As you all well know I’ve been very passionate about the promise of unmanned aerial vehicles — especially combat drones that can execute long-range strike missions and even dogfight.
My good friends Tom Ehrhard and Bob Work at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments put together an exhaustive report making the case for naval UCAVs. Tom, a former Air Force colonel and one of those guys that was almost too smart for the service’s own good, has done a lot of work and research on the promise of UAVs in a service that views them with suspicion. Bob Work, a former Marine officer, has been wading through the weeds of US naval power and strategy for years and understands the art of the possible in a service steeped with tradition and resistant — sometimes — to change.
The long and the short of it is that both analysts believe that the Navy must invest in naval UCAV as a growing part of its long-range strike capability.
The logic supporting accelerated development of a longer-range, carrier-based UCAS is straight-forward. Using manned aircraft, current carrier air wings are best suited for striking targets at ranges between 200 and 450 nautical miles (nm) from their carriers. At the same time, due primarily to the limits of aircrew endurance, these aircraft lack persistence. That is to say, they are generally limited to missions no more than ten hours long, and they more typically fly missions that last only a few hours. Therefore, US carrier air wings can maintain a persistent 24-hour-a-day presence over the battlefield only by massing several carriers. However, emerging national security challenges including defending the homeland in depth, defeating global terrorist networks, operating in a world with more nuclear-armed regional powers, and hedging against the appearance of new anti-access/area-denial networkswill likely require future carrier task forces to stand off and fight from far greater distances than in the past, and to maintain a far more persistent presence over future battlefields. Moreover, when under constant threat of guided weapons attack, carriers will need to operate dispersed and mass their aircraft over targets from widely distributed operating areas. Under these circumstances, a carrier-based UCAS with an unrefueled combat radius of 1,500 nm or more and unconstrained by pilot physiology offers a significant boost in carrier combat capability.
Indeed, with aerial refueling, a UCAS would be able to stay airborne for 50 to 100 hoursfive to ten times longer than a manned aircraft. With multiple aerial refuelings, a UCAS could establish persistent surveillance– strike combat air patrols at ranges well beyond 3,000 nm, and could strike fixed targets at even longer ranges. Such extended reach and persistence would allow a dispersed aircraft carrier force to exert combat power over an enormous area.
Range, stealth, persistance, improved networking…this is what Gates wants and this is what the naval UCAS promises. But there’s rumors of strong resistance within the Navy on this program, even though the service has devoted $620 million over the next few years to a demonstration program that would see a combat drone deployed to a carrier for the first time in naval aviation history.
Despite these welcome steps, the current demonstration and technology maturation programs for carrier-based unmanned aircraft are far less ambitious that earlier Navy plans. Indeed, the Navys conservative approach toward N-UCAS suggests that the carrier community is reticent to fully embrace the new system. This reticence Distances in the Pacific is perhaps understandable. The carrier flight deck is arguably one of the most dangerous workplaces in the world, and the job of spotting, fueling, arming, launching, and recovering aircraft is a complex process requiring close teamwork and timing. As a result, many carrier aviators remain highly skeptical that unmanned air systems can be safely integrated into carrier operations, and insist that they earn their way aboard the ship. To many Navy carrier aviators, a simple naval UCAS demonstration focused on carrier flight deck and flight operations, followed by a slower, more deliberate development of unmanned air combat systems, is the prudent, safe way to go.
And as Tom and Bob point out, there’s a strange historical inconsistancy here:
This rather timid, less-than-certain development approach stands in stark contrast to the period between the two World Wars, when the Navy aggressively worked to integrate aircraft into naval operations. At that time, the prevailing attitude seemed to be to prove why aircraft should not be taken to sea and incorporated into fleet operations. There was never any doubt in the minds of naval officers that aircraft would improve fleet operations in important ways.
But, for some reason, the Navy is tepid on this situation…and while the CSBA guys can’t say it, the Navy may be kicking the can down the road even further in the future budget planning.
The program fared much better in the FY 2008 budget cycle, with both the Senate and House endorsing full funding of the Navys UCASD request. However, given the other competing requirements facing Navy planners, how hard will carrier aviators fight for the UCAS-D program in the future if DoN aviation budgets are less than expected, or if they are faced with a choice of funding either the UCAS-D or another competing priority? If history is any guide, given the inattention to and lack of interest in unmanned systems within the carrier aviation community, the answer to this question is not likely to be encouraging. This seems especially true given that the newly published Naval Aviation Plan 2030 folds the N-UCAS program into a sixth-generation strikefighter (F/A-XX) program, and slips this new program even further into the future (around 2025). Moreover, with manned/unmanned decision points built into the new F/A-XX program, it is not even certain that an unmanned air combat system will survive. This may make it easier to shift funds from the UCAS-D program in the face of sharp budget pressures over the next several years.
– Christian
{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
UAV’s are a no-brainer. Gates needs to start planting his boot in some airhead skivvies and make it happen sooner rather than later.
If the Navy wants more ships, it will have to build UCAS’ (it’s no longer UCAV) because they are cheaper than manned fighters.
I like that Gates and others are pushing UAVs since it sounds like a good idea. The thought of keeping a presence in the sky for 50 hours sounds pretty sweet. However, I’d like to take something from the movie, “Iron Man.” Yes, a movie. Even the CIA has looked to movies to try and get a leg up on the competition. So, in Iron Man, now going to be referred to as “IM,” Terrence Howard’s character, Col. Rhodes, talks about what the future of air combat will be like, Unmanned or Manned. Then Dowdey Jr.’s character, Tony Stark, says, “Why not both?”
Well, why not? Having a humans intuition and a computers precision would be the next great leap in combat.
One could also compare this to the movie, “STEALTH.” Granted it was a pretty bad movie, the concept of having an AI or even a more primitive version of an AI would help, especially on a one seater plan such the F-22. Why? From what I know, a two-seater plane is beater for ground support. With a one-seater such as the F-22, it would be easier to support the ground troops. And yes, I know the F-22 is supposed to be an “air superiority” fighter. Well, this would help the Air Force come up with another reason to make more and keep it around.
So, why not both, Manned and Unmanned?
Just want to point out one thing which is a bit meleading from this article.
In a target rich wartime environment strike aircraft DON’T usually NEED to spend much time on station. They ALREADY have their targets & don’t need to spend much time waiting for one to appear.
Certainly the endurance of UCAVs is advantageous for those missions that require it but during a major air campaign most missions won’t.
Now I am all for UCAVs to supplement manned combat aircraft but communications bandwidth required to operate large numbers of UAVs simply is not yet available. The US military has even had to rely on civilian bandwidth in Iraq so you can just imagine what it is going to take to support large numbers of UAVs.
I agree the 2005 movie STEALTH did show UCAV value despite Drone acting like HAL 9K from 2001 from lighting strike, Good asset.
Very doable & needed & save lives.
Need drones for Recon & Ground support & Logistics.
Convert C1 into Drone cargo plane?
Problem: carrier damaged thus UCAV control center knocked out & NO UCAV control achieved.
DarthAmerica, where has it been shown that UAS is more expensive than mannned aircraft?
How about the long-neglected-but-hasn’t-gone-away issue of anti-sub warfare? What better platform for Diesel Fishing than the torpedo-equiped sono-dipping UAV? With carrier battle force assets approaching $20 billion, I would feel much better with 50 of these things patrolling 24/365 – refueled by the ubiquitous tanker UAV.
PS It sounds like the Navy is filling again with the mindset that destroyed Billy Mitchell.
I’m worried about this overdependence on remote systems. All remote systems can be jammed. For Strategic bombing I can definitely see UCAVs working well, as their target can be preprogrammed in case of a dropped link…but in the case of fighter and strike aircraft, I’m just not too sure.
Good Evening Folks,
The Navy has seen the future, it’s not going to have 12 carriers most likely not even 10 carriers in the future, the F-18 series is most likely the last manned air dominance fighter that it will get and a less then 250 ship Navy seems in the future.
The Navy will have to do more with less capitalization and fewer sailors, manned carrier Air Wings are to the modern Navy the same as the Horse Cavalry was to the 20th. Century Army. Ships will have smaller crews and will be at sea more and longer. There is no other choice then to invest in technology.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
The future of airpower is drones so cheap that they are barely more expensive than the missiles used to shoot them down. We aren’t there yet- but with the declining cost of carbon fiber and electronics it’s not inconceivable that a carrier could hold 200 or more drones. After all, they are small enough to stack…
The Navy has unmanned strike aircraft since the mid 1970s.
They are called: BGM-109 Tomahawks
The Navy wants to develop a UAV M-16 styled that is stealth that is able a carry a nuclear bomber at mach 6x the speed of sound without a pilot where the plan can crash on sight on the Target when the day comes when we have to develpe a sqauderun F-16 UAV’s to attack China when they decide to take Tiawan.
Why oh why do people keep insisting on making these things stealth?
Use the front line stealth aircraft (B-2, F-22, F-35) to kick in the door and destroy the enemies comm, sam, and AAA capability, and any targets that absoposititively have to die no matter how well defended they are.
Then use hordes of cheap, reliable, less then stellar performing UAVs to decimate the rest of the targets, such as bridges, powerstations, and targets that just ain’t worth risking a more expensive manned aircraft.
High low ratio people. Top budget manned Strategic and Air Dominance assets teamed with low end reliable bomb trucks and dogfighters. (Something has to be there to intercept the little lost Cessnas’ and steer them away from the theatre.
I love UAVs and probaly have more than a slightly greater experience with them than 99.9+% out there. They have their limitations and always will. As to “AI” and the ramifications of replacing manned aircraft in all applications, I am in agreement with Roger Penrose on that topic: Intelligence cannot be reduced purely to Ones and Zeros.
I’ve often wondered why the Navy, with it’s emphasis on net-centric warfare doesn’t work to get rid of most of the carriers in the first place and replace them with a ‘Distributed Air Wing’?(copyright claim! – I’m the only one I’ve ever heard use this terms over the years) This will eliminate the big deck carrier as a juicy target, allow the wing to ‘keep on keeping on’ after losing a ship, and open more $ for more ships, True you lose range with the STOVL, but you could operate closer to begin with, and there are other technical approaches that could be fielded. Actually, I know the answer already: Tradition and the Navy Way!
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