Increased Legal Rights For Detainees May Lead To More Targeted Killings In Afghanistan

One of the consequences of the increased legal rights granted to detainees at Guantanamo Bay may be an increase in targeted killings in Afghanistan using Predator drones.

Drones Are The Only Game In Town For Combating Al Qaeda

According to CIA Director Leon Panetta drones are,
the only game in town in terms of confronting or trying to disrupt the al Qaeda leadership,” Panetta told the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles.
Pakistan has complained repeatedly about what it says are airstrikes on its territory by U.S.-operated drones. The U.S. military in neighboring [...]

Drones Continue To Dominate GWOT In 2008

From Danger Room,
Forget the extra troops. The big “surge” in Afghanistan and Iraq has been the astronomical increase in the robotic planes ahead. In 2008, 71 Predator robo-craft flew 138,404 combat hours — a 94 percent increase from the year before, according to an Air Force presentation obtained by National Security Drone’s Frank Naif.

Say [...]

Marine Corps Looks to Purchase New Drones

Marine Corps looks to purchase new unmanned aircraft.

War Of New Weapons: Laser Takes Down Drone

Lasers mounted on military vehicles to shoot down rockets, artillery shells, and mortar rounds is nothing new.  Now Boeing has successfully shot down a UAV, or Drone, with the company’s Avenger Laser system.
Advantage laser.
yojoe out

Unmanned Aircraft Log Over 500,000 Flight Hours

Drone aircraft continue to fly more missions for the U.S. military.

Unmanned Aircraft Projected To Account For Thirty Percent Of Combat Missions

Within the next few years it is projected that,
at least one-fourth to one-third of all combat missions will be flown by unmanned aircraft. And a few years after that, unmanned ground vehicles will also begin to flood the market and the battlefield, they predict.
Indeed, growing unmanned-ground business will bring with it an expected double-digit growth [...]

Video: Firefight Between Coalition Forces And Anti-Afghan Forces

Video of firefight captured by UAV.

SecDef Sends More Predator and Reaper Drone Aircraft To Iraq

SecDef Gates orders more UAV to Iraq.

Air Force Wants New Drone

From the best technology-military blog Danger Room, comes the story of the Air Force’s desire to replace the Reaper with a new “hunter-killer” drone. MQ-9 Reaper first deployed to Iraq in the fall of 2007. It looks like the Air Force wants some of the $500 million budgeted for drone aircraft.

yojoe (in drone [...]

Who Will Build The Drone That Flies Forever

From Danger Room, the competition is on between Lockheed, Boeing, and Aurora to build the future drone, which may stay aloft for up to five years.
yojoe out

Secretary of Defense Gates to Air Force: Get More UAV In The War

SecDef Gates, according to Aviation Week, continues to bemoan the lack of UAV in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is doing something about it though, including directing the Air Force to,

rethinking long-standing service assumptions and priorities about which missions require certified pilots and which do not.

Could this signal an end to the Air Force requirement [...]

SecDef To Air Force: More Predators To Iraq

SecDef Gates has ordered the Air Force to send more of its UAV Predators into the skies in the Middle East.  The Air Force thinks this is not a good idea.

The plan was dubbed “all in” by its developer, Gen. T. Michael Moseley, the Air Force chief of staff.
Although the most drastic parts of [...]

Iraq Update: Too Few Drones In The Air

Danger Room is reporting that there is a shortage of military drone aircraft in Iraq. And insurgents are exploiting this weakness.
Is there still a question about the usefulness of drones?
yojoe out
For more on unmanned aircraft:

US Navy: Carrier Air Wing To Be Unmanned By 2025

The Carrier Air Wing (CVW) in the U.S. Navy currently consists of:

3 squadrons of F/A-18 Hornets
1 Marine Corps squadron of F/A-18 Hornets
1 squadron of EA-6B Prowlers
1 squadron of S-3B Vikings
1 squadron of E-2C Hawkeyes
1 detachment of C-2 Greyhounds
1 squadron of SH-60F and HH-60H Seahawks

By the year 2025 the CVW will include a squadron of [...]

Unmanned Aircraft: $500 Million In FY2008 Global War On Terror Supplemental Budget

Aviation Week is reporting that there is more than $500 million requested, in the FY2008 Global War on Terror supplemental budget request, for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). Readers of Dreadnaught are aware of the increasing role of unmanned aircraft.
DoD Plan For Unmanned Vehicles Over The Next 25 Years
MQ-9 Reaper to Deploy to Iraq
Army [...]

DoD Plan For Unmanned Vehicles Over The Next 25 Years

DoD’s vision for drones, UCAVs, remote subs, etc., is contained in the Unmanned Systems Roadmap 2007-2032 was released on 18DEC07, after being 18 months in development.
yojoe out

Drone Aircraft Log 250,000 Hours In 2007

According to DangerRoom, U.S. military unmanned aircraft will log 250,000 hours in 2007. That is up from 30,000 hours in 2002. The trend is clear: aircraft will soon be all unmanned, or unwomanned.
yojoe out

MQ-9 Reaper to Deploy to Iraq

Reaper to deploy to Iraq. The MQ-9 Reaper will arrive some time in the fall of 2007. Here are some of the characteristics of the Reaper:
Speed: 300 mph
Ceiling: 50,000 feet
Endurance: 14 hours of flight time when fully loaded
Armament: 14 Hellfire missiles – or 4 Hellfire missiles and (2) 500-pound JDAMS
yojoe