I'm trying to create a workaround so you can see the above site and still keep compiling this article I'm working on. So, I'm having to create a back door kind of sequence to prevent outside harm from preventing me from composing this article for the public worldwide. I wasn't able to do it using Chrome because every time I used a word button it encircled it in black which prevents me from writing or compiling anything further. (At least in Compose)
WIKI COMMONS
Last March, France and the U.K. announced a new $2.19 billion project to create new military drones. In 2017, the joint group of European aerospace companies "will prepare for the full-scale development of unmanned combat air system (UCAS) operational demonstrators by 2025."
The 2017 air show, then, is a chance to reassure everyone with a stake that progress is happening. That has already led to press conferences with Franck Lejeune, the head of the defense division at the French aerospace research center. He says the goal is to build radar-evading UAVs that could see action by 2030. The program seeks to build "the most stealthy drone possible," he said, describing stealth as "the most important factor in survivability."
Drone or Missile?
ELBIT
Drones and missiles are becoming a case of convergent evolution. It's getting harder to tell them apart as missiles get smarter and drones get more suicidal. This trend is on display with Elbit Systems' SkyStriker "loitering munitions system."
The Israeli firm is debuting the deadly drone this year. The small airplane-shaped UAV can launch from a towed carrier, cruise on autopilot, fix targets for its remote operator, and dive directly down on the target. It can carry a 22-lb. warhead for a one-hour flight or an 11-lb. warhead for two hours. Such combinations of unmanned intelligence gathering and precision strike will be more common in the decades ahead. If you want it to come home, the craft pops a parachute and cushions the landing with an airbag.
end quote from:
Our website uses cookies to improve its performance and enhance your user experience. Through cookies, certain personal data is collected and may be stored temporarily. You can change your cookie settings through your browser. More info: Privacy Policy
The drone will be on par with operational foreign analogues.
KAZAN (Russia), (Sputnik) — State tests of a heavy strike aerial drone may be completed in 2018, followed by its purchases under the new state armament program until 2025, Deputy Defense Minister Yury Borisov said Wednesday.
"We will consider state procurement from 2018. We are ready to buy the Zenitsa unmanned aircraft from 2018, and if we complete state tests in 2018 we will also buy a heavy unmanned vehicle," Borisov said during a visit to Kazan-based Simonov design bureau.
"They are not inferior in their characteristics to drones that are currently in service with the armed forces of other countries," Borisov added.
The US military has been using drones (unmanned aerial vehicles) for years, but they’re mostly large, long-range aircraft. That’s going to change by 2018 as part of a new Army program to deploy “Soldier Borne Sensors” to the battlefield. These sensors will come in the form of tiny pocket-sized drones that can be deployed in seconds to survey the surrounding area.
After seeing the success enjoyed by both British and Norwegian forces with pocket drones, the US military has asked military contractors to start working on an American equivalent. The British and Norwegians both use the PD-100 Black Hornet (seen above), a 16-gram camera-equipped drone with simple controls that can be learned in as little as 20 minutes. They allow soldiers to see what’s going on around them without putting them in harm’s way. Some US special operations teams have used the Black Hornet, but the US military has a whole laundry list of specifications for its bespoke nano-drone.
The Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, Georgia has taken into account the performance of the Black Hornet, and designed its proposed specs to be more capable. The entire drone and control package should weigh less than 150 grams, about the same as a smartphone. The military also wants it to be deployable within 60 seconds and fly for 15 minutes on a single charge. It also needs to work at distances of up to 1.2km with line of sight and in winds up to 15 knots. The drone is no use without a camera, so the military wants a good one that can identify a human-sized object from 50 to 75 feet away.
One thing not laid out in the proposal is cost. The PD-100 Black Hornet runs the British military almost $200,000 each. There’s no reason to think a more capable American drone would be any cheaper.
The Army's Gray Eagle drone packs four Hellfire air-to-surface missiles and can stay aloft for 24 hours. (US Army photo)
The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colo.)19 Feb 2018By TOM ROEDER
Fort Carson's newest weapon is also its most revolutionary, allowing ground-pounding units to strike targets hundreds of miles behind enemy lines and giving commanders an unprecedented view of enemy movements.
Meet the Gray Eagle, a hulking drone with a 56-foot wingspan that packs four Hellfire air-to-surface missiles and can stay aloft for a full 24-hours with its thrumming diesel power plant. Fort Carson has a dozen of the drones and they will soon be ready for war.
"We are reaching full-operational capability," said Col. Scott Gallaway, an attack helicopter pilot who commands the post's 4th Combat Aviation Brigade.
The Gray Eagle is similar to drones in use by U.S. intelligence agencies and the Air Force. But their Army role will be different.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, armed drones have targeted insurgents and been flown by operators half a world away.
The Army envisions its drones as a way to give combat commanders the capability of striking deep, with drone operators sticking close to the battlefield. While the Air Force relies heavily on officers to fly drones, the Army will lean on its enlisted corps to do most of the flying.
Gallaway said the drones are a tool for a "near-peer competitive environment" -- a battle against a well-armed and organized enemy.
The Army has gone to war with drones for nearly two decades. But those drones have been toys compared to the Gray Eagle. The biggest was the Shadow with 14-foot wings. It had a range of 68 miles, compared to the Gray Eagle's more than 1,500-mile range. The smallest one was the Raven -- with a four-foot wingspan and a range of six miles.
Those drones gave commanders a limited view of the battlefield for short periods of time. They're unarmed, but tactically useful when confronting nearby enemies.
The Gray Eagle, with sophisticated cameras and other intelligence sensors aboard, is strategic, Gallaway said. "It gives us reconnaissance and security."
Training with the Gray Eagle at Fort Carson, though, is challenging.
The 135,000-acre post has limited room to use the drones, and it is difficult to simulate how they would be used in war without vast tracts of land. On Fort Carson, the drones look inward to the post's training area and aren't used to spy on the neighbors, Gallaway said. The drones, though armed in battle, don't carry missiles in training.
The small training area denies operators experience that will prepare them for combat.
To overcome that, the post is asking the Federal Aeronautics Administration to create a corridor between Fort Carson and the 235,000-acre Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site east of Trinidad. That would give the drones' operators experience with long-distance flights, while keeping the drones safely separated from other aircraft with dedicated flight paths.
"We want to be able to operate out of Pinon Canyon," Gallaway said. "We see it as fundamentally important to our readiness."
The need for that kind of room to fly also speaks to the Gray Eagle's game-changing battlefield role.
The drone can sneak behind the lines and gather intelligence on enemy movements, sharing the enemy's precise location with computers mounted on U.S. vehicles across the battlefield.
It can also be used to target enemy commanders, throwing their units into chaos with a precision strike.
"We see them as a combat multiplier," Gallaway said. Pilots flying the aviation brigade's AH-64E attack helicopters can view drone feeds in their cockpits and control Gray Eagles in flight.
Gallaway said he's been watching the rise of drones in warfare for years. "It will change warfare. And America is in the lead. I love it."
RQ-7B Shadow in Action
The AAI RQ-7B Shadow is a tactical unmanned aerial vehicle used by the U.S. for reconnaissance missions. This video shows the UAV being prepped for launch.
In December 2017 the RAF announced that British Reaper drones had reached the significant milestone of flying 100,000 hours of combat operations. First deployed in Afghanistan in 2007 and, on operations against ISIS in Iraq and Syria since 2014, the UK’s Reapers have been continuously engaged in surveillance and strike operations for a decade. However, with the collapse of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, ten years of continuous drone operations should be coming to an end. But statements by British government ministers as well as senior military officers indicate that the UK wants its Reapers to continue to fly, seemingly indefinitely.
The hyper-asymmetric nature of drone strikes, enabling so-called ‘risk-free’ war, has long raised concerns that the technology would tempt politicians into engaging in permanent war. As we enter 2018, it seems that UK actions may prove these fears correct.
Operation Shader
UK Reapers and other RAF aircraft have been engaged in military operations against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, dubbed Operation Shader by the UK, at the invitation of the Iraqi government. The UK, the US and others nations came to the aid of Iraq under what international law calls collective self-defence. However, the situation is now rapidly changing. After Iraqi forces secured the western desert and the entire Iraq-Syria border, the Iraqi government declared a final victory over ISIS on December 9. The Iraqi statement followed a similar one by the Syrian government in November, which declared victory over the Jihadist group in Syria after the last town held by the group, Albu Kamal, was captured. Given that Iraq has declared victory over ISIS, it follows that Operation Shader should now come to an end. While it is likely that there will be ongoing guerrilla attacks from the group, this does not mean that the level of armed violence will be of a level to cross the threshold that marks a Non-International Armed Conflict (NIAC) as defined under international law.
Despite the Iraqi declaration of victory, statements from various UK ministers and officials indicate the intention to keep British drones deployed. In November, the UK’s Air Component Commander, Air Commodore Johnny Stringer, told a press conference that while manned aircraft are likely to be withdrawn soon, the UK’s drones and other surveillance aircraft would continue to fly in Iraq and Syria. Ministers, too, continue to argue that ISIS still poses a threat, with Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson telling MPs in a written statement in mid-December that:
“Daesh is failing, but not yet beaten. It continues to pose a threat to Iraq from across the Syrian border and as an insurgent presence. It is also a global terrorist network. Daesh has the ability to plan and inspire terrorist attacks at home and abroad. Therefore, we will act to protect the UK and our allies, as long as necessary.”
Kill them all!
New Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson
Alongside these statements have been others, arguing that all UK members of ISIS should be killed. Firstly, in October International Development Secretary, Rory Stewart argued that the “only way” to deal with British members of Islamic State is “in almost every case” to kill them because of the danger they pose to the UK’s security. A few weeks later, the newly appointed Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson also insisted in his first press interview that all British-born Isil fighters should be killed by drone, a position apparently supported by the UK National Security Adviser, Sir Mark Sedwell when he gave evidence to Joint National Security Strategy Committee in late December.
Such comments have been condemned by senior opposition politicians including Clive Lewis, Menzies Campbell, Dan Jarivs and Baroness Sharmishta Chakrabarti, and also by important international law experts. Professor Philippe Sands, for example, argued that such a a shoot-on-sight policy would be “inconsistent with English, European and international law, as well as with United Kingdom foreign and domestic policy for nearly a century since the end of the Second World War.”
One key issue here is whether ‘membership’ of ISIS means that a person is automatically liable to be targeted. While there are continuing arguments about what constitutes membership of an armed group, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) argues that only those who fulfil a continuous combat function are members of an armed group. In other words, many of those involved in ISIS may not be automatically targetable, even under International Humanitarian Law (the Laws of Armed Conflict). Outside of an armed conflict (and as Iraq has declared victory over ISIS we may well now be outside a situation of IHL), international law is even stricter on when people may be targeted.
In an important evidence session at the All Party Parliamentary Group on Drones at the beginning of December, international law experts Nils Melzer and Marko Milanovic made a number of useful points, but perhaps none more so than the need to avoid conflating involvement or support for an armed group with direct participation in hostilities. In war between nation states, Professor Melzer argued:
“the civilian population is supportive of their armed forces… they’re producing weapons, they’re paying taxes, they’re producing food, they are providing logistic functions. That does not make them targets, they are still civilians. They’re contributing to the general war effort, but that’s not direct participation in hostilities… We have to apply the same to non-state [groups]… [W]e have to make sure that in targeting decisions, we distinguish between the fighting forces of whatever organised group we are confronting, and the supportive civilian base. It’s difficult to distinguish, but we have to, because if we don’t it means we deliberately target civilians, which is a war crime, invariably. So, then this is a distinction I don’t see in some of the government declarations. We’re saying ‘He’s a member of… because he has hostile intent.” Well the whole civilian population in a war has hostile intent… [W]e have to make sure that when we target persons in and around conflict, we only target the fighters…
Anthony Dworkin, Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations has also arguedagainst membership alone as being a sufficient criteria under international law to target drone strikes:
Government officials’ talk of eliminating ISIS members on the battlefield may simply be a way to sound tough in the face of public concerns about the return of foreign fighters. But it reinforces a dangerous and flawed vision of military action against terrorist organisations that equates armed conflict with a license to kill all members of an opposing group. Such a vision is not compatible with the understanding of the international rule of law that Western nations should be committed to uphold.
An impending decision
Along with others, we have long argued that armed remote-controlled drones can seduce politicians into seeing the use of armed force as the easy option: no longer the last choice, but the first. Bellicose statements in the last few weeks by some UK politicians as well as declarations that UK drones will continue to fly come what may are perhaps indicative of the impact that this remote war technology is having.
As 2018 begins, the UK has the chance to prove drone critics wrong. With the Iraqi and Syrian declaration of victory over ISIS, the UK should bring its armed drones back to the UK, just as it repatriates its other armed aircraft. A decade of British drone strikes should now come to an end. If, however, the UK chooses to continue to deploy its armed drones and convinces itself that there is no alternative but to continue to engage in lethal strikes, there should be no doubt of the corrosive nature of drone technology, and we shall have entered the era of permanent war.
In December 2017 the RAF announced that British Reaper drones had reached the significant milestone of flying 100,000 hours of combat operations. First deployed in Afghanistan in 2007 and, on operations against ISIS in Iraq and Syria since 2014, the UK’s Reapers have been continuously engaged in surveillance and strike operations for a decade. However, with the collapse of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, ten years of continuous drone operations should be coming to an end. But statements by British government ministers as well as senior military officers indicate that the UK wants its Reapers to continue to fly, seemingly indefinitely.
],[https://www.geek.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Black_Hornet_Nano_Helicopter_UAV-625x350.jpg,(small)])
No comments:
Post a Comment