on broad principles (slow planes are cheaper than ultra-fast planes; clunk planes are cheaper than ultra-maneuverable ones; machines whose failure do not immediately kill humans are cheaper to make than machines whose failure do entail human death; the cheapest, lightest, and easiest to maintain machine parts are the ones that aren’t there). You should ask Rolf, since apparently he’s knowledgeable in the topic.
It does? I would’ve guessed the exact opposite and that the difference would be by a large margin: drones are smaller, eliminate all the equipment necessary to support a human, don’t have to be man-rated, and are expected to have drastically less performance in terms of going supersonic or executing high-g maneuvers.
Yes. An F-16 requires 100 support personnel; a Predator 168; a Reaper, 180. Source.
It seems like some but not all of the difference is that manned planes have only a single pilot, whereas UAV’s not only have multiple pilots, but also perform much more analysis on recorded data and split the job of piloting up into multiple subtasks for different people, since they are not limited by the need to have only 1 or 2 people controlling the plane.
If I had to guess, some of the remaining difference is probably due to the need to maintain the equipment connecting the pilots to the UAV, in addition to the UAV itself; the most high-profile UAV failure thus far was due to a failure in the connection between the pilots and the UAV.
I’m not sure that’s comparing apples and oranges. From the citation for the Predator figure:
I’m not sure how long the average mission for an F-16 is, but if it’s less than ~12 hours, then the Predator would seem to have a manpower advantage; and the CRS paper cited also specifically says:
The F-16 seems to have a maximum endurance of 3-4 hours, so I’m pretty sure its average mission is less than 12 hours.
My understanding was that Rolf’s argument depended on the ratio personnel:plane, not on the ratio personnel:flight hour; the latter is more relevant for reconnaissance, ground attack against hidden targets, or potentially for strikes at range, whereas the former is more relevant for air superiority or short range strikes.
I don’t think it saves Rolf’s point:
If you are getting >6x more flight-hours out of a drone for 6x for an increased man power of <2x—even if you keep the manpower constant and shrink the size of the fleet to compensate for that <2x manpower penalty, you’ve still got a new fleet which is somewhere around 6x more lethal. Or you could take the tradeoff even further and have an equally lethal fleet with a small fraction of the total manpower, because each drone goes so much further than its equivalent. So a drone fleet off similar lethality does have more operational autonomy!
That’s why per flight hour costs matter—because ultimately, the entire point of having these airplanes is to fly them.
Would you happen to be able to provide these figures:
The ratio of human resources-to-firepower on the current generation of weapons.
The ratio of human resources-to-firepower on the weapons used during eras where oppression was common.
I’d like to compare them.
Hmm, “firepower” is vague. I think the relevant number here would be something along the lines of how many people can be killed or subdued in a conflict situation.
I have no idea; as I said, my expectations are just guesses based on broad principles (slow planes are cheaper than ultra-fast planes; clunk planes are cheaper than ultra-maneuverable ones; machines whose failure do not immediately kill humans are cheaper to make than machines whose failure do entail human death; the cheapest, lightest, and easiest to maintain machine parts are the ones that aren’t there). You should ask Rolf, since apparently he’s knowledgeable in the topic.
Thanks. I will ask Rolf.