Last night, I was deep in the trenches, playing Arma 3, getting a little bit frisky with the AI squad commands. There I was, barking orders to the AI, like some wannabe general. Flank left, suppress fire, breach that building!
Although the animation above might suggest otherwise, it was not just mindless button-mashing. It felt tactical, like I was playing a grand game of chess where the pieces shot back at me.
And watching my AI teammates execute my carefully crafted plans got me thinking…
How close is this game to real life?
Is AI on the battlefield really as advanced as it seems in games like Arma 3?
Turns out, the answer is a resounding “yes”, and then some.
Real-world militaries are taking notes from these virtual battlefields or the other way around, that I am not sure of. But what I do know now is that they are pushing the envelope even further.
In this terrifying lineup, I will talk about “hitters” like Anduril Lattice OS (yes, indeed, the name of the middle-earth sword of LOTR), which lets a single operator control an army of drones like a symphony conductor, Project Maven, the Pentagon’s AI tool that transforms hours of boring drone footage into instant enemy locations.
Skyborg, no not assimilated humans flying around, but the Air Force’s AI wingman that might just become your new favorite co-pilot. For a bit more “in-your-face” AI, we’ve got Turkey’s KARGU-2 drones, which loiter, hunt and attack on their own. And lastly, I’ll check out the AI-enhanced Combat Information Centers on naval war ships, where algorithms make decisions that could save lives, or end them.
Before we start!
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Anduril Lattice OS. One operator to rule them all
Controlling a swarm of drones with the flick of a wrist.
That is not a scene from a Marvel movie. It is Anduril Lattice OS.
It is an AI-powered operating system that lets just one entitled person manage an entire flock of drones as if that person was a puppeteer pulling the strings, except the puppets can bomb, snoop, or shoot. This tech is already patrolling the borders of the US, where it is spotting intruders, and deciding what to do with them.
Humans still give the final “ok”, but the AI is already running the show behind the scenes.
Key Feature: Allows one person to control a drone swarm autonomously. Real-Life Use Case: Lattice OS is actively used along the U.S. border to identify unauthorized crossings but it might be coming to the battlefield soon to make real-time combat decisions faster than any human could.
Project Maven: The AI eye in the sky
If you have ever spent hours trying to find something in a Youtube video to cut out and use, you can really imagine what it would take to do that for thousands of hours of drone footage.
Boring.
Project Maven fixes that.
This AI brainchild from the US Military (now belonging to Palantir), analyzes drone footage to pinpoint targets. It helps analysts figure out who is who on the battlefield. Fun fact is that it caused quite a stir when Google employees found out they were working on it.
Google backed off, but Maven is still out there, watching.
Key Feature: Uses AI to analyze massive amounts of drone footage, turning hours of video into actionable insights in seconds. Real-Life Use Case: Deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan to identify enemy positions and movements, making commanders' jobs easier and target's lives a whole lot harder.
Israel’s Harpy and Harop drones: The kamikaze killers
This is not a case of “return to base.”
Israel’s Harpy and Harop drones are more like “see and smash”. These drones are also known as loitering munitions. You have probably seen a few demonstrations if you were unlucky enough to have seen a drone combat video from Ukraine. They hover over an area for hours, like vultures waiting for prey, and then strike with deadly precision. The AI onboard does the thinking. It decides when to dive-bomb a tank, an enemy radar system or other targets.
Think of them as the original “kamikaze robots”.
Key Feature: AI-guided, loitering drones that can autonomously find, decide, and destroy enemy systems without human intervention. Real-Life Use Case: Used by the Israeli military to suppress enemy radar and air defenses, proving that sometimes the best offense is a well-planned, AI-driven kamikaze drone.
Skyborg: Your AI wingman in the skies
Which pilot would not want a wingman who is never scared, and always on target
Now, that is Skyborg for you.
It is the U.S. Air Force’s “loyal wingman” AI project.
The idea is to have drones that fly alongside manned aircraft. They are making their own decisions to support missions. They could be out there scouting, jamming, or attacking. These drones will do it all, autonomously. They are learning fast, and they are coming to an airspace near you.
I was immediately thinking about having an R2-D2 in your fighter jet.
Key Feature: AI-powered "loyal wingman" drones that operate alongside human pilots, offering support and making tactical decisions "on the fly". Real-Life Use Case: Tested in military exercises to perform complex maneuvers and provide air support without risking a pilot’s life.
KARGU-2 Drone: A little too autonomous?
Meet the KARGU-2.
That is a Turkish quadcopter that is like the Terminator, but in mini form.
It is armed with facial recognition and AI to find, lock, and kill targets.
It is said that it already made history (and maybe sparked some debates) by autonomously attacking a human target in Libya in 2020, without human orders.
Key Feature: Autonomous target identification and engagement, taking “fire-and-forget” to a whole new (and potentially terrifying) level. Real-Life Use Case: Reportedly used in Libya, where it autonomously identified and attacked a target, sparking global debates about the ethics of autonomous warfare.
AI-Enhanced combat vessels
Naval ships are getting an upgrade, and it is not photon torpedo’s.
Defense contractors like Raytheon are adding AI to Combat Information Centers. These AI-enhanced CICs can sort through sensor data very fast (think of a caffeinated squirrel on a sugar rush – fast). It can identify threats and recommending the best course of action. And sometimes, when it has done a good job (goood boy ! good), it might even take action on it’s own. It is kinda like the ship’s brain, but with more processing power and less coffee than me on a typical Sunday morning.
Key Feature: AI-driven situational awareness for faster, more accurate decision-making in naval combat scenarios. Real-Life Use Case: Integrated into modern naval fleets for threat detection, improved response times, and automated defenses. Especially useful when the enemy is launching missile volleys your way.
DARPA MosAIc warfare
DARPA has developed a new puzzle with its “Mosaic Warfare” project.
If you’ve been in the military, you know that it is a rigid jigsaw puzzle, where each piece has its own spot and won’t fit anywhere else. Now, think of DARPA’s approach as a wild mosaic, where any piece can go anywhere you need it.
They achieve that with the help of AI.
What DARPA’s AI tool does, is that it STITCHES (a name too ugly to unpack) It can build entirely new digital networks in about 45 minutes.
That is basically faster than I can order a pizza.
So, while generals are still deciding where to drop the big booms, DARPA’s AI is doing the grunt work of linking incompatible systems together on the fly.
I was thinking about it being the Uber for missile launchers and radar systems.
Who knew AI could be such a good matchmaker for weapons?
😰
Key Feature: It uses AI to build on-the-fly networks that integrate land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace forces. The STITCHES AI tool auto-writes software to connect incompatible systems within 45 minutes! Real-Life Use Case: Mosaic Warfare was tested in the U.S. Air Force's ABMS "On Ramp" experiment, where AI rapidly integrated diverse military platforms into a one network. This meant that real-time coordination between various forces that were not initially designed to communicate was possible.
Newsflash: China restarts AI race in weapons development
China has decided to sit out the AI development “cool-down” party. They choose not to sign the recent international blueprint that 60 other nations supported to keep some good old-fashioned human control over AI on the battlefield.
Now most countries kinda agree that letting AI decide who lives or dies isn’t the best thing, but China prefers to keep things spicy. So they said it would go solo with its “Global Initiative for AI Governance.”
It is quite creepy, because there is a whole fleet of new developments coming which, if unmanned, could mean a whole lot of trouble.
Think of fully autonomous naval fleets, AI-driven missile defense systems predicting and neutralizing threats before they are launched, next-gen AI platforms that can coordinate cyber and physical warfare in real-time, and even neural networks that can learn and adapt from past conflicts to suggest entirely new tactics on the fly.
Whatever the reason, that they are backing out, this means the AI arms race is still very much alive, and China is playing by its own rulebook.
Signing-off Marco
Well, that’s a wrap for today. Tomorrow, I’ll have a fresh episode of TechTonic Shifts for you. If you enjoy my writing and want to support my work, feel free to buy me a coffee ♨️
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