Army developing tactics for armed robotic aircraft.

• Author: Colucci, Frank
• Position: Weaponized unmanned aerial vehicle

One of the Army's oldest unmanned aerial vehicles is being outfitted with precision-guided weapons for operations in Iraq, officials say. The armed aircraft, called the Hunter, is viewed as a potentially valuable weapon for urban warfare.

The Hunter will drop the Viper Strike, a laser-guided glide bomb that Originally was designed to be a tank killer. Officials predict combat deployment will provide an opportunity to develop new tactics for lethal weapons in robotic systems.

"A weaponized UAV able to loiter for hours and strike fleeting targets has intuitive appeal to the U.S. military," says Col. Jeff Kappenman, systems manager for unmanned aircraft at the Army's Aviation Center, in Fort Rucker, Ala. "It just gives the services more capability without putting as many forces on the ground."

Army officials have been working on the Hunter-Viper Strike system for more than two years. The program has moved more slowly than expected, officials say. The first weapon-equipped Hunter drones and Viper Strike munitions were delivered to the Array for live fire testing in March 2003. The program got senior-level endorsement throughout the Army.

Earlier this year, the Army had two weapon-loaded Hunters and 14 laser-homing Viper Strike munitions in Iraq.

However, as of January 2005, the Army had only one Hunter crew in Iraq qualified for Viper Strike delivery, and training was continuing in the war zone. "It's just taken a lot longer than we anticipated to bring Viper Strike to an operationally effective capability," acknowledges Col. John Burke, project manager for UAV systems at Redstone Arsenal, Ala. "It's more than simply dropping a weapon off the UAV."

Hunters went to Iraq in January 2003, and a single company remains deployed with the 15th Military Intelligence Battalion.

One of the issues that had to be worked out was the Hunter's flying rights in a crowded airspace, also used by Army, Air Force and other intelligence systems.

A draft of an armed UAV operator's field manual was released in December 2004. The operators, who are helicopter pilots, must learn ballistics, laser codes and designators, and laser backscatter in fog, dust and smoke. Officials say the training manual will continue to be refined while Viper Strike is in operation in Iraq.

Army concerns about armed UAVs in maneuver warfare are more complicated than those of other services. "It's one thing if you're putting fires on an isolated target away from collateral damage," notes...