Israel unveils its ‘Black Snake’ armed drone squadron

For 20 years, a gag order was issued by Israeli censors prohibiting local media from discussing the open secret that Israel has armed drones. That finally changed on July 20 of last year, thanks in part to pressure from local industry who felt the inability to market their wares was costing them market share.

As a result, more information is coming to light about the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) units that are using armed drones. One such group is Squadron 161, known as “The Black Snake.” The unit operates the Elbit Systems Hermes-450 “Zik” drone, primarily in counter-terror missions over the West Bank, Gaza, and Lebanon.

Recently, Breaking Defense visited Squadron 161 at Palmachim Air Base in central Israel, the first time a media outlet was given access to the unit. As a condition for access, the name of the officer who talked with Breaking Defense has been anonymized.

Roughly 80 percent of the total number of the IAF flight hours are performed by UAVs, something Maj. M, deputy commander of the squadron, said shouldn’t be a surprise given how much the IDF has come to rely on unmanned systems.

“UAVs replace manned aircraft in more and more missions. The number goes up all the time,” she said.

“We receive missions from the high command, and it is allocated to platforms already over the designated area or to others that are in the air after a few minutes. We are on high alert and can launch a number of armed UAVs in minutes” she said.

“We are capable of the real-time sensor-to-shooter operations, and this is enabled by the accurate intelligence gathered by the UAVs payload combined with additional details that we receive from other sources” the major added.

Maj. M added that in some missions the squadron’s UAVs are operated in conjunction with UAVs from other units. The IAF operates other types of armed UAVs, like the Elbit systems Hermes-900 and the Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) Heron-TP.

“Our squadron’s UAVs are flying over an area and collecting intelligence. When a target is detected and confirmed the mission commander approves the launch of the munitions,” she stressed. “There is a man in the loop all the time so that the mission can be aborted if there is a danger of hitting” innocents.

While touring the hangars where the Hermes-450 are being maintained, Maj. M. said that the design of the UAV results in very simple maintenance.

“This allows us to use big numbers of them when needed.”