Setting aside the immense degree of fantasy, wishful
thinking in that concept, it is interesting to recall that unmanned spotter
aircraft are not all that new. Just as
the Navy used DASH drones for ASW decades ago, so too US Navy battleships
(remember those?) used UAVs for gunfire spotting from the mid-1980’s through
the mid-2000’s. Of course, at that time
the UAVs were referred to as Remotely Piloted Vehicles (RPV). The RPV of choice was the RQ-2 Pioneer.
| RQ-2 Pioneer |
As a reminder, the RQ-2 Pioneer was a mid-size, unmanned
aircraft that was launched via rocket assist or a small catapult from the ship’s
fantail and recovered using a net system.
It had an autopilot, inertial navigation, and 2-way C-band line-of-sight
data link with a range limit of 100 nm.(4)
A common payload was the Wescam DS-12 EO/IR (Electro-Optical/Infrared)
sensor.
| Battleship and RPV - A Lethal Combination |
When not in use on the battleships, RPVs were disassembled
and stored in steel ‘blast boxes’ aft of the Number 3 turret.(8) The boxes were required to protect the units
from the extreme over-pressure of the 16” guns.
Here are some specs on the Pioneer.
RQ-2 Pioneer UAV Specs (2)
|
|
Number built
|
175
|
Deployment
|
1986 – 2007
|
Endurance
|
5 hr
|
Range
|
100 nm
|
Payload
|
75 lb
|
Dimensions
|
14 ft long x 17 ft wingspan
|
Ceiling
|
15,000 ft
|
Speed
|
110 kts
|
The USS Iowa became the test bed for the RQ-2 Pioneer in
December 1986. Iowa experimented with
RQ-2 Pioneer RPVs in 1987 exercises (Display Determination ’87) with Turkey and
managed to surreptitiously launched an RPV in spite of Turkey’s objections to
provide spotting support for a subsequent live fire event.(3)
| RPV Launch |
The Marines obtained Pioneer aircraft in 1987 and operated
them from LHA amphibious ships as reconnaissance assets. Reportedly, 5 Austin class LPDs were also
equipped to operate Pioneers.(4)
Wisconsin and Missouri used their Pioneer RPVs to provide
reconnaissance during the 1991 Desert Storm conflict and participated in the
amphibious feint directed at the east coast of Kuwait.
After
Missouri’s initial sustained
shelling of the [Faylaka] island, Wisconsin
sent its Pioneer buzzing over Iraqi heads in preparation for another barrage,
during which Iraqi soldiers could be seen looking up blindly into the air
waving makeshift white flags signaling their surrender.
It
would be the first time an enemy surrendered to an unmanned vehicle and a
testament as to how brutally powerful the Battleships’ main battery were, even
in the modern era of so called “smart warfare.” (1)
During Wisconsin’s eight months in the Persian Gulf in
support of Desert Storm, she accumulated 348 RPV flight hours.(1) Including land based Marine units, Pioneers
flew 533 sorties during Desert Storm.(5)
Another report states that 30 Pioneers flew 858 combat sorties (2781
hrs).(6)
| RPV In Recovery Net |
In 1998, Pioneer accumulated more than 300 at-sea
flight hours and was continuously deployed with cruises on USS Shreveport; USS
Denver; USS Austin; and USS Cleveland.(7)
While the Pioneer RPVs were quite successful, the main
takeaway from the Navy’s RPV experience is the operating environment and,
unfortunately, this lesson has not been recognized.
Permissive
Environment – It must be noted that the battleship’s RPVs were used in
permissive environments without aerial or surface-to-air threats. Thus, the RPVs were able to leisurely hover
over the target areas. This is the model
the Navy seems to believe in today. The
Navy makes absolutely no allowance for enemy resistance. Would we allow UAVs to leisurely circle over
our forces, sending back spotting information?
Of course not! So, why would the
enemy allow us to do that? They
won’t! Why then, are we so sure that
slow, non-stealthy UAVs will be the backbone of our battlefield surveillance
efforts? It makes no sense.
We’ve seen that the Saudis and Israel and even Iran
routinely shoot down UAVs. Why do we
think our UAVs will survive over a Chinese force? They won’t!
In fact, our UAV lifespans will likely be measured in seconds or, on a
good day, minutes.
Summary – So,
what does all this tell us? It tells us
that unmanned spotter – or, more generally, surveillance – UAVs can be a very
powerful tool but not as we plan to use them.
Loss rates under current planning will be near 100% and effectiveness,
in terms of surveillance, will be near zero.
The successful counter to this is numbers and, to a lesser degree,
stealth. If we flood an area with more
UAVs than the enemy can shoot down we’ll accomplish our surveillance
objectives. To do this requires cheap,
expendable UAVs that can be thrown into battle in large numbers combined with a
very robust master data assembly program that can put together the fragmentary
bits of data that are received before each UAV dies. The concept is described in this post: “PieceIt Together”. Here’s a closely related
post: “The Next Cruiser and Mini-Hawks”.
And: “UAVs – Numbers Matter”.
This discussion should also suggest the need for a UAV carrier capable of operating hundreds of small UAVs and managing their communications and data.
An excellent exercise would be for the Navy to send their
chosen UAVs to monitor an Army unit tasked with destroying the UAVs – a true
live fire exercise. Add in our best
efforts at disrupting the UAV communications and we’d have an exercise that
would tell us much about our UAV capabilities and our counter-UAV capabilities.
The Navy needs to get serious about determining the
survivability and effectiveness of UAVs in a peer combat scenario before we
commit them to war. UAVs are the
foundation of so many of our plans and yet we have no evidence to suggest that
they are survivable or effective in combat.
In fact, operational experience strongly demonstrates that they are
neither survivable nor effective.
(1)“Battleships Pulled Off The Biggest Ruse Of Operation
Desert Storm 25 Years Ago”, Tyler Rogoway, 20-Jan-2016,
https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/battleships-pulled-off-the-biggest-ruse-of-operation-de-1754104974