In a quick followup to South Korea’s first test air travel of its homegrown jet fighter jet, the country also aims to build its first unmanned loyal wingman drone.
Last week, South Korea named Korean Atmosphere the preferred bidder because of its loyal wingman drone, which it envisions will work in tandem with manned overcome aircraft and run in autonomous swarms, reviews aviation website FlightGlobal .
The report notes that this project envisages the development of stealth unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) squadrons, noting that South Korea’s Agency to get Defense Development (ADD) began developing the idea last year and has finished the basic design.
FlightGlobal also mentions that will ADD and Korean Air plan to work on a manned-unmanned teaming system wherein a single manned aircraft and three to four stealth UAVs carry out missions simultaneously. The report states that the new on stealth UAV can carry out there missions on its own, such as surveillance, electronic combat and kinetic assaults.
The growth follows the ADD’s previous stealth UAV program that went from 2019 in order to 2021, culminating within a contract between the South Korean government plus Korean Air authorized in October to build up a stealth UAV to advance South Korea’s stealth technology.
Critical facets of the project include developing radar-absorbing materials and stealth framing for future UAV designs.
Southern Korea’s new stealth UAV may function alongside its homegrown KF-21 Boramae fighter . Asia Occasions has previously reported about this possibility, stating which the KF-21 may ultimately partner with an indigenously-developed loyal wingman jingle, which flies together with manned aircraft to act as force multipliers and enhance the latter’s capabilities.
The use of loyal wingman drones provides numbers advantage for their operators, acting because mass decoys against air defenses, attack swarms or as a complement to manned aircraft by extending the range of their sensors.
Because loyal wingman drones are expendable, they could operate in areas deemed too harmful for manned plane due to dense anti-air defenses. They can furthermore enable long-range battle attacks, designating floor targets with their on-ship sensors.
At the same time, the attacking aircraft launches missiles above the range of foe air defenses while remaining electronically noiseless to avoid detection.
Such capabilities may be crucial to South Korea’s “decapitation strategy. ” Defense analyst Ankit Panda describes this in a 2022 article in the Carnegie Endowment designed for International Peace as involving pre-emptive and retaliatory strikes against Northern Korea to deter or end a conflict by eliminating its leadership.
Its premise is the fact that since North Korea is undeterred from the prospect of a restricted conflict and damage against crucial army and economic goals, the logical intervention would be to threaten North Korea’s leadership.
In such a scenario, loyal wingman drones would be critical in infiltrating Pyongyang’s air protection to get at North Korea’s leadership. These defenses, while old and outdated, are still fatal, since noted in a 2021 article in The National Interest .
The source notes that while North Korea relies on Soviet-era radars and surface-to-air missiles (SAM), an equally-aging Soviet computerized command-and-control system coordinates these air defenses. In addition , it says that North Korea’s air flow defenses have been continuously upgraded with indigenously-built SAMs and Iranian phased-array radars.
It also mentions that will North Korea owns many license-produced and indigenous man-portable atmosphere defense systems (MANPADS) and many 23 mm and 57 mm anti-aircraft guns.
These assets make for robust, if not ageing, low-level air defense capabilities. The source furthermore mentions North Korea’s capable military-industrial foundation, which allows it to strengthen its air defense network plus replace spent sac and combat loss.
While old fashioned, North Korea’s surroundings defense network could pose a serious threat to US and South Korean warplanes over the Korean Peninsula. Hence, Southern Korea can use its loyal wingman drones as decoys to force North Korea to reveal the locations of its atmosphere defense radars plus missile launchers within preparation for reductions of enemy air defense (SEAD) quests.
Devoted wingmen drones can also force North Korea to waste the missile stocks attempting to shoot down these expendable targets. Additionally , the drones can also act as target designators for South Korean aircraft flying within South Korean territory, launching air-launched sail missiles (ALCM) with critical North Korean targets and frontrunners.
However , Panda records that South Korea’s decapitation strategy face serious challenges. He or she mentions that North Korea has taken significant steps to improve the survivability of its nuclear strategy.
Previously, Asia Instances reported on North Korea’s efforts to build a good undersea-based nuclear deterrent, unveiling a new submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) this April. This missile will likely be released from its ballistic missile submarines currently under construction.
A submarine-based nuclear prevention is considered the ultimate second-strike capability as it is hard to locate once submerged. Moreover, a submarine missile launch will be practically unstoppable due to submarines’ stealth features and the lack of efficient defenses against ballistic missiles.
When North Korea sets up an undersea-based nuclear deterrent, it is ambiguous how South Korea’s loyal wingman drones could detect, track and help reduce the effects of the threat.
Panda also brings up that it is far from assured that South Korea has sufficient intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities in order to hunt down North Korea’s leadership. He notes that a failed decapitation attempt may just escalate the span of a conflict, causing North Korea to retaliate using nuclear and other coercive indicates.
While faithful wingman drones can undoubtedly contribute to a whole ISR picture, much still depends on Southern Korea’s ISR abilities in other domains.
Panda elaborates that will without a complete ISR picture showing the precise locations of North Korean top market leaders, South Korea’s surroundings and missile strikes aimed at destroying Northern Korea’s warfighting capabilities may be construed by latter as a decapitation attempt.
This situation can happen if one hit kills a critical North Korean leader in whose location was previously unidentified. Then, North Korea could see this as a justification to utilize nuclear weapons in retaliation.
Panda notes that even though North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un is wiped out, North Korea has an extensive line of succession. Therefore , Kim might have a designated heir that could have nuclear launch authority in case he is taken out.
Although Panda information that the idea of delegating authority may have harmful consequences for Kim’s rule, this abordnung of power is possible in a crisis scenario. Given these caveats, South Korea’s loyal wingman drone might end up being of limited value in the bigger strategic picture from the mission it was made to perform.