Online Sponsor: March 31, 2003
UAVs Can’t Replace Innate Abilities, BY JASON SHERMAN, DEFENSE NEWS MEDIA GROUP
Lt. Gen. Richard Cody, the Army’s deputy chief of staff for G-3 in the Pentagon, said that while the service plans to give unmanned vehicles an increasingly larger role in its future force, such technology will not substitute for innate human capabilities that are very important in battle. Cody is responsible for operations and plans on the Army staff. “UAVs in particular lack curiosity and judgment that you can’t get with unmanned systems,” Cody said March 31 to an audience of military and defense industry representatives at a Defense News Media Group conference: Strike Warfare Precision Attack: Compressing the ‘Flash-to-Bang’ Cycle. “So [UAVs] are tremendously complementary to strike operations but they don’t own the piece of terrain that they’re looking at.” In addition to preserving a human dimension while the service modernizes, the three-star general said the Army is setting a course to build a robust command and control system to generate rapid response to rapidly unfolding events. “You can see first and understand first but it doesn’t equal act first unless you have a very robust and agile command. When I [talk] about strike operations, I think the critical element as we build this next force is battle command,” said Cody. To improve battle command, Cody said the Army is investing in ways to link its airborne command ship, the Army Airborne Command and Control System (A2C2S), to Air Force networks such as Link-16, and the Army Battle Command System. In addition the Army has linked it’s short-range Hunter UAV to Apache attack helicopters equipped with Longbow radar, to fly ahead of the armed rotorcraft as a scout. Cody said the Army is also developing lightweight, standardized digital tactical operational centers which will be key in building a battle command system for quick action. Return to news coverage |
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