Unmanned combat aerial vehicles and transformation

Joint Force Quarterly, Winter, 2002 by John J. Klein

Organic capability. Naval unmanned vehicles should remain organic to the battle group, which means taking off and landing on board ships. For example, if vehicles are tactically viable in the strike mission or suppressing enemy air defenses, operators who control vehicles must perform required strike planning alongside aircrews flying manned aircraft. All players must understand the mission timeline, aircraft flight routes, and airspace restrictions.

Some may argue that naval unmanned vehicles should operate from nearby foreign airfields when carriers are deployed in-theater. The advantage of land-basing vehicles would be removing the requirements for heavier carrier landing gear, thus increasing aircraft endurance. Nevertheless, land-basing would reduce combat effectiveness because mission planners would not be working alongside air wing strike planners to develop and understand the mission, contingencies, and last minute changes. It is not operationally viable for UCAV mission planners to stay on carriers when unmanned aircraft are based at nearby fields. A case in point is the war in Afghanistan, when Saudi Arabia stipulated that strike aircraft--as opposed to support aircraft such as tankers--could not operate from its airfields. The Navy cannot afford to have foreign governments dictate the use of naval aircraft during wartime operations.

Significant cost or performance advantage. Since the U.S. military is the premier fighting force in the world, deploying naval UCAVs runs the risk of decreasing combat effectiveness. Furthermore, substantial research and development costs are associated with designing future unmanned vehicles, and these funds could be used to build additional combat proven manned aircraft. Therefore, for the Navy and Marine Corps, future vehicles need to provide a significantly improved capability or advantage to offset the risks and costs associated with unmanned programs. Returning to what constitutes transformation, this necessitates that UCAVs demonstrate a twofold improvement over manned aircraft.

Multimission capability. Current manned naval aircraft routinely perform multiple missions during a single sortie and are retaskable once airborne, which commanders have come to anticipate. Future UCAVs should demonstrate this same multimission capacity to provide decisionmakers with real-time options. Moreover, considering that naval vehicles are being designed for endurance up to 12 hours and that tactical priorities can quickly change during combat, unmanned aircraft need to provide mission flexibility. For example, marines might need a reconnaissance capability to detect armor. Once located, they could target it with onboard weapons, and after the enemy is engaged sensors onboard UCAVs could be used to assess bomb damage.

Secure information relay. Finally, UCAVs need a secure and reliable means to transmit tactical information to ground stations, ships, or other aircraft. Naval communication systems must be encrypted to prevent interception and exploitation, If non-encrypted signals are intercepted, enemies can determine whether their mobile assets are being targeted and in turn their forces to expedite movement to a safe area.