Stanley A Springer

Army and Air Force Unmanned Air Reconnaissance: Warrior and Hydra Navigating a Maze of Strategic Hedges Stanley A Springer

"This study analyzes the relative effectiveness of the services' UASs in meeting national security objectives in the context of the Global War on Terror and future wars. Given the similarity in the air vehicles, the UAS' C2 and sustainment mechanisms served as the basis of comparing the service solutions. The hedging constructs in the National Security and Defense Strategies provided the criteria for this comparison. This analysis revealed that both services' UASs could serve as effective hedges to meet requirements for most of the scenarios examined. Further, relative to each other, the service's UASs are equally effective in the aggregate, but the Air Force's remote-split operations (RSO) concept has greater potential capability due to its inherent flexibility and adaptivity. However, shortfalls in the Air Force's C2 and sustainment mechanisms have prevented RSO from reaching its full potential. In contrast, effective management of the Army's corresponding mechanisms facilitates its UAS' service as a hedge."