While Pakistan is reported to be seeking the Chinese armed UAV, the Indian armed forces are also looking at retrofitting air-to-surface missiles on their Israeli-supplied Heron UAV and on the indigenous Rustom UAV under development by DRDO.

The US National Defense Authorisation Act for the FY 2001 had stated, “It shall be a goal of the armed forces to achieve the fielding of unmanned, remotely controlled technology, such that by 2010, one-third of the aircraft in the operational deep-strike force are unmanned.”

Such directions are a far cry from the Project ‘Have Lemon’ initiated in 1971 to develop unmanned attack systems armed with Maverick missiles, which was abandoned in 1979, somewhat signifying the meaning of word ‘lemon’ in slang, for ‘worthless’. However, it was an irony of sorts that this same project was once again revived by Northrop Grumman in 2003, in which unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) named ‘Fire-bee’ was displayed carrying two Hellfire anti-armour missiles as well as a pod for dispensing remote battlefield sensors.

From the earliest use of unmanned balloons loaded with explosives by the Austrians in 1849 to attack the Italian city of Venice, the UCAV did not get the desired attention till the US air operations over Iraq and Afghanistan. Although many projects had been undertaken in the US since the Vietnam War to develop unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and UCAV, the limitations of communications link loss as well as losses due to automation failures had resulted in many designs remaining dormant. With the need to carry out aggressive but air patrols for enforcing ‘no-fly zones’ in Iraq and later in the Balkans, the development of UCAVs was accelerated. There is an evolutionary difference between the UAV and the UCAV. While UAVs have been configured for many passive roles and battle support functions, the UCAVs are fitted with dispensable munitions thereby assigning armed combat functions. ‘Dispensable munitions’ is an important term in defining the UCAV, as it is the reusability of the UCAV, which distinguishes it from a classic cruise missile assigned to a target on a one-way mission. Hence, armed UAVs have become the initial versions of UCAV such as the US Predator and Reaper carrying Hellfire missiles, Israeli Elbit Hermes 450 UAV with Hellfire as well as Spike missiles and the Chinese Chang Hong-3 with AR-1 Missiles, etc to name a few. While Pakistan is reported to be seeking the Chinese armed UAV, the Indian armed forces are also looking at retrofitting air-to-surface missiles on their Israeli-supplied Heron UAV and on the indigenous Rustom UAV under development by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

However, there would be a quantum jump in the UCAV operations when newer dedicated models are fielded in the near future. In 1996, the United States Air Force (USAF) Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) determined that there were 10 important missions for UCAV. These were:

• Deep coverage survivable ISR
• Armed reconnaissance
• Air surveillance
• Positive target identification and bomb damage assessment
• ISR of hazardous environment
• Survivable deep strike
• Airborne electronic attack
• Persistent strike combat air patrol (heavy)
• Destruction/suppression of enemy air defences
• Airborne communications node

As one can notice, most of the missions mentioned above are what any classic air force carries out with manned combat aircraft. But the political compulsions of reducing battle causalities or ‘body bags’ and considerable lower costs for developing unmanned systems as against the manned aircraft is shifting the balance in favour of UCAVs. For UCAV, there are neither any environmental compulsions such as onboard oxygen nor the need for ejection seats and associated combat search and rescue operations. Hence during the first Gulf War, Lockheed Martin had proposed fielding modified unmanned F-16B aircraft to be flown remotely for armed patrol duties.

Later in 1999, Boeing Phantom Works was awarded a contract to develop two ‘X-45A’ UCAV technology demonstrators ahead of Northrop Grumman and Raytheon. Boeing rolled out the first prototype in September 2000. The newer versions have the capability of mid-air refuelling, self-designating pods and more importantly autonomous control, reducing the continuous monitoring by an operator on the ground. Two such UCAVs have also been fitted with the standard USAF ‘Link16’ and flown on cooperative test missions. Such tests have demonstrated future operations by multiple UCAVs, integration of UCAVs with other military aircraft and the feasibility of integration within the entire battlefield. The US in particular is fast progressing development of various models of UCAVs with stealth features having longer ranges and payloads. The US Navy has also shown interest in Northrop Grumman UCAV X-47B and the J-UCAS programme. But what is of considerable interest is the submarine launched Lockheed Martin UCAV design capable of carrying a weapon load of 450 kilograms with a range of about 1,100 kilometres.