The thing that bothers me about the idea of unmanned combat vehicles is...well, honestly, there's not one thing that bothers me about that.

There are at least two things.

I believe that a person should have direct control of a combat vehicle because it's going to be a LONG time before we have computers that are smart enough to be able to deal with unforeseen circumstances.  Computers are fast and capable, but they're DUMB.   If the vehicle they're controlling is heavily damaged and won't be in the air for much longer no matter what,   is it going to be able to look at its projected impact point, recognize that it's heading for a school or a church, and decide to alter its course to avoid it?    How is it going to react to a light private plane that is in the area where it's been assigned to patrol and shoot down enemy combat aircraft?     Suppose it's a fast  business jet which is flying at speeds and altitudes often associated with enemy fighters?    Is it going to shoot down the errant business jet?  

It'll be a long time before computers can make the decisions a man can.   Until that day comes, I firmly believe that unmanned aircraft must ONLY be used for non-combat operations.   Unarmed surveillance is fine.   But no shooter aircraft should ever take off without a human pilot at the controls,  at least not until computers can handle the ENTIRE task and make the RIGHT decision in ANY circumstances.

The whole "Skynet" concept bothers me, too.   I believe the day will come when someone invents a computer that is intelligent in every measurable sense of the word,  and self aware as well.     What happens beyond that point is ANYBODY'S guess.    If that computer has a "self preservation instinct",  then things become MUCH more complex.    Insert any speculation here.  It's probably as good as any.

Suppose computers just become ever more capable mindless, docile electronic slaves.   Suppose the trend toward automation of military hardware continues.

Ever seen the Star Trek episode "A Taste of Armageddon"?  (Original series)

What's the point of a war that's not fought by people?   A war between OUR machines and YOUR
machines is nothing but a large scale BattleBots duel.      Pointless.    Take it even farther, and you might find societies who decide that physical war is too messy, so let the computers play it electronically.    If the computers nuke your neighborhood in their purely electronic fantasy battle, how are you going to take it when you're ordered to report to the disintegration stations because your neighborhood just got hosed by the flipping of a bit in a memory chip?

If you take the humans out of the war, you take the meaning out of it as well.

I oppose any attempt to take the man out of the war.

CJ

Quoted: A 100 kW laser operating at let's say, 10% efficiency, will require 1 MW of input power.  That's about 10 times the cooling capacity of any fighter flying, and they don't have a bunch of margin.  On the other hand, about 25000 hp can be extracted from the engine driveshaft; 1 MW is only 986 horsepower, so getting enough power in should be easy enough.  Rejecting the heat will be hard, even by dumping it into the fuel. I still say it is a damp dream.

Use water cooling and dump it as steam.

Also consider that your 100KW laser is being operated at FAR LESS than even a 10 percent duty cycle.  In actual practice,  it'd be firing for a matter of fractions of a second at a time, and only a few times in any given mission.   The thermal load is most likely quite manageable under those conditions.

I don't try to guess at what the duty cycle really is or how long the pulses last or how many pulses would be fired in order to disable any given target.    But I'm sure this has been worked out and the engineers doing it believe it to be feasible.

Speaking of heat....the day will come when radar is outdated.   Passive IR detection systems are already in use,  and they're getting better and better all the time.   The day will come when anything in the sky that puts out more heat than a candle will be detectable, lockable, and destroyable.

LIDAR systems will also become commonplace, giving enhanced 3D situational awareness capabilities to all airborne vehicles.

It's no surprise that unmanned vehicles in a dogfight with manned aircraft will kick their ass.    Not having to deal with the G tolerance of the human pilot allows such a vehicle to perform some really violent maneuvers, that is, if it's stressed for it.    

Several different types of retired fighters have been used as remotely piloted drones.   When they're damaged to the point where they're going to be scrapped (dumped in the ocean rather than brought to a landing) but still flyable,   the ground pilots will sometimes wring the jet out in ways no sane on-board pilot never would.     Being freed of the pilot's physical limitations,  things get crazy.   At least one remotely piloted F-86 was put through OUTSIDE LOOPS,  which is something few pilots want to do....but the kicker is the loops were performed at TEN Gs!   The practical limit for pulling negative Gs is just 3 Gs for a human pilot,   for reference.

As for dogfighting skills in autonomously controlled vehicles...well, as you may know, I'm a flight simulation enthusiast...a junkie, really.   I fly Falcon 4.0 quite a bit. I've been doing so since 1998.  I figure I've got 2000 simulated hours in F-16s, flying at the highest realism levels available, with very accurate flight models.  (The Falcon community has continually upgraded and refined the program with a heavy emphasis on realism. My installation is pretty much up-to-the-minute.)  But  despite my considerable SIMULATED experience, if I set the AI to ACE level and start doing 1-on-1 dogfights against any modern fighter type,    I'm doing quite well if I get my ass handed to me 50 percent of the time and that's when I have foreknowledge of the starting conditions of the fight.    A home PC has the smarts to be a hell of an opponent.    I'm quite sure that a pilotless autonomously piloted fighter would be a pretty stiff adversary.    Your best tactic would be to get a radar lock, ripple off every stinking missile you can find at him, and dive for the runway.   Hopefull the missiles will get him and he won't be programmed to seek and destroy planes on runways.

CJ

Quoted: Quoted: Double the order Congress! THAT'S RIGHT!.......It's ONLY money!.........PRINT MORE!......Pass that debt to the kids! We won't be around when that bill comes due! SCREW THEM!  We want our stuff NOW!!!

HEY, Alloy...

I AM ONE OF THOSE KIDS THAT WILL HAVE TO TAKE CARE OF THE F#CKING DEBT!!!

Personally, you FAIL TO REALIZE that our current education system is PREACHING SOCIALISM like F#CKING CRAZY, and those of us who are Republicans can see ABSOLUTELY NO FINANCIAL AID from the government in the future, and we already know that Welfare and Social Security are going to fail Loooong before we're able to collect any of it...

Basically, what I'm saying is that the SMART Republican youth of America are already making plans for our RETIREMENTS!  These HAVE NOTHING to do with Social Security or any dependency upon government aid.  I'm trying to save up some money for a decent IRA, a few good mutual funds, stock investments, and many of us are investing money into other ventures as well...

Liberals seem to have NO CONCEPT of taking responsibility in their own futures.  In fact, I HOPE they continue to live their lives day-by-day in a financially irresponsible consumeristic manner!  Hopefully in 45 years the ULTRA-LIBERAL offspring of Hippies will be weeded out and Darwinism can take effect!

Survival of the fittest can be translated into survival of the most intellectually inclined Republican.