This episode features a story from Maj. Joe Ritter, an MQ-9 pilot—the first remotely piloted aircraft story featured on The Spear. The MQ-9 has a wide range of the capabilities—from providing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance to conducting battle damage assessments to helping a ground element direct their fires to striking enemy targets with air-to-ground Hellfire missiles. Ritter and his sensor operator brought all of these capabilities to the fight during a single mission in Afghanistan in October 2018.
In 2007, a destructive new weapon appeared on the battlefield in Iraq: the improvised, rocket-assisted munition. Also called a lob bomb because of the...
In 2007, United States Marine Captain Kyleanne Hunter was flying an escort mission above Marines operating in western Iraq. When the Marines on the...
In 2003, Dave Rittgers was in command of a Special Forces team deployed to Afghanistan. Partway through its tour, the team moved to a...