US Army Future Tactical UAS (FTUAS)

[TomcatViP]

Yehudi lights will certainly see a comeback, probably with passive systems routing light from top to under body surfaces.
We will see what the B-21 will bring in term of visual stealth and for sure a derivative of that technology will appear for UAV not too long after.

 

[jsport]

These are combat systems operated at the forward edge of the battlefield. Losses are to be expected over time. Super-duper stealthy things at lower altitude will not last much longer, so cost is a major factor. I can have one super-duper that last five minutes longer or ten no frills simple systems. Bottom line is that the actual soldiers, not us air conditioned wanna-be generals, like them and are excited at what they can do with them. Not some maybe next year techno-drivel.

The acquisition system is beyond dysfunctional. COTS is a joke. R D t E needs to return. throwing garbage over the transsume will lose the US a war. This garbage will not last 5 secs. It is not armed, has no dynamic maneuver or stealth.

 

[yasotay]

These are combat systems operated at the forward edge of the battlefield. Losses are to be expected over time. Super-duper stealthy things at lower altitude will not last much longer, so cost is a major factor. I can have one super-duper that last five minutes longer or ten no frills simple systems. Bottom line is that the actual soldiers, not us air conditioned wanna-be generals, like them and are excited at what they can do with them. Not some maybe next year techno-drivel.

The acquisition system is beyond dysfunctional. COTS is a joke. R D t E needs to return. throwing garbage over the transsume will lose the US a war. This garbage will not last 5 secs. It is not armed, has no dynamic maneuver or stealth.

Given the US DoD budget at best is going to remain stagnant at best, developing expensive UAS that far exceed the requirements is not valid. Since Azerbaijani forces destroyed S-400 and SA-22 with non-dynamic maneuvering, "slightly" stealthy Turkish UAV and with small inexpensive drone swarms that home in on radar soon to be fielded, giving ground maneuver forces expensive platforms used by combat soldiers is not realistic.

 

[jsport]

These are combat systems operated at the forward edge of the battlefield. Losses are to be expected over time. Super-duper stealthy things at lower altitude will not last much longer, so cost is a major factor. I can have one super-duper that last five minutes longer or ten no frills simple systems. Bottom line is that the actual soldiers, not us air conditioned wanna-be generals, like them and are excited at what they can do with them. Not some maybe next year techno-drivel.

The acquisition system is beyond dysfunctional. COTS is a joke. R D t E needs to return. throwing garbage over the transsume will lose the US a war. This garbage will not last 5 secs. It is not armed, has no dynamic maneuver or stealth.

Given the US DoD budget at best is going to remain stagnant at best, developing expensive UAS that far exceed the requirements is not valid. Since Azerbaijani forces destroyed S-400 and SA-22 with non-dynamic maneuvering, "slightly" stealthy Turkish UAV and with small inexpensive drone swarms that home in on radar soon to be fielded, giving ground maneuver forces expensive platforms used by combat soldiers is not realistic.

Even if half the PLAs uavs fail US tactical Uas will be overmatched rapidly.

Having seen much video, the Armenians had something else disrupting their operational effectiveness than meets the eye. The small geographic area also assisted. The Armenians appeared to have not counter Uas uavs either.

Ground maneuver forces main purpose will soon be operating armed uav/uggs to either designate or destroy targets before humans are endangered. There is a lot of old and dangerous thought out there. One cannot assume an adversary is going to fight the last war like many insist we do.

 

[jsport]

Suicide swarms are silly as they will later populated areas w unspent munitions when most of them crash.
They can not provide BDA despite what the contractor claims, and they cannot revisit targets based on genuine BDA. They will be easily defeated by APS in modern combat. A great example of government capture by contractor.

 

[TomcatViP]

Especially when missed approach and go-around procedures can be initiated at so close the target given the physical nature of those (they are small and can manoeuvre in a pocket of air) and with so much time to initiate the evasive action (they are relatively slow) that enough targeting precision is left to ensure an accurate munitions delivery.

You then bring-in a reusable factor that would lessen the logistical burden of having to transport and errect enough drones for every targets around.

 

[yasotay]

I do not disagree that there will be considerably more unmanned platforms in combat in the future, but quotes like "Ground maneuver forces main purpose will soon be operating armed uav/uggs to either designate or destroy targets before humans are endangered." remind me of the disciples of airpower with winning wars exclusively with airpower. If technology is so grand and all encompassing, how is it that people keep defeating technology. More armchair generaling I think.

 

[shin_getter]

The acquisition system is beyond dysfunctional. COTS is a joke. R D t E needs to return. throwing garbage over the transsume will lose the US a war. This garbage will not last 5 secs. It is not armed, has no dynamic maneuver or stealth.

These systems have lower total lifespan cost than the operating cost of a single sortie of 4.5/5gen aircraft. (easily $30,000 per hour) We are talking about ~40kg vehicle here, while a fighter starts at 11000kg and gets up to 38,000kg, a 1000x difference in weight and cost ($100mil to >$100k). The vehicle only need to survive half a sortie or soak up one high cost missile to pay for itself relative to using higher end aircraft.

In a mature air combat regime, combined arms is story here and the question isn't whether low end systems should exist, but the force balance. Low end forces are useful for economy of force, as high performance systems needs to be focused at the point of decision.

Even with low end forces, combined arms enable low end forces to operate against high end opponents. In air warfare one can see multiple layers of aircraft:
1. On the lowest end, multicopters for maximum agility for scouting out areas with top cover: forests and cities.
2. Above that, drones and cruise missiles flying nape of earth, below the radar horizon. This are some loiter munitions, ALE and likes. The low attitude means vulnerability to guns and DEW, however those direct fire weapons have limited coverage.
3. Above that, drones that fly under cloud cover for EOIR sensors against small (infantry scale, not vehicle scale) opponents. Such aircraft are so close to the ground as to be essentially impossible to hide and defend against radar SAM and has to be disposable.
4. Above that, drones that fly about cloud cover with electronic means of detection: ESM and Radar with actual missiles which will counter opponent radar SAM and air power. The MQ-Next will be the stealthy observer while loyal wingman will do the dynamic fighting.
5. Behind that, 5/6th gen fighter aircraft will conduct command and control, DEW and air superiority
6. Behind that, there'd be AEW battle management aircraft

Even a high end opponent will not have AD systems everywhere due to need to concentrate and attrition, and it may not be worth the risk of exposing AD to shoot at low value (spend $1mil active radar missile on a piston engined fiberglass thingy with RC model electronics?) target.

If there is a weapon system that'd fit in UAS of this scale, it is a blinding laser that'd defeat missiles and EOIR AA. Add a ESM overwatch aircraft with anti-radiation missiles and you can a fairly complete combat complex. Attempts at actually doing this will get cries of warcrimes more than anything though, so it is best to have the system build out in secret and only use it in a sufficiently big war.
---------------------------
Finally, the low end mission really need low end aircraft. There is still shooting war going on against opponents without complete and attrition resistant air defense, wasting high end aircraft airframe life to them is pointless. Just think, the MQ-9 saved the USAF from defeating itself from airframe exhaustion before high end shooting even starts.

 

[yasotay]

The only thing I would add is that radar energy like other wavelengths do not bend per say. Thus anything solid that gets between the "line of sight" of the radar and the target, masks the target. Curvature of the earth also applies, so a long range AD system has a rather large blind spot at say 100Km. Of course, as was pointed out above, using a strategic SAM against a tactical target is somewhat self defeating. This is why there are Integrated Air Defense Networks so that there are overlapping systems with specific missions. Competently manned they are very difficult to overcome. But as war is the most Darwinian of human activities, there have been a plethora of things developed to "hunt" emitters. I do not think that tactical radars will be able to remain active for long without drawing unwanted attention. All of this to say that I do believe that properly operated tactical UAS will be able to operate in the tactical battlespace. There will be losses of course, but at least in the Army they do not expect invincibility, they could not afford it even if it exist.
I do think that EOIR technology is a far more dangerous means as it does not emit. Directing a decent sized cannon, it would be difficult to detect until rounds started coming toward the target. Thus less reaction time.

 

[shin_getter]

Well, a high performance anti-air cannon is fairly expensive and large, thus is not economical to trade with cheap drones and can sometimes be detected early and defeated before inflicting damage.

The really difficult problem is stealthy EOIR sensors cuing in some kind of ZTOL interceptor drone, similar to the one posted here:

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/drone-hunting-in-yemen-war.36854/post-448603

The advantage of a short range airframe , having initiative due to concealment with external sensor support just gives it a huge advantage against a persisting airframe. The vulnerability of such interceptors is to larger more powerful aircraft or the deployment/recovery system.

One can arm race the opponent and "build to counter opponent systems" in a spiral of cost increases, until boundaries is hit with speed/mass/size/etc. If one thinks harder one can even run procurement in "game theoretic ways" to waste opponent's money. COTS low cost procurement is actually quite neat, one can get opponent to develop counters costing more engineering resources, then you bring out gen 2 to invalidate the counter. Ever changing developments is actually an advantage if one has lower development costs, time and agility. It is only when development capability is worst than opponent that one has to field convergent designs.

In any case it is the wrong mentality to "develop the final solution" before fielding systems. Science is ever advancing, and one would simply never field anything is one is always chasing the changing optimal at any moment in time.

What would be the end point equilibrium (or there wouldn't be one) at the end of all the development is a interesting question, but one that does not need to be answered if a project isn't suppose to serve 20 years.
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The problem with lower cost drones is like that of crusiers. A battlecruiser can defeat any cruiser, however a navy consisting of only battlecruisers is not sufficient to cover the oceans. At some point you just have to commit and build some cruisers.

 

[jsport]

US Army’s unmanned aircraft rodeo firms up requirements for Shadow replacement

Army aviation leadership said soldiers don't want to give up any of the possible solutions that could replace Shadow after evaluating them over the course of a year. But when the competition starts, which systems might win out?

www.defensenews.com

OTShelf should only be purchased beyond LRIP as they have no applicability in HIConflict. No one is sure that a simple APS might shoot these things down, no IADS needed.

DoD must assume the risk and pay for a stealth, high dynamic maneuver, armed VTOL.

 

[shin_getter]

DoD must assume the risk and pay for a stealth, high dynamic maneuver, armed VTOL.

Air superiority platform looks to be this thing:

Jet-Powered Coyote Drone Defeats Swarm In Army Tests

Raytheon claims the Army used an unspecified "non-kinetic effector" aboard one of its Coyote drones to take down a swarm of ten hostile UAVs.

www.thedrive.com

Jet powered, recoverable, DEW equipped, anti-air, tube launched, swarming drones? What more check marks needed? (oh vtol meme and autonomy I guess)

Curious how does a jet powered coyote gets recovered and how much off board cueing is needed for various missions.

Coyote is also the the "smallest thing that'd do the job" and it is unclear how far one ought to push it, after all following the requirement for air superiority this is what one would get:



There is a lot airframe capabilities possible and not sufficient information to narrow down designs. Personally I think range and sensor requirements will drive platform size and cost.

 

[jsport]

coyote is Sec Def, +AF Sec + Congressional capture. Not 'programmed obsolescence' but "past programmed obsolescence"

 

[VTOLicious]

The Army is on a mission to replace its aging Shadow Unmanned Aerial System, but with what? Jen Judson rounds up the competitors...

https://www.armytimes.com/video/2021/10/25/what-will-replace-the-armys-shadow-uas/

 

[jsport]

https://www.amtcenterprise.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Aviation-ST-for-the-AMTC_Chalk.pdf

A common ALE and ground based UAS makes the most sense and VTOL Heavy is aluded to. Toy trash are just expensive crash sites.

As if toy trash will be sold for cheap. Conversation about rental has begun.

pg 18 Survivable Rec/Atk vtol, high dynamic maneuver and stealth. no COTS crap. develop it or forget it.

 

[jsport]

Low-flying threats challenge NATO’s deterrence in the East

In the event of a conflict with Russia, U.S. and NATO air forces will confront a contested air littoral — that is, the airspace between ground forces and high-end fighters and bombers.

www.defensenews.com

 

[Grey Havoc]

Competition heats up for Army’s future tactical UAS

The U.S. Army is poised to launch a competitive prototyping effort for a tactical drone after selecting AeroVironment’s Jump 20 as an interim solution.

www.defensenews.com

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army is poised to launch a competitive prototyping effort for a tactical drone after selecting AeroVironment’s Jump 20 earlier this year as an interim option. And according to Army aviation leaders, the pool of competitors appears significantly larger than when competition began in 2019.

In 2018, the Army began considering requirements for a replacement for the Textron-made Shadow drone. The aircraft is widely used, but is one of the most accident-prone unmanned aerial systems in the service’s inventory. It is also difficult to deploy and has a loud engine, allowing for easy detection.

By 2019, the service narrowed the pool of competitors to two: a Martin UAV-Northrop Grumman team and Textron Systems’ AAI. Martin UAV supplied its V-Bat system, while Textron offered its Aerosonde HQ.

Shortly after, the Army added two more aircraft for evaluation: L3Harris Technologies’ FVR-90 and Arcturus UAV’s Jump 20. In 2021, AeroVironment acquired Arcturus for $405 million.

For about a year, operational units evaluated the four different tactical drones, culminating in a rodeo in spring 2021 at Fort Benning, Georgia.

[snip]

 

[jsport]

Without wishing to get bogged down in engineering, you appear to be confusing the Magnus and Coanda effects....

Stabilizing DDF vehicles is not such a big deal and US Army knows this given the patents.

http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/c/x/cxc11/papers/2016/ISROMAC%202016%20%20DDF.pdf

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS: This technical paper describes a novel ducted fan inletflow conditioning concept that will significantly improve the performance and controllability of V/STOL“vertical/short take-off and landing” vehicles, UAVs“uninhabited aerial vehicles” and many other ducted fan based systems. The new (DDF) concept developed in this study deals with most of the significant technical problems in ducted fans operating at almost 90 o angle of attach, in the forward flight mode. The technical problems related to this mode of operation are asfollows:ð Increased aerodynamic losses and temporal instability of the fan rotor flow when “inlet flow distortion” from “the lip separation area” finds its way into the tip clearance gap leading to the loss of energy addition capability of the rotor.ð Reduced thrust generation from the upstream side of the duct due to the rotor breathing low-momentum re-circulatory turbulent flow.ð A severe imbalance of the duct inner static pressure field resulting from low momentum fluid entering into the rotor onthe leading side and high momentum fluid unnecessarily energized on the trailing side of the rotor.ð A measurable increase in power demand and fuel consumption when the lip separation occurs to keep up witha given operational task.ð Lip separation and its interaction with the tip gap flowrequire a much more complex vehicle control system because of the severe non-uniformity of the exit jet incircumferential direction and excessive pitch-up moment generation.ð At low horizontal speeds a severe limitation in the rate of descent and vehicle controllability may occur because ofmore pronounced lip separation. Low power requirement ofa typical descent results in a lower disk loading and more pronounced lip separation.ð Excessive noise and vibration from the rotor working with a significant inlet flow distortion.ð Very complex unsteady interactions of duct exit flow with control surfaces. The new concept that will significantly reduce the inlet lip separation related performance penalties in the forward flight zone is named “DOUBLE-DUCTED FAN” (DDF).The concept development uses a time efficient 3D computational viscous flow solution approach developed specifically for ducted fan flows. The present study summarizes only the most optimal approach after evaluating nine different double-ducted fan geometries for a wide range of forward flight velocities .The current concept uses a secondary stationary duct system to control “inlet lip separation” related momentum deficit at the inlet of the fan rotor occurring at elevated forward flight velocities. The DDF is self adjusting in a wide forward flight velocity regime. DDF scorrective aerodynamic influence becomes more pronounced with increasing flight velocity due to its inherent design properties. The DDF can also be implemented as a “Variable Double-Ducted Fan” (VDDF) for a much more effective inlet lip separation control in a wide range of horizontal flight velocities in UAVs, air vehicles, trains, buses, A VTOL-UAV Inlet Flow Distortion Reduction Concept using a New Flow Control Approach - 13 marine vehicles and any axial flow fan system where there is significant lip separation distorting the inlet flow. Most axial flow fans are designed for an inlet flow with zero or minimal inlet flow distortion. The DDF concept is proven to be an effective way of dealing with inlet flow distortions occurring near the tip section of any axial flow fan rotor system operating at high angle of attack. A partial coverage of the second duct near the leading edge section of the duct inlet is also an alternative way of obtaining a light-weight DDF implementation. A detailed assessment of DDF using a comprehensive computational fluid dynamics analysis is given in [Akturk& Camci, 2014]. A US Patent entitled "DOUBLEDUCTED FAN" on the new concept described in this paper was obtained by the authors of this paper, [Camci& Akturk,

 

[VTOLicious]

https://www.defensenews.com/land/2024/05/28/us-army-sets-development-plan-for-future-tactical-drone/