Drone Warfare‪?‬

Byline: Brig (R) Tughral Yamin - Email: tyamin57@hotmail.com The typical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) or drone used by the CIA to strike targets in the FATA is a MQ1 Predator - a multi-role vehicle used both for armed reconnaissance and interdiction missions. It has a length of 27 ft and wingspan of 49 ft and needs 2,000 ft of semi- prepared surface to take off and land. It can operate at a range of 400 NM and can reach an altitude of 25,000 ft. It has an endurance of more than 40 hours with the cruise speed of over 70 kt. The MQ1's principal weaponry is two AGM 114 Hellfire air to ground missiles. Designed as a heliborne anti-tank missile - the Hellfire (HELicopter-Launched FIRE-and-forget missile) has a range of 8 km. The missile, weighing 45 kg with a 9 kg warhead, is guided on to the target by an onboard or ground based laser designator. The communication equipment includes UHF and VHF radio relay links, a C-band line-of-sight data link with a range of 150 NM and UHF and Ku-band satellite data links.