Aerial warfare
空战
Blue-sky thinking
蓝天畅想
Planes can be launched from land and sea. Why not from the air as well?
飞机能从陆地和海上起飞。为什么不能从空中起飞呢？
Aircraft-carriers are juicy targets. They are also increasingly vulnerable ones. Like medieval castles in the age of the cannon, technological advance threatens to make them redundant. Satellites and over-the-horizon radars mean pinpointing their locations is easier. And a single well-aimed, well-armed missile may be enough to render a carrier useless, even if one shot does not sink it outright.
航空母舰是诱人的攻击目标。它们也越来越脆弱。就像大炮时代的中世纪城堡那样，技术进步让它们面临被淘汰的危险。有了卫星和超视距雷达后，要精准定位它们变得更容易了。而一枚瞄准精确、装备精良的导弹即使不能彻底击沉一艘航母，可能也足以让它报废。
American naval planners are particularly worried about China's DF-26. This weapon, which came into service in 2018, is a so-called manoeuvring ballistic missile (meaning it can vary its final approach path, rather than being subject solely to the laws of gravity) that has been dubbed a "carrier killer". The DF-26 can be launched from a lorry, and can carry either a conventional or a nuclear warhead.
中国的东风-26格外让美国的海军规划人员不安。这种武器于2018年开始服役，是一种被称为“航母杀手”的机动变轨弹道导弹（也就是说它可以改变最后的接近路线，而不仅仅遵循万有引力定律运动）。东风-26可从发射车上发射，可以搭载常规弹头或核弹头。
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This threat is fearsome enough to keep American carriers at least 1,600km from China's coast, reckons Bryan Clark, a naval strategist at the Hudson Institute, a think-tank. That is much farther than the range of a carrier's warplanes unless they can be refuelled in-flight. America's Department of Defence is therefore looking for a workaround. One back-to-the-future idea being tested (it dates, originally, from 1917) is to turn a suitable plane into an aerial aircraft-carrier capable of launching and recovering uncrewed drones in flight. This would allow seaborne carriers to be kept well out of harm's way.
如此强大的威慑力足以让美国航母退至距中国海岸线至少1600公里以外，智库哈德逊研究所（HudsonInstitute）的海军战略研究员布莱恩克拉克（BryanClark）认为。这远远超出了航母战机的作战半径，除非它们能在空中加油。因此美国国防部正在寻找对策。有一个“回到未来”式的想法（最早出现于1917年）正在试验中，即把一架合适的飞机改造成能在空中发射和回收无人机的空中航母。这将使海上的航母远离危险。
Castles in the sky
空中堡垒
To that end DARPA, the defence department's advanced research projects agency, is running a programme called Gremlins, a name that also applies to the individual drones themselves. A Gremlin drone weighs 680kg and has a wingspan of nearly 3.5 metres. Once it has been dropped, deployed its wings and fired up its turbofan engine, it can fly to an area up to 500km away and in the words of Scott Wierzbanowski, the Gremlin programme's head, "go in and create havoc". That done, it would then return to its aerial mothership.
为此，美国国防部高级研究计划局（DARPA）正在开展一项名为“小精灵”（Gremlins）的项目，参与项目的无人机也叫这个名字。一架小精灵无人机重680公斤，翼展近3.5米。一旦它被投放到空中，展开机翼，启动涡扇发动机，就可以飞到远至500公里外的地方，用小精灵项目负责人斯科特维尔兹巴诺夫斯基（ScottWierzbanowski）的话来说，“前去大闹天宫”。完成任务后，它将返回在空中的母舰。
Gremlins would operate in fleets, under ultimate human control. In this, they are similar to the "loyal wingman" idea of drone squadrons accompanying a crewed fighter aircraft into battle. Loyal wingmen, however, would take off from and land on terra firma, or possibly a conventional, naval, aircraft-carrier. Operational Gremlins need never touch the ground.
小精灵们会在人类的终端控制下编队行动。在这一点上，它们和“忠诚僚机”的设计相似，也就是让无人机中队跟随有人战机参战。但忠诚僚机的起降会在陆地上，或者有可能是在常规的海上航母上。而在执行任务中的小精灵永远不需要接触地面。
Gremlins' principal jobs would be intercepting communications, jamming signals and hunting for things to be destroyed, thus softening up the defences in contested airspace to make it safer for crewed aircraft. Such drones could also be armed with small missiles or explosives for a kamikaze attack. And they would both share data and co-operate among themselves, and pass reconnaissance and targeting information back to warships and aircraft able to fire bigger missiles than they could carry.
小精灵的主要任务将是拦截通信、干扰信号以及搜寻摧毁目标，从而削弱作战空域中的防御力量，让有人战机的处境更安全。这种无人机还可以装备小型导弹或者自杀式袭击炸弹。它们彼此间会共享数据，相互协作，并将侦察和攻击目标的信息传回给那些能发射它们无力搭载的更大型导弹的军舰和飞机。
Gremlin swarms would no doubt suffer losses. But drawing enemy fire would actually be an objective, says Andrew Krepinevich, the boss of a defence consultancy called Solarium, which advises the defence department on aspects of naval and aerial warfare. This way, Gremlins would flush out the position of any hostile missile battery that switched on its targeting radar, marking it for subsequent destruction.
毫无疑问，小精灵机群会遭受损伤。但是，为美国国防部提供海空作战建议的国防咨询公司Solarium的老板安德鲁克雷皮内维奇（Andrew Krepinevich）表示，吸引敌方火力实际上本身就会是一个目的。一旦任何敌方导弹阵地打开瞄准雷达，小精灵就拿到了它的方位，把它标记下来以待后续摧毁。
In the calculus of combat, sacrificing a drone or two to knock out an enemy air-defence battery makes for a nice swap. Gremlins should therefore be thought of as "tradable" for systems of greater value, says Mr Wierzbanowski. The better to fool the foe, military planners also envisage airlaunched drones that mimic the radar and heat signatures of bigger fighter jets and bombers. This would be done by using shapes and materials that reflect rather than absorbing radar pings, and by leaving an engine's heat signature unmasked. The illusion could be enhanced by flying drones at speeds and in patterns indicative of larger aircraft.
在作战的得失考量中，牺牲一两架无人机就能摧毁敌方的防空阵地，这笔账很划算。所以应该把小精灵视为“可交易”更高价值的系统，维尔兹巴诺夫斯基表示。为了更好地迷惑敌人，军事规划人员还设想让空基发射的无人机模仿大型战斗机和轰炸机的雷达和热信号。这就需要使用能反射而不是吸收雷达波的外形和材料，并不再遮蔽发动机的热信号。如果无人机再模拟大型飞机的飞行速度和模式，以假乱真的程度还可能更高。
On top of all this, a defender's need to squander precious attention and pricey missiles on incoming cheap drones will give its adversary's more capable aircraft freer rein. Enthusiasts for air-launched drones therefore see value in numbers. Putting lots of blips on radar screens is a good way to fluster an enemy with "complexity and multiple dilemmas", says Tim Keeter, who manages the Gremlins programme at Dynetics, DARPA's principal contractor for the project.
最重要的是，防御一方需要把宝贵的注意力和昂贵的导弹耗费在来袭的廉价无人机上，这就给了对手更厉害的飞机更多机会施展拳脚。空基发射无人机的拥趸因此看到了它们在以量取胜上的价值。让雷达显示屏上出现大量光点是用“复杂性和多重困境”来扰乱敌人的好办法，DARPA小精灵项目的主要承包商Dynetics的项目负责人蒂姆·基特（TimKeeter）表示。
来源：经济学人
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