Drone Warfare
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'11 WA ....... FARE THE DEVELOPN1ENT OF UNMANNED AERIAlJ [ONFLI[T DRONE WARFARE The Development of Unmanned Aerial Conflict Dr Dave Sloggett x Pen & Sword AVIATION First published in Great Britain in 2014 By Pen and Sword Aviation an imprint of Pen and Sword Books Ltd 47 Church Street Barnsley South Yorkshire S70 2AS Copyright © Dr Dave Sloggett, 2014 ISBN 978 1 78346 187 5 The right of Dr Dave Sloggett to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing. Printed and bound in England by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CRO 4YY Typeset in Times New Roman by Chic Media Ltd Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the imprints of Pen & Sword Aviation, Pen & Sword Family History, Pen & Sword Maritime, Pen & Sword Military, Pen & Sword Discovery, Wharncliffe Local History, Wharncliffe True Crime, Wharncliffe Transport, Pen & Sword Select, Pen & Sword Military Classics, Leo Cooper, Remember When, The Praetorian Press, Seaforth Publishing and Frontline Publishing. For a complete list ofPen and Sword titles please contact Pen and Sword Books Limited 47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk Contents Preface .................................................................................................... vi Acknowledgements ............................................................................... xii Terminology ......................................................................................... xvi Abbreviations ...................................................................................... xvii Chapter I Prologue ............................................................................ 1 Chapter 2 Early Days ........................................................................ 6 Chapter 3 Into War .......................................................................... 24 Chapter 4 Target Practice ................................................................ 57 Chapter 5 Intelligence Collection and Defence Suppression .......... 72 Chapter 6 Predatory Instincts ........................................................ l 03 Chapter 7 Into the Future .............................................................. 152 Chapter 8 Conclusions .................................................................. 171 Appendix A: Analysis ofUMA Strikes in Pakistan ............................ 193 Appendix B: Analysis of UMA Strikes in the Yemen ........................ 206 Appendix C: Analysis of Relationship Between Anned UMA Attacks and Strikes Against NATO Tankers in Pakistan ......................................................................... 218 Bibliography ........................................................................................ 223 Index .................................................................................................... 225 Preface Almost since the dawn of aviation, engineers and scientists have mused upon and sometimes developed aircraft that could be controlled remotely and therefore fly unmanned. This book charts their evolution and the enabling technologies that made their development possible. It does this over a period of nearly 100 years, from its early beginnings through to the period after the Second World War when applications of such platforms quickly grew to the plethora of modem-day military and civilian uses to which they are now routinely applied. That history is punctuated by a series of technological developments that have allowed unmanned aircraft to gradually emerge from the shadow of the manned platform. The first driver for the development of unmanned aircraft came from the military. They could see the potential, even in the early stages of the evolution of manned air platforms. Since then, a number of operational drivers have also emerged that have had a catalyzing effect upon the development of unmanned aircraft. Not least among these is the development of asymmetric warfare and counter-insurgency operations. The initial challenges lay in finding ways to control the platform, both on the ground and in the air. With the development of the gyroscope and greater understanding of the dynamics of flight, solutions were found to controlling unmanned aircraft. However, these came too late to have a meaningful impact on the First World War. In the interwar years the level of investment in unmanned aircraft did not match that going into manned platforms. That is apart from in the days leading up to the Second World War in Germany where tentative steps were being taken that would see the emergence of the V-I flying bomb as the first genuine military application of unmanned aircraft. Its next genesis would have to wait until it was possible to remotely control an unmanned aircraft, albeit with restrictions regarding line of sight. The mainstream media likes to characterize the contemporary guises of these platforms by the generic term 'drones'. The origin of this use of language is multi-faceted. It is possible to suggest that one derivation of the term dates back to the application of unmanned aircraft as targets for various gunnery and air-to-air missile tests. Drones at that time were seen to be simple VI PREFACE unanned devices whose flight times were short in duration. One example was the Jindivik that was developed by the Australian Government Aircraft Factory (GAF) as a result of a joint programme between Australia and the United Kingdom. Its name derives from the Aboriginal word meaning 'the hunted one'. The next stage in the evolution of unmanned aircraft occurred when advances in technology allowed them to start to carry sensor systems in addition to the basic payload required to control the platfonn. Pioneering work in Israel was quickly picked up by the United States. This initial work has seen a plethora of platfonns built to provide eyes and ears on an adversary's actions, both in the land and maritime environments. As technological developments occurred, so the larger of the platfonns could also begin to carry weapon systems. The kind of asymmetric conflicts occurring in Iraq and Afghanistan helped create drivers for yet more technological advances in the capabilities of unmanned aircraft. Mission endurance in particular was a huge issue. The longer an unmanned aircraft could stay on station, the more it could help to build up intelligence on the pattern of life in an area. As the need for the military to apply precise effects on the ground increased, so grew the need to maintain a platfonn on station. With many people's behaviour linked to diurnal cycles it was natural that platfonns should be developed that are capable of remaining on station over a 24-hour period. Developments in satellite communications technology have also provided a crucial enabler allowing missions conducted by unmanned aircraft to be extended. At the time of writing, unmanned aircraft are still controlled remotely by human beings but they are reliant on satellite communications to maintain the control. If the satellite links become degraded for a period of time, the unmanned aircraft has to have a limited decision-making capability. If, for example, satellite communications are lost, the unmanned aircraft will initiate a return to its home base. With an increasing geographic spread of operations comes an increased need to operate under a range of climatic conditions. Just because a Reaper on a mission over Pakistan decides that it has lost satellite communications and should therefore return to its main operating base does not necessarily mean the conditions there are suitable for a landing. This provides evidence that we are some way from being able to think of drones as fully autonomous devices. Some contemporary media writers like to use the tenn 'drone' because it carries with it a sense of the rampant application oftechnology. They seek to portray these platfonns as a fonn of Frankensteinian monster created by mad Vll DRONE WARFARE people who will one day rue its invention. This image is one that anticipates the next stage in the development of unmanned aircraft, when the link with human control is either partially or completely severed. Citing the degree of autonomy already available to platforms such as the Predator and Reaper, in the case of them suffering some form of mission failure the naysayers argue that this is the thin edge of the wedge and that fully autonomous robotic unmanned aircraft are just around the comer. The use of the term 'drone' is subtle and implicitly derogatory. It evokes images of the classical genre of science-fiction movies that have tried to show the inevitable conclusions when man hands over control to robots. Of all these caricatures, the sentient computer - HAL 9000 - in Stanley Kubrick's famous film 2001: A Space Odyssey is perhaps the most alarming. In the film HAL has been programmed to achieve a mission. When the crew of the spaceship appears to threaten that objective, the computer takes what it believes to be the logical step of removing them from the picture. For those seeking to add a negative hue to the portrayal of unmanned aircraft