Twenty first century military supremacy may go to whoever can produce the most best drone printers. Meaning whoever can produce the most best drone printer printers.
bitmasher9•39m ago
Drones are just one part of the equation. They are a “last mile” solution, which makes them very strong on battle fronts and come with a defender advantage.
We still require logistics to transport the drones into effective range, intelligence to know the most effective targets, and military grade wireless communications to guide the drones.
If the intelligence is good enough long range missiles can kinetically disable drone production or drone stockpiles.
To print a drone you must transport input materials anyway, which weight at least the same.
micromacrofoot•26m ago
Militaries are already using on-device AI to provide drone targeting, so airdropping a bunch in and letting them wreak havoc is very possible and not complicated as that matures.
lukan•21m ago
Printing is good for prototyping and if you are making small numbers/need to have a distributed manufacturing (because of bombs falling on them).
But for mass producing a solid design, 3D printing is the worst solution, because it is slow. Injection molding would be the fast (and cheap) way.
georgemcbay•6m ago
> But for mass producing a solid design, 3D printing is the worst solution, because it is slow. Injection molding would be the fast (and cheap) way.
~10 years ago I was really into designing my own "drones" (but the kind that don't kill people) and I primarily used a CNC machine (Shapeoko 3).
Multirotor vehicles are a good match for designs that are a series of mostly flat plates connected via simple standoffs and you can knock those out really quick with a CNC machine.
Injection molding is certainly much better than 3D printing for scale, but CNC is a nice middle ground that allows for quick manufacture while still having a lot of the same flexibility for iterative design that you get with 3D printing.
xoxxala•15m ago
3d printers making 3d printers making drones is a key plotline of the Bobiverse novels.
delichon•53m ago
bitmasher9•39m ago
We still require logistics to transport the drones into effective range, intelligence to know the most effective targets, and military grade wireless communications to guide the drones.
If the intelligence is good enough long range missiles can kinetically disable drone production or drone stockpiles.
cavoirom•33m ago
IsTom•1m ago
micromacrofoot•26m ago
lukan•21m ago
But for mass producing a solid design, 3D printing is the worst solution, because it is slow. Injection molding would be the fast (and cheap) way.
georgemcbay•6m ago
~10 years ago I was really into designing my own "drones" (but the kind that don't kill people) and I primarily used a CNC machine (Shapeoko 3).
Multirotor vehicles are a good match for designs that are a series of mostly flat plates connected via simple standoffs and you can knock those out really quick with a CNC machine.
Injection molding is certainly much better than 3D printing for scale, but CNC is a nice middle ground that allows for quick manufacture while still having a lot of the same flexibility for iterative design that you get with 3D printing.
xoxxala•15m ago