UAV's are they as good as we are being told?

UAV's are great vehicles and the rich countries in the world: Belgium, The Netherlands, The USA, Japan, Australia, france, Germany, Uk and Many more are investing billions in UAV projects wich is great. But i think the UAV is Overrated and now many will say WHAT your Psyco u should be locked up!, well i'll explain:

The performances are way better cause there is no pilot: well have you ever heard of a UAV making turns tighter then 3 G's Well no so performances have gotten less. The speed of example the "superb Predator" a wind of 3 on the BFT scale already makes it that the predator cant go forward, The bomb load the UAVs can carry is minimal. And now the big danger that cant resolved as easy as better wings better engines better structual integeratie the remote control i donot think any1 has thought about this ANY signal can be jammed by sattalites planes etc etc etc. and the UAVS cant get out of range of the control post cause of the curving of the earth seriously limiting range....

Here is what we know so far. In desert storm we had no problem with sending tomahawk cruise missiles into the Iranian mountains in the first part of their trip to get a nav fix and then press on. I just point that out as a risk managment thought process when dealing with anything that is unmanned.

We have no problems with buying expensive cruise missiles, and using them. Those weapons have enjoyed some success. So much so that Storm Shadow / Scalp / JASSM are valid follow ons.

So... how about a craft that can hit high value/high risk fixed targets ( Most targets are fixed on our first few nights of the war to gain air space domination ) and returns so that you can re-arm it. No it isn't a total solution. Yet.... we have X-45 now which has flown some good hours and dropped SDB like weapons shapes and hit targets. And is now making nice progress in the areas of network management and working with other players ( manned on the team ). The network security and transmission and update process has made excellent progress.

As strike platforms they are very valid. There is already a roadmap to use them for SEAD/DEAD. X-45 has stealth like qualites. At night it will be a large player in beating down large high tech SAMs and air defense networks. Not only by dropping long range ( at height 35 - 40,000ft ) stand off weapons like JDAM and SDB... but also by being a sensor node in the net centric warfare ( NCW ) way of doing things. And..... as a burst jammer in concert with other manned... and unmanned platforms on the network. A geographic area that is the enemies air defense network will have 24/7 coverage of being taken down, piece by piece with no let up or relief.

Anything that tries to jam us, is itself a new target for JSTARS put a mafia hit contract on. As for Jamming: -- It is yet to stop JDAM from hitting targets (tried and failed) and.. fixed targets are going to die anyway as there is a whole rulebook being developed on com procedure with UCAV. Including priority targets that are given to it to go out and hit ( just like the cruise missle ), long before it goes fence-in. You can't jam that.

So... I am all for it. Not as a total solution, but as a valuable team member. It's not just one platform that wins airspace domination, but the whole team. And yes cruise missiles will still be used. But remember that the longer range cruise missiles like ER and XR versions of JASSM, are not only valued for their long range, but to use that extra endurance for loitering and pop up targets of opportunity, the first few nights when we beat down an enemies air defense. Think about that.

Yes BUT Signal Jamming is hard to find specially if its only pointed in a paticular direction, and you sayed a jdam is yet to be jammed true but if the UAV is jammed u cant fire it. And Cruise missles yea cant jam those cause they have a fixed gps target like JDAM but UAVs are controlled by joysticks on the ground wich needs or a very long cord or a radio signal and both arevery easy to neutralize and you only need 1 minute to jam a UAV to make it go absolutaly crazy and not even Western armies can find a jamming instalilation that fast.

Yes and no. For fixed known targets, the craft is going to follow a scripted flight plan just like a cruise missile... drop the weapon(s) and return. As for jamming of these coms, it is over-rated. One. Jamming that would have to be sustained jamming, is not hard to find with Rivet Joint and other air breathing sensors. The latest Block of HARM is setup specifically with options to deal with these very kinds of jamming emitters. BTW... a few of the GPS jammers used by Iraq in OIF...... were taken out with JDAMs.

Modern UAVs don't "go crazy" when they lose signal. Heck, Global Hawk can take off, fly a mission and land without an operator intervening. Smaller, less complicated craft like Predator have fail-overs where they will fly to pre-programmed location to reaquire ground communication in the event of a loss of signal.

Also, from what I have seen so far..... Yes com security is of absolute importance, but they have that figured out for the most part. Where the challanges are now is that we don't have a cold war budget. Dollars are tight and because of everyone and their brother in the procurement biz trying to save a nickel... more notable problems are bandwidth. There are only so many "nodes" and bandwidth in a given local or theater battlespace. This is improving but some people you would talk to that have to go out there and actually use this buck rogers stuff have lists of where things still need to be improved.

Basic flying ops. The geeks putting all this stuff together and their managers show more concern when you put these things anywhere near civil air space. There are just loads and loads of day to day procedure that we take for granted with manned aircraft, that have to be worked out. From some of the things I have seen over the years, my concerns aren't so much the hollywood network security stuff. I am more concerned with available dollars to fund the network,... bandwidth not being maxed out when you put all the netcentric warfare players: Command/Decision makers - operators -sensors and other manned assets= manned aircraft.... ground stations.... ground forward air controllers.... just to name a few things. They are making some great progress but have a ways to go before everyone is satisfied. Not to mention for example the bandwidth a small package of X-45s will eat up if a pair of them are continuous streaming sensors... another pair are shooters and another pair are combo sensor/jammers. And thats just one small domain on the battlespace. You see a teenage kid send their pal a photo with their cell phone and text message and everything and if everyone is doing that... how hard can it be?.... but obviously for warfare, it has to have a secure layer over it.

Ucavs are pretty smart!

"Three Global Hawks have suffered engine failures, when their AE 3007H turbofan engines stopped working. Two of those failures led to the UAV crashing. But the third failure, which occurred a few months ago over Afghanistan, did not result in a crash. That Global Hawk had its flight control software modified so that, in the event of engine failure, the UAV could glide down to a “dead stick” landing. The ground controllers had to tell the UAV where the emergency airstrip was, and the flight control software did the rest. The controllers radioed the guys running the airstrip to explain their unusual visitor. The airbase operators were told to just push the Global Hawk off to the side and put it under guard. The next day, a new engine, and mechanics to install it, were flown in. The day after that, the Global Hawk, which was operating out of a base in the Persian Gulf, flew itself out of Afghanistan."

Right now, Predators are being operated in IRAQ and firing Hellfire missiles at insurgents......while being controlled by pilots at Nellis Nevada. Would you call that CLOSE air support!!!!!!!!!!!!

Didnt see the source for that one but the things can only get smarter!

Wow, hadn't heard about that. Still the engine failures are a little troubling for Global Hawk... but is it design, less scruitny since its not manned or just the amount of hours being put on them?

Yeah... also the Hellfire now has a wide variety of warhead options now ( not just for tanks any more ) including a thermobaric one. Munitions guys would be better at describing the types than me, but pretty cool.

A brief overview of thermobaric effects:
http://www.defence.gov.au/dpe/dhs/infocentre/publications/journals/NoIDs/adfhealth_apr03/ADFHealth_4_1_03-06.pdf

Thermobaric bombs were used in Afghanistan to clear caves. The fireball would just consume the oxygen, a vacuum would result, sucking the air out of the rest of the cave, suffocating those inside as well as cooking them, a pretty gruesome end.
I think the MOAB is a fuel/air weapon as well.
As a side note. Vipers are using their litening pods to track individual insurgents on the ground, this data is fed to grunts on the ground who can find the guy in the middle of a marsh! I guess UAVs are using the same targeting systems. In one mission I read of, somebody drove a truck to an oil pipeline and blew it up, then drove back home and put his feet up......he got arrested immediately.
A J-stars had seen the explosion, the same platform had seen the guy leave his home in his truck, watched him drive to the pipeline and tracked him going home!

Yeah the little thermobaric version of the Hellfire was first used by a USMC Cobra unit in OIF to take out a room in a building.

MOAB is a conventional (but huge) high explosive bomb.

Ever hear of HIMAT? it could pull some serious Gs.. and it was LATE 70s early 80s technology!! So you can bet some country RIGHT now is developing a Small low cost A to A Drone..

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news ... -DFRC.html

Short answer...NO! Not yet anyway. They ARE great, when they do work. But the reliability isn't at parity with manned aviation. We're just not there yet, and probably never will be. We'll get close, but not 1:1.

<--UAV Operator in the Army National Guard.