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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[SalmonGod]

It looks like it circumvents the language of the act, which limits the president's power to deploy military in domestic situations.  This regulation gives someone else that authority instead, and expands its application to a vaguely defined circumstance.

[RedKing]

US Navy successfully launches a UCAS drone from a carrier.

Goodbye, giant nuclear floating city supercarriers.
Hello, ~25,000-ton stealthed drone carriers. 

[Mephansteras]

Huh. I'm kinda surprised they haven't done that already.

[Dutchling]

I'm just waiting for the carrier drones.

[Scoops Novel]

I'm just waiting for the carrier drones.

A clip stirs...

[misko27]

Huh. I'm kinda surprised they haven't done that already.

Not entirely just that, they launched it, but it landed itself. Think about that. They can now be entirely autonomous.

Goodbye, giant nuclear floating city supercarriers.
Hello, ~25,000-ton stealthed drone carriers. 

I wonder what china is thinking... After all, they only just got one of those floating nuke cities. And now the US has a conceivably massive drone army waiting in the wings, pun intended.

[RedKing]

More to the point, a goodly deal of Chinese defensive strategy has been focused on "How do we target and sink those American giant nuclear floating cities if shit gets real?". They were getting pretty good at having multiple ways to overwhelm and sink a single large target like that.

Suddenly replace said single large target with numerous smaller targets, all capable of fielding an air wing of drones. Hell, if the next-gen drones are mostly autonomous, you don't even have to protect the operators or maintain a line of communication to the drones (cyberattack/disrupting GPS and communications was the second major area of Chinese strategic development, the qi (unorthodox or suprise) to the zheng (orthodox or conventional) of mounting a large swarm attack.

Granted, we're still at least a decade away from purpose-built drone carriers. But it has the potential to completely reshape our naval power, and in a good direction. We'd been starting to starting to adopt the WWII Axis mindset of having a handful of high-value megavehicles, when what won the war was the Allies' zerg rush of inferior (but replaceable) pocket carriers and light tanks.

Replacing big, hard-to-replace hard-to-defend megacarriers with a crew of tens of thousands with pocket drone carriers with much smaller crews....good strategic direction. Also allows you to calibrate your force levels when you're dealing with a crisis situation and becomes much easier to be everywhere at once. Just my .02.

[misko27]

-snip-

This reminds me of a quote I read recently. "Generals are always preparing for the previous war."

[Sheb]

Actually, the "plenty of little ships"  has been gaining tractions a lot recently. Not only the carriers, but the LCS too. Not surprising, given America's last wars were smaller, lower-intensity conflicts.

Anyway, it's not that impressive in the the drone landed on the ground. I'll reserve my admiration for when they manage to land on a carrier in moderately bad weather.

[Mech#4]

More to the point, a goodly deal of Chinese defensive strategy has been focused on "How do we target and sink those American giant nuclear floating cities if shit gets real?". They were getting pretty good at having multiple ways to overwhelm and sink a single large target like that.

Suddenly replace said single large target with numerous smaller targets, all capable of fielding an air wing of drones. Hell, if the next-gen drones are mostly autonomous, you don't even have to protect the operators or maintain a line of communication to the drones (cyberattack/disrupting GPS and communications was the second major area of Chinese strategic development, the qi (unorthodox or suprise) to the zheng (orthodox or conventional) of mounting a large swarm attack.

Granted, we're still at least a decade away from purpose-built drone carriers. But it has the potential to completely reshape our naval power, and in a good direction. We'd been starting to starting to adopt the WWII Axis mindset of having a handful of high-value megavehicles, when what won the war was the Allies' zerg rush of inferior (but replaceable) pocket carriers and light tanks.

Replacing big, hard-to-replace hard-to-defend megacarriers with a crew of tens of thousands with pocket drone carriers with much smaller crews....good strategic direction. Also allows you to calibrate your force levels when you're dealing with a crisis situation and becomes much easier to be everywhere at once. Just my .02.

Would this be a similar idea to the Roman army being defeated by barbarians? A gross simplification of the goings on at the time, but highly trained troops vs masses of axe wielding villagers seems a similar concept of a win for swarm tactics.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

only the roman army defeated and conquered barbarian armies and territories for centuries before the empire finally fell. the fall of rome was more a result of socio-economics and political and cultural paradigm shifts than warfare.

[Scoops Novel]

How relevant is this? http://www.smbc-comics.com/?db=comics&id=2778#comic

[Pnx]

How relevant is this? http://www.smbc-comics.com/?db=comics&id=2778#comic

To a discussion on military technology and policy? I'd say pretty much not relevant at all.

[Scoops Novel]

Oho, but these posters have been discussing colleges elsewhere, which i really should have remembered. (and thread title).

[Zangi]

I think this may fit here, somehow.  Either this or the wtf thread.