The Army cancelled the Comanche 'cause it had so mis-managed the
program that production became untenable. Given a choice of a Low
Observable armed recon helicopter or essential equipment for a wartime
fleet, the choice itself was sort of obvious.

That doesn't mean the armed recon mission is passe - quite the opposite
in the current situation. The Army insists the new Armed Reconnaissance
Helicopter -- ARH -- won't be Comanche Lite, and the two contenders are
based on existing aircraft. That doesn't mean people won't make a mess
of it with creeping requirements.

UAVs can be tremendous force mutipliers, but they have to stay
expendable to make sense. You want an asset you can put at risk. If
you look at it, the Unmanned Combat Armed Rotorcraft -- UCAR --was an
unmanned Comanche -- more sophisticated actually -- Low Observable,
autonomous target recognition, high resolution sensors to spot
dismounted threats. DARPA envisioned teams of the things hunting bad
guys on their own. That ain't expendable, and I suspect the Army would
have dug a new money hole if it had pursued the thing.

A Hunter or Shadow or ERMP under the command of an ARH or Apache crew
is probably the best answer to the armed recon requirement. At least
for now.

HW