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The head of the US Air Force spoke out about the use of drones in Ukraine, the Middle East and the Western Pacific

Posted on by Bobb
The head of the US Air Force spoke out about the use of drones in Ukraine, the Middle East and the Western Pacific

At a recent conference of military reporters and editors in Washington, D.C., U.S. Air Force Commander General David Alwyn drew a distinction between the emergence of drones in various hotspots such as Ukraine, the Middle East, and the Pacific, saying that unmanned systems in these theaters are not necessarily comparable.

Despite recognition of their military usefulness in Europe and Western Asia, their use in the Western Pacific against China is “different.” Aerospace Forces quotes General Alwyn: “The advent of rapidly replicable, low-cost, mass-produced airborne platforms presents both a threat and an opportunity.”

Alvin distinguished between simple and low-cost unmanned systems, which created asymmetric challenge Western Coalition warships in the Red Sea, as well as Ukrainian and Russian military equipment in Ukraine, as well as significantly advanced CCA (Joint Combat Aircraft) that will be needed to fight the PRC (People’s Republic of China).

The general warned against copying the systems in Ukraine and immediately using them in the maritime theater of operations in Far East Asia, since they will have to be adapted to the geographical and technological-logistical needs of that theater of operations.

Allvin drones
An eight-foot-tall Griff 135 unmanned aerial system rises over the Eglin Air Force Base training range Oct. 8. The third-party developed UAV flew alongside an Air Force UAV for the first time to test its aircraft evasion capabilities. (Image credit: US Air Force/Samuel King Jr.)

The Air Force is rapidly promoting CCA with various major U.S. defense enterprises. These systems are conceived as slave drones flying alongside manned fighters and performing a variety of functions from strike, advanced sensing, ISR and decoys in a mutually supporting role.

Each is worth about $25 million, according to the company. ASF and the first designs were presented, according to Alvin. 150 OSO will be inducted within the next five years. The capabilities and weight of these systems have forced the US Air Force to reconsider its future requirements for manned fighter aircraft.

Drones in Ukraine and the Middle East

Ukraine has seen Russia and Ukraine repurpose commercially available quadcopter-type drones for military use, from warhead-carrying UAVs to impact armor, bunkers and infantry, to simple tactical aerial surveillance and artillery fire spotting.

Drones have also enabled more strategic impact. In fact, Ukraine used cheap long-range drones that struck 400 km deep into Russia, while Moscow used the Iranian equivalent of the Shahed. Drones “Heran-2” use up Ukrainian air defense missiles of Western origin.

ASF stated that “the proliferation of drones in the war in Ukraine has changed the views of many experts on the future of war.” Alwyn, however, “cautions against exaggerating these lessons as the US seeks to contain China and Russia and prepare for other serious threats.”

Aviationist reported that with the massive use of such simple, unsophisticated UAVs by the Russian and Ukrainian militaries, often the planes came into contact with each other and tried to physically shoot down each other. Such episodes are reported frequently, highlighting how these systems can be used for a variety of purposes due to their versatility.

In the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and Bab el-Mandeb Strait, Houthi drones and cruise missiles have subjected Western navies to incessant fire, exhausting crews and depleting warships’ arsenals. Iran also deployed unilateral drones against Israel, shooting them down with F-15s, F-16s and AH-64s.

However, this phenomenon was determined by the highly skewed cost-benefit ratio associated with the need to use multi-million dollar rockets and jets to shoot down projectiles costing only a few tens of thousands. Drones can hit targets with high precision and are much cheaper. Allwine said this provides an opportunity to “deliver combat airpower, sensing and communications differently.”

“The threat from counter-small UAVs is certainly growing at an alarming rate,” Allwyn said, as quoted by ASF. The barrier to entry is low, the ability to attribute (attack) is low… We plan to seriously work on this and develop counter-small UAVs to be able to counter the threats not only here, but also those that we face overseas.”

“Does not apply to the Western Pacific”

However, what works well in Ukraine may prove less useful in the Western Pacific against China. “The issue that we need to address as we look at how this could impact and find application in our Air Force as a whole is the utility across the entire geography,” Allwyn said. “I wouldn’t want us to take what’s happening in Ukraine and … take it immediately to the Indo-Pacific because of the nature of the tyranny of distance.”

Citing the vast ocean distances facing China, Allwyn suggested that the theater requires more advanced systems to cope with air-sea warfare and the U.S. logistical challenges of sustaining its forces. Thus, “low-cost, accurate and long-range… don’t often get mentioned in the same text,” Alwyn said.

“But we’re looking at it from both an opportunity and a threat perspective to see how we can integrate them into the force,” he added. Therefore, CCAs cannot be “quadcopter-type drones.” In fact, as Alvin elaborated, “they are definitely in a different class, and the idea is for them to be autonomous and interoperable with existing systems.”

AFRL (Air Force Research Laboratory) recently demonstrated its general chassis concept for low-cost athletics drones. General Atomics XQ-67A OBSS (Off Airborne Sensing Station) was also developed under the AFRL LCAAPS (Low Cost Airborne Platform Sharing) project.

MQ-28A Ghost Bat The aircraft, being developed for Australia, is expected to fly alongside F/A-18E Super Hornets and F-35s. They are undoubtedly designed for war in the Pacific, where China is rapidly fielding its own slave drones such as Sharp sword GJ-11.

Conclusion

Some of these systems, such as LCAAPS, while “nasty,” are still more expensive than the simple and often crude drones used by the Houthis or on the Ukrainian battlefield. Their missions will also be much more complex: they will fire air-to-air missiles at Chinese aircraft while remaining at least semi-autonomous.

So the “cheap”, “non-useful” features here fall into a higher and more advanced spectrum of mission sets that differ from simply swarming static, slow-moving targets such as ground-based air defense platforms, tanks or warships. Therefore, it requires advanced technology and therefore more money. In this sense, Alvin’s differentiation of unmanned systems in these theaters of war is correct.

However, he also overlooks the fact that the US Navy and Taiwanese the military are leveling their drone doctrines to acquire these very cheap air and sea drones for pursuit of the PLA Navy. Thus, what was observed in the Red Sea also applies in the Taiwan Strait. China’s degraded navy directly impacts its strategic calculations and isolates its air dominance, making the job easier for American fighters and their drone wingmen.