Certainly, it is less flexible than the Predator. On the other hand, Reis-D is fully capable of operating in a realistic hi-tech combat environment. Survivability is important not just from the mission standpoint but also from the financial side. A Predator system (four aircraft, satellite comm system, ground control station) costs around $50 million. Losing these aircraft to enemy air defenses will quickly become a very expensive game. Also, this kind of money will buy you two armed recon versions of the supersonic Su-24, for example.

Still a back to basics Predator type aircraft might be tempting?

Regards

Pete

And then there was a divergence in ideology, if you will. Both the West and Russia continued developing tactical recon UAVs, but the West (primarily the Americans) branched out in the direction of hugely-expensive projects like the DarkStar, Global Hawk, X-45, etc. These vehicles were no longer cheaper than manner aircraft capable of flying the same type of missions. In fact, these new UAVs were more expensive and they did not provide flexibility and reliability of a manned aircraft.

This left the only advantage: saving a pilot’s life in an extremely dangerous environment. Russian military had two problems with this new trend in UAV development:

a) these new large, long-range UAVs were far more vulnerable to enemy fire than manned aircraft. And, while the pilot’s life was not at risk, the mission was. Not to mention that losing such a sophisticated aircraft potentially meant handing the enemy some of your most advanced technology.

b)regardless of cost and complexity, these oversized UAVs were little more than toys, when confronted by human intelligence. And so the Russians had to weigh the value of a pilot’s life against the requirement to fulfill the mission. And the value of the mission outweighed the possibility and consequences of the loss of a manned aircraft.

American optimism for UAVs/UCAVs is derived primarily from the type of opponents engaged by the USAF in the recent years. If you are fighting against civilians armed with light firearms and, at worst, with man-portable SAMs, a large high-flying, remotely-piloted UAV is almost as good as a manned aircraft. Russians are being realistic in terms of their expectations. The look at how these expensive UAVs will perform in a busy ECM environment, filled with medium- and long-range SAMs and advanced fighter aircraft. And the answer is: no well at all.

Russia is apparently behind the US in UAV development. This doesn’t mean that long range reconnaisance or missile firing UAV are of no use to Russia.

Russia’s long borders and Chechnya style situations describe the need.

There is a technological gap caused by the 1990s disruption. Russia like other major countries will catch up.

Pete

Interesting about AI in the first half. You’d probably be aware that Alan Turing (of Enigma fame) posed similar unresolved issues about “what is AI” in the 1930s and 40s. The intervening computer Age hasn’t contibuted much to necessary conceptual jumps.

Good description of UAV upsides and downsides.

In second half you seem to get defensivve in tone. I think at the root of it is the lack of comparative progress Russia has made with UAVs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unmanned_aerial_vehicles#Soviet.2FRussian_models indicates Russia has made some progress with very small UAVs – but probably less than Israel.

Other than artwork there appears to be nothing comparable in Russia to Preadators of Global Hawks.

This absence can be explained away – but, given Russia’s long land borders and Pacific Coastline long distance, and probably large recce UAVs are very logical.

As with stealth technology Russia is probably making substantial (quiet) efforts to catchup with the US in UAVs.

Pete

Correct!

We are not there yet. We are not anywhere near creating artificial intelligence.

Non sequitur.

In case of developing AI we don’t know what to do, where to start because we don’t know what it is.

This is what I have been arguing.
But that doesn’t mean that AI is a “difficult problem” in the same sense than building a nuclear power plant, combat aircraft or somesuch high tech contraption.
If AI is “unlocked” by being understood it may very well develop quite quickly, there is even a fringe of paranoid lunatics who fret at the prospect of autonomous AI “taking over mankind”.

I don’t see this having any kind of plausibility because AI however “autonomous” it could be would have no other purposes than the ones engineered into it.
However still, this may be dangerous and “full of surprises”, especially when trying to assign military purposes to it.
From what I can foresee true AI will not at all resemble high tech gadgetry like described in your post (improved “stone axes” for the monkeys brawls) but rather be close to some Sun Tzu or Võ Nguyên Giáp boosted by a few orders of magnitude.
So whenever some top brass would ask “How do we manage to win the war?” the answer is likely to be somewhat along the line “First thing first, we need to sack you”.

ROFLMAO, I wish I live long enough and be at the right place to see this!

So, even ignoring the scientific and technical difficulties, there is little chance that the military castes will truly use AI, much like the Japanese Samurai banned guns which threatened their dominant status.