Brit said:
I’m not an industry professional or anything, so my opinions and ideas hold little authority. But I have an enquiring mind and a degree of creativity, leading me to ponder various issues, among them; why are current UCAV efforts primarily concerned with expensive stealthy designs –surely there is a market for lower spec tactical machines for middle-order world airforces for the anti-tank and general close air support roles?
This attitude leads me to mini projects akin to “design your own UCAVâ€, but strictly on the concept and paper level. I thought this might interest others, who might want to add comments and suggest ideas and solutions.
My first thought of a potential limitation is the nature of controlling UAVs –I’m a bit ignorant here. If we are looking at tree-top operating heights, then surly a satcom uplink is required to get the signals to the UAV? –or are ‘off the shelf’ UAV control systems satisfactory? We must bear in mind that most customer airforces wouldn’t have access to Satcom for control and that to add it to the concept makes the whole thing very expensive.
My next thought is the armament. The more we want it to carry, the bigger it is. I’d suggest that it ought to carry say 4 anti-amour missiles, or two rocket pods etc. Maybe a heavy machine gun. We’re talking about something way short of an A10/Su25 or attack helicopter.
So fledgling design team, let the thoughts flow… brainstorm…
Hmm, interesting problem. Well lets look at this from the infantry perspective. The sight and sound of friendly aviation, whether that be rotary wing or fast jet, arriving in the nick of time to lay down some major pain on a enemy position, or taking out some MBT targets that are making your day absolutely awful, is really indescribable. But the key here is real time communication betwenn the infantry, or other vehicles, as to the threat and other details. I do know that there have been some pretty bad blue on blue incidents ( The 4 Princess Patricias killed in Afghanistan by a USAF F16 for example), so I do not know that I would have any more trust in an automated system, guided from 300+ miles away, to reliably place ordanance within 100 meters of my link backside! Especially when human guidance has failed miserably sometimes, and I know no computer faster or better than a human brain!
I think that the future of UCAV is behind the main battle lines, say where the probability of mistakes will not be killing friendley forces, and if one or two are lost, there are no POW's.
UAV's were the main reason that the Israeli Air Force was able to neutralise the Syrian SA6 systems in the Bekaa valley in 1982, and the US was using converted Firebee as recon platforms launched from C130 Hercules in the Vietnam war, as well as being programmed as Chaff bombers to scramble NV Air defense radars.
As far as stealth goes, it depends on the cost of a UCAV. Will it prohibitive to be able to lose a large number of them to ground fire or interception, or will their sensor systems also have a secondary recon role that had to be physically downloaded from the system after it lands?
If everything has a 100 percent system relaibility, then by all means outfit these puppies with Hellfire ( as in the useage in Afghanistan presently) or direct fire rocket pods ( Hydra 70 or CVR70), but cannnon will require a target flyover, and again, how many can you afford to lose? Size will also figue into the volume available for fuel, which affects loiter time, and also the multitude of sensors needed to do the job, daylight night and LLTV, as well as a laser ranger and guidance system.
