American attack UAVs-Part I

The first article in a two-part series of a perspective on more than 100 years of unmanned flight details some of the major developments in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles for combat.

Since World War I, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) have been used for attacking enemy ships, bunkers, missile sites, and other high-value, high-threat targets. Up until World War II, however, these combat UAVs were really cruise missiles, as the technology wasn't mature enough to guide weapons on a target and then recover the delivery platform. Over the course of the century, technological progress has only now made the use of UAVs for offensive missions more effective and more affordable than manned aircraft.