How cool, soon these drone will have the ability to shoot down the bad guys without calling in an airstrike or artillary.

James Hider,
Fallujah 16nov04

THE last hours of the mujaheddin are terrifying. With the city they once ruled with the absolute authority of medieval caliphs now overrun by US and Iraqi troops, they have to keep moving. To pause even for a few minutes can mean instant death from an unseen enemy.

A group of 15 fighters dressed in black and carrying an array of weapons ducked into a two-storey house in war-torn southern Fallujah. Theirmovement was picked up by an unmanned spy plane that beamed back live footage to a control centre on the edge of the city. Within minutes, an airstrike was called and the house disappeared in a giant plume of grey smoke.
From a house across the road, the explosion flushed out another group of guerillas. Deafened by the blast, they stumbled out into the street, formed a ragged line and started off on the marathon to postpone their deaths, the drone dogging their every step.

www.theaustralian.news.com.au...

Sounds like a good plan that means that troops dont have to be one place at one time with this in the air it can cover a vast area and its a good idea there should be more out there patroling the skys

The downside is that these monsters will get wise to this and start running into houses containing many innocents who will also go up in that puff of smoke...

Though, they were warned to get out of dodge. Still, can you just try and evacuate the populace of an entire city, to go city be city to flush them out? I somehow doubt it to be a fully successful tactic.

I'd say it's safe to say the gloves are definitely off...

We need to hear from Intelgurl on this - she's been working with the UAV Battle Lab since May '04.

the best kind of drone, that i can think of in this moment, is one already equipped with some kind of gatling gun. So the guy back at the base controlling this million dollar toy and see the enemy and shoot right then and there with 100% accuracy and no unintended casualties. I thought that they had already been using this kind of UAV?

the idea of using it in urban warfare and calling in air strikes is just messy. it's an obsolete, barbaric maneuver that should have been tossed away with those defective smart bombs.

and it's not nice to call people rats. enemy of your government or not... they're still people. you just have to put it in perspective. what if you were an iraqi, yourself, and you happened to have family in Fallujah? What then?

She has taken a leave of absence.

when has that ever mattered to the military?

u trying to say the military doesnt care or u generaly asking a question here.

Thats still scary cause humans gather that intel and offer it to next officers who order strike, hopely it has very good optics and stuff to remove civililian casualtys, still saves lot of bombs to shoot something living instead empty shags on desert.

This gives nice superiority on land but urban areas those guerilla fighters might learn to avoid em, unless drones fly like 10km high totally undetecable.

UAV's are really coming of age and the Iraqi theater of operations is serving as the field test lab for their development; learning what works, what doesn't and what as yet untried concepts would best serve the troops, commanders and battle planners.

There are several UAV's currently being used in Iraq, some (but not all) that come to mind are the Pioneer, Desert Hawk, Shadow, the BAE Phoenix and the Predator... Those of you who know or have time to scour the internet feel free to add more to the list.

By reading some of these posts there seem to be a few questions - I can try to answer those to the best of my ability but it may not be totally accurate as I am primarily familiar with the Predators.

1. How visible are the UAV's?
Most UAV's in the Iraqi theater of operations are relatively small aircraft and yes, they are visible. Some of the slower, louder prop driven craft make excellent target practice for the enemy combatants, while some of the more sophisticated ones such as Predators operate above 20,000 ft. and are not that obvious to eyes and ears on the ground.

2. Do any have a gatlin gun?
I know of no UAV's with gatling guns on them. If any of you do feel free to post your info.

Observer83:
"...hopely it has very good optics and stuff to remove civililian casualtys, still saves lot of bombs to shoot something living instead empty shags on desert.

This gives nice superiority on land but urban areas those guerilla fighters might learn to avoid em, unless drones fly like 10km high totally undetecable."

Optics: Depending which UAV you're talking about, some have very good optics on them, good enough to not only see that the individual combatants are armed, but what they are armed with. For instance on a Predator the video unit is a Versatron Skyball electro-optical/infrared sensor with digital zoom (really sweet) and can give variable contrasts as well as "white hot - black hot" imaging.

Avioding UAV's: Yes, avoiding UAV's is something that would be good for the health of enemy combatants. The problem with avoidance is that at some point in time the combatant must be mobile, and the loiter time for most UAV's is rather long - Predators for instance can hang around for over 20 hours.

Also consider that the sounds of war tend to drown out the muffled buzz of a rotax powered propeller craft plus one must consider that at any given moment there may be numerous units looking down on an area of interest - especially at night when the enemy cannot see what's lurking about and staring down at them.

astrocreep:
Intelgurl "has taken a leave of absence."

Yes, but I'm back for a few weeks until I have to go back out west...

Its amazing how fast our country is advancing militarily.

I bet we have some crazy stuff in the works right now.

Later,

Reason