US turns down Pak's request for drone technology

[Marxist]

The United States has reportedly rejected Pakistan's fresh demands of handing over unmanned drone technology to it, highly placed sources in the Pakistan military have revealed, adding that Washington's refusal could see Islamabad further delay its decision to launch a new war front against militants in North Waziristan.

"Apart from other issues, the issue pertaining to transfer of requisite drone technology could cause delay in Pakistan's launching of military operation in North Waziristan", The Nation quoted the sources, as saying.

Pakistan has already developed drones capable of reconnaissance missions, but it still lacks the technology to attach weapons to the indigenous drones so that it can carry out attacks against extremists in the country's semi-autonomous tribal regions by it self.

The well-placed military sources said that it was imperative for the Obama Administration to provide the drone technology to enable it take action against extremists flourishing on the terror hot beds situated along the Afghan border.

"Drones with weapon systems are imperative to meet Pakistan's pressing needs in tackling low intensity conflict such as terrorism especially with back up intelligence support from US satellite network on Pak- Afghan border" they said.

Islamabad has long been opposing the Central Investigation Agency (CIA) operated drone strikes in the restive tribal areas, saying they violate its sovereignty and fuel anti-American sentiments amongst the population, however, it is believed that Pakistan is privately sharing intelligence with the US about the insurgents and their hide-outs. (ANI)

US turns down Pak's request for drone technology

 

[brahmastra]

they could have only one concern.

Pak supplying technology to China.

 

[TechLahore]

The more practical concern is access to US mil comm satellites that are required to control the Predator. The Predator is not controlled via ground to vehicle RF. It is controlled via a Sat comm transponder which is routed via secure US mil comm sats. They can't open this up to a foreign country, in my view.

 

[Paksindhi]

Why i am not surprised

 

[Frankenstein]

they could have only one concern.

Pak supplying technology to China.

China already have UCAVs, on the other hand even if US agrees to provide us drones they will never give us there advance reaper

 

[TruthSeeker]

The other reasonable solution to this "problem" would be for Pakistan to embrace the USA drone strikes as "requested" and "authorized". All Pakistan has do is join in the drone strike approval process and accept some of the political heat for any "collateral" damage that may occur. Then we would see if Pakistan really does agree that the Haqqani network needs to be destroyed. No more "double games" by either ally .......

 

[gogbot]

The more practical concern is access to US mil comm satellites that are required to control the Predator. The Predator is not controlled via ground to vehicle RF. It is controlled via a Sat comm transponder which is routed via secure US mil comm sats. They can't open this up to a foreign country, in my view.

Really , that's news to me.
I guess we have to develop our own .

 

[Frankenstein]

once Burraq hits the sky we wont be needing it anyway

 

[gubbi]

The more practical concern is access to US mil comm satellites that are required to control the Predator. The Predator is not controlled via ground to vehicle RF. It is controlled via a Sat comm transponder which is routed via secure US mil comm sats. They can't open this up to a foreign country, in my view.

That is an excellent explanation! And most probably true.

 

[TechLahore]

Really , that's news to me.
I guess we have to develop our own .

Yes, the satellite link takes over as soon as the aircraft is no longer in LOS (line of sight). No one talks about this issue when they bring up reasons for why the US is not delivering Predator technology to Pakistan. It is, in my view, the most important one. And frankly, to people who know the technology, the most obvious.

--

The MQ-1 Predator is a system, not just an aircraft. The fully operational system consists of four air vehicles (with sensors), a ground control station (GCS), and a Predator primary satellite link communication suite. The U.S. Air Force considers the Predator unmanned aircraft system (UAS) a "Tier II" vehicle.[2]

MQ-1 Predator - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[TechLahore]

The other reasonable solution to this "problem" would be for Pakistan to embrace the USA drone strikes as "requested" and "authorized". All Pakistan has do is join in the drone strike approval process and accept some of the political heat for any "collateral" damage that may occur. Then we would see if Pakistan really does agree that the Haqqani network needs to be destroyed. No more "double games" by either ally .......

Doesn't make sense to me. You are asking here for a concession with no benefit accruing to the party making the concession. Why should the other party oblige? Please refer to Henry Kissinger and his realpolitik lectures.

Realpolitik - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[alibaz]

Dont worry soon we will have our own and we v proved it number of times.

 

[deepak75]

@ techlahore:

So the spy drones that US has offered to Pak do not need the Sat link suites?

In any case, can it not be sufficient for Pakistan to use the drones being provided by US for spying and then act via artillery or manned aircraft strikes? After all even those are high precision options while the drones provide the intel!!

 

[Kompromat]

Burraq will fly by the end of this year , we wont need those predators anymore.

But the question is would our own UCAV be a substitute to US strikes ?

 

[TechLahore]

Shadow is shorter range, therefore LOS control makes sense and satcomm is not required. As for artillery + observer drone combo, we already have that, so there's no need to adopt the Shadow platform since it will not deliver a new capability.

The reasons why armed drones are far superior to the artillery + observer drone combo are as follows:

1) UCAVs exhibit much tighter response time; hunter+killer capability in the same vehicle allows you to target a terrorist who might have stopped in a location for 2-5 minutes. Not possible with artillery + drone.

2) Artillery typically requires some correction after the initial salvo; not accurate enough and appropriate only for relatively immobile targets.

3) Artillery has limited range

4) Must have a large number of artillery positions spread throughout an area in order for you to deliver fire, at will, when and where you need it. Not practical and super expensive. Would require commitments of tens of thousands of men or more in the area of operations we are engaged in.

5) A UCAV can appear from anywhere "out of the blue"; artillery positions can become easily known to the enemy and they can simply avoid operations in the line of fire. Not possible to take such evasive action against a UCAV.

Many other reasons too... clearly, there is a huge difference in capability.