Global Security and Intelligence Studies Volume 1, Number 1, Fall 2015 | Page 12

The Future of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Contemporary UAVs
Early UAVs had limited benefits. Regular combat use for UAVs, primarily for
ISR, began in the 1960s. Initial datalinks, inadequate precision navigation, lineof-sight
range limitations, and susceptibility to electronic warfare jamming
limited the usefulness of early UAVs (Ehrhard 2010). The primary benefit of early
UAVs was reduced risk to personnel in a high-threat air defense environment. In
an ironic foreshadowing of the future, the U.S. Air Force largely abandoned its UAV
programs after the Vietnam War since they were not suitable for conventional warfare
in Central Europe against the Soviet Union (Ehrhard 2010, 45). It was assessed that
the mobile surface-to-air missiles of the Soviet would make short work of UAVs over
the Fulda Gap. Modern-day UAVs began in the mid-1990s with the MQ-1 Predator.
The contemporary UAV performs a variety of combat missions that tend to fall
into one of the two categories: support to ground forces or participation in the joint
targeting process. UAV support to ground forces includes close air support (CAS)
for troops in contact, route reconnaissance, security overwatch, communications
relay, and support for counter-battery fire. For targeting, UAVs are especially useful
for target development, target clearance (to minimize collateral damage), and battle
damage assessment (BDA). However, none of these missions are unique to UAVs.
Each can be accomplished by manned aircraft. In fact, even the UAVs dual role as ISR
and attack platform is also available in a manned aircraft version. Yet, the demand
from the combatant commanders for UAVs far outstrips supply.
Current UAVs have a variety of competitive advantages that make them more
desirable for certain missions or operations than their manned aircraft counterparts.
UAVs have a smaller logistics footprint. UAVs can operate out of austere locations or
navy destroyers. Smaller, less capable UAVs can be carried in a backpack. Compared
with most other ISR platforms, UAVs are less observable, and have superior on-station
time. Compared with strike aircraft, UAVs provide superior target discrimination,
less potential for collateral damage, and reduced risk to the aircrew. This makes UAVs
ideal for unconventional missions such as counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency, or
other missions with a negligible air threat.
Of course, current versions of UAVs have a variety of disadvantages. They
tend to have lower thresholds for adverse weather, a smaller field of view, and lack
defensive countermeasures. These weaknesses make UAVs a suboptimal platform for
high-risk missions, broad area surveillance, or operations in anything other than a lowthreat
environment. Ironically, current UAVs are not significantly cheaper than their
manned counterparts. The MQ-9 and the U-28 have similar purchase, maintenance,
and operating costs. UAV cost advantages are primarily limited to small, short-range,
unarmed UAVs such as the Ravens, which have no equivalent manned counterpart.
Over time, the increasing costs and production times to create survivable manned
aircraft will increase the comparative cost advantage of UAVs.
From an incremental innovation standpoint, the most likely near-term
advances in UAVs will begin by decreasing the existing disadvantages and increasing
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