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Subject: Gorgon Stare Versus ISIL
SYSOP    9/24/2014 5:52:06 AM
 
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Keith    Caracoid   9/24/2014 10:30:29 AM
As was brought up some time ago on the Strategy Page, the most important selling aspect of the Gorgon Stare was that--its not just the fact that you could look at so many different targets at once--but that cumulatively one UAV could cover and record the events taking place throughout an entire city's streets, roof tops, etc day or night.  Then when an incident occurred, the event could be played back and the perpetrators tracked to find out both where they came from and where they were headed.
 
Anybody have any info on whether this new system maintains the claim?  Certainly that would be a game-changing technology that would make terrorist acts nearly impossible to conduct without calling for a de facto suicide mission. 
 
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WarNerd       9/24/2014 11:11:19 AM
Depends.  A major problem with the original system was the huge bandwidth requirement.  Either they still have the bandwidth problem, or they have a preprocessing system that only sends select data with a complete record only existing in recorders on the drone until it returns.
 
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Blacktail       9/25/2014 2:15:52 AM
 
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JFKY    It would appear Blacktail does not read the articles   9/25/2014 10:19:46 AM
From the article above:
"...Gorgon Stare. First sent to Afghanistan for three years of field testing, air force users quickly found that the equipment was too unreliable and poorly thought out to do what it was supposed to do in a combat zone. After over a year of tinkering the manufacturer and users got it to work reliably and by 2013 Gorgon Stare was working over 90 percent of the time ..."
 
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Blacktail       9/25/2014 11:51:20 PM

From the article above:
"...Gorgon Stare. First sent to Afghanistan for three years of field testing, air force users quickly found that the equipment was too unreliable and poorly thought out to do what it was supposed to do in a combat zone. After over a year of tinkering the manufacturer and users got it to work reliably and by 2013 Gorgon Stare was working over 90 percent of the time ..."

They always say it's getting better, but no amount of "get well" funding will fix a fallacious concept. See everything at once, and you must evaluate everything at once. This requires each decision-maker's full attention to be focused on everything, and that isn't possible; it's no accident that the human body has only two eyes, which can only see in one direction.
 
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keffler25       9/26/2014 8:09:55 AM
Which is typical.
 
Systems are built and op-evaled for DECADES before the final mature design comes into accepted use.
 
The examples that come to my mind:
 
Mark 48 torpedo.
The 'American pattern' tank, which evolved from the M-26 into the M-60.
The M-16---> M-4 rifle/carbine which despite its FN and H&K variations is still basically the Stoner system under all the bells and whistles. 
 
So Gorgon took three years of software and telemetry fixes? That would be remarkably FAST. And if the 90% claim is true (I don't believe it.) that would be better than the 40% TAR that previous man/machine systems were able to achieve.   
From the article above:
"...Gorgon Stare. First sent to Afghanistan for three years of field testing, air force users quickly found that the equipment was too unreliable and poorly thought out to do what it was supposed to do in a combat zone. After over a year of tinkering the manufacturer and users got it to work reliably and by 2013 Gorgon Stare was working over 90 percent of the time ..."

 
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Blacktail       9/28/2014 3:42:32 AM
"Which is typical. Systems are built and op-evaled for DECADES before the final mature design comes into accepted use."
 
That's the exception, rather than the norm. Consider the Spearfish torpedo (wasn't ready in time for the Falklands War, forcing the RN to use WW2-surplus torpedoes instead; went into service despite no progress being made in fixing it; remained unreliable and problematic all the way into it's retirement in 2004), the Breda 30 machine gun (the worst Italian firearm of World War 2), the Chauchat machine gun (very long-lived in service, but was always a dog), the AN/ALQ-161A Defensive Avionics System (caused an imbroglio when it was revealed that it didn't work at all; it still doesn't, and the USAF is evaluating a replacement system), the M114 ACRV (retired after less than 10 years of service --- without replacement), the AIM-7 Sparrow (sold to Congress on a promised 90% pK Ratio, but only demonstrated 0.05% in real combat; the USAF begged Congress for "fix-it" money, again promising a 90% pK Ratio, but it's best-ever in ODS in 1991 was only 25%), and the M60 machine gun (was selected over the MAG 48; was eventually *replaced* by the MAG 48). They were many years in the making, and they never worked.
 
Let's also recall how the Mk.13, Mk.14, and Mk.15 torpedoes performed in the first half of World War 2, despite more than a decade of development, followed by an additional decade of operational service. How many decades is enough when the shooting starts?
 
Attempts to fix many problem weapons have backfired explosively --- sometimes literally. The BGM-109 Tomahawk was claimed to have greater-than-95% accuracy, but in Operation Desert Storm, the GAO found that less than half actually reached their targets. The US Navy sold Congress on a second chance, and many new technologies were integrated into the Tomahawk in the 1990s and early 2000s. In 2003, the Tomahawk's accuracy was even worse; instead of landing in the wrong areas in Iraq, they landed in the wrong countries, including Turkey, Iran, and Syria.
 
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JFKY    Blacktail   9/28/2014 9:55:45 AM
Is there a POINT to all this Kvetching? Yes, I believe we have worked out the kinks of the Brown Bess Musket, finally. Your point seems to be that systems take time to perfect.... that's like saying relationships take time to develop. True, but so what?
 
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Blacktail       9/29/2014 2:04:36 AM
My point is self-evident; that many weapons have problems that are both mission-breaking and non-correctable. If the problem can't be fixed in development, the affected weapon isn't worth having.
 
There is also a common thread between all of the examples I presented. Every one of them was either;
1- Not methodically and realistically tested before they were procured, or;
2- Had their performance requirements degraded, until the requirements were so weak that the program couldn't fail.
 
You can't fix an intrinsically-flawed weapon system by throwing money at it. You can't fix one failure of judgement with another one.
 
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keffler25       9/29/2014 7:52:43 PM
Your point is MOOT, Blacktail. Gorgon is being USED IN BATTLE for targeting and the results are being evaluated as BDA as I write this.
 
So, what were you saying?  
 
 
 
 
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