Drones Becoming Special Operation Forces’ Indispensible Tools of War
May 20, 2011
It has been one of the hallmark traits of U.S. special operations forces: They take existing technology and use it in new and creative ways. A case in point is the way they employ unmanned systems.
In 2003 in Iraq, naval special warfare commanders grabbed a Marine Corps’ drone called the FQM-151 Pointer, developed in 1986 by AeroVironment for use by ground units, and updated it for a Sea, Air, Land (SEAL) team that needed eyes in the sky as it approached Baghdad.
“If something like Pointer had never been tried, who knows where [unmanned aerial systems] would be now,” said Cmdr. Robert Witzleb, director of technical special reconnaissance at Naval Special Warfare Command.
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