US Battlefield UAVs - Tactical Reconnaissance UAV

Tactical Reconnaissance UAV

The tactical reconnaissance UAV is usually larger, jet powered, with longer range and higher speed. Like a combat surveillance UAV, it has an autopilot with radio control backup, but it relies more on the autopilot than on radio control, since its primary mission is to fly over predesignated targets out of line of sight, take pictures, and then come home. The tactical reconnaissance UAV will usually not loiter over the battle area, and real-time intelligence is less essential.

A tactical reconnaissance UAV usually carries day-night reconnaissance cameras, rather than a sensor turret, though SAR can be carried as well. They are generally launched by RATO booster and recovered by parachute, though they can be launched from aircraft as well.

The dividing line between combat surveillance and tactical reconnaissance UAVs, as well as between them and other classes of UAVs, is fuzzy. Some types of UAV may be usable for both missions. The distinction between a combat surveillance UAV and some kinds of "endurance" UAVs, discussed later, and between a tactical reconnaissance and a strategic reconnaissance UAV, as discussed earlier, is also very thin.

There are also many variations on themes. The smaller combat surveillance UAVs, in the size range of a large hobbyist RC model plane and used to support military forces at the brigade or battalion level, are sometimes called "mini-UAVs", and their low cost makes them particularly suitable for "expendable" missions. Such expendable missions might involve carrying a jammer payload into an enemy's operational area to disrupt radar and communications, or even being fitted with a radar seeker and a warhead to attack enemy radars. Such an "attack drone" or "harassment UAV" now becomes difficult to logically distinguish from a cruise missile.