France Orders New Batch of Reapers

[Gasoline]

France Orders New Batch of Reapers

PARIS — France has ordered a third batch of Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles, with delivery in 2019 of three UAVs and two ground stations in the advanced block 5 version, a spokesman for the procurement office said Friday.

"The Direction Générale de l’Armement ordered Dec. 7 2015 the third batch of Reaper medium-altitude long-endurance drones,” the DGA said in a Dec. 10 statement. The delivery is due in early 2019.

France had ordered a second batch in July, procurement chief Laurent Collet-Billon told the French Senate defense committee on Oct. 21. The second batch is due for delivery in 2016.

The second batch and an earlier batch are delivered in the standard US Air Force version, while the third will be in an international version, a US official said.

The first two batches of the General Atomics MQ-9 Reapers are in the block 1 model, while the third and fourth batches will be in block 5, which will allow payloads for gathering electromagnetic intelligence, Collet-Billon said. Block 5 will include separate channels for flying the aircraft, mission systems and data transmission. The new version will qualify for flying in Europe and be used for training. The two block 1 surveillance drones will be upgraded to block 5.

France is part of a four nation collaborative effort now coming together in Europe to develop a next generation rival to the Reaper machine. The program, which is being led by Germany, also includes Italy and Spain.

France Orders New Batch of Reapers

 

[Corzhens]

It looks like a star wars is looming - an air battle that will involve unmanned aircraft. After the drone which is unmanned and controlled remotely now comes UAV, an unmanned aerial vehicle. I assume that the said UAV is for war purposes. Is it a vessel for bombs or something like that? I can guess that an interceptor will be coming out soon to counter these UAVs.

 

[Susimi]

It looks like a star wars is looming - an air battle that will involve unmanned aircraft. After the drone which is unmanned and controlled remotely now comes UAV, an unmanned aerial vehicle. I assume that the said UAV is for war purposes. Is it a vessel for bombs or something like that? I can guess that an interceptor will be coming out soon to counter these UAVs.

These drones are unmanned but are piloted remotely from someone in a small base hundreds of miles away from where they are actually flying (it's how it works with the drones in use by the UK anyway), and from what I understand these type of UAV's are just capable of surveillance and nothing is there to hint that they will be made able to deploy any weaponry. The new UAV in development might be made for multi-roles but I don't know.

 

[jliggins2002]

The French must have saw a US inventory report and realized they were far behind the technology. This is the future, not that I don't like it I just see it going very bad very quickly. People just seem to care less about pulling that trigger or releasing a bomb when they are thousands of miles away. Also, there will always be a prestige in being in the cockpit rather than behind a computer.

 

[Susimi]

The French must have saw a US inventory report and realized they were far behind the technology. This is the future, not that I don't like it I just see it going very bad very quickly. People just seem to care less about pulling that trigger or releasing a bomb when they are thousands of miles away. Also, there will always be a prestige in being in the cockpit rather than behind a computer.

It's all down to how wars and the battlefield is evolving. One hundred years ago pilots and gunners were throwing bombs out over the side of their aircraft with less than a 50% chance of a near hit. Today we have aircraft dropping bombs from thousands of feet which can hone in on a very small target with a 99% chance of a direct hit. It's pretty crazy.

UAV's, although I do not really like them, I can see their benefit and can see why forces are using them, especially for surveillance and when they need to hang around over an area for some time. It makes sense to have an unmanned craft in that area for long time rather than put a pilot at risk doing the same thing.

 

[jliggins2002]

It's all down to how wars and the battlefield is evolving. One hundred years ago pilots and gunners were throwing bombs out over the side of their aircraft with less than a 50% chance of a near hit. Today we have aircraft dropping bombs from thousands of feet which can hone in on a very small target with a 99% chance of a direct hit. It's pretty crazy.

UAV's, although I do not really like them, I can see their benefit and can see why forces are using them, especially for surveillance and when they need to hang around over an area for some time. It makes sense to have an unmanned craft in that area for long time rather than put a pilot at risk doing the same thing.

I do agree that that technology has made things easier and more efficient. As with any weapon or technology it is only as good as the information gathered before using it. Although they do have a high accuracy rate, I don't think that it is 99 percent, I think taking humans out of the cockpit altogether is a big security risk. I think that most unmanned strikes are unsuccessful. They may be hitting the target they are aiming for but they are not hitting the correct targets. As far as surveillance that should be all that they are using these machines for.

 

[Susimi]

The Predator drone is one that is capable of both surveillance and delivering guided missiles and bombs, and although unmanned, they are controlled from a control centre by two "pilots" throughout the whole operation. If they feel they need to attack a target they have to get clearance from almost the top of the chain of command before they can attack.

As for the accuracy of the weapons of today, 99% is a pretty good estimate. The most known laser guided bomb, the Paveway, can be guided to hit the smallest of targets. There are pictures of test and training drops where the bomb is about to land on a small target used for rifle training, and also a picture of one about to head through a truck window. I was also reading about their use during the Vietnam war. Apparently over 800 attacks were made against a bridge with no success using conventional "dumb" bombs. They then attacked it with a Paveway and it scored a direct hit on a bridge, destroying it in the process.