UAVs changes the rules of battle

CBS:

Every so often in the history of war, a new weapon comes along that fundamentally rewrites the rules of battle. This is a story about a revolution in unmanned aviation that is doing just that.

Most people know them as drones; the Air Force calls them "unmanned aerial vehicles." And right now, there are dozens of them in the skies over Iraq and Afghanistan, hunting down insurgents, every minute of every day.

They've become one of the most important planes in the United States Air Force - and yet, the pilot is nowhere near the aircraft or the battlefield. They are controlled by remote control, from thousands of miles away.

Many of the details of this weapons program are classified, but our 60 Minutes team was given secret clearance and unprecedented access to bring you this story.

Forty-five miles north of Las Vegas, on the edge of the Mojave desert, is Creech Air Force base. It is home to the only wing in the Air Force where none of the pilots ever leave the ground.

Colonel Chris Chambliss was one of the top F-16 fighter pilots in the Air Force, a member of the legendary Thunderbirds. Now the unit he commands has no jets - just pilotless planes known as the Reaper and the Predator.

Creech is the first base in Air Force history that exclusively flies unmanned aircraft.

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The fight for the pilots is on a video screen. In one mission, a truck full of insurgents in Afghanistan was being tracked by the pilot. When the ground commander gave the order, a missile was fired, hitting its target.

The trigger is pulled in Nevada, inside cramped, single-wide trailers and small offices. Two hundred and fifty pilots work in shifts around the clock. Alongside each one of them is a crew member who operates the plane's onboard camera, and a behind-the-scenes team of intelligence analysts.

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There is much more in this long story including several videos of the UAVs in operation at the link above.

The UAVs have been a game changer and they have also been an effective force multiplier that has stripped the insurgents of one of their key advantages. Their persistence over a target area and their ability to spot the enemy's movement to contact and intercept him have reduced the number of troops needed to keep up with a disbursed enemy. They also have the ability to see through walls sometimes to find the enemy hiding in what was once a "safe house."

They are still in an elementary stage of development. They are at about the same stage as the bi-plane in World War I, but they are getting more sophisticated everyday. Even the Taliban recognize their effectiveness. The more we can get into the theater with the enemy the sooner we will defeat this enemy.