{"id":71334,"date":"2013-09-20T01:22:59","date_gmt":"2013-09-20T00:22:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/predator-drones-useless-in-combat-scenarios-air-force-general\/71334\/"},"modified":"2013-09-20T01:22:59","modified_gmt":"2013-09-20T00:22:59","slug":"predator-drones-useless-in-combat-scenarios-air-force-general","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/predator-drones-useless-in-combat-scenarios-air-force-general\/","title":{"rendered":"Predator drones \u2018useless\u2019 in combat scenarios – Air Force general"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n Published time: September 20, 2013 00:15 <\/span>
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Maintenence personel check a Predator drone operated by U.S. Office of Air and Marine (OAM), before its surveillance flight near the Mexican border.(AFP Photo \/ John Moore)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Drones the US has used to spy on, hunt, and kill terror suspects are “useless” in just about every other combat-related scenario, a top Air Force general said.<\/p>\n

\n The fleet of MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper drones are no match
\n for aircraft that can fly higher and faster, like those employed
\n by the most basic of air defenses around the world, the general
\n said at an Air Force Association conference.
\n

“Predators and Reapers are useless in a contested
\n environment,”<\/i> said Gen. Mike Hostage, chief of the air
\n service’s Air Combat Command, as quoted by Foreign Policy.\n <\/p>\n

“Today…I couldn’t put [a Predator or Reaper] into the Strait
\n of Hormuz without having to put airplanes there to protect
\n it,”<\/i> he said.\n <\/p>\n

The Air Force revealed this week that an F-22 intercepted an
\n Iranian F-4 Phantom jet fleet closing in on a US Predator over
\n the strait earlier this year. In late 2012, Iranian<\/a> jets fired on and missed a Predator drone in
\n the strait.\n <\/p>\n

The Pentagon had previously ordered MQ-1 and MQ-9s to fly up to
\n 65 four-drone Combat Air Patrols (CAPs) around the world by 2013,
\n but the Air Force was skeptical of the need for the
\n low-capability aircraft.\n <\/p>\n

“We’re trying to convince [the Office of the Secretary of
\n Defense] that the 65 challenge – while made sense to the people
\n who gave it to us when it was given, and we dutifully went after
\n it – is not the force structure the nation needs or can
\n afford”<\/i> in situations where opposing aircraft have advanced
\n operations to counter US aircraft, said Hostage.\n <\/p>\n

Hostage admitted the drones will be used to monitor targets in
\n the future, “but they want it in a contested environment and
\n we can’t do it currently.”<\/i>\n <\/p>\n

Another Air Force official echoed Hostage, saying that once the
\n US is out of Afghanistan – where drones can easily roam in
\n US-controlled skies – he’d like the Air Force to replace the
\n Predators and Reapers with more stealth.\n <\/p>\n

“My argument would be we can’t afford to keep all of this
\n capability so we’re going to have to bring some of it down,”<\/i>
\n said Lt. Gen. Bob Otto, the Air Force’s intelligence chief who
\n wants to use the freed funds to invest in drones with more and
\n better capabilities against well-defended targets.\n <\/p>\n

Hostage also said the Air Force needs new reconnaissance planes
\n by the early 2020s to stay ahead of rivals like China and Russia
\n who are creating – and likely exporting – advanced stealth
\n aircraft.
\n <\/p>\n

Copyright: RT<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Published time: September 20, 2013 00:15 Maintenence personel check a Predator drone operated by U.S. Office of Air and Marine (OAM), before its surveillance flight near the Mexican border.(AFP Photo \/ John Moore) Drones the US has used to spy on, hunt, and kill terror suspects are “useless” in just about every other combat-related scenario, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":71335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-71334","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}