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Scientific and Technical Journal
Safety & Defense 4 (1) (2018) 17–21
Military Use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles – A Historical Study
Cyprian Aleksander Kozera∗
Faculty of National Security, War Studies University, al. gen. A. Chru ´
sciela „Montera” 103, 00-910 Warszawa-Rembertów, Poland
Abstract
The following study is devoted to the phenomenon of unmanned aerial vehicles used throughout known history on the bat-
tlefield or for military purposes. The purpose of the following text is to familiarise the reader with an overview with the
contemporary and historical employment of the unmanned vehicles on the battlefield. The study also aims to show that the
concept of unmanned combat vehicles, also unmanned aerial combat vehicles, is far more ancient than is it is widely known.
The article is based on theoretical research methods, mostly multinational academic literature.
The author starts with an introduction on the role of limiting soldiers’ fatalities and the concept of removing military men
from the battleground. Then, the author presents known examples of using unmanned ships in battles from Thucydides’
times to the invention of the Hell-burner of Antwerp. Further, the case of first unmanned combat aerial vehicle is presented,
the bombing balloons from the nineteenth century, followed by a more contemporary study of the military use of unmanned
aircrafts.
The article is concluded with an analysis of the present employment of drones when they tend to substitute manned aircrafts
on various occasions, especially when a mission is deemed “dull, dirty or dangerous”.
Keywords: Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles, UCAV, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, UAV, Drones
1. Introduction
The manpower has always been the core elements of war-
fare that contributed to the military success – the defeat of
the enemy. The classical military textbook manpower ratio of
3:1 against the adversary is believed to guarantee the suc-
cess in an attack against similarly equipped foe. Elemen-
tarily, an asymmetry in the equipment (i.e. the technological
advantage of one party to the conflict) or the tactic can influ-
ence the outcomes, yet it is the manpower that is the most
basic element of warfare. Hence, beside winning the battle,
the need to maintain the numbers of ranks has always been
the utmost aim of military commanders – without soldiers
even the most sophisticated weaponry remains useless, as
there is no one to carry and properly employ them. The way
of fighting, protective armour, horses, chariots... All were em-
ployed to gain an edge over the enemy and simultaneously
limit its own loses on the battlefield. Yet it is the removal of
the man from the battleground that is the most efficient.
∗Corresponding author
Email address: (Cyprian Aleksander
Kozera)
However abstract the phenomenon might have seemed to
the classical commanders, it has been gradually developed
throughout the history. Philip II’s and Alexander the Great’s
Macedonian phalanx of elite soldiers with up to six-metres
long spears, sarissa, is one of the most known example
of the ancient tactic of creating and exploiting the distance
against underequipped adversary. Then in the late Medieval
times, the man mounted a heavy horse and was armoured
from tip of his toes up to his head in a gothic armour and
equipped with a long tilting-lance, that provided both the dis-
tance and the security for the knight. Then, the soldier was
isolated in an armoured chariot equipped with submachine
guns and a cannon, a tank. When he reached the skies, he
started to exploit its militarily, further increasing the distance
between himself and his foe to the scale of total invisibility –
when the attacked was no longer seen by the attacker. De-
spite this gradual distancing himself from the adversary, still
though, the military man was vulnerable. Thus, finally he was
removed from the battleground and allowed his weapons to
continue on their own – the unmanned vehicles appeared.1
1As an unmanned vehicle, we shall consider any vehicle from which per-
Safety & Defense 4 (1) (2018) 17–21
2. Premodern Unmanned Combat Vehicles
However, the appearance of the first unmanned military
(combat) vehicles was more the result of tactic than a tech-
nological breakthrough. The very first such platforms were
burning ships or boats that were set to drift against the op-
ponent’s fleet to disrupt his formations or set his ships on fire.
Thucydides, recall such case during the Peloponnesian war
when the Syracusan captured Athenians’ vessels and “[they]
tried to burn by means of an old merchantman which they
filled with faggots and pine-woods, set on fire, and let drift
down the wind which blew full on the Athenians. The Athe-
nians, however, alarmed for their ships, contrived means for
stopping it and putting it out, and checking the flames and
the nearer approach of the merchantman, thus escaped the
danger”. [1, p. 400] This case shows use of captured ves-
sels, as using one’s own was certainly not a cost-effective
tactic, since constructing ships was costly (so setting them
on fire was a huge waste)2. As the discussed case exempli-
fies, while drifting ships posed a little threat, such tactic might
have been employed when a warship was already set on fire
by the enemy and abandoned by its crew.
In later times, when the gunpowder was widely used for
militarily purposes, they are known examples of using war-
ships as enormous improvised explosive devices – aban-
doned and filled with explosives (fused kegs of gunpowder)
ships were directed against the foe’s flotilla. Again, though,
it was a low cost-effective tactic as warships were extremely
costly, and it might have proved useful only in cases when
there were more ships than crew to man them, or in special
case as the Antwerp naval blockade in 1584-1585. When
the Dutchmen revolted against Spaniard in the Dutch city
of Antwerp, the glorious Spanish armada was sent to put
the rebellion down. The city port was surrounded and the
population was to be subjected by starvation. Then, an Ital-
ian engineer residing within Antwerp, named Federigo Gam-
belli, proposed to breach the pontoon bridge not only with
use of previously-known fire -ships yet to make this weapon
even more lethal and efficient. Gambelli ordered two ship
to be filled with metal scraps, bricks, stones and enormous
amount of gunpowder (seven thousand pounds each) in a
specifically prepared marble mason-work chamber under the
deck. Then, on 5th April 1585, the vessels named “Fortune”
and “Hope” were set drifting on the tide against the Spanish
flotilla blocking the entrance to the port of Antwerp. “Fortune”
sonnel (such as drivers, pilots, sailors, soldiers, etc.) has been removed,
consequently an unmanned aerial vehicle is an aircraft intentionally de-
prived of its pilot and pre-programmed or guided through other means. An
unmanned combat vehicle is designed for military purposes, especially on
the battlefield. We shall underline, though, that the term ‘military’ may be
considered broader than ‘combat’, as it encompasses also the non-combat
military use (e.g. distant reconnaissance).
2For example, in Thucydides times, to build trireme, an ancient warship
with three banks of oars, it costed one talent, i.e. 6000 drachmas, while the
daily allowance for food and servant for an Athenian hoplite soldier was 2
drachmas and a drachma a day was the average pay for a skilled craftsman,
according to Lorna Hardwick. [2, p. XXVI]
failed to reach the bridge, the well-timed clockwork mecha-
nism on “Hope”, exploded when the ship reached Spaniards’
positions, wreaking havoc in a diameter of a mile and killing
at least a thousand people. This unmanned naval vehicle
was possible also the very first known water-borne impro-
vised explosive device and – as Robert L. O’Connell claims
due to enormous number of casualties caused by a single
use – the pioneering weapon of mass destruction. Not sur-
prisingly then that the weapon was remembered as the Hell-
burner of Antwerp by its contemporary. [3, p. 137, 199], [4,
p. 191-196] Despite huge tactical efficiency in this particular
case, the hell-burners were rather a last-resort ad hoc tactic
developed out of necessity than of a breakthrough in techni-
cal thought.
3. Pioneer Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles
Such a conceptual breakthrough in deliberately construct-
ing unmanned vehicles occurred in 19th century. What is
more, they were to be the first known unmanned aerial ve-
hicles (UAVs) used for the military purposes. It happened
in the years of 1848-1849, when the Austrians, controlling
North-eastern part of the Italian peninsula, faced the revolt
of the Venetians. Specific location of Venice on multiple
lagoons and numerous islands, as well as strong spirit of
the inhabitants, hampered the plans to force surrender by
bombarding the city with the conventional artillery, in spite
of more than 60,000 shells being fired since the siege com-
menced in May 1849. In such circumstances, artillery lieu-
tenant Franz von Uchatius proposed to bomb the city from
the air. The aerostation, the art of constructing and navi-
gating aerostats (i.e. balloons and other gas-powered air-
ships) had been known only for a few decades since the
first man had elevated in the Montgolfiers’ brothers balloon
in 1783. Even though, von Uchatius created two specialised
“aerial torpedo” units whose aim was to attack the city with
aerostats. Each unit was equipped with around a hundred
hot-air balloons, eighteen feet in diameter each, and made
of paper and cloth. A gunpowder and shrapnel-filled pear-
shaped bomb with half-hour timed burning-fuse mechanism
specially designed for the mission was attached to each of
the aerostats, the very first-to-be Unmanned Aerial Combat
Vehicles (UCAVs). The operation itself was barely secret
and even highly advertised – most probably to frighten the
defenders – as even before it took place, it had been de-
scribed in the Scientific American journal (see the excerpt in
Fig. 1). [5, p. 401], [6]
Before the attack, tests were conducted with smaller bal-
loons to determine the wind currents, which showed that
the operation from the land was hardly feasible, as the wind
mainly blew from the other direction. It was confirmed by the
first, totally unsuccessful attack of 12th July 1849. The oper-
ation needed to be conducted from the other side of the city,
and thus a paddle steamer, named Vulkan, was employed
as the first aircraft carrier in the history. On 22nd August, von
Uchatius’ aerostats were lifted from the seaside equipped
with burning fuse timed to blow just when the balloons drifting
— 18 —
Safety & Defense 4 (1) (2018) 17–21
Figure 1: Excerpt from the Scientific American on plans of using balloons
to bomb the Venice in 1849. The paper suggested the employment of an
electromagnetic fuse – rather an exaggeration, as use of this technology
was highly unlikely in those times. The paper also points to the first use of
a balloon for reconnaissance during the battle of Fleurus, 1794. (source:
http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/rpav_home.html - 19.01.2018).
with the power of wind, would arrive upon Venice. Despite all
these inventions and preparations, the efficiency was negli-
gible. According to the Venetians only one bomb exploded
within the city, what comparing to 60,000 artillery shells fired
upon the city with conventional artillery seems utterly in-
significant. Moreover, some of the ‘wind-guided missiles’
were to explode above the Austrians’ positions to the great
joy and applause of the city inhabitants. Nonetheless, the
Venetians surrendered the city two days later, though it was
rather due to starvation and outbreak of cholera than aerial
operation. However the poor strategic outcome of the aerial
bombardment of Venice, the thought of ‘aerial terror’, that
would force the civilian population to surrender their cities,
started to ripe among the military commanders, bearing the
fruits in the form of “strategic bombings” of London, Dresden
and Tokyo in the following century. [5, p. 401-402]
Figure 2: Artistic depiction of the aerial bombardment of Venice in 1849.
Artwork from Aerostation - Aviation (1911) by Max de Nansouty.
4. Contemporary use of Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehi-
cles
The beginning of contemporary use of unmanned aerial
vehicles can be traced back to attempts undertaken during
the first World War, when an aircraft was built for the purpose
of aiming practice. [7, p. 154]. However, only with consec-
utive technological development and construction of UAVs
capable of effectively taking part in an armed conflict sev-
eral decades later, this technology found its contemporary
employment.
The Cold War and hence arising perception of an immi-
nent threat was a major motivator for financing and devel-
oping of new technologies of strict military purpose. One
of the direct causes of development of military UAVs was a
Soviet capture of U2, a US spy aircraft, in 1960. The admin-
istration of president Dwight Eisenhower decided to pursue
a programme of development of UAVs in order to avoid hu-
man loses, pilot apprehensions and leaks of sensitive and
highly classified military know-how. In 1962, the Ryan Aero-
nautical Company started works on pilot-less constructions
of Ryan 147 AQM-34, dubbed the Lighting Bug. Its con-
struction was very similar to a typical military aircraft, though
smaller in size and – of obvious reasons – lacked the pilot
cabin, that was replaced with a computer (see picture be-
low). The unmanned vehicle was attached to Hercules DC-
130, a transport plane, and released in the air. Its route was
pre-programmed or remotely-controlled from the deck of its
— 19 —
Safety & Defense 4 (1) (2018) 17–21
Figure 3: Ryan 147, AQM-34 „Lightning Bug” and the
family of Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical UAVs (source:
http://blog.udn.com/TUANPETERSON/5395873).
“mother-platform”, the Hercules. Upon completion of its mis-
sion, the first reconnaissance UAV released a parachute and
was collected by specially adapted helicopters. The Light-
ing Bug flew its spy missions over skies of China, Cuba and
the North Korea. However, it was the war in Vietnam that
provided an opportunity to test the novelty of the unmanned
technology in the combat environment. In the years of 1964-
1975, the pilotless aircraft realised over three thousand com-
bat missions over Vietnam. Overall production of the Light-
ing Bugs reached over a thousand of machines, yet in the
next decade the funding for the UAV programme was scaled
down. [8, p. 700], [9, as quoted in 8, p. 700]
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Programme was also initiated by
the Israelis, who employed pilotless aircrafts in combat oper-
ations during the Yom Kippur war of 1973 and in the 1980’s
in the Syria-occupied Lebanon. Initially, Israeli UAVs served
as flying dummies whose aim was to mislead the enemy. In
1982 in the Lebanese Beqaa Valley UAVs were used as a
“bait” for the Syrian anti-aircraft (AA) defence system. The
Israeli Airforce flew pilotless aircrafts over valley, and while
the Syrians consumed their firepower on the “dummies”, the
Israeli pilots and artillery were able to target the Syrians who
not only revealed their positions but also fired most of their
surface-to-air missiles on the “dummies”. Furthermore, other
Israeli UAVs equipped with cameras and sent deep into the
Syrian territory were monitoring movements on three main
Syrian airfields, and yet others Israeli drones were directing
laser-guided missiles on Syrian positions. Thanks to use of
UAVs, the Israeli won decisively in the Beqaa Valley, in one
afternoon destroying seventeen out of nineteen Syrian AA
positions and numerous aircrafts protecting them. [10], [7,
p. 154] Therefore, even in 1980s unmanned aircraft vehicles
were used in variety of missions and in wide spectrum of
roles including dummy-baits, reconnaissance, and missile-
guiding.
The Israeli experiences in the early drone-warfare from
1980s renewed American military’s interest in UAVs combat
capabilities. UAVs were more and more used in the Amer-
ican Navy, when it had been discovered that drone-guided
artillery fire reduces the amount of fired shells at the tar-
get by two-thirds. [11] as quoted by Tice in [10] Neverthe-
less, when an Israeli UAV constructor emigrated to the US,
his proposal of developing a drone programme did not gain
the Pentagon interest and his enterprise bankrupted. Later
though, he was hired by the General Atomics Aeronautical
Systems Inc., that worked on drones for the US Department
of Defense. The outcome of the cooperation was the notori-
ous UAV, the Predator. This UCAV was introduced in 1995
and opened a new chapter in the use of drones for military
purposes. Initially, it served in recon missions (i.a. in the
Balkans), yet after 9/11, when the American forces entered
Afghanistan, UAVs of the Predator family were equipped with
air-surface missiles capable of eliminating hostile targets on
the ground. [7, p. 154] A new era in the use of pilotless
aircrafts on the battlefield commenced with targeted killings
operations that infamously mark the contemporary use of un-
manned combat aerial vehicles.
Triple “D” standing for Dull, Dirty and Dangerous is
a catchy way of summarising contemporary utility of un-
manned combat aerial vehicles. Drones, unlike manned air-
crafts can fly to, and hover over, the target for multiple hours
(or even days), while a pilot generally should not spend more
than twelve hours in the cockpit. While there are known
examples, at least since the Second World War, of giving
stimulants (such as amphetamines) to pilots to overcome
sleeplessness and eliminate fatigue, such practices have
been limited in more recent times. [12, passim] Thus, drones
seem to be a better solution for prolonged, tiring and dull
long-endurance missions, than a drugged pilot. According to
US Airforce captain, Brian P. Tice, who coined the “Triple-D”
term, dirty refers to a mission that could endanger the pilot
by exposing to hazardous chemical or radiological material.
Although, in the context of the more contemporary use of
UCAVs, dirty much more often stands for extrajudicial killing
operations, when a suspect, often unarmed, is killed upon an
order of a foreign (most often US) military. Here, dirty would
stand for “dirty job”, military engagements whose legality and
morality is doubted. Similarly, drones are significantly more
useful for the purpose of such missions for various reasons,
yet this is to be discussed in the forthcoming continuation of
this study. The final “D”, for dangerous, refers to missions
where the lethal threat to a pilot would be too much elevated
to risk his life, and replacement with an UAV seems a rea-
sonable solution to save lives and limit costs (both training of
a pilot and his aircraft are extremely costly by comparison to
the cost of an UAV).
Presently, unmanned aerial vehicles tend to overcome
— 20 —
Safety & Defense 4 (1) (2018) 17–21
manned aircrafts in the sky due to their primary value of be-
ing pilotless, thus totally reducing the risk of own men fa-
tality. On the other hand, UAVs are slower, thus more ex-
posed to enemy countermeasures (given that the opponent
is a state actor). Drones make up for it with lower produc-
tion cost, further limited with lower cost of training of the
drone operator – the cost of the original Predator is a fifth
that of an F-16, even excluding pilot’s training. They are ca-
pable of flying longer missions without being subjected to
human endurance limitations (operators can easily replace
themselves, while fighter planes pilots cannot at all), however
manned aircrafts offer better performance in bad weather
and can be refuel by aerial tanker. What is more important,
though, due to direct control and more situational awareness,
traditional aircrafts allow greater flexibility of action, while the
drone operator has somehow a “soda straw” limited perspec-
tive, without the broader context. [13] Furthermore, they are
not as dependant on ground or satellite signals that may fail,
as drones are, what make them more reliable. Incorporated
stealth technology in higher dimensions makes them also
less visible, though drones are smaller, thus more difficult
to detect, and can fly into more hostile environments. Last
but not least, UAVs are easier to transport and store. [14] To
sum up, contemporary drones create a spectre of new pos-
sibilities in aerial reconnaissance, intelligence gathering, di-
version and, more infamously, extrajudicial killings, or means
short of war, that previously were outside pilots’ range.
References
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[3] R. L. O’Connell, Of Arms and Men. A History of War, Weapons, and
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