Will The Air Force “Arm” its Stealthy RQ-170 Sentinel Targeting Drone?

By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

The sleek, bat-like RQ-170 Sentinel is, quite paradoxically, secret and well known at the same time, as it is an advanced, stealthy reconnaissance drone known to have successfully performed combat mission. Given the success of the platform as a reconnaissance and surveillance asset, and its advanced stealth technology, is it conceivable that the Pentagon might seek to arm the drone? The existing configuration was likely engineered for maximum stealth, meaning horizontal blended wing-body thin fuselage, yet could it be re-engineered with an internal weapons bay to add an “attack” dimension to its mission envelope.

Of course the U.S. operates several strike drones such as the less-stealthy Reaper, yet available info thus far on the stealthy RQ-170 suggests it is unarmed. It can be difficult to optimize a blend of what might be tough to combine characteristics, as weapons pylons or weight and size-adding internal weapons bays can make the engineering of a super stealthy platform more challenging.  The current Air Force fact sheet on the RQ-170 describes it as purely a reconnaissance platform for targeting, yet it seems realistic that the body could be reconfigured with the requisite computing and fire control sufficient to fire weapons.

While the U.S. is pursuing a stealthy armed “long-shot” attack drone with DARPA and industry, the RQ-170 is not armed and platforms such as the B-2 are of course manned. DARPA’s emerging Long Shot drone, for example, is now being configured to fire air-to-air missiles, yet that is a new design which may operate in small groups. Therefore, there are potentially unique advantages to developing a larger, stealthy Sentinel-like drone armed with missiles, as this would reduce sensor to shooter time. Latency would be reduced once targets were identified and advanced networking technologies could likely connect the drone with airborne human command and control in position to quickly make decisions about the use of lethal force. Reconnaissance and targeting, particularly when it comes to enemy air defenses, is extremely critical in a high-end combat zone against a sophisticated adversary.

China’s GJ-11

China is well known to operate a stealthy armed GJ-11 attack drone , and several years ago a Chinese paper specifically says the GJ-11 configuration resembles a “flying wing design similar to the US’ B-2 strategic bomber.” This is by no means a surprise, as China has a well-known and documented history of designing what appear to look like U.S. design copycat efforts, or rip-offs.

GJ-11 Stealthy Attack Drone Missiles

Will the new GJ-11 Chinese platform fire HELLFIRE-like air-to-ground precision missiles? Or even drop glide bombs? The specific weapons characteristics are not likely to be available, however a Chinese government backed newspaper says the drone is built with two internal weapons bays, each with four bomb locations.

Perhaps most of all, the existence of the GJ-11 attack drone raises an interesting question about the maturity of Chinese stealthy attack on air defenses as well as manned-unmanned teaming.