Military Unmanned
India’s indigenously developed DRDO’s Rustom II
UAVS – A Potential Operational Asset Unmanned aircraft technologies have matured well beyond just reconnaissance, security and targeting. Unmanned Aerial Systems are now undertaking a wide range of missions By Air Marshal Anil Chopra (Retd)
Photograph: DRDO
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) are playing a significant role in the face-off between India and China in Ladakh. Meanwhile, Pakistan continues to use drones to drop weapons to operatives in India in Punjab as well as in Jammu and Kashmir. World over, drones have been used aggressively for a few decades now. More recently, drones were used to attack Saudi Aramco oil processing facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais, to kill Iranian Major General Wasem Soleimani, to attack insurgents in Mali and in the ‘War on Terror’ by the United States (US). UAS TECHNOLOGIES HAVE MATURED Unmanned aircraft technologies have matured well beyond just reconnaissance, security and targeting. Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) are now undertaking a wide range of missions. Solarpowered UAS are already flying. There are dual use (optionally manned) aircraft. The US Air Force has already modified combat aircraft such as the F-4s and F-16s to fly them under remote control. For long, the Russians have been using unmanned MiG21s as targets. In France, Dassault leads a multi-nation project for delta wing Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle (UCAV) ‘Neu-
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ron’ of the size of the Mirage 2000. The United Kingdom has a Strategic UAS programme ‘Taranis’. UAS such as the Northrop Grumman X-47B, are taking-off and landing by themselves including on moving aircraft carriers. Autonomous inflight refuelling has been tested. Lockheed Martin’s UCLASS drone ‘Sea Ghost’ looks rather like a stealth bomber and is expected to carry 1,000-pound class weapons. Drones are already delivering supplies to troops deployed on the front lines. Coordinated UAS swarms have been tested by several countries. The UAS vision document of the US Air Force indicates that by the year 2047, every military mission would be unmanned. UAS MILITARY MISSIONS AND CLASSIFICATION The UAS could be a fixed-wing aircraft or a rotorcraft. The military missions include ‘target’ for aerial gunnery, ‘decoy’ for enemy missiles, reconnaissance, battlefield intelligence gathering, unmanned aerial combat missions, operational logistics and as platforms for defence research and development. UAS are classified based on weight and on range of operations. ‘Dull’, ‘Dirty’ and ‘Dangerous’ missions are normally assigned to them. Dull means long bor-
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