“Manned Aircraft are Dead” - A Lesson from History; the Jeune Ecole

[@karlsteiner]

"Tanks are dead" (every 5 years, ever since 1918)

[@FredScuttle456]

Agreed. "Piloted combat aircraft are dead", hence the Labour government cancelling the TSR 2 during the 1960s. (Admittedly there were other reasons as well.)

[@womble321]

​@FredScuttle456 no the test pilots have stated it could not be got to function in any reasonable times scale. The electronics did not work and could not be made to work. They didn't do and could not do what the aircrew needed. The computer technology didn't exist. It's only very recently that technology has caught up. Look what happened to the British AEW plane. They were told to track targets. It never occurred to anyone that most contacts would be cars and trucks! The system was completely overloaded. A guy from the radar company said if they wanted it to filter out vehicles they should have said so in the Specification. It literally didnt occur to anyone in the Government that they needed to state the obvious. If they had specified it it wouldn't have been affordable anyway.

[@FredScuttle456]

@@womble321 Hence "other reasons as well". It became 1960s government policy to replace manned combat aircraft with missiles for defending British airspace and attacking tactical and strategic targets. The technology wasn't ready yet, but it might be by the 2030s or 2040s. One of those dark holes which led nowhere, like deleting the undercarriage of naval aircraft and fitting carriers with rubber decks. EDIT _ A different comment below lays the blame with the Labour politician, Duncan Sandys. Correct. I couldn't remember his name.

[@spoddie]

He said that too!

[@mpetersen6]

It's not the tool that becomes obsolete. It's the tactics. In the end unless the goal is to leave everything irradiated you still need to take and hold ground with boots on the ground. And even if you hold boots on the ground no western nation can ever win against an insurgency. Eventually the public will demand an end.

[@janwitts2688]

We all remember the 1950s british government that did this and cancelled almost every aviation project.. generations of aerospace technology thrown away in just a few years..

[@EdNashsMilitaryMatters]

Another excellent example.

[@awatt]

The UK has the second largest aerospace industry after America. Just saying

[@bigsmoke-mi5cw]

​@awatt had china, russia, and arguable France, are greater in this regard. BAE is now a multinational company, so looking to its value as one is a bit invalid

[@iffracem]

Canada did similar, I believe?

[@awatt]

@bigsmoke-mi5cw All companies are multinational. The UK is the second largest aerospace industry after America.

[@SSgtBaloo]

Military (retired USAF) veteran speaking here. Sometime in the early eighties, My friends and I checked out a projector and some films from the base library. One of them was made while the F-104 was still in development, and confidently predicted that the "(F-104) Starfighter will be the last manned fighter ever developed, as guided missiles would forevermore render manned military combat aircraft obsolete". As you can probably guess, that confidence was misplaced. In the future, we will see whether unmanned aerial vehicles will completely replace piloted aircraft, but only when or if that happens.

[@jhmcd2]

Exactly. The future is going to be hybrid formations for a long time at best.

[@benargee]

​@@jhmcd2 Yeah just AI wingmen. Leave commanding up to humans without the need for long range communication.

[@nonyadamnbusiness9887]

That's a lot different from the situation today. Today a fighter pilot is flying the plane by remote control while he sit in it. It would be better if he was sitting in a room in a bunker somewhere. Then the plane's performance wouldn't be limited by the G-forces he can withstand.

[@Reddsoldier]

​@@nonyadamnbusiness9887At the same time, I think that said pilot being in the combat zone gives them a huge advantage when it comes to situational and operational awareness. The wingman concept could should be used to bring high G aircraft to the battle, but having a pilot on-scene or at the very least near would be a massive advantage if the other side didn't have the same.

[@JD-wf2hu]

​@@nonyadamnbusiness9887 what happens when your connection to the jet is hacked or jammed? This happens with drones in Ukraine daily

[@Fang70]

I'll give an example that's even more basic than that: the bayonet. The bayonet has been around for centuries and is itself just a way to turn a firearm into a pike. The pike, in turn is one of the oldest weapons that early humans developed, probably shortly after the club and the idea of throwing a rock. It has literally only been in the past couple of decades where a serious discussion about choosing a new infantry rifle could occur without that discussion including talk of a bayonet lug. In other words, it takes a really long time for an old way of fighting to truly bite the dust. New technologies don't supplant old ways of fighting, they just add extra dimensions to warfare.

[@flyboymike111357]

Importantly, fighting forces that didn't switch primarily to bayonet equipped muskets were proven to be able to punch well above their weight on close combat. Only a superiority in artillery saved the redcoats at Culloden. The Swedish Caroleans could used pikes and broadaxes to sweep away their more numerous enemies. And the native Americans, who did appreciate muskets, still used clubs, stone slings, javelins, tomahawks, and arrows to enable their small light infantry units to fight off larger colonial forces which failed to adopt small unit tactics and at the very least learn to use the tomahawk as well.

[@alganhar1]

@@flyboymike111357 I like how you conveniently ignore all those times when bayonet equipped musket armies utterly destroyed muscle weapon equipped armies time and time again, and just focus on a few examples when it may have been the other way around, especially early in the black powder era. As for Culloden, the only real meeting in that battle between broadsword armed infantry and Line Infantry was on the left flank, and while initially successful was not in fact contained and destroyed by artillery, but by the reserves encircling the Jacobite's, pouring 5 - 6 volleys of musket fire into them, and then charging. The Jacobite's flank routed. Culloden was not some close fought battle as you appeared to indicate, it was a decisive loss for the Jacobite's. They were outnumbered, outgunned and outfought. Most of their infantry was also musket infantry, the clansmen were very much in the minority. Your claim the European nations did not learn to adapt to small unit tactics in the America's is also a statement born of ignorance, as they very much DID learn. During the American War for Independence the spacing of the British infantry was actually larger than would be found on a European battlefield. Also the actual organisation of a British Infantry Battalion utterly contravenes what you claim. The Battalion had 10 Line Companies, it also had 2 Flank Companies, one of grenadiers for heavy assaults, and one of Light Infantry for skirmishing, patrolling and other such tasks. Every British Battalion had a Light Company. All of them. It was common British practice to detach their Light and Grenadier companies to form composite Battalions of Light infantry and grenadiers. Also the training manuals issued to British units AT THE TIME include training for Line Infantry in LIGHT INFANTRY TACTICS. Just reading the training manuals indicates what you said is incorrect, otherwise why would British Battalions in the America's be specifically encouraged to train their Line Infantry in Light Infantry tactics? Were the specifically trained Light Infantry better at Light Infantry tasks? Absolutely. But that does not remove the fact that Line Infantry was trained to skirmish in loose order....

[@RoscoesRiffs]

Airborne Ranger, here. The infantryman's job description still includes that ancient phrase, "close with and destroy the enemy." I'll happily keep my bayonet, thank you -- and hope the enemy's commanders think it's too archaic to issue.

[@yonghominale8884]

The last bayonet charge was I believe in Okinawa. The Japanese were torn apart by machine gun fire, mortars and artillery. It was also the last time the Katana was deployed in war. Just because its theoretical doesn't mean its practical.

[@RoscoesRiffs]

@yonghominale8884 US Army infantrymen have made many assaullts with fixed bayonets since then. British infantrymen have standing orders to fix bayonets when the enemy is within 200 meters. Several Medal of Honor recipients employed the bayonet in their exploits. It's always better to have one handy than not. And we always hope the enemy doesn't have them. 😎🖖

[@CharitonIosifides]

In a way the Jeune Ecole had a point. Fast moving "fleas" loaded with explosives were indeed the bane of the battleship. What they missed was that the "flea" should fly instead of swim...

[@Ugly_German_Truths]

Submarines weren't that useless either. You can sacrifice ten trying to sink one cruiser and have still lost less sailors... hurting a battleship or carrier has an even larger impact.

[@MrNicoJac]

Well, but even then, modern US destroyers equipped with AEGIS and CIWS are fairly flea-resistant....

[@aikafuwa7177]

That just meant carriers replaces the battleship. But you still needed the ships.

[@doltBmB]

ironically things have changed, modern warships have little to no torpedo defenses, so a long range autonomous torpedo would be extremely deadly

[@JD-wf2hu]

​@@doltBmB that's essentially what a diesel sub ambush is and those are known to be very dangerous. I do wonder why there aren't mines that are just a torpedo in a tube with a detector.

[@daverooneyca]

It's amazing how people who study history are so well equipped to refute the hubris of those who don't! 😀

[@leonfa259]

It really depends on with lessons you pick, the HE firing cannon really did obsolete wooden ships.

[@spoddie]

Musk said the much the same thing at the USAAF academy and was laughed at. The best part was his confusion that people would disagree with something he thought was obvious.

[@whitewidowgaming4887]

everyone also laughed when he said he was going to land an orbital class rocket on a boat..., years later no one has matched it yet. it's not that he was wrong about autonomous combat vehicle's, its a question of time line and how disruptive they end up being.

[@JeffBilkins]

@@whitewidowgaming4887 no one is disputing drones will be revolutionary, it is just that we're not there yet and the F-35 is important both now and to get there.

[@tombearclaw]

The cyber truck design demonstrates that he doesn’t make great design decisions either

[@oldesertguy9616]

@@whitewidowgaming4887 the problem being that he says a lot of things. Sometimes he's right, sometimes he's wrong. It's like if your buddy at the bar, who has an opinion on everything, had an audience of millions listening to his theories. Granted, Musk is brilliant, but nobody is an expert on everything, and even experts get things wrong.

[@marcboss6]

No one with any sense is gonna trust a fully autonomous armed vehicle that some megalomaniac can use against a population without push back from a human operator. Maybe this twit should worry about his “autonomous” cars running down pedestrians before he start waxing on abt autonomous fighter jets

[@thekinginyellow1744]

"I'm talking about the French Navy in the latter half of the 19th century" I wait expectantly for Drachinifel to say "Hello". But all I get is a cat. :(

[@Blockio1999]

I'm more a naval history than an aircraft guy, so when I saw the thumbnail and the title, my immediate thought was yep, I know precisely where this one is going. Good video!

[@davidsterry786]

It’s strange to think that the Bolton Paul Defiant would be an excellent anti drone fighter.

[@JeffBilkins]

In hindsight I'd expect turret fighters to be useful against V1 missiles. Maybe the speed or range wasn't quite there?

[@FredScuttle456]

True. Also, the Sopwith Camel would make an excellent modern fighter aircraft. Made from renewable materials such as wood and fabric. Fair-trade rubber for the tyres. Fit an electric motor, plus solar panels on the mainplanes. All pilots to be vegans. What could possibly go wrong?

[@TheShrike616]

​@JeffBilkins they wouldn't have. Beside their low speed the .303 guns short range would put them squarely in the blast range of the target's warhead.

[@FredScuttle456]

@@TheShrike616 The blast range wouldn't be a problem, because the Defiant would be flying alongside and slightly in front of the V1. In fact it would be safer than shooting from directly behind the V1. Whether the Defiant could be made as fast as a Spitfire XIV is another matter.

[@shaider1982]

​@@FredScuttle456 that variant sounds like the Wokewith Camel.

[@7thsealord888]

1930's military aviation - "The bomber will always get through." Late 1950's military aviation - "Forget dogfighting, everything will be done by missiles."

[@Sacto1654]

Interestingly, by 2020 missiles have gotten so good that unless your fighter is stealthy to start with, you're a sitting duck even at ranges of over 40 miles from the launch plane. The latest AIM-120D AMRAAM and the MDBA _Meteor_ missile can take out targets well beyond 100 km (62 miles) in range.

[@7thsealord888]

@@Sacto1654 And it only took 60+ years from prediction to a factual basis. :)

[@uingaeoc3905]

The Duncan Sandys White Paper on UK air defence stated that all future manned aircraft projects would be unnecessary as they would be replaced by missiles. Since then several aircraft and missile projects have been cancelled, most of those in 1957 and three projects which continued into 1965. . As of almost 70 years later manned aircraft are still the backbone of military assets in support of naval and land forces. the UK having developed with international partners Harrier, Jaguar, Tornado, Typhoon and J-35 Lightning II.

[@FallenPhoenix86]

D. Sandys, 1957: "Unfortunately the Lightning has progressed to far to cancel."

[@michaelgautreaux3168]

Thank God!

[@jackaubrey8614]

True, but they still did their damndest to prevent it reaching its full development potential. There are no lengths to which a politician will not go to prevent anyone having the chance to say "I told you so..."

[@kenoliver8913]

Sandys was right about the Lightning though (though wrong about much else). The specific role the Lightning was developed for - point defence against high altitude daylight nuclear bombers - WAS being made redundant by the ICBMs. And the absurdly short range of the Lightning made it unfit for anything else. That it was a fantastic design for its intended purpose - as it was - is beside the point.

[@mkendallpk4321]

Always remember that history tends to repeat itself. Especially when the lessons of the past are either ignored or forgotten.

[@jayg1438]

“History Doesn't Repeat Itself, but It Often Rhymes” - Mark Twain

[@Khronogi]

And when we being up history, such as the rise of fascism in the 1930s to the public, we are ridiculed.

[@mkendallpk4321]

@@jayg1438 Mark Twain was a great writer and humorist. But that statement is not true. I have seen the thread of historical repeats that have been ignored in the past. The road to war is paved with ignorance of what happened in the past. Our past haunts us humans because we have a tendency to not realize it's implications for the future.

[@GoranXII]

@@mkendallpk4321 General trends repeating could easily come under 'rhymes', so the statement isn't as inaccurate as all that.

[@mkendallpk4321]

@@GoranXII I did not know that. Thank you for enlightening me. Nice to learn new things.

[@davidg3944]

Thank you, Ed. I'm sure that Elon's investments in AI and autonomous technologies have nothing to do with his statements regarding the "shit" F-35. Nor does his spending almost $280M for the election of and subsequent wooing of djt and resultant integration into the US government have anything to do with his commercial interests. Of course not...

[@jtjames79]

SpaceX saves NASA 90% of launch costs to previous providers. It's the only reason they have any budget left after the ISS anymore. Reagan help us if he does that to the military! Oh wait...

[@davidg3944]

@@jtjames79 Sending stuff into orbit is physics. Sending men, materiel, and creating strategy for military operations is a little different [/S], and requires vastly more flexibly and capability reserves. If you think that can all be replaced by the (figurative) snapped fingers of an AI, well, I can't fix that level of ignorance. P.S. I spent almost two decades in space sciences, including design and construction of satellite experiments. No direct military experience, but some interest from a human dynamics standpoint.

[@Khronogi]

​@@jtjames79How much of that technology are we getting back to the public?

[@Khronogi]

Nasas data and inventions became Public

[@lakrids-pibe]

Unmanned fighter jets controlled by AI - AI provided by Elon Musk. And if he randomly doesn't like what they're used for, he can flip a switch like he did with Starlink.

[@hammondpickle]

"Human controlled cars are history. All cars will be self-driving within the next six weeks" - Elon Musk, several times, recently. For years.

[@mikek9297]

" The future is Hyperloop, because the way to make rail more efficient is to build a tunnel over it's entire length " " Double decker traffic tunnels with pods are the future " " We'll have a man on Mars by 2021 " " Cybertruck will cost 50k $" " Tesla roadster will be able to fly " " We'll have autonomous robotaxis making mone for you" " The Tesla robot probably won't stab You to death"

[@Paladin1873]

The F35, like the Global Hawk (one of my staff officers called it the Global Dork), had very long development periods and many teething problems before they became effective weapon systems. This is typical of cutting edge technology. If I had to pick a currently operational sh*t aircraft, it would be the Boeing V-22 Osprey. After 35 years of development, you'd think the bugs would be worked out of it, but no, the fleet has once again been grounded.

[@Khronogi]

Its a cool design. Generally most things given enough engineering cycling will become better. Look at the combustion engine and how many hours have spend developing that to where it is lol

[@Charliecomet82]

"It's hard to make predictions, especially about the future." Yogi Berra

[@johnking6252]

The truest thing never said ? 👍

[@michaelwright2986]

@@johnking6252 Yogi Berra: "You know all those things I said? I didn't say half of them."

[@TollHammer]

Almost 100k ! Alright folks lets get there before Christmas for Ed.

[@katamarankatamaranovich9986]

Musk said something stupid on the topic he has no idea about? Imagine my surprise

[@tri3852]

Is this what we call "dunning-kruger" effect?

[@davidg3944]

Where's my "shocked Pikachu face" emoji when I need it?

[@kitten_processing_inc4415]

Maybe. But at a higher level of analysis, this is simply Musk being the utter tool that he is. Simultaneously very stupid and very wiley, like his orange turd of a friend.

[@MyMongo100]

Why is anyone listening to this fidiot?

[@JeffBilkins]

Still waiting for those tunnels to fix traffic :(

[@duartesimoes508]

The new Military Genius... with a wealth of experience in Military matters behind him...

[@kennyg1358]

The military is known for their genius afterall.

[@iffracem]

1. Discover (or even just realise it exists) a weapon that is currently "dominating" without a *current* effective counter. 2. Declare that everything else is now redundant, this new weapon is the GOAT forever more! 3. Forget, ignore, or just be plain ignorant of the recurring truth that if you develop a weapon, the counter is just around the corner. 4. Rinse and repeat throughout history and for the entire time humans might continue to exist. Elon "Electric Jesus" Musk's greatest gift is the gift of the gab, the ability to talk people out of their money so he doesn't have to waste his own. We were supposed to be living on Mars by this year according to him, I'm disappointment because if he succeeded, he and his mates would have all f^cked off and left us and this planet alone.

[@malcontender6319]

You'd figure people with such _nuanced_ opinions of Musk would actually *know* him, right?

[@Crosshair84]

The initial "counter" is already here, in the form of EW jamming. Sure there is still some success videos out there, but only because they are getting hundreds, if not thousands, of attempts. The Russians have already been fielding fiber optic controlled drones. Immune to jamming, but of course limited by the length of the fiber optic wire.

[@acceptablecasualty5319]

​@@Crosshair84And at that point? We're back to SACLOS guidance or the Mk48 Torpedo- 60s technologies, revived by the needs of a modern battlefield. It's almost like studying history is useful or something!

[@matthiuskoenig3378]

@Crosshair84 jamming doesn't really work on the type drone that we are taking about. The ew equipment that can jam then can also nuke the systems if a manned craft and make it useless. I am not certain musk is correct. But this is a different scenario than ones used in examples. Drones are not a separate weapon system, they are a variant of existing weapon systems. Its less battleship vs torpedo boat and more x doctrine of battle ship vs y doctrine (like pre-dreadnought vs post-dreadnought battleship doctrine for the example of newer designs actually being better)

[@Crosshair84]

@@matthiuskoenig3378 It's nothing more than a repeat of the "Manned aircraft are obsolete because we have missiles" debate that happened in the 1950s. Drones do not have the same capabilities of manned aircraft and will continue to exist in those areas.

[@dougermouse]

Who is ever going to use a gun in a plane now that missiles are out there? Oh right.. Great video Ed.

[@kenoliver8913]

And in the only air-to-air combat of the 21st Century (Ukraine) no-one is in fact using guns. The "end of the manned plane" meme is probably wrong (though, like tanks, more likely just exaggerated - manned fighters and tanks are becoming niche systems, but not nonexistent). But it is very clear the "end of the WW2 style dogfight" meme is finally right. The fact that it was wrong 60 years ago does NOT mean it is wrong now.

[@bigsmoke-mi5cw]

If i recoil correctly the Japanese used the French style of doctrine, but during the first sino-japanese war of 1894 proved this theory to be incorrect and the Japanese learned that the only reason why they beat the Chinese navy was due to corruption, inadequate training, and poor implementation of the doctrine, the lessons learned caused a shift in Japanese doctrine to the battleship focus which won them the 1904-5 Russo-Japanese.

[@leighrate]

But it's also significant that Japan developed the Long Lance torpedo and their destroyer's were extremely torpedo heavy.

[@bigsmoke-mi5cw]

@@leighrate Yeah that is true, but that is mostly due to Japanese evolution of the doctrine and their doctrine, by the 1930s the Japanese focused on night fighting, torpedo destroyers and capital ships since they realised themselves that a might vs might doctrine is infeasible against the royal navy and the US navy. similar mindset origins to the French though

[@matthiuskoenig3378]

@bigsmoke-mi5cw no it's more that torpedos launched from distroyers, while still needing heavy ships in support, did play an important part of their victory in the russo-Japanese war.

[@kamikazeviking3053]

Threat needs to be countered--->New counter developed--->"Said threat is now obsolete!"--->Counter to counter is developed--->return to 1st step

[@tomlobos2871]

i love how educating this is. having in mind that there is no invention without flaws limitations and compromises, things might look different on second thought.

[@MM22966]

I had to look up the Fashoda Incident, which I did not know of. It is interesting how it intertwined with so many other matters that were much more well-known at the time. (Briefly, for others: the French and British tried to claim the Upper Nile at the same time for purposes of securing communication across their other African colonial possessions. The French were forced to back down - in no small part because, as Nash pointed out, they simply did not have a navy capable of playing games with the RN. It happened in 1898)

[@mpersad]

Thank you Ed, a timely and well argued comparison. As others have said here, the failure of some to appreciate the continued role of manned aircraft in a high intensity warfare has a long, and frankly undistinguished history. Excellent video.

[@roscoewhite3793]

Back in 1957, Air Chief Marshal Sir Philip Bennet Joubert de la Ferté wrote a book called "Rocket" about the development of the V-1 and V-2 (mainly the latter), that also looked at the future of military rocketry. Among the conclusions he came to was the fact that the manned fighter was "dead - dead as the dodo". (He also predicted the rise of the cargo rocket and the unlikelihood of space flight, misquoting the then-astronomer royal as saying "space travel is utter bilge"...)

[@shaider1982]

14:52 ah, yes the floating hotels (as per Drach).

[@MrDportjoe]

Elon does not understand the military implications of the tech he assumes will end the manned aircraft. The ways an opponent can disrupt/disable/destroy the command and control systems using somewhat asyemtrical means.

[@minhducnguyen9276]

The main problem is lag. Drones are often operated half way across the globe where the drone pilots often experience 0.5-1 second of lag. That's why drones are limited to surveillance and airstrike where the lag is not a problem. But that will be a problem in air to air combat where a second can decide the win.

[@MrDportjoe]

@@minhducnguyen9276 Lag is something that could be weaponized. Also consider the implications of a full on military type virtual assault on things like power sources serving command control nodes

[@minhducnguyen9276]

@MrDportjoe It basically become the contest of who can put their control centers closer to the frontline without get shot. Because not only will they experience less lag than the other guys, the stronger signal also means that they are more resistant to jamming signals.

[@kennyg1358]

You assuming Musk doesn't understand something is amusing.

[@bpora01]

The light aircraft vs heavy aircraft debate.

[@dukenukem8381]

Aren't all FPV and DJI , or long reconnaissance drones manned? Unmanned drones like Shaheed are barely 5% of all drones. I smell Elons need for government drone contract.

[@crimfan]

Yup. He’s made bank on government contracts and now bought the government he wanted.

[@Ugly_German_Truths]

Manned refers to a living person ON BOARD not 3000 miles away behind a Monitor and joystick.

[@mrfawkes9110]

He is a welfare queen.

[@fijapopovic5335]

He also wants people, companies and countries to use his networks of satellites so that he can have full control over everything

[@dukenukem8381]

@@fijapopovic5335 funny how he is "against war profiteering"

[@heatloss9536]

Spat out my drink seeing my name at the end of this what the heck

[@DOHA104p3]

Congrats lmao

[@stekra3159]

Any camera based sytstem for spoting aircraft will have a lower range then radar.

[@anotheruser676]

Shout out for the 'Shaving Cream Bar Fight' scene from the end of the movie "Bugsy Malone"

[@mpetersen6]

The creme puff shooting Tommy Guns. And the pedal cars.

[@matthiuskoenig3378]

The thing is what counters to drones don't also counter maned aircraft? Even jamming would blind a manned aircraft and make it useless... Drones are not a new really class of planes, they are the same planes just more advanced in some ways. Militaries are being cautious with them (so the most expensive craft have yet to be replaced) but there isn't really anything a drone jet fighter can't do or be countered by that a maned one wouldn't

[@xtron1234]

You can't jam eyeballs.

[@clydedopheide1033]

Great episode! Absolutely agree with all your points. Thanks Sir

[@buttole]

the battleship was rendered obsolete eventually... by a technique that involves deployment of a swarm of airborne weapon platforms

[@gamerfan8445]

Yeah, and no.

[@xtron1234]

And he's saying to replace an airborne weapons platform with, a worse airborne weapons platform.

[@buttole]

@@xtron1234 literally a hundred thousand of them for the same price

[@Cartoonman154]

He's just repackaging a conversation that has been going on since the conception of the F-22 (or earlier) and claiming it as his own. Even DoD officials got it wrong when they said the F-22 was going to be the last manned fighter. This is nothing new.

[@FallenPhoenix86]

The Uk said that about the Lightning... the English Electric Lightning, this was the better part of 70 years ago. The more things change the more they stay the same.

[@Blockio1999]

Musk is very good at that, spouting other people's patent nonsense as his own idea that sounds very good to only the thoroughly uninformed

[@Khronogi]

​@@Blockio1999he's just another bro, except he has near unlimited Capital and his own media platform.

[@Cartoonman154]

​@@FallenPhoenix86yep. Do you were I can find the information/conversation about the EE lightening be being a last manned fighter? I'm genuinely interested. Thanks.

[@matthiuskoenig3378]

@Khronogi where do you think that capital came from. He is not just another bro. He is human and thus capable or error but he isn't just some rando either.

[@FredScuttle456]

This was predicted in Terminator 2. Unmanned stealth aircraft flying faultless missions. What happened next?

[@MM22966]

One crashed and they cancelled the program. (in another timeline)

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

In 1918, they said the tank was obsolete. How did that idea turn out?

[@matthiuskoenig3378]

Apples to oranges. Drone jet fighters, currently being tested by the us and austrialia, have the same weaknesses as manned ones but a bunch of extra strengths. No counter to them can not also be applied to manned craft. Tanks do stuff nothing else can at the budget and so never got replaced. Manned craft don't seem do anything drones can't do, but drones do it cheaper. Heavy tanks became obsolete because they could no longer do anything mediums/MBTs couldn't do but we're more expensive. The military is being sensibly cautious, but it's not a case of counter tech makes existing tech obsolete it's more advanced version of current tech will replace current tech and it might already be able to do so and civilian is being impatient with the naturally conservative military that has good reason to be conservative.

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

@matthiuskoenig3378 no its not. People down the year have said this weapon is obsolete or that weapon I obsolete only to find that no it isn't. In 1918, the British Generals decided that the tank could be disposed of as I was designed to break the deadlock caused by trench warfare. They failed to see that the cavalry was the obsolete weapon system.

[@RocketHarry865]

the glorie was a wooden hulled ship with iron armour plate clading. The HMS Warrior was the first fully Iron hulled with iron armour warship

[@leifvejby8023]

We heard that too in 1944, wonder why we still see that many manned aircraft!

[@matthiuskoenig3378]

Difference is we have unmanned jet fighters being tested right now and they can do everything manned ones can do as well or better and for a lower cost. The military is being cautious because there might be something they aren't accounting for and so their plan is intially just suplimenting manned craft, haveing a swarm of drone fighters escorting low numbers of manned craft.

[@xtron1234]

@@matthiuskoenig3378 Which is a vastly more reasonable and sensible plan. Mix the two and see how it works out, and then go from there.

[@SanderAnderon]

right on, Ed...

[@MM22966]

1:40 Love the pivot-analogy, lol

[@williamhenry8914]

Everyone should take a moment to mull over just how fucking insane the spar torpedo boat concept was, and even more so that it was ever used effectively. A small, unarmored, open boat with a large bomb on a stick sailing right up to large enemy warships and inserting it beneath them. What could go wrong!

[@allthenewsordeath5772]

UAVs due to the relatively low cost and ease of production will become the most widely used air assets, but as we’ve seen in Ukraine and the Middle East due to their independence and reaction times there are quite a number of mission profiles where manned aircraft are still required.

[@kevinwilliams4899]

As the air war in Vietnam started IRC that fighters with guns were obsolete and it was all missile tecnology. They had to fit gun pods to the F4's to counter the Mig threat.

[@matthiuskoenig3378]

Not really the same situation. The us is part of testing unmaned jet fighters with austrialia and so far there is nothing manned craft can do that the drone can't. The military is being sensibly cautious and plans on only repwlceing the majority of manned craft rather than all of them. And musk is being impatient, but isn't entirely wrong.

[@chrispycreme6413]

The US Navy never used the gun pod. The real issue was training.

[@RobSchofield]

Excellent analysis. 🤓👍

[@davidbrennan660]

Cracking video.

[@ianstobie]

Good parallel!

[@pastorrich7436]

BRAVO! BRAVO!! A standing ovation from the peanut gallery.

[@paladin0654]

Military/Naval technology is a never ending "cat and mouse" game. The only aspect of the game that gives one side the edge is a human: manned fighters are essential. You can quibble about how man and what it does but the side the wins will have them.

[@lkmuks]

Terrific video, thank you. Have a comment for traction

[@philiphumphrey1548]

Some people proclaimed the battleship obsolete (again) in the second world war. But battleships proved essential, including (irony) protecting the vulnerable aircraft carriers from surface threats and from aircraft. You can mount a lot more anti-aircraft guns on a battleship than on a carrier. It often took the aircraft of several carriers to sink a single battleship, as with Musashi and Yamato. In the end it wasn't the carrier that did for the battleships, it was advances in weapons, especially missiles, that gave similar capabilities to smaller, cheaper ships.

[@sebastiangeller8637]

And there's of course the modernization program (the 600-navy ships) the US undertook to upgrade their battleships in the 80s. While they weren't used against the USSR, they did prove useful during the Gulf War.

[@andrewfleming8103]

Battleships were the great underachievers of WW2. Impressive to look at but mostly useless. It was antiaircraft Cruisers not Battleships.

[@GoranXII]

Not True. _HMS Ark Royal_ could easily have sunken _Bismarck_ with just her own aircraft given enough time, but the RN's battlewagons could get there more quickly.

[@philiphumphrey1548]

@@GoranXII It's possible but I doubt they could have actually sunk it. The 18" torpedoes carried by the Fairey Swordfish were far less destructive than the 21" torpedoes carried by Norfolk and Dorsetshire and the 24.5" torpedoes on Rodney. Also during every mission, some aircraft are rendered unserviceable and most carriers suffer a gradual loss of striking power. An attack by Fairey Albacores (the successor to the Swordfish) on Bismarck's sister ship, Tirpitz caught in open water was a dismal failure without hits.

[@GoranXII]

@@philiphumphrey1548 The _HMS Prince Of Wales_ was sunk by just a handful of Torpedoes. And _Bismark was already crippled, so lining up a shot wouldn't have been too hard, certainly easier than against a fully capable ship.

[@ObiwanNekody]

Do remember this is coming from a guy that has spent at least 6 years telling us that full self driving cars will be available next year.

[@jackmatthis]

You mean 10 years

[@nguyenhuy-m2i]

The problem is people focus way too much on the vulnerability of the platform instead of the capability that it provide. There are a million things that can kill a foot soldier, but noone ever talk about replacing human soldier

[@jme36053]

The addition of air superiority/dominance UAS with manned versions are complimentary. Their synergism need not be greater than the sum of the parts to provide utility.

[@mrbigberd]

Musk is an idiot about lots of things, but he’s right about this. AI beats humans in air to air combat almost 100% of the time (and that’s if we give it similar G restrictions based simple on precise resource management). Humans should only be flying for CAS because detection of ground targets isn’t a solved problem and at the back of the lines to take remote control of a drone when something extremely unexpected happens.

[@TDenterpriser]

Ah yes the battleship the weapon that famously became obsolete over night lol

[@Irobert1115HD]

technicaly they are still around as a practical weapon. their class and spot is now taken by the aircraft carrier.

[@griffinporlalis9065]

Robert McNamarra - JFK's Defence Chief said this as well , an American Businessman Harvard MBA and professor, PWC Alumni and that guy is an academic heavyweight. His boys have to eat this statement in Vietnam :P

[@nateharder2286]

Drones have the potential to be hacked.

[@bob_the_bomb4508]

It’s part of a cunning RAF plan to ensure that they don’t have to ever leave their 5* hotel whilst on ‘deployment’ :)

[@John-qv5ux]

Say what you will about the Air Force, they've found a way to send all the officers to go and fight instead of the ORs

[@geoffreypiltz271]

"It’s Difficult to Make Predictions, Especially About the Future" - variation on a Danish proverb.

[@manilajohn0182]

1. "Manned aircraft are dead" 2. "The Constant Tactical Factor"

[@RonLWilson]

BTW, I just made a video on this and uploaded it to my KZbin channel. Also, small drones will never likely be able to intercept high speed high altitude aircraft and laser counter measure will likely soon be able to take out drone swarms.

[@pietersteenkamp5241]

Drones will need to be very big to actually take on other large manned fighters so at some point the cost differences are not large. Edit Last i checked the Global hawk was several hundred USD.

[@RonLWilson]

@@pietersteenkamp5241 Exactly!

ed, you cant surprise us anymore. At this point, if you do not bring something weird to the table, we're kinda disappointed. oh and while im here, congrats on hiting 100k

[@ryklatortuga4146]

Hope this take you over 100,000 subs... think of the torpedoes!

[@josephhacker5358]

So what did kill the battleship? Was it manned aircraft launched from carriers? I do believe manned aircraft will eventually die off, but not soon and it may or may not be UAV/drones that spell that demise.

[@alganhar1]

The simple answer is cost and missiles. Battleships are big, and very expensive, and wit the advent of more and more reliable surface to surface as well as surface to air missile systems you could just put the same capability on a much smaller, thus much cheaper ship. And its not just cheaper to build, its also cheaper to operate. Battleships are hideously expensive when it comes to fuel and maintenance costs for a single hull, and then you add the 1800 hundred crew and the costs associate with them to the table. It was simply more feasible to build smaller ships with primarily missile armament and have more of them than run a single battleship. So yeah, it was not the aircraft that finally killed the battleship, at least for now, but economics and missiles.

[@visions91]

Manned aircrafts will be around for a very long time. Vested interests are given up only after undeniable change (battleships during Pacific War, etc.).

[@EffequalsMA]

I am reminded of the role of the fighter mafia in the US pushing for simpler, lighter specific air to air only aircraft in an increasingly technological battlefield where they were defenseless.

[@tjaartandriesbosua9248]

How is it going with battle ships these days ?

[@alganhar1]

What's that got to do with it? Battleships did not really become obsolete, after all, you could convert a battleship into a huge missile platform, as US experiments with the Iowa's proved. They proved pretty conclusively that you could rip off a turret and all its associated machinery and replace it with a large VLS cell array and associated magazines without too much effort. They were viable as a platform from that respect. The issue with battleships was economic. Yes you can put a godly amount of VLS cells on a battleship, but they are hideously expensive to run and maintain. Turned out to be over all more effective to build four modern missile armed destroyers for about the same build and operating costs as a single battleship. SO the Battleships were retired. For now. Maybe one day they will return in some form. Maybe not.

[@Cartoonman154]

Is the link to Dr Clark's video missing?

[@EdNashsMilitaryMatters]

Shoukd be one of the pop ups at the end.

[@Cartoonman154]

@@EdNashsMilitaryMatters Thanks.

[@simonnorburn3518]

To me, the only difference is that we can evaluate the Jeune Ecol, with the benifit of hindsight. The Dreadnaught was a game changer of a battleship (and the only one of it's ilkto sink a Unter See Boot) but no-one really sugested that dreadnoughts were the best ASW weapon, albeit when it did that, it was one of very few effective ASW weapons on a statistical basis. But of course, it was not and did not become an ASW system of choice. Without real life testing the Jeune Ecole was a potentially viable process, compared to the huge costs of Battleship production; and the French were totally aware that they could not compete in production races with Great Britain, so in some ways it was a forced choice. It is worth noting that from about 1960 onwards in restricted waters the Germans and other nations encompassing the baltic placed similar emphasis on cheap light litoral missile and torpedo carrying boats, rather than expensive assets, as did many middle eastern countries, either building home grown (e.g. Israel) or SU purchased attack craft. So whilst I empathise with your perception of the Jeune Ecole it is and was a perfectly rational respomse to a cost benefit analysis for the French

[@GoranXII]

The fact that the proponents of the Jeune École didn't think to consider how easily it could be countered shows a rather lack of imagination on their parts.

[@mihjq]

I can't find the link to the lecture on the Jeune Ecole. Help. (OK, I may be dumb after 3 beers.)

[@avus-kw2f213]

1:40 I thought it was going to be the 57 white paper

[@flatulentdragon]

Point of clarification vis a vis US politics. Musk does not hold a government position. DOGE is not an official government agency. It will be, at most, an advisory panel. That doesn't mean it won't be influential, but it has no actual power to set policy.

[@l.a.wright6912]

Problem with unmanned fighter jets is always ping and signal reach

[@timex513]

So what happens if you fight a peer opponent who also has the ability to strike at your satellites? No sat nav no direction = no attack or defense. Or worse yet. Those drones can be hacked and turned against you.

[@pietersteenkamp5241]

Musk is putting up sats by the thousands and the air force already tested data links from them in the last decade. Only one or two countries could really counter the satellite constellation and both have plenty of nukes.

[@robinschingen6757]

I think he is not wrong in the long term, but canceling an project that is for the current situation good enough and can be build in high numbers if needed would be maybe a bit short sighted. Don't know if he stated somethink like "the F-35 will be americas last manned fighter" would sound a bit more grounded to me.

[@alganhar1]

Even then its unlikely. Most next generation aircraft concepts I have seen floated by various companies and nations tend around a two man crewed aircraft, supported by drone aircraft that are controlled by the manned aircrafts back seater. Manned aircraft are going to be around for a while, even if its only because most people really do not like the idea of an AI having direct weapons release capability. They at least want a human in that decision loop about whether to deploy a weapon or not.

[@bombfog1]

Did you fight along side the Syrian Kurds? You made a comment in your last video that seemed to insinuate that. Very cool if you did.

[@dindrmindr626]

wasnt Comanche canceled 20 years ago because it was no point of making new maned helicopter ?

[@edwardfletcher7790]

The question should be : "Why are people listening to a man with no military experience who's currently bankrupting a social media company ?"

[@theotherohlourdespadua1131]

Same reason why people listened to a GM Executive during the late 1960's: somebody put them there to talk and people must listen to him...

[@miles2378]

Musk bought Twitter for influence, not profit.

[@lancervi1762]

Why should anyone listen to you? How many billion $$$ companies do you run? Classic example of people who let their dislike for something/someone take all sense away. Your statement, in and of itself its non-sensical. This statement and everyone who liked it has the intellectual depth of a puddle. Congrats. I will just say this. I disagree with musk. But somewhere along the line, the knight, the lance, sword, bow and arrow all went to the wayside. Are people saying this can never happen to tanks/planes? Foolish. Very foolish and it displays an utter unawareness of military issues and their problems; restricting only to the 20th/21st centuries. SHORT SIGHTED. Elon may be premature, but that doesn't make his argument any less valid.

[@edwardfletcher7790]

@theotherohlourdespadua1131 Only sheep listen to Elon...

[@FallenPhoenix86]

@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 McNamara wasn't inherently wrong though, the multi service branch F-4 and A-7 prove that. He was only wrong in how he went about it. Muskrat is simply clueless.

[@Sacto1654]

But yet, the idea may not work as well as planned. Reason: the use of rockets filled with warheads that dispense carbon filaments, which when the warhead explodes generates an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) field that could disable remote controlled flying vehicles.

[@4thllamaofthealpacolypse712]

Tell Musk to Google "Duncan Sandys' 1957 defence white paper"

[@ycplum7062]

Shortly after the turn of the 19th century, the newly elected President Thomas Jefferson considered fully-rigged warships inefficent compared to a swarm of oared gunboats. I did a paper for a college class about weapons that would allegedly make war obsolete. There was dynamite, gatling/machine gun, torpedo, submarines, and bombers.

[@ferretzim8694]

One aspect of the Jeune Ecole that is actually decent is the idea of not putting all your resources into a few big units that whilst powerful, is hampered by being too few. Doesn't matter how big and nasty your floating fortress is if it can be outrun by a rowboat and there's only 1 of them tasked with patrolling a whole ocean. So integrating some of it's ideas and expanding upon them is a better idea. In a way, a lot of modern navies are kind of like that. Smaller vessels that pack a big punch. Not meant to brawl and take hits. But yeah, Musk is an idiot

[@macbomb]

Was I the only one expecting "Guns are obsolete! Missiles only!" ???

[@Irobert1115HD]

and then rheinmetal brought back the flack screen as a anti drone weapon. before musk tried to peddle drones as the next big deal in air to air operations.

[@proskub5039]

'Ahead of his time' is often interpreted as being a visionary - privy to some insight that us plebes cannot grasp. We should not however jump to the opposite conclusion, which is to say that just because someone is an idiot, doesn't mean they might not be on to something in the long term. That still makes them an idiot though - being ahead of one's time is more a case of stumbling upon some idea that in that case happens be correct, while simultaneously being too stupid to realize said idea does not apply in the present or near future. What I'm trying to say is that cavalry charges did eventually go out of fashion, but predicting both their eternal supremacy as well as their inevitable demise could have been equally fallacious or poorly justified, in the 1700s at least.

[@MikeSiemens88]

Cancellation of the Avro Arrow program with the destruction of prototypes & engineering drawings also comes to mind. One of the reasons often quoted is the launch of Sputnik, the potential of ballistic missiles making bomber interceptors obsolete. AVRO as a company ceased to exist & all the talent migrated south of the border. Not long after that we purchased F101 Voodoos from the US as bomber interceptors. Russian Bear bombers & USAF B52's continue to patrol the skies probing air defenses to this day. While we still have some home-grown aviation companies in Canada, they produce for the civilian market almost exclusively. Most all our aviation weapons systems now come from outside the country.

[@kidmohair8151]

bear in mind. as the "self-made billionaire" head of a firm that claims to be far along the road to autonomous personal vehicles taking over our streets, the chief musketeer has just a little bit of skin in the game... there's an expression we have that at the moment is escaping me... i think it starts with...

[@McRocket]

Congratulations on reaching 100K subs (I wanted to be the first, lol). Long overdue, imho. ☮

[@jaredbickmore2474]

Didn't he say something about tank's as well

[@Irobert1115HD]

i think he said basicaly the same thing about tanks about a year ago yes.

[@michaelwright2986]

Musk has had successes, but his remarks about AI will only be believable when he produces a really autonomous car.

[@Kefuddle]

I think Musk has a point as far as short range fighter aircraft are concerned. Military aircraft, all aircraft, inherently have to be light weight and are necessarily fragile and with not much range. This means the ability to field counter measures to the anti aircraft defences are physically limited. Ground based air defences do not have the same limitations to their design so can develop asymmetrically meaning that whatever hyper sophistication you put in the air can be countered but the counter to counter cannot be reciprocated if it means adding more equipment or fundamental design changes. If there is an overmatch between air defences and air power, then the notion of air superiority does disappear. There are exceptions to this, transport, strategic bombers, awacs, recon do have to operate all in all conditions with malfunctioning systems, something AI will probably never be able to deal with. My view is that in a peer war, it will never be possible to dominate the enemies airspace in order to beat them, they have to be beaten first. This means the notion of the fighter jet becomes quasi-suicidal. The majority of attack missions by smaller aircraft will be get to altitude, launch missiles and RTB in less contested airspace.

[@andrewcharles459]

And where are the battleships now?

[@red_moon_7760]

There's a whole video game based on this

[@LyonPercival]

Flying is so fun… WHY would we even want to replace that? 😂 It is certainly not a chore.

[@mrandrossguy9871]

Living is/Can be fun or a Right .. Why would we want to turn into Ai robots or “uploaded into the matrix” just to “live forever” 🤢

[@alan-sk7ky]

6:22 The French copy no one and no one copies the French... 🙂