UAV turf wars.

• Author: Graham, Byron
• Position: READERS'FORUM - Letter to the editor

* As a former Army unmanned air vehicle pilot and mission commander, I feel I must contribute my two cents to Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula's ideas on the philosophy of UAV operation and deployment. (Air Force to Army: There Are Better Ways to Deploy Surveillance Aircraft, January 2010).

It doesn't take much to read between the lines to see that Deptula's statements are based on a "turf-war," despite his comment to the contrary. His statements lead me to believe he does not understand the Army's philosophy or mission in utilization of UAV assets. He mentions utilizing a "joint approach"--that is exactly what the Army's brigade combat teams are doing by combining infantry, artillery armor and a UAV system into one team, as is the case with the brigade's Shadow UAS. They train together and they fight together. It's almost impossible to put valuation on that kind of joint training and, therefore, effectiveness.

Regarding a joint-service approach, that is how the Army's Hunter and Sky Warrior UAVs are utilized. Having been part of the 2003 invasion of Iraq utilizing the Hunter UAV, we would target one enemy emplacement with Air Force A-10s and another with Army Apaches or Marine Corps artillery. Post-combat operations, our missions came from the highest-levels coordinating across all military branches. Additionally, there is no downtime in UAV coverage when a brigade rotates out of theater. There is overlap to hand off the mission properly.

Deptula's statement that he believes flying UAVs from U.S. bases in split-operations is a dead-giveaway to his Air Force mindset: strategic vs. tactical.

The Air Force typically wants to build the biggest, fastest, highest flying aircraft they can and they'll get about 40 to 50 UAVs out of those specifications and funds. They Army wants to deploy UAV capability out to as many units as possible and will therefore get 250 UAVs out of the same money or less. The Army doesn't measure its aircraft speed or performance on the mach-meter (mach meter equals $$$). And yes, the Army may only have 78 Shadows deployed, but that is still 78. How many is the Air Force flying in theater? The last time I was flying UAVs in Iraq the airspace was saturated with UAVs.

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Regarding the testing of Shadows using satcom...