Unmanned aerial vehicles/ unmanned combat aerial vehicles: Likely missions and challenges for the policy-relevant future

Air and Space Power Journal

Volumn 19, Issue 3, 2005, Pages 45-54

  Pardesi, Manjeet Singh ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 27844451551     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (59)

1. Keith Somerville, US Drone Takes Combat Role, BBC News Online, 5 November 2002, http://news.bbc.co.uk/ l/hi/world/2404425.stm.
2. Joint Publication (JP) 1-02, DOD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, 30 November 2004, http://www. dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/doddict/data/u/05601. html. Unless stated otherwise, this article uses the phrase "unmanned platform" to refer to UAVs and/or UCAVs.
3. Maj Thomas G. O'Reilly, "Uninhabited Air Vehicle: Critical Leverage System for our Nation's Defense in 2025" (master's thesis, Air Command and Staff College, Air University, Maxwell AFB, AL, 1999), 9-10.
4. Elizabeth Bone and Christopher Bolkcom, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Background and Issues for Congress, 25 April 2003, 2, www.fas.org/irp/crs/ RL31872.pdf.
5. Elizabeth Bone and Christopher Bolkcom, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Background and Issues for Congress, 2003, 2, www.fas.org/irp/crs/RL31872.pdf. Ibid.
6. John McWethy, "Robo-Planes: Unmanned Aircraft Redefines How Military Wages War," http://abcnews.go. com/sections/wnt/dailynews/roboplane020501. html.
7. Andrew Krepinevich, Operation Iraqi Freedom: A First Blush Assessment (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 16 September 2003), http:// www.csbaonline.org/4Publications/Archive/R.20030916. Operation_Iraqi_Fr/R.20030916.Operation_Iraqi_Fr.htm.
8. Michael A. Dornheim and Michael A. Tavema, "War on Terrorism Boosts Deployment of Mini-UAVs," Aviation Week and Space. Technology 157, no. 2 (8 July 2002): 48;
9. and Mark Hewish, "Small, but Well Equipped," Jane's International Defense Review 35 (October 2002): 53-62.
10. Hewish, "Small, but Well Equipped," 53-62.
11. Office of the Secretary of Defense, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Roadmap, 2002-2027, December 2002, iv, http:// www.acq.osd.mil/usd/uav_roadmap.pdf. Dull missions include missions requiring coverage time beyond the capability of manned sorties. Dirty missions include reconnoitering areas contaminated with radiological, chemical, or biological agents. Dangerous missions include high-risk missions like SEAD with less need for supporting aircraft.
12. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Vision 2020 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, June 2000), 12, http://www.dtic.mil/jointvision/ jv2020.doc.
13. Lt Col Richard M. Clark, Uninhabited Combat Aerial Vehicles: Airpower By the People, For the People, but Not With the People, CADRE Paper no. 8, College of Aerospace Doc-trine, Research and Education (Maxwell AFB, AL: 2000), 15-16.
14. Richard M. Clark, Uninhabited Combat Aerial Vehicles: Airpower By the People, For the People, but Not With the People, 2000, Ibid., 34-35.
15. John Persinos, "Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: On the Rise," Aviation Today, 1 February 2002, http://www. aviationtoday.com/cgi/rw/show_mag. cgi?pub=rw&mon =0202&file=0202rorep.htm.
16. Bone and Bolkcom, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, 14.
17. Thomas Donnelly and Michael Vickers, Iraq: lessons Learned, American Enterprise Institute, 8 December 2003, http://www.aei.org/events/filter., eventID.337/summary.asp.
18. Gail Kaufman, "UAVs Shifted Role in Iraq Operations-Shot Fewer Missiles Than in Afghanistan," Defense News, 8 December 2003, http://www.defensenews.com/ sgmlparse2.php?F=archive2/20031208/atpc8593809.sgml.
19. Mark Hewish, "Unmanned, Unblinking, Undeterred," Jane's International Defense Review 35 (September 2002): 47-55.
20. A Predator is a slow platform that takes 30 minutes to travel 50 nautical miles.
21. Donnelly and Vickers, Iraq: Lessons Learned.
22. UAVs within 10 kilometers (km) of an object can resolve to 10 centimeters (cm), and those within one km to just one cm. See Michael O'Hanlon, Technological Change and the Future of Warfare (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), 34.
23. Currently satellites offer low data-transfer rates. For a brief technical description of bandwidth requirements, sec Maj William K. Lewis, "UCAV - The Next Generation Air Superiority Fighter?" (master's thesis, School of Advanced Air Power Studies, Air University, Maxwell AFB, AL, 2002), 44-46.
24. Bone and Bolkcom, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, 17-18.
25. Bone and Bolkcom, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, 17-18. Ibid. The Global Hawk is an autonomously, rather than a remotely, piloted vehicle. In spite of this, it still requires multiple-satellite and line-of-sight links for control, in-flight mission reroutings, and the relay-of-sensor data.
26. Dennis M. Gormley, "New Developments in Unmanned Air Vehicles and Land-Attack Cruise Missiles," in SIPRI Yearbook 2003-Armaments, Disarmament and International Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 416-17.
27. Dennis M. Gormley, "New Developments in Unmanned Air Vehicles and Land-Attack Cruise Missiles," in SIPRI Yearbook 2003-Armaments, Disarmament and International Security. 2003. Ibid., 417.
28. Dennis M. Gormley, "New Developments in Unmanned Air Vehicles and Land-Attack Cruise Missiles," in SIPRI Yearbook 2003-Armaments, Disarmament and International Security. 2003. Ibid.
29. JP 1-02, DOD Dictionary, http://www.dtic.mil/ doctrine/jel/doddict/data/ s/05165.html.
30. Bone and Bolkcom, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, 14.
31. Bone and Bolkcom, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, 14. Ibid.
32. The F-117, which flew only 2 percent of the total attack sorties, struck nearly 40 percent of the strategic targets. See Thomas A. Keaney and Eliot A. Cohen, Revolution in Warfare? Air Power in the. Persian Gulf (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1995), 189-93.
33. See Gen John Jumper, "Global Strike Task Force: A Transforming Concept, Forged by Experience," Aerospace Power Journal 15, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 27.
34. Nazila Fathi, "Iran Says Pilotless US Planes Are Spying on Nuclear Sites," New York Times, 17 February 2005, A-16.
35. Countering "antiaccess" threats implies a capability to operate from well outside an enemy's defenses. See John A. Tirpak, "The Double Digit SAMs," Air Force Magazine 64, no. 6 (June 2001): http://www.afa.org/ magazine/ june2001/.
36. Airframes and mechanical components can be designed to operate out to the ±20 g envelope. See Lt David Bookstaber, USAF, "Unmanned Aerial Combat Vehicles - What Men Do in Aircraft and Why Machines Can Do It Better," Air and Space Power Chronicles, June 2000, www. airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/ucav.pdf. However, designing jet engines that could withstand ±20 g would require billions of dollars in development or would produce limited thrust-to-weight ratios (speed). Moreover, sensor-technology limitations are unlikely to allow the vehicle to maneuver in the proper direction at the proper time.
37. See Thomas P. Ehrhard, "Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in the United States Armed Services: A Comparative Study of Weapon System Innovation" (PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University, 2000), 574.
38. Joint Direct Attack Munitions employed by UCAVs have a unit cost of $21,000 compared to $600,000 for a Tomahawk cruise missile. See Col Robert E. Chapman II, "Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles: Dawn of a New Age?" Aerospace Power Journal 16, no. 2 (Summer 2002): 60-73. However, UCAVs will need to fly closer to the target and are not inexpensive. The Joint Strike Fighter will have a flyaway cost of $35 million, and it. Is estimated that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency/Boeing X-45 UCAV will cost about $25 million.
39. See Bill Sweetman, "UCAVs Grow Fat on Requirements," Jane's International Defense Review 36 (1 May 2003): 44-47.
40. The crash rate of a Predator is an order of magnitude higher than that of the F-16. Moreover, a large number of crashes arc due to human-operator error. See Sweetman, UCAVs Grow Fat on Requirements, 44-47.
41. There are two categories of SEAD missions-reactive and preemptive. For a detailed analysis of the usefulness of UCAVs for SEAD missions, see Lt Col Robert E. Suminsby Jr., "Fear No Evil: Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles for Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses" (master's thesis, Air War College, Air University, Maxwell AFB, AL, 2000).
42. It is unlikely that political and military authorities would leave the "kill" decision to automated systems, for such a move would empower a machine to autonomously make the decision to kill a human. Moreover, there would be significant political backlash if autonomous machines hit innocent civilians by mistake, for example, during an operation in an urban area. The time for imagery transmission will depend on the bandwidth. Moreover, the time for human decision making is a major unknown. These delays can prove fatal under the high-threat SEAD environment. Also, the size of a deployed UCAV fleet is a major concern as it increases bandwidth requirements. Integration with satellites for data transmission will be essential for UCAV command and control.
43. newish, "Small, but Well Equipped," 53-62.
44. For the potential military applications of MAVs, see Timothy Coffey andjohn A. Montgomery, "The Emergence of Mini UAVs for Military Applications," Defense Horizons, December 2002.
45. David A. Fulgham, "Predator's Progress," Aviation Week and Space Technology 158, no. 9 (3 March 2003): 48.
46. See also David A. Fulgham, "Stinger Eyed for UAV Role," Aviation Week and Space Technology 156, no. 9 (4 March 2002): 44.
47. JP 1-02, DOD Dictionary, http://www.dtic.mil/ doctrine/jel/doddict/data/ c/01329.html.
48. Thomas A. Keaney and Eliot A. Cohen, Gulf War Air Power Survey Summary Import (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1993), 56.
49. See F-22 Raplor, http://www.fas.org/man/dod101/sys/ac/f-22.htm.
50. Stealth enhances survivability before engagement, and maneuverability enhances survival while engaged.
51. The proliferation of advanced S-300 and S-400 integrated air defense systems is also a serious concern for Americans.
52. The low altitude of tactical UAVs makes them susceptible to small-arms fire. Strategic UAVs fly higher but at speeds observable by radar. Moreover, they may be within the range of modern SAMs. See Maj Ronald L. Banks, "The Integration of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles into the Function of Counterair" (master's thesis, Air Command and Staff College, Air University, Maxwell AFB, AL, 2000), 18.
53. See Lt Col Kurt A. Klausner, "Command and Control of the Air and Space Forces Requires Significant Attention to Bandwidth, " Air and Space Power Journal 16, no. 4 (Winter 2002).
54. Lewis, "UCAV - The Next Generation," 50.
55. Lewis, "UCAV - The Next Generation," Ibid., 52.
56. Manned platforms will mostly rely on passive sensors.
57. At least 40 countries have produced more than 600 different types of UAVs, many with ranges in excess of 300 km. See Gormley, "New Developments," 410.
58. JosyJoseph, Navy to Use. UAVs to Spy on Sea-Lanes, 29 December 2003, http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/jan/ 31uav.htm.
59. However, advances in nanotechnology have the potential to boost the role of the unmanned platform (MAVs) in a combat mission.