As worldwide urbanization increases and our adversaries seek to use the urban
terrain to asymmetrically engage US forces, the US military must be able to effectively
conduct military operations in the urban environment that maximize maneuverability,
flexibility, and lethality, while minimizing the risk to our forces. Not only must our
warfighters have timely, reliable information about the urban terrain, they must also
possess the capability to effectively address these threats to seize the initiative from our
adversary, allowing us to dictate where and when to accept the fight.
This paper suggests that unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is one system,
although accepted for its value in providing our warfighters with enhanced information,
surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities, has more to offer. In the fluid urban
environment, ISR is only one critical aspect to successful mission accomplishment;
UAVs can be used to conduct other key missions, as well. It is proposed they could be
used to overcome communications shortfalls; look inside buildings to ascertain
occupancy and purpose; detect, identify, track, and target enemy threats; and sense out
mines and weapons of mass destruction employment.
The conclusion is UAVs have demonstrated their potential usefulness.
However, the US military needs to continue to investigate other missions against which
to employ UAVs to take advantage of their inherent flexibility and maneuverability to
enhance our urban warfighting capabilities. Further, UAVs are not viewed as the
panacea for the challenging problems encountered in urban operations, they should be
employed to complement manned aircraft. However, we need to address the unmannedmanned
force mix and doctrinal issues to maximize their utility.