Unmanned combat aerial vehicles and transformation

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

Smart grenade. As the Marines employ Dragon Eye for reconnaissance and surveillance, small UCAVs will serve a tactical benefit in the field. Miniaturized variants of Dragon Eye could carry small incendiary devices. Forces on the ground could remotely pilot the aircraft while using onboard sensors to look for enemy troops or ground vehicles. Once a target is detected, a marine could pilot the aerial vehicle, then cause it to detonate. In its simplest form, this miniature aerial vehicle would be used like a grenade that can fly around corners and down passageways.

Air-to-air. The Air Force is considering putting an air-to-air version of the Stinger missile, originally designed as a handheld ground-to-air missile, on the Predator. UCAVs performing air-to-air missions are a logical next step. While personnel aboard command and control aircraft can determine if the hostile identification and rules of engagement are being met using beyond-visual-range criteria, air-to-air UCAVs could easily engage enemy aircraft with their own weapons system. The 24-hour patrols over New York and Washington after September 11 were ended because of reduced threat and expense. The Navy and Air Force flew more than 19,000 combat air patrols over American cities at a cost of $500 million. If the need to reinstate these combat air patrols arises again, air-to-air UCAVs could perform the mission at a substantially reduced cost and free aircrews for other missions.

Amphibious support. Current Navy UCAV plans only cover employment from carriers; however, future vehicles can be housed in artillery shells. Once fired, the vehicles could penetrate defended beachheads, then UCAVs would separate and begin powered flight, Imagery of enemy defenses could be relayed to ships or amphibious units. And when targets are detected, UCAVs would be remotely piloted to detonate on impact. Such vehicles must have a small, inexpensive, and durable design to survive being fired from a naval gun.

Through advancements in technology and increased funding, naval variants of unmanned combat air vehicles will soon be deployed to suppress enemy air defenses and conduct strike and other missions. Moreover, these vehicles promise to conduct some missions more effectively and less expensively than manned aircraft. A result could be fewer joint strike fighters in the near term. Some have even predicted that this fighter might be the last manned strike aircraft built.

As unmanned combat air vehicles become more autonomous, it can be expected that a man-in-the-loop system will be used to preclude misidentification of targets and loss of innocent lives. They must not be employed in combat simply because they are available, but rather because they offer significant advantages over manned aircraft. Since their future application is virtually limitless, unmanned combat air vehicles will help maintain the supremacy of the U.S. military.

Lieutenant Commander John J. Klein, USN, served on board USS Enterprise during Enduring Freedom and currently is a fellow at the Brookings Institution.