Posted on 03/05/2003 10:16:41 AM PST by Stand Watch Listen
Success in Afghanistan showed special operations forces what unmanned aircraft could deliver. Now, they want more.
By David A. Fulghum, Washington
The Predator, which drew its first blood in Afghanistan, now has special operators looking with anticipation toward the next capabilities to emerge from unmanned aircraft."I'd like my Dick Tracy watch," said Lt. Gen. Paul V. Hester, commander of U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), when asked what improvements he would like to see following his initial combat experience with UAVs. He was referring to the cartoon policeman's wrist radio that provided instant, highly portable communications.
"We would like a variety of other things. Who wouldn't want a Predator to give you [better] information, solve a lot of problems and pass electrons perfectly? We haven't arrived at that point technologically. [But,] as a vision, those are things we would like to have."
The list of special operations missions that could be aided by UAVs is getting longer, Hester said. In Afghanistan, Predators were used to find and track new targets while AC-130s were dealing with those found earlier. Predators identified targets accurately enough to meet the rules of engagement and thereby slash the chances for collateral damage to noncombatants and their property and for fratricide. They also provided battle damage assessments.
While Hester says Air Force special operators don't want to own a fleet of unmanned aircraft, he noted that they became enamored of the data they started receiving following introduction of the link between Predators and AC-130 gunships about midway through the Afghanistan campaign.
As the possibility of a second conflict with Iraq grows, even newer UAV capabilities that could be available to special operations forces are being readied for service.
The first portable ground control station for Predator UAVs is being fitted in an Air Force C-130 in a program called Scathe Falcon, with the Navy soon expected to repeat the installation in a P-3 patrol aircraft. The capability allows line of sight control of the UAVs over a crowded battlefield without using satellite communications. The ability to hand off an Air Force UAV to the control of Air Force, Navy or Army operations finally makes the UAV a true tactical asset, said those in the UAV community. If the capability catches on, it would be possible for each service to manage some critical intelligence collecting.
"The fact that we brought streaming video forward into the airplanes during OEF [Operation Enduring Freedom-Afghanistan] shows that there is a constant migration of thought," Hester said. "I think you can see we are learning every day . . . other uses of Predator."
However, he warned that special forces do not want to be the test platform for unproven technologies in a combat environment.
"If [Scathe Falcon] can blend in to help our mission, we will gladly add it to our airplane," Hester said. However, AFSOC planners are much more focused on how to use the information provided by UAVs than on adding new capabilities. "It is a matter of speed, the time between target acquisition and when you can kill the target," he said. "To close the loop between target found, target verified, to destruction of the target is where we have been working hardest--to [shorten] that down to single-digit minutes."
Predator has already proven it can play an important role in preventing fratricide. In addition, the Air Force recently established a program to redesign equipment used by tactical air control parties to coordinate air support. It is headed by a controller who was injured by a U.S. guided bomb in Afghanistan. A radio's battery failed at the moment he was passing target coordinates to a B-52. As part of the radio's design, the target coordinates immediately shifted back to the controller's location instead of staying on the target. Those coordinates were sent to the orbiting heavy bomber.
Hester denies, however, that any fratricide or collateral damage can be attributed to too much information being pumped to the aircrews. Dealing with overload is part of the training.
"Practice helps," Hester said. "We have to continually train with the [increasing] amount of information we're pushing to these kids. The streaming video of the Predator was a new innovation during the middle of OEF." The fire control officers in the AC-130 gunships had not practiced with Predator and initially they didn't know how to use it most effectively in assigning weapons and targets, he said. Nonetheless, Hester said there was no indication that the additional information contributed to any of the incidents of fratricide or collateral damage.
Recently, a 25-min. video showed up on the Internet of a mission involving a Predator and an AC-130.
"There is a beauty in that video," Hester said. "Those that listened heard a Predator pilot who was many miles away talking to the fire control officer in the back [of an AC-130] with both of them looking at the streaming video and very, very carefully pointing out which [buildings] were targets, which were mosques, which could not be hit and where people were who were not cleared to be engaged. After resolving [their uncertainties] by looking and staring and working through this process, they were then able to take apart the one [target] building."
Hester is optimistic about the use of UAVs for difficult missions. "I think that this is a growth industry as our testing people think of concepts of operations about how to use the Predator," he said.
Anyone know where I can find this video?
http://www.sftt.org/AC130_Gunship.wmv
(steely)
As badly as he's going to be f'ed, maybe he won't be faking...
(Doesn't the Koran say the next Mahdi won't be born of a woman?)...
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