Joking aside, when I worked in the HQ of a foreign air force a young officer on our team was tasked to write a paper on the merits of UAVs. Like me, he had little knowledge of what was, then, an infant technology made practcal only through military satellite control. We got our heads together and studied available internet papers and realised that this was no toy airplane system and had the potential to meet both the defence and limited offence missions of a nations air force . Convincing the pilots of manned aircraft that they were obsolexcent was near impossible yet that young officer's paper was met with a level of acceptance by the operational planners and a budget was set aside to investigate and trial what was a novel concept. Looking back fifteen years and comparing the current level of UAV activity in both intelligegnce gathering, combat missions and covert uses confirms that we made the right recommendations. Science fiction becomes science fact........
Yet the attack munitions air to ground are still conventional explosives but incredibly well guided.
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