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On Killing Remotely

The Psychology of Killing with Drones

Lt. Col. Wayne Phelps (USMC Retired)

358.4 PHE Beaverton Library, 2021 Little, Brown Hachette 349 pg hardback

pxiii LRE - Launch and Recovery Effort (ie Uzbekistan, Pakistan)
pxiv Predator with integrated Hellfire missile, General Atomics San Diego plus CIA
pxiv MCE - Mission Control Element (ie Ramstein Air Base Germany)
pxvi AOC - Air Operations Center
pxvi RPA - Remotely Piloted Aircraft
pxvii 2019 Air force study, pstd 6.15% ... surveys 254 US and foreign service members
pxviii MQ-1 Predator MQ-9 Reaper

	Predator MQ-1	MQ-1B	MQ-9A Reaper
Produced	1995-2018		2001-present
Length	28.2 m		11 m
Wingspan	14.8 m	16.8 m	20 m
Height	2.1 m		3.81 m
Wing area	11.5 m2		2,223 kg
Aspect ratio	19		4,760 kg
Empty weight	513 kg
Gross weight	1,020 kg
Fuel capacity	387 kg		1,800 kg
Payload			Internal 360 kg External 1,400 kg
Maximum speed	217 km/h		482 km/h
Cruise speed	130 km/h to 170 km/h		313 km/h
Stall speed	100 km/h
Range	1250 km		1900 km
Endurance	24 hours		14 hours
Service ceiling	7,600 m		15.4 km
Operational altitude			7.5 km
Hardpoints	2 for combination of		7 (2 internal)
	2 × Hellfire (MQ-1B)
	4 × Stinger (ATAS) (MQ-1B)
	6 × Griffin
Powerplant	Rotax 914F 4-cyl 115 hp (86 kW)		Honeywell TPE331-10 turboprop, 900 hp (671 kW)

p9 Bessemer: Rifled projectiles, then steel for strong barrels
p10 Commandant Claude-Étienne Minié ( Minié ball )
p29 Richard Whittle book Predator: The Secret Origins of the RPA Revolution
p30 2011 roadmap, 7672 RPAs, including 6810 small hand-launched RPAs.
p31 Bush (2001-2009) 59 RPA strikes, Obama (2009-2017) 563 RPA strikes
p31 2016 Hennigen LA Times 78 countries now deploy surveillance drones
p32 Peter Singer 2009 book Wired for War
p32 Andrew Cockburn 2015 book Kill Chain: RPAs and the Rise of High-Tech Assassins
p35 also "unmanned aircraft system" (UAS), "remotely piloted vehicle" (RPV)

Group 1 Small UAS	< 20 lb	< 1200 ft	< 100 kts
Group 2 Tactical UAS	< 55 lb	< 3500 ft	< 250 kts
Group 3 Tactical UAS	< 1320 lb	< 18000 ft	< 250 kts
Group 4 Medium Range Long Endurance	< 1320 lb	< 18000 ft
Group 5 High Altitude Long Endurance	> 1320 lb

p38 crowdfunded Ukrainians fought Russian-backed separatists with small commercial drones
p41 intimate look: guy emplaces IEDs, goes home to fight with wife and make more IEDs
p48 Reaper pilot watched villagers pick up tiny bits of targeted man. 5 kills in 5 days.
p63 Air Force flies 550,000 RPA hours every year
p69 4D jobs - dull, dirty, dangerous, and difficult
p71 POL Pattern Of Life mission, obvserving ordinary populations for baseline/normal activity
p72 CAS Close Air Support, DAS Deep Air Support, TIC Troops In Contact, HVI High Value Individuals
p75 HIMARS High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System, GPS guided to grid coordinates found by unmanned forward observer
p77 Higher aspect ratio wings have greater lift-to-drag, can stay aloft longer
p79 98% of missions are ISR intelligence, surveillance, reconnaisance aka I Scan Roads
p84 RSO remote split operations: LRE, MCE mission control element, DCGS distributed ground control element
p90 laser not boresighted, missile aimed at 3 targets lands 11 meters ahead, slow agonizing death from fragments
p94 "The time between killing and coaching a child's soccer team ... could be less than an hour"
p77 Crews rotate between day shift and mid shift frequently, worst thing to do to a warrior
- p98 performance suffers, families harmed, bad health and life-years lost
p102 Desired deploy-to-dwell ratio 1:2 (4mo on 8 mo off) or 1:3 (6mo on 18mo off), actual can be 1.4:1 (7mo on, 5mo off)

This is on the Server Sky website because communicating to and from military drones may be one of the (mis-)applications of Server Sky communication technology. Very-short-wavelength (near-infrared?), "low-ish efficiency" space solar power could power drones above the clouds for multiday missions without refueling, with tow planes bringing the drones to altitude, and gliding landings augmented by small batteries.