The Colonel was quite right. UAVs were the way to go when we were planning fast manouevre warfare.
UAVs could soften up the battlefield well ahead of the ground units which would then sweep forward at phenomenal speeds, compared with WWII. Unfortunately defensive warfare, or static warfare, last practiced by our cousins, is not like that.
Where the enemy comes to you, and you have danger-close, you have not got the luxury of being able to talk to someone in a warm cosy bunker hundreds or thousands of miles away ensuring that his UAV is looking at your bit of real estate.
The shorter the comms link the better. With the army resorting to direct fire from 105mm guns, I am sure they would prefer a manned aircraft dropping weapons with 100 m of their positions.