KILLER DRONE PLANS REVEALED

They’ve served, mostly, as spies. Once in a great while, they’ve moon­lighted as assas­sins. But now, unmanned air­craft are slowly start­ing to become full-​​fledged killing machines — armed to the teeth, and designed for the dead­liest parts of war.
In just five years, the U.S. mil­i­tary wants a hand­ful of fight­ing drones ready to take into bat­tle. This week, in a hotel ball­room just a few miles from the Pentagon, a group of a hun­dred or so Defense Department offi­cials and mil­i­tary con­trac­tors laid out their roadmap for how they’ll reach this goal.
The next step will come in a few days, when a pro­to­type unmanned com­bat aer­ial vehi­cle (or “UCAVs,” for short) will soar over the Navy’s China Lake test­ing range in the Mojave Desert, and drop its first smart bomb.
Drones have quickly become a cen­tral part of U.S. mil­i­tary efforts because they can hang over a com­bat zone for hours on end. A flesh-​​and-​​blood pilot poops out after about 10 hours; some robotic planes can stay aloft for more than three times that amount.
In Pentagon-​​ese, this is known as “per­sis­tence.” The Defense Department would like to shift from per­sis­tent sur­veil­lance — which the drones are now start­ing to pro­vide — to an always-​​on abil­ity to kill, should an adver­sary pop up in a pilot­less plane’s sights.
“The idea is to be there when tar­gets present them­selves,” said Northrop Grumman pro­gram man­ager Scott Winship told the group gath­ered for the “Combat UAV 2004″ con­fer­ence here.
My Wired News arti­cle has details.
THERE’S MORE: A year ago next week, Saddam Hussein was ousted by more than a hun­dred thou­sand allied troops and a few dozen robotic planes. At the con­fer­ence on Tuesday, Pentagon offi­cials detailed the drones’ crit­i­cal roles in the inva­sion and occu­pa­tion of Iraq.
Predator spy drones kept watch as U.S. forces cap­tured Saddam Hussein, Air Force Major General Ronald Sams told the group. One of the planes, oper­ated by pilots at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, destroyed the Iraqi tele­vi­sion cen­ter, end­ing the com­i­cal broad­casts of Saddam’s infor­ma­tion min­is­ter, Mohammed Saeed al-​​Sahaf, known in the States as “Baghdad Bob.” Other UAVs have tracked down insur­gents fir­ing mor­tars at American troops, spot­ted cam­ou­flaged mis­sile bat­ter­ies, and looked over the res­cue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch, Sams said.
Predators have flown 574 sor­ties, for more than 6,927 and a half hours, dur­ing Operation Iraqi Freedom. But it’s one of at least 10 American drones that have seen action in Iraq.
The high-​​flying Global Hawk UAVs have only been on 15 sor­ties. But the long-​​endurance planes have taken nearly 3,000 pic­tures of time-​​sensitive tar­gets.
On the 25th of March, 2003, for exam­ple, sand storms pre­vented Iraqi troops (and many Americans) from see­ing “their hands in front of their faces,” Sams recounted. But, using infrared sen­sors, the Global Hawk was able to take pic­tures of the Medina Republican Guard divi­sion. Those images were sent back to the United States via satel­lite for pro­cess­ing. Minutes later, American air­men were given the division’s coor­di­nates, and were able to strike.
All in all, Global Hawk lead to the destruc­tion of 300 tanks — 38% of Iraq’s armored forces — said Dyke Weatherington, who serves as the deputy direc­tor of the Defense Secretary’s task force for unmanned planes.
Generals were and con­tinue to be enthralled by the big drones. But, to the aver­age grunt, these UAVs didn’t mean a whole lot. Even 17 foot-​​wide Pioneer UAV just a frac­tion of the Global Hawk’s size often seemed out of reach to those who needed it most.
“The Pioneer worked great when the bureau­cracy could be nego­ti­ated,” reads an “after action” report from the 1st Marine Division. However, “the byzan­tine col­lec­tions process inhib­ited our abil­ity to get timely responses to com­bat require­ments… The Division found the enemy by run­ning into them, much as forces have done since the begin­ning of war­fare.“
Soldiers and Marines often had bet­ter expe­ri­ences with the tini­est of drones the ones that could be launched with a good, hard throw. One seven pound Desert Hawk UAV recently found a cache of 107 mm anti-​​aircraft guns out­side on an American base, Sams noted. Another spot­ted a group of weapons-​​toting Iraqi insur­gents out­side a U.S. encamp­ment.
AND MORE: Thanks to DARPA, Video from a recent UCAV test is here.

April 1st, 2004 | Drones | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.