On August 1, Particular Operations Command (SOCOM) introduced that the subsequent aircraft in its stock could be a single-engine prop plane. SOCOM will purchase as much as 75 AT-802U Sky Warden planes, constructed by L3Harris Applied sciences and Air Tractor. These planes will assist particular operations forces, like Delta Pressure or Navy SEALs, as they struggle irregular wars.
The identify of this program is “Armed Overwatch.” The contract announcement says it “will present Particular Operations Forces deployable, inexpensive, and sustainable crewed plane programs fulfilling shut air assist, precision strike, and armed intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, necessities in austere and permissive environments to be used in irregular warfare operations in assist of the Nationwide Protection Technique.”
Irregular warfare is a broad time period that’s simpler to outline by what it doesn’t embrace. Common warfare is when the uniformed troopers of 1 nation struggle the uniformed troopers of one other. These conflicts often contain the entire vary of standard army forces, from rifles by way of tanks and artillery to fighter jets and bombers. Irregular warfare, against this, entails combating towards insurgencies, rebellions, and monitoring down individuals linked to terror operations. It could actually additionally contain serving to different nations’ militaries do the identical.
For instance, in 2003, the US invaded Iraq with a traditional warfare, which lasted till the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s army. Armed resistance afterwards to the American army and to the brand new authorities of Iraq grew to become irregular warfare, and to at the present time the US deploys forces within the nation to help in coaching Iraq’s army in irregular warfare.
For SOCOM’s functions, a aircraft that may assist particular operations forces doesn’t have to survive in a sky full of hostile fighter jets or when the enemy brings devoted anti-aircraft automobiles to the battle. As an alternative, what’s most necessary is that the aircraft can fly simply, shoot what it must shoot, in addition to take off and land if want be on tough runways and cleared fields, as a substitute of devoted airbases.
[Related: Navy SEALs could get new airborne backup. Here’s what the planes look like.]
These traits, that rugged versatility, are probably why the Sky Warden gained out over the 4 different planes SOCOM thought of for the contract final summer season. The contract initially awards $170 million, or in regards to the value of two F-25A stealth jets, with a ceiling of $3 billion for the complete fleet. L3Harris mentioned in an announcement that manufacturing will start in 2023, for the preliminary lot of six Sky Wardens.
“We need to ship game-changing, modular options to U.S. particular operators for his or her hardest missions, and Sky Warden does simply that,” Christopher E. Kubasik, CEO of L3Harris, mentioned in an announcement.
“Armed Overwatch” is a job that entails each scouting for targets and attacking enemies on the bottom. Whereas SOCOM thought of planes that might additionally carry out a transport position for the particular operators, the Sky Warden is constructed to scout and to assault. To that finish, the Sky Warden can carry over 8,000 lbs of payload whereas armored. The wings can carry a vary of weapons, from 500-pound bombs to small missiles to sensor pods, and the middle of the plane can host two heavier programs as properly. The wing station can match a gun, like a .50-caliber machine gun or a 20mm cannon. With a full load of sensors and weapons, the aircraft can take off on a runway of simply 1,400 ft, and it will probably land on one 1,200 ft lengthy. The tandem cockpit seats two pilots.
The AT-802 (observe the dearth of a “U,” which denotes the newest variant, the AT-802U, that SOCOM is getting) first flew in 1990, the place its rugged airframe and heavy payload capability made it an excellent crop duster. As a crop duster, the aircraft was used to spray crops on counter-narcotics missions, an motion that generally noticed the planes shot at by farmers defending their crops. “Years of coca crop eradication missions in South America resulted within the growth of light-weight composite ballistic armor for the AT-802U cockpit ‘bathtub’ and engine compartment,” notes the Air Tractor web page for the aircraft.
In different phrases, SOCOM is getting a aircraft with crop duster origins, and one which can be utilized for the army missions of particular operators. The Sky Warden is armored towards assault, offered the enemy it’s dealing with is armed principally with small arms, like machine weapons and rifles.
This was a priority 13 years in the past, when the Air Pressure introduced a plan to buy 100 such planes in 2009. Skeptics of the Air Pressure’s 2009 plan for a light-weight assault aircraft just like the Sky Warden famous on the time that rebel forces may get transportable and efficient anti-air weapons that might threaten the plane. With the award of the Armed Overwatch contract this week, former Widespread Science contributor Peter W. Singer, now a fellow at New America, revisited an article he wrote that yr, tweeting, “And observe, since writing that in 2009, the cropduster [Sky Warden-style plane] has not improved, whereas each the enemy capabilities and the unmanned various has clearly drastically improved.”
As nations like Germany and the US offload previous anti-air missiles to Ukraine to be used in its warfare towards Russia, the chance exists that a few of these weapons will make their approach onto the black market. Whereas previous anti-air missiles might battle towards fashionable jets or be overkill for contemporary drones, they’re completely fitted to attacking planes just like the Sky Warden. As SOCOM makes a giant guess on tips on how to struggle irregular wars from the sky, additionally it is playing that the enemies it finds will lack anti-air weapons, whilst warfare makes these weapons extra out there.
