The Air Force has publicly stated that large UAVs are not
survivable on the modern battlefield.
ComNavOps has emphatically stated that, also. Despite that, many commentators remained
convinced that our UAVs will somehow, magically, provide us with total
situational awareness. Well, here’s some
evidence that supports ComNavOps’, and the Air Force’s, belief. From the Atlantic Council (a supposed non-partisan think tank) website,
I’ve read unverified, updated reports that the Houthis have shot down as many as 20 MQ-9 Reapers.
I have no verification of the reports and no sense of the
credibility of the Atlantic Council but it does fit exactly with what I believe
and what seems patently obvious: that
slow, non-stealthy, non-maneuverable UAVs are simply target drones on the
modern battlefield. Similar reports from
other sources vary in number of Reapers shot down but all are in the 14-20+
range.
Further evidence comes from the current strikes against
Iran, as reported by Air & Space Forces website,
If a thoroughly decimated military like Iran can manage to down that many drones, imagine what a coherent, peer enemy like China could do. Large UAVs have a lifetime measured in minutes against a competent peer enemy and have no place on the modern battlefield.
One of the fears that I have is that the US will take “lessons”
from this Iran conflict and apply them inappropriately to a future war with
China just as we seem to be doing with the Ukraine “lessons”. Both conflicts involve utterly inept
militaries which renders any “lessons” invalid.
The only valid lesson is that large, slow, non-stealthy,
non-maneuverable UAVs are not survivable in a contested air space and we are
foolish to count on them.
_____________________________
Since November 2023, the Houthis have claimed responsibility for downing fourteen MQ-9 Reaper drones …[1]
I’ve read unverified, updated reports that the Houthis have shot down as many as 20 MQ-9 Reapers.
MQ-9 Reapers are flying numerous orbits over Iran, gathering intelligence and taking out missile launchers in Operation Epic Fury. Yet Iran has managed to down about 10 of the armed drones …[2]
If a thoroughly decimated military like Iran can manage to down that many drones, imagine what a coherent, peer enemy like China could do. Large UAVs have a lifetime measured in minutes against a competent peer enemy and have no place on the modern battlefield.
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/houthi-strikes-on-us-mq9-reaper-drones/
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/mq-9s-over-iran-striking-and-finding-targets-but-taking-some-losses/
From the Air & Space Forces Magazine story, "Use of the Reapers has helped ensure manned U.S. fighters haven’t been shot down over hostile territory, . . ."
ReplyDeleteIf the Reapers are going after targets in environments that would be a danger to manned fighters, then I don't see a problem. Iran has already demonstrated their ability hit an F-35 with an IR guided SAM, so using drones when possible is a good idea. (Why the F-35's DAS didn't detect the SAM is another story.)
At the same time, it would be important to know how many Reapers have been lost relative to the number of sorties or flight hours they've accumulated. Are we losing a Reaper every 10 sorties or every 100 sorties? Or, is it somewhere in between?
There's a lot more to this story that needs to be known.
You completely failed to grasp the point and import of this post as well as the warning at the end about lessons!
DeleteIn an uncontested airspace against a hapless foe, yes, a UAV can sometimes survive long enough to accomplish a task. However, as pointed out in the post, in contested air against a competent enemy, a UAV's lifespan will be measured in minutes. There will be no accomplishment of tasks. The problem is that the US military seems hellbent on basing an inordinate amount of its operations on UAVs. We are basing our plans on a capability that won't be around long enough for the engines to get warmed up! There's a reason that even the stodgy, hidebound Air Force publicly acknowledged that large UAVs were non-survivable.
By the way, unless you have access to information that is not publicly available, you have no way of knowing what happened to the F-35 you reference. This blog does not present speculation as fact.
Rethink and try again.
USAF F-35 Lands After Taking Fire Over Iran; Pilot Stable
Delete"An Air Force F-35A fighter was forced to conduct an emergency landing at a U.S. air base after being struck by ground fire during a combat mission over Iran on March 19, people familiar with the matter told Air & Space Forces Magazine."
"Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps posted a video the same day purporting to show an F-35 being targeted and struck by an Iranian air defense system. Iran has developed air defense systems that can use passive infrared sensors rather than radar to target aircraft, a solution that previously proved effective in Yemen when employed by Iranian-supported Houthi rebels."
The incident is still under investigation.
This blog does not present speculation as fact.
DeleteThe shooting down of the F35 has now been confirmed.
“Though U.S. Central Command has not provided details, the aircraft was most likely damaged by a surface-to-air missile rather than by small-arms fire or another projectile, given the altitude at which the F-35 typically flies.”
"The shooting down of the F35 has now been confirmed."
DeleteNo, an F-35 was not shot down. An F-35 was damaged by, as yet, unknown fire and made an emergency landing and the pilot was fine. Those are the facts we have thus far.
Losses in war are unavoidable; part of the trick to improving survivability of large drones is to not to fly them in 'orbits' or other predictable patterns unless we want the enemy to expose his defenses. There seems to be a predictable pattern in DoD thinking that assumes enemies are all totally incompetent, our weapons are infallible, and our people are shocked when this is proven false. I am reminded of USAF B-52 bombing in North Vietnam, which used the same obvious formations, flight paths, and same bombing altitudes, over and over.
ReplyDeleteGAB
If it's any consolation, the Chinese themselves are on the same large drone brainrot:
ReplyDeletehttps://clashreport.com/defense/articles/china-signs-5b-drone-deal-with-saudi-arabia-g2geyt1yf1
China has signed a deal with 5 billion USD to supply Saudi Arabia with it's Wing Loong-3 medium altitude long endurance drones.
"Chinese themselves are on the same large drone brainrot:"
DeletePossibly. Possibly not. It depends on what role they intend for them. There are peripheral, supporting roles for which they might be well suited. The problem for the US is that we appear to be making unmanned, in general, and UAVs, in particular, the foundation of our future warfighting and this is a role they are not suited for and cannot succeed in.
Note: some speculation here.
ReplyDeleteHere's a potential more generous view of the Air Force's actions in using Reapers in Yemen. We do have stealthier drones than the Reaper. There is the RQ-170, which is quite stealthy and has been in limited service since the mid-2000's. There's also the Kratos Valkyrie which has been around for awhile and looks like it might be getting close to production. It has some stealth shaping and looks much stealthier than the Reaper although probably not F-35 or F-22 level stealth. It's also much cheaper than the Reaper and therefore more risk worthy.
Here's the speculation: Perhaps the Air Force is ramping up production of these or similar more classified drones for future use. In which case there are a bunch of Reapers in the inventory that aren't all that useful. So burning through the inventory in Yemen while providing SOME value may be a reasonable decision.
"So burning through the inventory in Yemen while providing SOME value may be a reasonable decision."
DeleteAbsolutely! ... ... As long as we don't make it a habit, draw the wrong lessons (as we appear to be doing), and foster a dependency born of operating against inept, non-representative enemies. THAT is the danger - that we'll begin thinking drones are wonderful because our enemies are so inept that drones can be somewhat effective.
The Vietnam war showed that all non stealth aircraft are flying targets in a modern battle space.
ReplyDeleteNearly 400 F-4's and 300 F-105's lost in combat against what the USSR would give in the 1960's. Helicopters suffered even worse with over 5000 lost.
Cheap drones, manpads and SAM's are all very cost effective against anything that flies.
US badly need reconnaissance over Iran, especially after the Pavepaw and THAAD radars destroyed. MQ-9 and Israeli Hermes 900 Kochav have to fly over and do reconnaissance. It is better than manned reconnaissance planes.
ReplyDeleteMQ-9 is more a peace time (before shotting war start) reconnaissance platform. It can attack ground force without basic air defense such as terrorist. Iran still has some IR homing SAM can reach MQ-9.
One interesting thing is that right before the war had started, Saudi displayed its newly acquired Chinese made WL-10B (a stealth jet engine drone). It also purchased many Chinese made CH-4 during its war with Houthis. Why don't Saudi use these Chinese drones to do reconnaissance and ground attack?
Of course, your comment fails to note the presence of US satellite surveillance, AWACS, Navy EA-18G Growlers, etc.
DeleteTrying to seal off entrances to Iran underground missile/drone factories and launch sites. Hard to do without sort of footage from eg MQ9 and Heron UAVs. Satellites, AWACs and Growlers all useful but not substitute. So value of reconnaissance data obtained vs cost of loss of platforms maybe good value.
DeleteVulnerability of ground based radar from drone attacks serious problem. Wondering why not better defended.
You didn't grasp the point of the post, at all, did you?
DeleteIMHO the concept is to generate cheap UAV's and other unmanned assets that can generate necessary orbits to support military operations. loosing a reaper costs money, but losing a manned airframe costs more
ReplyDelete"losing a manned airframe costs more"
DeleteThat's correct. That's also totally irrelevant. When you understand why it's irrelevant, you'll be on your way to grasping strategy and operations.
It should be taken into account that it is a lot faster to regenerate drones than it is to regenerate manned aircraft, because the bottleneck is pilot training. Even with truncated training syllabus, the complexity of modern aircraft and weapon systems adds to the delay of training time.
DeleteHistorically, this was one of the advantages the RAF had on the Battle of Britain: their shot down pilots were bailing out over friendly territory, where they could be recovered and quickly return to service (there's a story of one pilot shot down in the morning who was back at work by the afternoon). The Ludtwaffe lost every pilot who was shot down or bailed out, and the only way to replace them was to train new pilots.
Even back in WW2, basic flight training in the USN was 7 months, with a pilot only being rated operationally ready after another 3 months of type training.
On the other hand, the flip side to this is Eisenhower's belief that there will be no time for a military buildup during war, and that you'll start the fight with what you have already made.
Drones are only cheaper than manned combat aircraft right now because they're simpler systems than manned combat aircraft. Compare a Global Hawk with an F-35: simpler sensors, simpler design, weaker engine, severely limited kinematics.
DeleteIf you were to make a drone UCAV with similar kinematics and combat capability to an F-35, it would not actually be appreciably cheaper. The pilot is the cheapest component subsystem in a fighter aircraft.
There is an argument that we should pursue drone UCAVs so as to not risk pilots, because if you lose a manned fighter flown by an experienced pilot, you've lost not just the fighter, but also the pilot, who likely had years of experience; meanwhile if you lose a UCAV, the trained experienced pilot is still alive, safe and sound back in the control station.
On the other hand, given the complexities of building modern fighters, I don't think there's really an appreciable difference one way or another. A new replacement pilot and a new replacement fighter will take about the same amount of time to produce anyway.
"faster to regenerate drones than it is to regenerate manned aircraft,"
DeleteThis is possibly true, depending on the complexity of the drone. The X-45, or any combat UAV, for example, is going to cost as much as a manned aircraft and ground control pilots (assuming we don't have Terminator level AI) still have to be extensively trained. However, the speed of replacement is utterly irrelevant to the point of the post.
For those who failed to grasp it, the point of the post is that making UAVs (and unmanned, in general) the foundation of our future military is unwise in the extreme given their demonstrated non-survivability in combat.
Bows and arrows are cheaper and faster to replace than rifles and tanks but it would be folly to base our future military on bows and arrows despite the cost and speed benefits. The ONLY relevant factor is combat effectiveness and non-survivable UAVs (and unmanned, in general) are not combat effective against a competent enemy.
So, along these same lines perhaps. Are the "loyal wingman" potentially just increasing potential targets to help identify that there is a manned fighter nearby to be found and shot down, or are they potential value added? If so, what is that value being provided by this additional target?
ReplyDeleteIt all depends what they are capable of doing. There is no reason to believe that they can equal a human pilot so what does that leave? Tactics requires an understanding of technology and we just don't have that. No one knows what they can do so no one knows how to use them and whether they can be effective.
DeleteBarring Terminator level intelligence, there is still the problem of how to handle the constant communications to/from and how the controlling pilot will manage to fight his own aircraft AND maintain sufficient situational awareness to issue commands to his drones. We've seen in simple dogfights that wingmen often lose sight and awareness of each other. We've also seen that pilots often lose their own situational awareness (target fixation, for example) so I'm mystified how a pilot will maintain his own awareness AND his drone's.
"I'm mystified how a pilot will maintain his own awareness AND his drone's."
DeleteI've also been concerned about this issue for several years. I don't understand why, if "loyal wingmen" controlled by the manned fighter are going to be the future, we don't add an extra person to the cockpit of the manned fighter to manage them. Like the WSO in the F14, or in the F15E, or some versions of the F-18.
There's also a potential concern with the communications. If the "stealthy" manned fighter is constantly communicating with the various drones it is controlling, how stealthy can it actually be? Yes, we do have "Low Probability of Intercept" communications, but "low probability" is not the same as "zero probability", and I imagine (although I don't know any technical details) that the more communication you do, the higher the probability of intercept.
I think the LUCAS drone is a step in the right direction. We know that large drones are not survivable in war. Well, for the price of one Reaper, you get yourself 970 LUCAS drones. While yes, monetary value is meaningless in a total war situation because we'll build as many things as we need, dollar value still gives us a rough estimate of the industrial effort needed to produce something.
ReplyDeleteSure, it's an easy target to be engaged by ground defenses. AA guns have shot these types of drones down. But beyond just overwhelming defenders with saturation attacks, it allows you to maintain ISR coverage at greater density than with reaper drones. Great, the enemy shot down a 35,000 dollar drone with a million dollar SAM that they've got short supply of. No problem, I'll just launch another, I got a hundred of these ready to go.
Now of course, small drones lack the wide field of view, range, and loiter of large drones, but these are problems that you mitigate by basing and launching them closer to the action. It helps that LUCAS and Shaheed-type drones need significantly less infrastructure than a Reaper: you can just yeet these drones from a launcher off the back of a truck.
"step in the right direction"
DeleteIt's not a drone as we're discussing drones. It's a munition that travels very slow though with good range and has a very small warhead and a limited target set. If that type of munition is useful then build them. I'd rather have artillery and stick to near targets but that's a land warfare discussion and outside the purview of this blog.
This discussion/post is about large drones operating over the battlefield and how the military is moving towards making them the foundation of our future force - though the AF has publicly stated that large drones are non-survivable. We're basing our future ISR (which is the foundation of our "new" approach) on something the military acknowledges is non-survivable.
You, and a few others have been unable to grasp the point of this and similar posts and seem to think I'm arguing against any type of drone despite my never having said that and, in fact, calling for extensive use of drones UNDER THE RIGHT CONDITIONS.
As late as 2019, SEVEN YEARS AGO, there were already concepts floating in SOCOM for an assault force bringing their own organic drones with them to provide ISR and fires in an AO with non-permissive airspace, where Reaper drones were not survivable. The call was for said drones to have imaging IR, datalink to the operator, a small explosive warhead for point fires, and the drones needed to be simple enough that they could be operated and controlled by a drone operator with a Toughbook, and not need the full on ground control station that Predator and Reaper require.
DeleteYears before the Ukraine war, years before today's Iran war, Special Operations Command had already recognised that they could not continue to expect the lavish level of on-call ISR provided by Predator drones throughout the GWOT, that they would in fact need to operate without friendly air - no air support, no ISR, no fires.
The Air Force does not seem to agree with SOCOM, but I suspect that this is interservice politics and scheming for slices of the budgetary pie. Mass fielding of LUCAS-type drones as organic ISR assets for the maneuver force would draw away budget allocations from the airforce, and people would ask why do we need the air force to run these big unsurvivable drones when the army can run these cheap expendable drones instead.
You're into land warfare issues which are not generally in the scope of this blog.
Delete