US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
- Thread starter tphuang
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Is that really true? The US has developed several large unmanned UAVs and I believe the Predator/Reaper is most produced drone of its class, not to forget the one with far and away the most real world experience. Just not sure I see China or Turkey as ahead of the US in this field... at all.
In terms of technology and design philosophy the Turkish and Chinese defense industry has taken great leaps in the development of unmanned platforms with radical new ideas and philosophies.
The United States; although has several projects comparable to those in other countries has not had the immediate need or desire to peruse more radical designs and have grown compliancent in their procurement policy.
The predator, reaper, and global hawk family are all great platforms in their own respects however their general design philosophy and function in regards to their integration into the battle space has remained relatively the same since their initial entry into service.
America by far have the most advanced drone programs. They've been running them for 30 years now. TB-2/WL-2 are effectively reaper drones that America have had decades of deployment experience. Everyone else is playing catch up right now.
The problem with America is the immense cost. You look at the price of a predator drone and compare it to what Turkey, China can put out and it loses massively. NATO countries won't buy Chinese drones for security reasons, but the Turks have put together a drone using western components that is a factor of 3-4 times cheaper than the American equivalent.
Then there are other factors, like the rule that only trained pilots can operate drones that limits deployment numbers.
The problem with America is the immense cost. You look at the price of a predator drone and compare it to what Turkey, China can put out and it loses massively. NATO countries won't buy Chinese drones for security reasons, but the Turks have put together a drone using western components that is a factor of 3-4 times cheaper than the American equivalent.
Then there are other factors, like the rule that only trained pilots can operate drones that limits deployment numbers.
That seems ridiculous.
I don't know if it's still the case but it was for a while.
There is great institutional resistance to the increase in use of drone technology in the US. Too many fighter jocks. I think this will mean we will see the US's lead during the past decade in drones continue to erode this decade. In particular the cancellation of the Navy UCAV program will prove to be a major mistake in the long term I think.
Yep. USAF's budget is bigger than most countries militaries and a lot of pilots in the past weren't too happy with the prospect of becoming obsolete.
I wonder if that's the reason why the Russian air force have also been reluctant to employ combat drones.
Is this a joke? You think something simple like tb2 is more advanced than reaper?
America is far more advanced than turkey in ucav and more advanced than china in ucav.
I suppose he's referring to the new Turkish MIUS/ Kizilelma UCAV.
But has forgotten or isn't aware of the RQ-170, RQ-180, X-47B (albeit a cancelled project) and secretive projects.
Internal subsystems, navigation, software, sensors, and networked platforms and their own technologies are areas where both China and US would be far ahead of Turkey. Although it is very clear that Turkey has still cleverly put a lot of MIC stock into developing a very capable UAV/UCAV industrial base especially for a nation with the size and resources of Turkey. To even be able to develop and build a MIUS/ Kizilelma type UCAV that is in the league of few peers - Dark Sword, X-47B, Sharp Sword, Boeing Loyal Wingman, Kratos etc, is quite an achievement. Not going into effectiveness and all that since everything is rather speculative and hidden for the mentioned platforms, only the US and China have fielded these large UCAVs and have assorted programs. Russia with their Hunter drone is another player but there's only one program and India's Ghatak is an RC model toy with subsystems in development. It would still seem like MIUS/ Kizilelma is in a very small league when it reaches service.