*That's a pretty good design essay about ugly and freakish modern military hacks.

[bruces@mastodon.social]

*That's a pretty good design essay about ugly and freakish modern military hacks. #hedgehogtank #killerdrone

Just a moment...

(medium.com)

[liebach@mastodon.art]

@bruces Fascinating picture it ends with. I picture the field with the tank wreckage covered with a web of discarded fiber optics from the swarm of drones that fought there and took it down. Small mammals trying to re-populate the area get tangled in the fibers and die a painful death, even years later, while humans fight on elsewhere.

[clayfoot@mastodon.social]

@bruces like the rhino tanks that were field-modified to get through the hedgerows of Normandy in World War II

[stevel@hachyderm.io]

@bruces "The T-72 was built to fight American tanks in the Fulda Gap, not to have its image broadcast live to Telegram channels while teenagers in civilian clothes steer explosives into its engine grille."

[sarpau@mastodon.social]

@bruces What tank🤨

[stevel@hachyderm.io]

@bruces there's also that rapid feedback loop on your own design. If it doesn't work it's no longer a WWII "let's look at damage on returning weapons and strengthen the other bits" its "let's look on youtube to see what went wrong", as different teams along the front compete for the likes, brand recognition and the donation of new drones.

Then there's the detail that both sides use the same LEO satellite constellation operated by the world's first trillionaire for this CI/CD feedback loop.
https://youtu.be/I3facU-Nb4s

[lemgandi@mastodon.social]

@stevel @bruces Fully equipped to fight the last war

[di4na@hachyderm.io]

@lemgandi @stevel @bruces or the next! part of what makes this stuff inadequate is that they are fighting a really static war, with no real air support on both sides. And on the russian side, really bad artillery too.

This is... not really the kind of "equiv tech" fight they were built for, not as in the "last war" more as in "not a war that this country would ever consider going into"

[notthelbcguy@mstdn.social]

@bruces you know, it occurs to me that Ukraine is fighting the war that Johnny 5 from Short Circuit was intended for, and the only thing the movie got wrong about the concept is Johnny 5 can’t fly.