The use of supersonic target
drones came up in a recent post so I thought it would be worthwhile to briefly
review what the Navy has to work with.
On a related note, the annual DOT&E (Director, Operational Test and
Evaluation) reports consistently fault the Navy for failing to provide
representative threat surrogates so, again, let’s see what the Navy’s doing in
this area.
Probably the best known
supersonic target drone is the GQM-163 Coyote.
Coyote can operate from sea-skimming to 60,000 ft and at speeds of Mach
2.5-4.0. The drone is around 18 ft long
and a bit over a foot in diameter. The
drone is launched from land bases and has a range of around 60 miles.
An Oct 2014 purchase of 7
units showed a price of $4M per. Public
procurement contract announcements suggest a production rate of around 6 drones
per year.
The FY 2013 DOT&E annual
report discusses some limitations with the Coyote. Apparently, the drone lacks threat
representative anti-ship cruise missile seekers and can only realistically
simulate two threats and is only actually simulating one. From the DOT&E report,
“The Navy’s GQM-163A Coyote Validation Report of May
2006 identified two threats that the Coyote could fundamentally represent. Thus
far, attention has focused mostly on a Coyote representation of one of the two
threats. DOT&E recommends an engineering analysis to determine what
alterations to the Coyote vehicle should be made to use it as a surrogate for
the second threat discussed in the GQM-163A Coyote Validation Report.”
The report does not identify
which threats the drone can simulate.
An interesting sidenote
demonstrates the absolutely minimal testing that constitutes acceptance of
weapon systems.
“Four targets (two primary plus two backups) would be
for the Aegis Modernization IOT&E, and eight targets (four primary plus
four backups) would be for the Aegis DDG Flight III IOT&E.”
The extent of weapon testing
has been brought up before and some have suggested that there is far more
testing than I’ve documented. This
DOT&E statement provides additional evidence of the meager testing that is
considered satisfactory.
Think about what that level
of testing means. Given a fleet of many
dozens of ships that have AAW capability, only a half dozen or less actually
get to conduct a live fire exercise against a supersonic threat in any given
year. That’s hardly sufficient to
provide the level of training required for combat readiness.
There are other supersonic
target drones. For example, the AQM-37C
is a 60’s era drone that has been updated and appears to mainly be used for
very high altitude and ballistic missile targeting. The drone is 14 ft long and has a max speed
of Mach 4.
So, is Coyote sufficient for
realistic training? No, or at least not
enough. A realistic threat surrogate
should emit the same signals as the threat meaning that whatever radar or other
signals the threat uses should be emitted by the surrogate. The drone should also be programmed to follow
the threat’s expected flight profile including terminal maneuvers. Lastly, the drone should be capable of the
same on-board ECM, if any, that the threat has.
Given all the supersonic threats out there, the Coyote apparently only
realistically simulates one. That’s not
providing the fleet with the level of realistic training that’s needed. That’s also not providing the weapon system
analysts with sufficient data to determine whether the various weapon systems
can handle the myriad threats in the real world. In other words, we’re testing for one threat
and making the highly suspect assumption that we can handle the others despite
their having significantly different speeds, flight profiles, maneuvering
capabilities, seekers, signals, and ECM.
Coyote appears to be an
adequate platform for further development.
DOT&E actually presents some costs for modifications that would
enhance the realism and usefulness of the Coyote and the costs are almost
negligible on a relative basis. There is
no reason for the Navy not to provide realistic threat surrogates.
