Wednesday, December 13, 2017

A Look At How Drones Will Change Urban Warfare

DARPA’s OFFensive Swarm-Enabled Tactics (OFFSET) program envisions future small-unit infantry forces using small unmanned aircraft systems and/or small unmanned ground systems in swarms of 250 robots or more to accomplish diverse missions in complex urban environments. By leveraging and combining emerging technologies in swarm autonomy and human-swarm teaming, the program seeks to enable rapid development and deployment of breakthrough capabilities to the field. (DARPA)

Maj. John Spencer, C4ISRNet: How drone swarms could change urban warfare

For the first time since the Korean War, the U.S. military has to worry about enemy bombs dropping on them in combat.

This threat doesn’t come from multibillion-dollar next-generation aircraft dropping precision-guided bombs on open battlefields. Instead, it comes from cheap, commercial drones dropping low-tech explosives during urban battles. To take back the initiative, the Army should deploy current drone technologies to empower soldiers to address some of the fundamental challenges of urban warfare.

The range of challenges in urban environments is broad. It includes looting, civil disturbances, insurgences, and other levels of conflict where military forces may be sent to conduct stability operations, such as counterterrorism, counterinsurgencies and peacekeeping. For the most part, these are the types of urban operations the U.S. military conducted in Iraq from 2005 to 2010.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: I was surprised that drones were not used as extensively as they could have been in the battle of Mosul. My guess is that lessons that were learned in that battle will be used in future conflicts as outlined in the above post.

No comments: