UAV EMPLOYMENT

Also for the first time in American combat experience, UAVs offered commanders and planners the frequent advantage of real‑time video imagery without any accompanying danger of aircrew losses. Some UAVs were flown as low as 1,000 ft above VJ troop positions to gather real‑time imagery, which, in turn, occasionally enabled prompt and effective attacks by A‑10s and F‑16s against the often fleeting targets. Several UAVs were lost when commanders requested closer looks, forcing the drones to descend into the lethal envelopes of Serb AAA and man‑portable air defense systems (MANPADS). These losses did not evoke great concern, however, since the UAVs were intentionally sent out on missions that were known ahead of time to be especially risky, including highly classified missions to collect and downlink evidence on Serb atrocities.[204]

The USAF’s RQ‑1A Predator, with a 24‑hour endurance capability, mounted a synthetic‑aperture radar that enabled it to track targets through clouds and thereby augment the two E‑8 Joint STARS aircraft that were operating adjacent to Kosovo out of Germany. Predator also offered the wherewithal for collecting signals intelligence (SIGINT) through its ability to approach threat emitters more closely than manned aircraft and to monitor low‑power transmissions, such as those from cell phones and portable radios operated by enemy ground troops.[205]

The most‑advanced Predator was not available when Operation Allied Force began. The USAF initially elected to keep those aircraft at their home base at Indian Springs near Nellis AFB, Nevada, rather than commit them to USEUCOM, owing to its reluctance to accept their delivery from the manufacturer without the accompanying technical manuals it needed to maintain and effectively operate them. (Earlier‑generation Predators already operating in the theater were frequently prevented from flying because of their susceptibility to icing.)[206]The USAF finally sent three advanced Predators to its UAV facility at the Tuzla airfield in Bosnia. It took more than a week to get the first Predator airborne over Kosovo, however, because of undisclosed technical difficulties. In the meantime, USEUCOM and NATO were obliged to rely on satellites and higher‑flying UAVs for targeting and battle damage assessment (BDA).[207]

One new procedure demonstrated operationally for the first time in Kosovo entailed a clever fusion of UAV sensor and specialized command and control procedures, in which two Predators orbiting at 5,000 ft would provide electro‑optical and infrared identification of mobile targets and a third Predator would then use its laser designator and mapping software to provide geolocation, after which orbiting A‑10s or F‑16s could be called in on the detected target. Several confirmed hits on VJ tanks were made possible by this technique.

Interestingly, Predator was not always used in Operation Allied Force in the manner in which it was originally designed to be used. In addition to target search and intelligence collection, the UAV was also often employed to validate pilot reports of possible SAM or ground‑force targets on the move, since the rules of engagement often required two sets of eyes on a potential target. As General Jumper later explained, those who planned and executed the air effort soon learned that they “had to make forward air controllers out of what had previously been intelligence collectors.”[208]The original intended Predator mission was to find targets. What happened as the air war unfolded, however, was that Predator was used instead in the collateral‑damage management loop and sent out to put real‑time eyes on candidate targets that had already been located but not identified, so as to verify that they were valid military targets.[209]

The U.S. Army’s Hunter UAVs operated from the Skopje airfield in Macedonia, with their first operational mission into Kosovo taking place on April 4. Hunter imagery was first downlinked to ground controllers in Skopje and then forwarded either to the CAOC in Vicenza, Italy, or to NATO headquarters in Belgium and to the Pentagon as appropriate.[210]Normally used as a corps asset, Hunter in this instance transmitted real‑time video imagery via orbiting satellites and downlinked it directly to the Joint Broadcast System in the United States, which then transmitted it to the CAOC, making for only a one‑second delay. Its targets were normally objects of tactical interest against which commanders would not risk a manned aircraft, such as artillery emplacements and dispersed VJ units in the KEZ, which had organic self‑protection air defense assets. Much like Predator, Hunter flew whenever the weather allowed. It often would loiter in the vicinity of hot targets to observe munitions impacts and provide real‑time BDA.[211]

Both Predator and Hunter operators soon discovered that better sensors were needed for the drones to identify ground targets positively from above 8,000 ft. They also learned that better integration of UAV and manned aircraft operations was essential for minimizing the danger of midair collisions. As a stopgap toward that end, UAVs were restricted to operating in specially designated airspace, where they experienced a heightened likelihood of being shot at because of their frequency of flight over the same terrain.[212]In all, 25 UAVs operated by all allies went down over the 78‑day course of Allied Force as a result either of enemy action or of mechanical failure. The United States lost four Predators, eight Hunters (three to infrared SAMs, one to a radar SAM, and the others for mechanical reasons), and four Pioneers. Germany and France lost a total of six Canadian‑built CL‑289 drones and two French Crecerelles, most of them in a single week.[213]

After Allied Force ended, General Jumper revealed that had combat operations continued into the summer, the USAF would have started employing a new tactic whereby Predators equipped with laser designators would have been flown under the weather near enemy targets to designate those targets for LGBs once the latter had been released by allied fighters flying at safer altitudes above the cloud cover. Jumper further disclosed that UAVs, having successfully undergone a rigorous operational shakedown over Kosovo, would in the future be used more in the targeting loop than in the intelligence collection loop–patrolling aggressively and making the most of their extended loiter time to seek out and identify hidden targets.[214]