Munitions.

This is coolbert:

Those type of munitions and armaments as carried by combat oriented American UAV at ever increasing degrees of lethality.

Predator A carrying only Hellfire missile. Predator B [Reaper] carrying Hellfire missile and Paveway precision guided bombs. Predator C [Avenger] carrying internally Hellfire missile, Paveway guided bombs and also able to carry JDAM ordnance.

1. JDAM a strap on kit allowing any "dumb" or "iron" bomb, conventional explosives as dropped from warplanes, to become SMART. That kit including fins for steering and guidance electronics using GPS and inertial guidance for accurate "pin-point" bombing.

Conventional munitions become SMART!!

"The Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) is a guidance kit that converts unguided bombs, or 'dumb bombs' into all-weather 'smart' munitions. JDAM-equipped bombs are guided by an integrated inertial guidance system coupled to a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver"

"a "bolt-on" guidance package that converts unguided gravity bombs into Precision-Guided Munitions, or PGMs. The key components of the system consist of a tail section with aerodynamic control surfaces, a (body) strake kit, and a combined inertial guidance system and GPS guidance control unit"

Bolt on or strap on it matters little, the weapon becoming much more sophisticated, accurate and DEADLY!!

[inertial guidance determines your location based upon starting point, your direction of travel for how long at what speed. "If we started here and have been traveling at this speed in this direction for this long we are now HERE!!" JDAM uses a combination of GPS and inertial guidance]

2. Developments with Ground Positioning System [GPS] allowing for an ever increasing accuracy of JDAM, indeed for all American weaponry relying on GPS!!

My understanding of GPS is that the civilian receiver version of the system allowed for a location to be determined to less than about one hundred [100] meters.

The original military receiver version of GPS allowing for location to be determined to with a few tens of meters.

AND the military receiver version of GPS accurate to within centimeters [?] if a second signal simultaneously received from a friendly transmitter sending a signal from a known and precisely surveyed location!!

That JDAM now can rely upon what is called WADGPS? A number of receivers at carefully surveyed locations part of a system of correlation, correction, compensation. Techniques to enhance and make more accurate the GPS coordinates as determined by a JDAM receiver.

"Wide Area Differential GPS (WADGPS) techniques . . . [relies upon] the deployment of a network of precisely calibrated GPS receiver ground stations . . . which continuously measure the error in the received GPS signal against the precisely surveyed location . . . The compensated GPS errors achieved using this technique are as low as several inches in all three axes."

"[error] is reduced by updating differential GPS offsets prior to weapon release. These offsets are calculated using an SDB Accuracy Support Infrastructure, consisting of three or more GPS receivers at fixed locations transmitting calculated location to a correlation station at the theatre Air Operations Center."

3. Predator A, Reaper and evidently also Avenger at this time NOT able to deliver on target DIME munitions. Dense Inert Metallic Explosive. Precision glide bomb GBU-39 not in the inventory as currently determined for any of the combat UAV.

"The GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) is a 250 pound (113 kg) precision-guided glide bomb that is intended to provide aircraft with the ability to carry a higher number of bombs"

DIME to be incorporated into the mix of weaponry for the combat UAV at some point?

"Boeing is developing a version of the SDB I which replaces the steel casing with a lightweight composite casing and the warhead with a focused blast explosive such as Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME). This should further reduce collateral damage when using the weapon for pin-point strikes in urban areas."

NO NEED to include gunfire of some sort in the combat UAV as envisioned. Missile and guided bombs alone are more than lethal and deadly? I would have to think so.

coolbert.