In simple terms of cost effectiveness- manned combat vehicles will always be more expensive then tele-presence operated drones. In simple terms- training a combat pilot and outfitting him with a vehicle costs nearly double what you can produce using drone systems. The newest american fighter system the F-22 raptor. Is a Multi-million dollar machine. Before you factor in the training expense of the individual pilots. Effective aerial combat drone systems can be produced for a few hundred thousand dollars. Effectively dollar for dollar you can get approx. a ten to one ratio. With this ratio a manned fighter is simply outmatched. when you factor in the additional loss of human life versus the loss of a machine it becomes obvious that drone systems surpass the manned combat vehicle. In other words; If I have ten combat fighters with pilots fighting ten drones Even if I lose those drones I still win because I dont have to replace each pilot. My drone pilots can simply take control of another drone and get right back into the fight. A manned vehicle pilot is, if not injured or dead, out of the fight till he or she can be recovered. And I havent even gotten into the slaving of multiple drones to one operator.
Predator Drone = $ 4.5 Million US each, not counting for R&D costs. F-16 = $18 milliion F-15 = $29 million. So alot cheaper. Your missing one important point though, a remote controlled vehicle is vulnerable to jamming, or hacking. While none of our current enemies has figured this out yet, the smart ones are working on it and will figure it out. (And of course new prevention will be developed... and onward.)
Ahhh. But you run into the same risks with manned combat vehicles. The amount of computerization and communications equipment could be "hacked" or jammed. Pilots could be given false information etc. Also it is really difficult to "jam" direct pulse laser control. And while a live pilot controlling the craft can make judgements you can also program the drones to respond in specific ways when communications are lossed or "jammed" I believe Predator drones are programmed to RTB when communication with their controller is lost.
Jamming/hacking of automated weapons makes for a good plot point in scifi stories, but in the real world it would probably be a non-issue in the context of space fighters. Assuming the people who built the drones weren't complete morons, there would be no realistic chance of them being taken over by hackers (or suddenly deciding not to fight, or any of the other silly scenarios some people here have proposed). Jamming communications between the drones and their masters could be an issue, but probably not much of one. The drones would probably be mostly (or entirely) autonomous anyway.
FHSS. None of our enemies are using a method described nearly a century ago? Do you also understand how data is transmitted in packets? So we have encrypted, frequency shifted data in packets flying over a battlefield. So what are you going to Jam? Your own comms, as well as others. Not smart. Hacking,... again, comms are encrypted. OK, there was a cock-up with drones transmitting unencrypted surveillance video in Afghanistan, now resolved. The control of drones has always been encrypted however. Frequencies for FHSS and the salts used to encrypt comms are generated and changed in real time btw. There's a lot going on in a battle. You gonna sit and number crunch for a couple of years to capture and decode the data sent to a drone? I think your command tent would have got brassed up in that time, somehow.
It wouldn't make much sense to have the drones be under direct human control anyway, because 1) light-speed lag will kill you and 2) the computer will probably be better at controlling the drones, since it has better reflexes, better coordination, etc. The human "drone operator" would probably just issue general orders about where he wanted the drone to go and what he wanted it to do, and then actually executing the orders (picking specific combat tactics, etc.) would probably be up to the drone's computer. So rather than thinking of things like Predator drones, a better analogy would probably be cruise missiles. Have you ever heard of anyone hacking a cruise missile?
FHSS can be hacked man, and point to point laser control requires a reciever that can listen in a full 360 arc in all directions (or else you loose control ) which means hack/jam is still possible. phlo, Dude, your lack of understanding of radio technology is astounding. Preprogrammed responses are one thing, and yes false orders can be given to live pilots, no one system is fool proof, (which was my essential point) you will always need both. Getting rid of one or the other is a bad idea.
if I may interject... true space combat is likely to take place at ranges far beyond what the human eye can even see... at speeds beyond that which the human reaction is sufficient for... with g-forces and inertial forces beyond that which the human body can survive... yeah, drones would, for small "fighters", be far better... the ONLY reason to keep manned fighters is anti ECM / E-War (as in drones being jammed and/or interfered with)
No it cannot. It can be jammed, if an enemy chooses to jam the entire spectrum and deny communications to themselves also, but using very strong encryption, which is re-negotiated dynamically, it cannot be 'hacked'. Your lack of understanding of modern encryption standards is astounding. But then I doubt you've been on a communications course, and been taught by a guy that provides consultancy to the Ministry of Defence, have you? No, that would be me.
