Preparing for the Onslaught

Preparing for the Onslaught
Are We Ready to Cooperatively Manage Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Andrew Keene

In September, 1941, USS GREER (DD-145) had moved from its patrols in the Caribbean to the North Atlantic as part of the Neutrality Patrol. Headed toward Iceland she was still some 200 miles southwest with her load of passengers and mail. Although already the United States had been trading with the Allies, there had been few direct hostilities. Still, the leanings of the US government and people and especially President Roosevelt were not subject to much dispute.

The morning of September 4, a British aircraft spotted a German submarine dive approximately 10 miles directly ahead of the Greer. In keeping with her orders, the Greer proceeded to track and trail the sub, along with the British aircraft but not engage. Before the plane left her station, however, she dropped four depth charges mistaken by the Germans to have been dropped by the Greer. U 652 therefore engaged.

While this incident ended up as a minor engagement with both torpedoes missing USS Greer and U 652 surviving the 19 American depth charges as well as the four British ones (arriving at Lorient, France on 18 September after a 27 day patrol), it was a far more important for its political impact. In his fireside chat of 11 September a few days later, President Roosevelt outlined his new “shoot-on-sight” policy and stepped the US that much closer toward war.

None of this is surprising, and the general direction of the country was known at the time. What therefore is surprising is the level of unpreparedness of the US after war was actually declared a few short months later. The US knew the issues at hand. The presence and threat of the German U-boats had been seen for their effect on the British and even felt by the Americans. None-the-less, the USN and the US Army Air Force had never gotten over their years of quarreling enough to develop even the cooperation necessary to implement the strategies the British had already devised to meet the U-boat threat.

Anticipating new threats, the United States needs to learn from history: Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS)

The lack of meeting a known challenge with months to prepare resulted in Admiral Doenitz of the German fleet having a field day sinking US ships for the first several months of the war. We could and should have been prepared.

Back in 2009, the Navy combined with the Air Force, in a well organized and forward thinking manner, began hosting Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) System Integration (SI) Working Group (WG) meetings with the intent of coordinating these systems and developing a set of guidelines and suggestions for a unified military approach. There were plans on how to interface with other parts of the government, as well as other governments and militaries.

Even as far back as 2009 we understood well the explosive expansion of these technologies and the importance of getting ahead of the game. Year after year we walk ever closer to having a beast to manage unmanned vehicle usage in some type of organized programmatic way in the future. Sadly, for lack of funding and support, the UASSIWG did not even last two years. Since then, as expected, the development and use of UAS has and continues to explode. Certain areas of the government now have robust UAS programs, but the vast majority of the plans for joint action in this area have almost been completely neglected, both in specific UAV development as well as in joint support systems.

When action breaks out and we are months behind where we should be in coordination, will we risk the lives of hundreds or thousands because of our lack of preparation? Do we not know more about this threat and these systems than we knew about the German U-boat threat prior to our entrance to WWII? Do we not have parallel programs for combat systems from which we could draw lessons and enact policies to mitigate risks almost from resources we already have in place? We should not disregard the lessons we have learned from the past, especially in the area (or one of the areas) that is likely to have the biggest impact on future engagements. Let’s hope we don’t need to lose half a year or more of engagements in our next major conflict before we get our organization together.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Naval Today.