Maritime drones--back to the future? One of the many panaceas for modern naval operations is the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), which offers the ship commander his own means of aerial reconnaissance over both land and sea. The UAV--or drone--is regarded as a major tool in littoral naval operations, but what is emerging is a concept that was viewed as absolete some 60 years ago.

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Drones: combat

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Maritime drones--back to the future? One of the many panaceas for modern naval operations is the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), which offers the ship commander his own means of aerial reconnaissance over both land and sea. The UAV--or drone--is regarded as a major tool in littoral naval operations, but what is emerging is a concept that was viewed as absolete some 60 years ago.

The advantage of the UAV is that it provides a relatively low cost, expendable platform for reconnaissance, surveillance and observation. Navies first acquired manned aircraft for this role during the First World War, indeed back in 1918 almost every British battleship and cruiser could carry reconnaissance aircraft able to fly off platforms lashed to gun turrets. In the next two decades these were replaced by steam-driven catapults but by the end of the Second World War carriers were the flag-bearers of naval aviation and other surface combatants quickly ceased ...

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