“The Pentagon has so far refrained from delivering the MQ-1C Gray Eagle to Ukraine. Provision of these weapons insisted on Congress and the White House, but faced objection from the U.S. Department of Defense’s Export Security Administration. This issue is being discussed, but deliveries have been blocked so far,” CNN said, citing a top military source.
The American MQ-1C Gray Eagle UAVs and the Turkish Bayraktar TB2 UAVs currently used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces are multifunctional systems, that is, they have not only reconnaissance capabilities, but also on-board weapons systems.
This unit can be armed with AGM-114 Hellfire semi-active laser or active radar-guided missiles, or four GBU-44/B Viper Strike laser-guided precision bombs or eight AIM- anti-aircraft guided missiles for hitting ground targets. 92 Stinger (“Sting”) to fend off aerial threats.
“The appetite of the Ukrainian army was actually even greater.
Kyiv expressed a desire to get the most modern unmanned MQ-9 Reaper, created by the same developer as Gray Eagle, but capable of carrying a target payload of more than 1700 kg against 360 kg for the basic version of Gray Eagle. General Atomics, the developer of the Reaper and GrayEagle systems, announced that it is ready to make such deliveries.
Naturally, in case of a positive political decision on this issue, ”Denis Fedutinov, editor-in-chief of the magazine Unmanned Aviation, told socialbites.ca.
The actively initiated process regarding possible deliveries of UAVs stopped at a certain point in time. Initially, the pre-approved bar for unmanned systems was lowered from the desired 4.5-ton Reapers to the 1600-kilogram Gray Eagle. And then the plans were postponed indefinitely.
“Judging by the latest media reports, the issue is not closed, but it is worth noting that the United States has traditionally been extremely meticulous about the supply of high-tech reconnaissance and attack UAVs. “The main reasons for this are that the US is trying to minimize the risks of leakage of critical technologies to countries that oppose the US dominant role in the modern world.”
The expert emphasized that these drones are good in operations against a technically weaker enemy, which experience of use in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and some other countries shows. At the same time, the effectiveness of such UAVs in Ukraine against modern air defense and electronic warfare systems may be extremely low.
According to Fedutinov, this UAV is not a difficult target for anti-aircraft missile systems with its reflective surface. If the MQ-1C Gray Eagle is in the affected area of the Buk-M3 / 3 or S-300/400 air defense systems, it will most likely be destroyed.
“In the case of shooting down a Gray Eagle in the Ukrainian airspace, domestic specialists would receive interesting materials both for study and later use in the creation of domestic samples of unmanned vehicles, as well as for developing techniques and methods for combating American UAVs. Of greatest interest may be control systems, communications, as well as a multi-channel optoelectronic reconnaissance and surveillance system. These technologies of American drones will go to Russia via Ukraine,” says Denis Fedutinov.
As for the Gray Eagle itself, before these devices were never supplied to foreign customers and were used only by the US Army Ground Forces.
“Another reason to limit consumables is that this machine has had a very high accident rate over the years the Gray Eagle systems have been running. Despite regular improvements,” the expert summarized.
Source: Gazeta
